1168. About politics, 1
(Armylè)
Morhens stood up slowly.
He had fallen inside. He muttered some emotional and pointless regrets.
Rhetorical questions reflecting his inner suffering more than logical analysis.
Johann was witness to his nervous breakdown and remained silent.
Everything Morhens was muttering was cryptic to him at best. But he was sympathising, seeing the doctor clearly defeated. His usual sharpness was slower despair now.
Morhens eventually realised he was still there and waiting calmly. He felt shame, for the first time since forever.
He sighed, and looked away. Morhens asked him not to say anything about this and left slowly.
This bugged Johann naturally. He wasn’t used being asked something like keeping an emotional secret. They weren’t children anymore. But he looked at the man insecurely straying away, looking severely down.
Johann was a little frozen by surprise. It was still visible on his own face when he returned to discuss with the other colleagues.
When he was asked what happened, he replied quite simply.
J - Overwork...
People nodded as if that was a given.
They all expected the mad man to eventually blow up someday.
The looks toward Johann were still polite and the words carefully chosen.
But people would soon be too eager to see the change in leadership arrive to keep it quiet. Johann didn’t want to hear that, but he didn’t feel like he could do much to help the doctor either.
~
Morhens returned the next day, looking even more exhausted.
He was less vocal now. He groaned nor yelled any longer. He whispered. He muttered, or sighed.
Everyone could see he was giving up already...
As much as some could look toward Johann to take over, losing their man of steel, their king, was still painful.
Their invincible and irascible model worker, their maniacal and obsessive leader charging ahead relentlessly. He was now weak and tired, or sick.
Would this be the end of their ruthless and amoral professor? Would he leave his throne and leadership to others?
No one would blame him to give up now, as he already had revolutionised fundamental physics. It was fine to leave the exploration’s end and solidifying the conquest to others. Not everything was done yet, but he had opened the doors to unimaginable progress.
He had already done so much, no one would blame him giving up for personal matters.
The research centre had become the foremost and most prestigious scientific outpost in the city, in decades already.
Their work had seduced the brightest minds of the younger genereation. And now that Rough’s laboratory was in decline, they were the beating heart of the scientific community.
Morhens had changed things, more than he realised. The power had shifted, and he accomplished so through his insane tenacity. His aggressive behaviour got him the nastier nicknames, but the names of evil ones stuck better in people’s imaginations. Better calling him Stalin than Einstein, from a political perspective.
At least people didn’t expect him to have genocidal tendencies as a ruler. But being a nasty character somehow implied in people’s imagination he was a strong and efficient leader. Johann and his first secretary could testify how much that was not true, but natural and tribal intuitions remained.
Morhens was not a born politician but a researcher, and it was fun to stick onto him the pictures of a cruel and bloodthirsty tyrant, that was getting things done over the bodies of his enemies. His unruly beard and moustache somewhat helped these fantasies from the younger and more playful generation.
Mocking him slightly also helped desacralize the pressure of working there. Because it was real.
His closest circle knew he was not a natural leader, but were skilled enough to do good teamwork despite his flaws.
Everyone else only saw the progress he was contributing to, and heard the rumours of his outbursts against lazy people, and his spite toward the scientific council of bureaucrats.
He certainly did not help bring any sympathy toward this vital institution of wardens. They were the thinking head of the city with historical and really global perspective on things. But their voice had been lower than his, making their authority regularly questioned.
Johann smirked at that. He could see the tiny political shifts, and for one he was not going to curb that trend. Oh no.
Morhens’s reputation, good and bad, was his growing power. It gave authority to the entire research centre.
Johann was more than happy supporting it from behind the scene, and not on the frontlines like some heroic others.
And he was the first one to say with these perspectives in mind that Morhens would not retire.
The king might be wounded, but he wasn’t dying. And Johann would make the most of it, keeping balance of things from his perspective. He was still a little clueless on how to help the good doctor, but at least he could continue the intendancy of the realm. The teams continued working.
Morhens was likely to return someday. And Johann would work with that loyalty in mind.
With a respect for the founder of this place, and memories not so old of his fury, they resumed working.
Even if he was missing, his second in command was still managing things pretty well.
And not many tried to use that chance to begin slacking off.
Johann was never as loud, but he could be just as sharp and merciless in his biddings.
~
Truth be told, no one obviously had really ever liked Morhens’s bursts of anger.
Nevertheless, since his depression had begun and his voice had gone missing, there was a structuring electricity missing from the laboratories. A drive or fire had gone mild.
People couldn’t quite name it at first, but there was a sensation of loss, and moral was dropping slightly.
Again there was a mood of grief lingering, as if a family pillar was gone. Unfortunately, what had replaced terror was not relief and joy. It was morose.
Johann managed to keep everyone dutiful and focused, but that looming threat was in a sad way missing.
A few people eventually voiced it out. The ones who had worked for years in his shadow realised it was less his violence, but the possibility of it, that kept them sharp sometimes. Knowing the doctor expected the highest from them, and demanding it, even if it was painful, was working for some people.
The ones for whom that did not work had left a long time ago.
Only the meaner ones remained as it was said with smirks.
So efficiency and output were still a little lower, without the cruelty of a strong pressure balancing other natural drives in a corner of their mind. His mood of terror had forced Johann to select the people who were able to thrive on that, and everyone else was sheltered to more distant jobs or didn’t make it.
That selection had made a tight but sometimes cruelly unforgiving spirit to the team.
The handful of people able to really ride and accelerate over that pressure efficiently enjoyed the purpose of leading progress, and the freedom to carry it that came with their success. But they all knew that was not for everyone, and not for all time. Like a military service, it took people in their prime, and wore them out eventually.
Nevertheless, Johann had aligned the teams to the leader rather efficiently all this time.
It still worked, but they lacked inspiration now, that was all. They had been used to his savage rhythm, and now felt that the machine cogs and alignments were a little more loose. Calmer times changed the tribology patterns.
Unfortunately that would also sooner or later mean that the balance of power around them in the city would resume shifting.
Morhens was still there thankfully.
He left his office less though. He met with colleagues less often. He looked like a regretful grandfather now, las. He looked absent at times. Something too unlike him had settled over his mood. The old Geder was gone...
Johann still kept things in good order, always dutiful. He had his drive in life mostly unaffected by the situation. Furthermore since he had never been too emotional about these things either.
So things still worked.
Johann continued working as the relay, and spoke only about research and work. Morhens signed or stamped the papers, gave more laconic directions, and refused the unsatisfying results. Without vigour to any of these things, now on a low monotone level when he spoke about anything.
There were no thanks nor apologies on either side, they just kept working to the best of their abilities.
Until Morhens could no longer continue like this.
It happened rather suddenly.
He stamped the document that Johann had handed to him and handed it back to him.
He had not read them this time, still looking at something distant through the wall beside.
A part of this was blind trust toward Johann. But on the other hand, it did not bode well. Johann was aware of it and not happy noticing this new level of abandon. He did not raise his voice against doctor Morhens nevertheless.
He was about to leave when he heard him.
G - Johann...
J - Yes?
G - Would you know someone I could speak to, about a dream?
J - Uh... I’ll find someone.
Johann left, feeling like he had just dreamt that. That made him nervous more than anything.
The world was changing, and this time he wasn’t sure about where that would be going.
~
