Feb 25, 2057, 1351 Hours (UTC +3)

Massawa, Pan-Republic of the Horn

Isak Family Compound

Ciham picked a table on the balcony with an umbrella. The shade proved modestly helpful in keeping off the heat, though Massawa had the rare distinction of being a desert town with an abominable amount of humidity, rendering the heat an omnipresent force. Whenever Araari came here, she reminded herself never to complain about the dry season in Addis.

“You look well,” Araari said, avoiding the heavier topic to come until Ciham’s mother brought the water.

“Thank you. You too have a… er, bǝrǝhān…” Ciham saw on Araari’s face that she didn’t know the word in Tigrinya and switched to Amharic. “A glow, yes? From the pregnancy.”

Araari smiled and rubbed her stomach. “Maybe I’m foolish for trying again, but hope always flirts with foolishness.”

She wanted to add that her hope in the revolution had also felt foolish before its realization, but Ciham was no fan of the Pan-Democratic revolution. It was in spite of Araari’s politics that the two remained friends after the war.

Ciham formed a small, tight smile and said, “I agree with you, but I think we’re thinking of other things as we say so. I’m thinking of Samuel, my husband, and…”

“Your sons,” Araari finished.

“They are ten and five now. The eldest, Aaron, wants to be an engineer so he can build Steel Lions.”

Araari looked at her knowingly. “You’d rather he build roads and bridges?”

“In Eritrea. In Massawi would be best, but I won’t tie him to his mother.”

The door to the balcony opened and Ella Isak, in her glittering bangles and necklaces and sunflower yellow dress, set down two glasses of ice water in front of them. With mother and daughter next to each other, the difference was striking. Even in her mid-30s, Ciham looked older and more worn than her radiant mother in her early-50s. The two women shared high cheekbones, but while her mother’s cheekbones suggested regality and pedigree, Ciham's were simply gaunt. After bringing the water, Ella lingered for a moment, waiting to see if the conversation was something she might be brought into. Sensing it was not, she excused herself, leaving the two women alone.

“I know what you’ve come to ask, so let's move on to why,” Ciham said.

Her wide, brown eyes stared directly at Araari. They weren’t cold eyes, but neither were they warm. They were eyes trained and conditioned to search for hidden agendas and secret motives. Araari didn't mind being subjected to her friend's suspicious gaze. She even sympathized with it. Ciham's life had given her cause to be suspicious of everyone, including, and perhaps especially, her friends. Though her family history of mineral-rights brokering for an authoritarian regime did not help.

“The Pan-Republic…” Araari felt her child kick. “No, all of East Africa is in danger. They lifted the news blackout today, so you must have heard of the thing they're calling a ‘Monolith’? Well, there is another one forming on the Sudanese border. This one may come South. The Ground Forces asked me to come here and request that you re-enter service and pilot the HDU Sheba again.”

“My answer hasn't changed since the last time they sent you,” Ciham replied, her eyes unblinking. “And I wish they would stop sending someone I consider a friend to try."

Araari reached out to touch Ciham’s hand. “This is also a request from me, personally. I have seen this thing. There is no doubt in my mind that in the coming days it will wreak havoc upon Egypt, and another might very well do so to us. Sister, it's forming near Kassala now. If we cannot stop it forming, it will be Eritrean land which—”

“Don’t talk to me about Eritrea!”

Ciham’s voice carried down to the yard where it set dogs to barking. Both of them realized it might also carry to prying relatives and lowered their voices, but Ciham’s tone retained its sharpness.

“I still consider Ethiopia an invader and I always will. I don’t care what you call yourselves or what ideology you claim to follow. You came into my land and killed our people, people my family knew and loved. The one time I fought those years ago was out of self-preservation. Because my family would've been executed if I hadn’t. But never again will I take up arms on behalf of my own conquerors. Even to ask the question is an indignity, Araari.”

Araari exhaled and leaned away. This was the answer she expected and had told Lieutenant General Kahinu to expect. As to the justification, she was of two minds: She thought firstly that this was a selfish stance that would lead to the preventable loss of Eritrean lives, and secondly that it was understandable in light of all Ciham had gone through. The revolution had been bloody, as all revolutions are, but whereas the Somali and Djiboutian people had risen up simultaneously with the Ethiopian Pan-Democrats at the beginning of the Lilac Spring, Isaias Afwerki’s stranglehold on Eritrea led to a significantly messier transition. One that was still ongoing.

“We’re not invaders, and we’re not Ethiopians,” Araari said.

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She respected Ciham enough not to flatter her with ‘tact’ and ‘persuasion’ as a liberal might. Bluntness, to her, was a sign of respect.

“Oh yes, the non-invaders who came with tanks and planes? The non-Ethiopians who rule us from Addis Ababa? Your fake ‘Hornya’ identity may fool some, but not me, nor any who remember things your ‘education’ wants them to forget. Maybe someday everyone will think of themselves as Hornya, and then they won’t notice that their fellow ‘Hornya’ who come from the highlands, whose parents spoke Amharic, who live in Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa and Awassa, that they all seem to be wealthier and more powerful. Things are already moving in that direction, Colonel. You are not blind,” Ciham said.

“I am not blind, I appreciate your noticing," Araari replied. "But neither am I impotent. I intend to have my say in the course the Pan-Republic takes, same as every citizen."

“You mean the mob.”

“That’s certainly what the liberals fear.”

“Fear born from a clear-eyed observation of history.”

