hoshi No hiromi's blog: "futeristick"

Chapter 4. The Choice of a Lifetime

The jet was a lot smaller than I expected, only four passenger seats. Everything about the interior screamed wealth and power, four huge plush leather seats arranged two by two with the aisle in between. We received Anqara departure clearance at 5:28 AM and took off immediately. The plane rose steeply right after takeoff, the turbine engines near maximum power. As we approached our cruising altitude of 20,000 meters, we went supersonic and the ramjets activated. The acceleration was considerable, and within a few minutes we reached our target velocity of Mach 3.77. We were cruising at 4000 kph, and scheduled to land in Bandar Arenas shortly before 9 AM.

I was in the rear left-side seat. To my right was the capital's Royal test monitor, Mufeto Khatib, with his executive assistant Dabir sitting directly in front of me. Fadil sat diagonally across from me.

I couldn't help but stare out the window after takeoff. This was not just my first jet ride. This was my very first trip away from Anqara. I stared at the township in the moonlight, watching it fall rapidly away. The moon was full and the sky clear. The view of the snow covered landscape of ancient Quebec was mesmerizing.

I finally tore my eyes away to glance at my fellow passengers. They were all busily working with their laptops, totally ignoring the view out the windows. I however found the sight of the virgin Earth from twenty kilometers up irresistible.

There was a chuckle on my right. I turned back from my window and saw the mufeto smiling kindly at me. "We are scheduled to fly over Aleppo twelve minutes after going supersonic. Its runways will be a hub of activity today, and should already be well lit. You're on the right side of the plane to see it."

I nodded gratefully and gazed again out the window. I could see the Atlantic shoreline angling in from the horizon to meet us, and then, there it was up ahead, Aleppo! I sat transfixed at its beauty. I could even see one plane far below us, its lights flashing in a landing approach. At 4000 kph the scene fell rapidly behind. The shoreline actually receded east for a while, but then three minutes south of Aleppo all land abruptly ceased.

"That's it for land until we pass over Metula," the mufeto went on. "Probably in about another thirty-five minutes. That far south, it'll be well past sunrise."

I turned back and nodded again slowly. I was more than a bit puzzled by his kind demeanor. The mufeto was acting like a tour guide, and to a lowly CL-2 no less! His smile was totally different than the stiff and formal countenance I saw during my Initiate testing.

The next township he was referring to was built near the ancient city of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 18 o 29' N, 1 o 0' E. It seemed incredible to be traveling around the world this quickly. I paused for a moment and considered the time. It was almost 6 AM. Something was troubling me. "Great Mufeto," I asked. "May I ask a question?"

He laughed. "Oh, when we're alone like this, just call me Khatib. I'll tell you a secret. I'm an honorary member of Security. Isn't that right, Fadil?"

Fadil looked up from his laptop, gave one snorting laugh, and then went back to his work.

I would not have been more stunned if a giant pterodactyl had magically appeared outside my window and seized our jet in its massive beak. A CL-12 treating Royalty like this?! Was Fadil insane?! What was going on? Was this some elaborate test to see if I would also be disrespectful? If not, there were clearly dynamics here that I did not understand. I suddenly felt very tense and was unsure how to proceed. I did not understand my environment. I looked across the aisle and saw the mufeto waiting for my question.

I cleared my throat. "Yes, thank you for the honor Khatib. My question, how will morning prayers be done while flying?"

"Ah yes, thank you for reminding me." The mufeto waited until precisely 6 AM, and then clicked on his intercom to the cockpit. The two pilots from the air transport Guild respectfully acknowledged his call at once. Khatib recited a Prayer of the Mind in Ascension, one of the shorter ones, and then clicked off and went back to his work.

"What?!" I thought. I felt totally confused about what to do next. Back in my monastery, idle chatter now would be severely punished, even to the point of death. But my three fellow passengers were acting as if they were still not in the Prayer Cycle. Again I felt a shiver of fear and wondered if this bizarre scene were some sort of test. Fadil sensed my distress and looked up from his work. I stared at him grinning at me.

"Ilias, you're going to have to learn that being an adult is not like living in a monastery. Observance of the Prayers varies by Guild. Not in public though! When you are on a Guild mission, you'll put in a full eight hours of Church in whatever township you are. But alone like this, or at Guild headquarters, things are a little more... relaxed."

Dabir spoke up from ahead of me. "At Jizari, you'll find hourly prayers during the Cycle, but most days the only real time commitments will be the Prayers of Purification and Weakness. Security likes to keep our members fit!"

"Our members?!" I thought wildly. But Dabir was a priest! I suddenly realized Khatib was being perfectly candid when he revealed his closeness to my Guild. But I still couldn't figure out why he, and Dabir too for that matter, were so open with me with such remarkable information. I suddenly felt grateful no one was pressing me for conversation. I'm not sure what I would have said. I took out a book from the seatback in front of me. It was a leather bound copy of the Book of Bel'dar.

Shortly afterwards Dabir got up and began working the controls on the cabin's galley. After a few minutes he began informally to serve us all a hot breakfast, Khatib first, then Fadil, and finally me. I glanced at his insignia as he served me. Imagine the center point of a triangle being used to form three inner triangles. Dabir's emblem had a lower yellow triangle framed by a green triangle on the upper left and a blue triangle on the upper right. It was the emblem for Top Management, CL-7. And below that was the insignia for his priesthood.

There are some 648,000 priests in the world, 20% of all adult males, and Dabir was in the top 10% of that population. And yet, here he was, casually serving breakfast to me, my green circle of CL-2 barely a few hours old. As Dabir returned to his seat with his own meal, I worked to understood the implications.

