“So what exactly is going on here, Orzin?” Cade asked when they had settled down. “It seems like you’ve taken over the mission. Where does it stand? Are you some kind of independent, one-building, Hyadean nation state now, or what?”
“We are Chryse,” Orzin replied.
Cade shot Marie a puzzled look. She shook her head. “What do you mean?” he asked Orzin.
“We shall find again what Chryse once was. It will begin here.” Orzin spread a pair of pudgy, blue, oversize hands. “Here in this mission. Not, as you say, a one-building nation-state. A one-building planet! When I first came here from Chryse, I saw only the things that confirmed what we had been told. Earth was disintegrating in chaos and disorder. We had come to save it by introducing our system of organization and discipline. Of course, there were stubborn elements of the old structure that would not give up their traditional powers so easily. But, with the cooperation of the more enlightened interests that you have termed the Globalist Coalition, they could be induced to come around.” He held up a hand before either Cade or Marie could say anything.
“However, that wasn’t the way things were. This system that Hyadeans have been conditioned to serve is a lie by which a layer of social parasites drains them of everything they produce. They do it by convincing them of the need to subjugate themselves to a higher authority that knows and represents the greater good of all. In doing so, they rob them not only of the right to think as individuals, but even of awareness of their ability to. And so they are made into expendables: sacrificial objects to enrich the lives of others.
“What I began to see on Earth after I had been here some time was not what I had been told to see. I saw a world of individuals, with different ideas and choices about how they wanted to live their lives. And yes, at times those differences caused disagreement and strife. But it was not a pathological world destroying itself in chaos; it was world of variety and vigor asserting its nature: the right to be free.” Orzin showed his hands in a despairing gesture. “Yet in spite of all that, the same forces that enslaved Chryse are operating here. And those are the forces that we have been allying with. Other Hyadeans see it too. That is why Luodine and Nyarl are here. And Hudro and Yassem . . . and many others.”
Cade frowned at the top of the desk with its several displays, rewritable paper pads with strings of Hyadean characters, and assortment of other objects, the function of all of which was not obvious. He feared that Orzin was oversimplifying. Earth’s history showed a far less consistent and universal dedication to such values than the picture he was painting. . . . But if that was what he was seeing, Cade wasn’t about to muddy the issue now.
Marie was all attention, looking as if she wanted to believe what she was hearing but just couldn’t see it. “But you just told us, you’re a one-building operation. Do you really think you can change anything?” she said.
“Us, no. But the people of Chryse can. The people of all the Hyadeans worlds . . .” Orzin waved a hand high, as if inviting them to visualize it.
“We were talking about that yesterday,” Cade said. “It’s what Hudro and I tried to get across in Beijing.”
Orzin nodded. “I know. Hudro told me. Hyadeans don’t question what they see and what they are told. That was what made them exploitable on such a scale. But that same fact means they won’t tolerate deception. Luodine saw the same thing.”
“But what can just a few of you do?” Marie asked again.
Orzin gestured as if it should have been obvious. “Show them the deception. Tell the real story to Chryse. That’s her business.”
“But Xuchimbo controls all the channels,” Cade said.
“The official channels, yes,” Orzin agreed. “But who said we have to use those?” He turned one of the flatscreen pads around on the desk and pushed it across, at the same time uttering commands. An image appeared that Cade and Marie had seen before in New Zealand and China: themselves, narrating the documentary recorded at Tevlak’s house in Bolivia. It took Cade a moment to register that there was something different. The sound had been dubbed. The voices he heard were speaking in Hyadean. He looked up, nonplussed. “I don’t understand. What’s going on?”