There were many admirable virtues that Araari admired in Ciham, but being a liberal was not one of them. Self-rule and independent organization could only ever be the revolutionary mob who shot her neighbors against a wall. It could never be a neighborhood organizing its own markets, its own governance, its own economy, its own labor. Araari would never apologize for what had happened in their countries, bloody or not. Men like Ciham's father Abraham had been just as violent in attempting to preserve their monopoly on power.

Amid the heat, a sea breeze found its way onto the balcony and for a moment the air was hospitable again. How silly seemed the reproduction of this unproductive conversation she'd had with Ciham for the past twenty years. Nothing that passed between them was an advancement or a new idea. Nothing, that was, until the breeze passed and the air hung heavy and sultry once again and Araari heard words from Ciham that were new:

“I don't hate Pan-Democracy, Araari. I think it can work. I'm not my father and I know perfectly well the Isaias regime was evil and that my family benefited from collaborating with tyrants. What has bothered me all this time is that you made that decision for us. This was something for Eritreans themselves to deal with. It was our responsibility to do away with a dictatorship and replace it with something new. No good has ever come from imposing a form of government on a people from outside. It did not work in Iraq, it did not work in Russia, it did not work in Kazakhstan. It does not work. And I will never serve the people who put us under their heel and then pretend we were— that we are all the same people. We're not. I am Tigrinya, you are Oromo, and the people who hold your leash and wish to put one around my neck are Habesha.

This hurt Araari even more to hear. Whatever Ciham might say about not ruling out Pan-Democracy as an organizing ideology—and no doubt if asked Ciham would admit admiration for the United European States as an example of "true" Pan-Democracy—her statement was nothing but another layer of ideology to preserve and legitimate her liberal sympathies.

To a certain extent, all ideologies required something approximating religious faith to sustain themselves. Araari was under no misapprehension that her perception of the Pan-Republic as a flawed, stumbling, juvenile creature which nevertheless bore the promise of a better future was an act of faith. Overthrowing a government, not knowing beforehand whether it would live up to its promises or descend into dysfunctional revolutionary terror was an act of faith. Believing in an all-powerful God who permeated the world with His essence and divided the dark from the light was an act of faith. Being a Muslim and being a Pan-Democrat both required her to hold rationality in one palm and irrationality in the other. Having brought up to be a liberal subject, Ciham could only ever understand the power of rationality. As it pertained to the matter of governance, Araari thought, this was like painting with one eye closed.

"The offer remains open unconditionally," Araari said.

She took three long gulps of water to fortify herself for the climb back down the stairs and then stood up. Ciham stared at her for a moment. Perhaps she was having the same thoughts about her own beliefs and the misguided nature of Araari's. A moment later she exhaled and a small smile crept onto her face.

"Well, you and I will die some day and our children will decide who is right. Let me see you to the door."

As though feeling a need to protect the passenger her body carried, Araari's muscles tightened involuntarily. A brief flash of jealousy passed over her at Ciham's two successful pregnancies, and the two strong, healthy boys running about among the dogs and chickens in the yard. She accepted this jealousy as authentically coming from within herself and then allowed it to be merely one sensation within a larger, more complex network which also included love for Ciham who on more than one occasion had kept her safe from Chinese and American missiles. To be and to exist meant accepting all of the good and bad within her simultaneously. This was something she wished she could teach Tarik, but it was to be felt, not explained. Only life could teach such a doctrine.

Ciham saw Araari to the door along with enthusiastic invitations from her parents to visit them again. As much as Araari liked them, something told her this would be the last time she visited the Isak family. This, too, was an article of faith and irrationality, but it came to her with the force of immediate truth. Tears nearly came to her eyes but the urge subsided and she found herself able to say good-bye with an even tone. Outside the compound, the Commodore was waiting for her in the backseat of the car. Hardly endearing himself earlier, in his stiffly-starched military uniform and self-important bearing Araari found still more to detest.

In a debating mood, she asked him, "and what do you make of the proposals of a democratic military?"

The Commodore raised an eyebrow and was silent for a moment. When he did speak, it was with the restrained and careful tone of someone finding a respectful way to phrase something they had no respect for.

"You mean the military elections idea?"

"The democratic military proposal, yes," she said, bracing her stomach as the car lurched into motion. The roads of old Massawa were not as smooth as the newly-paved highway into town.

"It's a nice enough sentiment, but it's a step too far. There is no time to take a vote in war. And the idea of vetoing a commanding officer is..." idiotic, was what he wanted to say. Preposterous. Insane. "Ill-advised. If the chain of command breaks down, what you have is no longer a standing army. What you have are unorganized guerillas. The Pan-Republic would be defenseless."

"I don't believe the proposal assumes a lack of authority, Commodore, I believe the intent is for the people whose lives are being put on the line to have a say in who, precisely, puts it on the line, as well as how and why."

"And to make no distinction between those who receive a commission for their education and training, and those who receive it through demagoguery amongst the great mass of enlisted," the Commodore replied.

"The same fears the liberals have about Pan-Democracy, you mean?" Araari said.

There was a strange glint of something in the Commodore's eye which just as quickly passed. He reached for the mini-bar nestled into the back of the driver's seat and poured himself a glass of whiskey neat from a bottle with a turkey on the label. Crossing his legs, he lifted the glass to his mouth and sipped.

"The revolution is eternal, Colonel. Who's to say how it will look tomorrow? Why not enjoy today, before we have a Monolith upon us?"