In all my years of nocturnal reading, there had been no hint of much informality between the classes, and certainly not with the Priesthood! Clearly something very unusual was being shown to me. I thought in silence as I ate my excellent hot eggs, bagel and fruit.

Security does have a special relationship with the Priesthood. The Security Guild is the only Guild where Class rank carries over to command authority with the Priesthood's police and military units. As a Security commander, Fadil would expect to be saluted and obeyed as an officer by the Holy militia, and could order lower-level police around at will.

Perhaps... Yes. It was a test after all. Without explanation, my fellow passengers were showing me just how close relationships could be between the Priesthood and Security. The test was to see how well I could jump from private to public behavior. When we landed at Bandar Arenas, any informality on my part would be an absolute disaster. I would have to stay alert!

I ate the last of my sumptuous breakfast and then in silence got up and cleared everybody's trays. Fadil gave me a brief approving grunt, the other two ignored me. I returned quietly to my seat.

The time passed quickly. The thunder of the mighty ramjets was just a moderate hiss inside the plush cabin. I tried to do some reading, but often found myself gazing to my left. We were traveling so fast! And the sun was spectacular as it rose above the winter Caribbean.

Time: Judgment 5, 8235 10:29 PM

I lay on my bed in my room at Security's complex in Jizari. It was a much larger room than my cubical at Anqara. My new quarters were three meters by four meters, with windows along one entire wall with a fine prospect of the city below. The room was very well appointed and it felt like a mini-palace. I was not resting though. I was still dressed in my robe from the Hour of Repose. Somehow I figured I might be getting company tonight.

Judgment is sometimes referred to as the zeroth month, but it's only five days long. Tomorrow will be January 1 and the real start of the yearly work cycle of budgets and objectives and performance tracking. Performance tracking... I closed my eyes as I lay on my bed and thought through the memories of my last four days.

I was right about the difference between public and private behavior. When our ramjet landed at Bandar Arenas, I was treated like a female by my traveling companions, ignored except for curt hand gestures ordering me to portage the luggage. My only recognition was when we parted. Dabir held out his hand and allowed me to kneel and kiss his signet ring.

Fadil and three other Priests rode the jet back to Jizari. I took the high-speed magneto-rail, relieved to be on my own, and made the 360 km journey in less than two hours.

Jizari is a beautiful city, much richer than Anqara, and I was looking forward to the day when I would be able to wander its streets in leisure. But for now as a new Guild member my time was booked. Security had forty-eight Initiates this year, forty-five survived the final childhood gate and three (including me) had the opportunity for Asad. After days of special orientation and encouragement for the three potential Lion riders, we finally declared our intentions to the Priesthood tonight, at the moment of close of the Prayer of Repose. My two colleagues had both chosen to ride to Level-4, demonstrating their desire for future consideration for promotion to Ruling Royalty.

There was sound of a command override code being typed at my door, and then the door opened and Zaim walked in. He is CL-15, the highest rank outside the Royal Priesthood. Zaim is also one of the eleven Top Commanders in Security, his diamond emblem carrying four quadrants of red, yellow, green, and blue. I began to rise in respect, but he glared at me and barked the word "Sit!" I saluted and sat back down on my bed as he closed the door and sat in a chair opposite me.

I decided it would be appropriate to let him begin the conversation. After a moment of staring, he growled, "Do you know how much time and resources the Guild has invested in you?"

"Somewhat sir."

"Somewhat indeed! And you decided to throw it all away! Why?!" He saw me struggling to respond. "Permission to speak freely!"

"Yes sir, thank you. I'm not throwing it away sir. I think I can succeed."

"You are delusional! And how this was never caught in our profiling, I intent to investigate!"

He hadn't asked me a question, and even though I had permission to speak freely, somehow arguing his low opinion of me didn't seem like the right idea. I worked to calm myself and waited for Zaim to continue.

"Ilias," he said at last. "You know Haytham and Mu'awiyah?" He was referring to the two other Security Initiates with access to the Asad.

"Yes sir. We've become good friends."

"But I gather their friendship did not teach you sanity! Did you mention your intentions to them?"

"For the Asad? No, of course not sir. It is forbidden."

"Shaitan!" Zaim hissed. "What an attitude!" He sat there frowning at me for the longest time, and then finally sighed. "We were expecting so much from you Ilias. There would have been full honor for you in choosing as your two teammates did. Ending at Level-3 also would have been perfectly acceptable, and declining the Lion or choosing to ride to Level-5 would have been unexpected but tolerated. But this?!"

It was a semi-question. I decided I needed to reply. "I think I can do this sir. I have considered the risks, and am dedicated to succeed."

"You know, don't you, that there's no correlation with Asad passing rates and fact that this is a Jubilee year?"

I nodded. "Yes sir. The Year 7777 was a horror, but in general there is no correlation with the severity of the Lion and the Holiness of the year's digits." I thought for a moment about all the statistical analyses done over the millennia on the Asad. The only definite correlation found has been the ratio of riders targeting two Levels of advancement. If the percentage of riders targeting Level-4 becomes greater than a third, the testing becomes wildly unpredictable in its severity. Paradoxically, the more people thinking the Lion is rideable, the less rideable the Lion becomes.

Zaim stared at me silently, and then decided he had nothing further to say. He shook his head once in dismissal and got up and walked out of the room.

And the reason for his dismay? An hour ago I had declared my intention to the startled Priests to Ride the Lion to its maximum possible length, twelve full months. I would delay the selection of my wives and be tested on the 21'st of every month this year, until I reached CL-14 on December 21'st or failed a gate along the way and be assigned a lifetime lower class. Zaim thought my attempt was hopeless. No one had successfully ridden the Lion to command level (CL-8) in the last six thousand years.