The man closed his eyes. He nodded to himself several times, then opened his eyes again and looked at Kino as if he had just remembered she was there.
She leaned forward. "But what happened? How did you get from that idea to – to this?" She gestured at the desolate city street.
The man let out a long breath. He glanced at her. "Your name is Kino, yes? I heard your bike call you that. May I – ?"
"Yes, Kino. Of course you may call me that. And this is Hermes." She gestured at the motorcycle.
"I'm Kanaye," he told them, then continued in a subdued voice, "Everything went well for a while. Then one day, some people started saying the most horrible thing. Well, to be honest, it seemed ludicrous at the time, and only seems horrible in hindsight. Essentially, what they said was, 'It takes too much time to poll everyone. We should elect a leader, and give him the right to run the country for a number of years, and hold referenda for only the most important issues.' "
"Ah," said Kino. "I suppose the idea of a leader wasn't very popular so soon after..."
"Certainly not. If we did something like that, and the leader was as poor as the leader we'd deposed, who knew what would happen? We'd be right back where we began – plotting another revolution while people suffered and possibly even died. We suspected this group meant to restore the monarchy so they could use a king's patronage to improve their own lot in life. It was a contemptible notion. Naturally, it was struck down, overwhelmingly opposed."
"Well, all right then," murmured Hermes.
"But the idea was so treacherous that the very existence of it endangered our future. We were afraid this same group of people would merely wait, then try again to change the way we were governed."
Kino glanced at Hermes, then back at Kanaye. "What did you do?"
"We charged them with treason, found them guilty, and executed them."
Kino shook her head, dazed. "The... the traditional way?"
Kanaye's expression went through a rapid series of expressions: fright, naked anguish, then equally bald fury. "A fitting end for those who would throw their own people back into slavery to a despot," he spat.
His gaze violently bore into Kinds, and they sat for a moment, frozen like two swordsmen locked in a silent battle. Then Kanaye dropped his gaze to his hands, which had clenched into fists.
"They were not the last to betray the realm," he said at last. "One day, a group petitioned for an end to the death penalty. Unthinkable. If we got rid of the death penalty, we would have to leave traitors alive to continue to spread their disease. To even propose such an idea was treason! So we... voted, and the traitors were executed. Then... another group arose that opposed a new tax that was supported by the majority. Even after the tax was passed, they continued to protest, saying the taxes were already too high, and they couldn't pay any more. They refitsed to pay. Worse, they complained about the uses the tax money was put to. Such arrogance. As long as they were well-off – and they were well-off, despite their complaints – that was enough for them. Obviously, we couldn't stand for that."
"So you executed them," Kino guessed.
Hennes made a tinny coughing sound. "Running a country is so very difficult."
Kanaye raised a finger to jab at an invisible point in the air before his face. "It is indeed. You have to keep a firm grip." He demonstrated with this own fist. "A firm grip. Or things will go terribly wrong.
"What happened after that?" Kino found she could no longer look at Kanaye's face.
"We did our best to make this a model democracy. But there was just no stopping people from betraying us. Even people who had been with the majority in the beginning, firmly on top of things, would suddenly tum against us and try to push us in the wrong direction. It was indeed a difficult thing... a horrific thing... to execute old comrades. But I always did my duty. I never let personal feelings sway me. Never."
"Was this when you ran out of graves?" asked Kino, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
She needn't have bothered; Kanaye didn't hear it. "I'm afraid so. Fortunately, we had the royal gardens. We had planned to tum them into farmland, but instead they were converted into a graveyard, and anyone who disagreed with that was executed."
"How many executions were there?"
The man mulled Kino's question over for a while. "Hmm... since the time of the kings? Too many to count."
"No, since the new government began."
"Oh! Thirteen thousand, six hundred and four," he answered easily.
"What poll decided the last one?"
"The last one... that was exactly a year ago. By that time the population consisted of me, my wife, and an unmarried man who had been friends with me for a very long time. We planned to keep this city going between the three of us, hoping to draw new citizens from the surrounding countryside. But one day, my friend announced he was leaving. He was lonely, he said. We argued with him and told him over and over again not to do it. But his will had been seized by this evil idea. To cast aside your people, to cast aside your duty... we could not forgive that. The poll results were two against one, and he was executed."
"And your wife..." Kino was afraid to ask. "Is your wife still alive? Or did you execute her for some treason, too?"
Kanaye looked up sharply, his face ashen. "My wife was a loyal citizen. Loyal to the end. She died of a simple influenza half a year ago, but I'm not a doctor, so there was nothing I could do. It went into her lungs. Ahhh... Damn it! Damn it!"