Moon 514 || Blaze and the White Griffon

20 || Prisoners

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Last revision: 4/24/2013

His head was spinning.  One minute lauded a hero, the next minute accused of treason, the next moment under house arrest – imprisoned in his own room, Blaze once again felt like his world was changing too quickly for him to make any sense of it. 

Truth be known, he was happy for some time to think.  Now, maybe he could sort out some of the contradictory claims he had been hearing.  Could it be that Dr. Boyd really was trying to do what was right?  Faced with external limitations, he could only take so many people with him.  Food storage only goes so far.  At some point, large carrier space ships had to have renewable, sustainable food sources.  With limited resources, limited room, and knowledge that an attack from the natives was inevitable, Dr. Boyd made some very tough decisions to minimize the suffering of the people he had spent his life with. 

Blaze hated the doctor for making those choices.  But at the same time, when the doctor lay dying in his arms, expressing his last desire to be understood by Blaze – no one else could even make sense of his dying words – the young warrior felt an inexpressibly strong duty to try to understand Dr. Boyd’s decisions.  To some degree, he did understand those decisions.  To some degree, he even empathized with Dr. Boyd for having to make those decisions.  But at some level, it just didn’t make any sense – why didn’t he just ask other wise men and women for their thoughts and suggestions?  Why did he proactively kill when he could have allowed others to die because he just wasn’t able to save them?  And then, even if Blaze could reconcile all of these issues in his brain, there was yet another horrible quandary to consider: why did the doctor send several hundred of his men to be slaughtered in battle when they could have simply stayed inside the protective walls of the ship and began their journey unscathed?

Perhaps he was going mental, he concluded.  That conclusion made him feel better about the aging scientist.  Blaze spent his entire childhood looking up to Dr. Boyd as one of his heroes – the leader of the Order, the pioneer of medical science of his generation, the friendly and loving man known by everyone for his kindness.  Believing that he had gone crazy somehow seemed more palatable to believe.  It made the pain less intense.  And it made sense – even though it was wrong.  But not knowing that he was wrong, Blaze accepted this conclusion and determined to live with it.  It was easier that way.

Why did Jerron kill the magic woman?  Blaze couldn’t place that act within any paradigm that made sense.  It seemed a random act of violence – but then, following that act with an order to arrest Blaze made little sense either – especially when he was Blaze’s subordinate.  The fact that anyone listened to Jerron at all was not only shocking, it was mind boggling.  It simply didn’t make sense from a militaristic point of view.  Maybe they are all just bad soldiers, he surmised.  Maybe they were never truly disciplined to strictly follow orders.  Perhaps that explained some of their actions on the battlefield as well …

If these conundrums weren’t enough, Blaze couldn’t make any sense of the magic woman’s final statements either – wouldn’t she know that a statement like that would be interpreted as an admission that she had somehow caused Dr. Boyd’s death – and that Blaze had helped her somehow?  He guessed not.  But of all things she could be worrying about in her last moment of life, why had she chosen that as her most important message?  He still didn’t understand why she cared about humans at all – or the earth that bore them.  What did any of their affairs have to do with her?  What did the earth’s affairs have to do with her?  Why should they matter to her at all?

And then there was Evelia.  He had no doubt but that she was still on his side but now he couldn’t speak with her.  He had seen her eyes when they cuffed him and bound him over (until the autopsy was complete – that would be a few days he guessed) so he knew that her surprise was as genuine as his own.  Now, if the autopsy didn’t go well, he would be tried for his alleged involvement in the murder of Dr. Boyd – but she would know very well that he had nothing to do with his death and she would stand by his side.  She would believe in him when no one else would.  And while Blaze wasn’t overly concerned with the results of the trial – he expected the truth would come out – that didn’t stop him from wanting to talk with someone who knew he was innocent, someone who understood what he was going through.