hoshi No hiromi's blog: "futeristick"

Chapter 2. New Assignment
Eliana awoke precisely at sunrise, the first rays of the local morning shining into her eyes from her bedroom's eastern windows. She glanced at the clock, 8:58 PM. "Ah," she thought to herself. "It's one thing to have the dry geographic knowledge, to know that Judah's cathedral has its solar noon 8:25 hours earlier than the capital's. It's another matter entirely to expect a date change three hours after sunrise! I wonder if phrases like tomorrow and later today might have different meanings here."
Eliana rose from the bed and checked her communications log before her shower. She was very surprised to see that her scheduled orders to report in had been postponed for 24 hours. For the first time in many months, Eliana had a completely free day ahead of her.
She decided to go to the beach. Her living complex was only a few hundred meters from the north shore of Judah, and the views of the sand and the surf from her windows reminded her of her childhood and looked just too good to pass up. So she put on a bikini and headed out shortly after eating breakfast, reminding herself to be sure to pick up some sunscreen lotion on the way.
The beach was delightful, fine white sand gently sloping to a warm and pristine tropical ocean. The local beach was a family beach, and there were a number of preschool children playing nearby at the surf's edge. Eliana read a sign which told her that ten kilometers further west was a beach meant for CL1's seeking dates, and then a similar beach for adults, and beyond that a beach where public copulation was permitted. The sign finished by informing Eliana that nudity was permitted on the family beach, but people were asked to refrain from all sexual behavior while naked, including simple petting.
The rules suited Eliana just fine. She felt no immediate need for male companionship. She jogged the beach eastward for more than an hour, an easy loping gait of three-minute kilometers. After a while the township was far behind her and she ran admiring the undisturbed wild shore. At the end of her jog, she spent some time practicing Tai Chi in a deserted cove, and then sprinted back to town at full power, finishing her morning exercise with an energetic swim in the warm ocean. Afterwards she chatted with several of the parents at the beach, mostly mothers with a few fathers, and spent the rest of the time before lunch helping a group of small and mostly unclothed children build a sand castle. 
By the time January 2 arrived, the sun was at an altitude of about 40 degrees and Eliana guessed its azimuth about 13 degrees south of due east. The island of Judah was close to 21 degrees south of the equator, but this close to the southern summer solstice, the sun was even further south and would be almost directly overhead at 3:39 AM later this new morning. After six years of living with the much less potent sunlight of Bandar Arenas, Eliana decided not to push her luck with the sunscreen and headed back to her living complex. She spent the rest of the easy day touring the city while keeping in the shade, and meeting a few of her new neighbors. She posted a few notes to her family in the local evening and sacked out early, feeling more relaxed than she had been in a very long time.At 11 PM UCT on January 2, Eliana finally reported to her military superior at Judah's primary cathedral complex. She was startled to find her placement interview had been redirected to a Governor, a CL-16 Priest named Zaafir, someone with much higher rank than she was expecting. After a formal but friendly exchange of introductions in his spacious office, Zaafir began the placement interview with a totally unexpected question.
"Commander, have you ever considered applying for Conservation Ranger?"
Eliana blinked. "Sir? No sir, not for years." She thought about saying more, but then decided to let Zaafir take the lead.
"You've met all the academic requirements, excellent marks too. Why such a concentration?"
"Yes sir, thank you sir. Ecological studies were a childhood passion for me."
Zaafir nodded quickly. "And your military survival courses are acceptable substitutes for Ranger field requirements. Your qualification is almost complete. Did you know the six-month journey-test is the only credential you lack for permanent Ranger certification?"
"Uh, dimly I guess." Eliana finally forced herself to smile. "Sir, may I ask where these questions portend?"
He didn't answer directly. "Ever heard of a place called Treraksroset?"
"Treraksroset?" Eliana paused for a moment. "No. I'm guessing from the sound, ancient Scandinavia?"
"Wow, you are good! Yes, the name refers to the location where three ancient countries used to meet, Sweden, Norway, and Finland."
"Uh huh. And what's there now sir?"
"Well, the environment is still there of course. Plus a new two-person Ranger station. The Animal Conservation Guild at Cairo has been asking the military for months if we had any volunteers to join a Ranger cadet applying for full certification. What do you think of the idea?"
"Not what I was expecting sir, that's for sure. But I don't want to reject the idea outright. Let me think for a moment." Eliana paused and considered what the assignment would mean, six months of isolation in an arctic wilderness area. The assignment would not be particularly physically difficult or dangerous. Modern Ranger stations were state-of-the-art facilities. The six-month field assignment was in large part of psychological test, determining the candidate's ability to handle the isolation and the relationship with their single partner.
"What's the Citizen Level of the other candidate sir? Can you tell me how old she is?"
"A high achiever I think, like you. Wait. I take that back. You're in a class by yourself." Zaafir typed at his terminal. "Made CL-6 just two years ago, Judgment of 9568. So you'd be in command of the station." More typing... "Thirty-six years old now." Zaafir paused for a moment and then finished with, "His name is Basel."
Eliana stared at him. "A man sir?! You're asking me to live isolated with a man I don't know for six months?"
"Do you have a problem with that?"
"I might." Eliana took a deep breath. "I guess I was being presumptuous, but aren't Rangers almost always female?"
"Well, not always..." More typing... "Worldwide there are currently 983 certified Rangers... about 96% female... almost 4% male."
"And aren't the male Rangers the husbands of female Rangers?" 
Zaafir paused for a moment. "I'd have to query personnel files to answer that, and I'm reluctant to do that without a real need. But I'll concede your point. It's very rare for a man not married to a Ranger to apply for the job."
He sighed and then looked Eliana in the eyes. "But don't you think it's unfair that Basel is having trouble with his certification just because he's a guy?"
Eliana felt bewildered. This placement interview was going in a totally unexpected direction. "Well... Yeah, probably. Sir, I support full gender equality, I really do. But why is this particular issue a military concern?"
Zaafir nodded. "Uh huh. I was wondering when we would come to that." He took a deep breath and then frowned. "The Holy! Something unusual happens and nobody seems to care!"
"Sir?"
"About 48 hours ago, a meteorite landed in the Treraksroset area, from the tracking telemetry right on top of the station."
"Wow! What did the station report?"
"It's not turned on yet. That's part of the certification testing. But I was speaking in metaphor. There's nothing to suggest the station itself was hit. But we did have a meteor strike close by. Or at least we should have."
"Should have sir?"
Zaafir sighed. "There was a major snow storm in the area at the time. We lost satellite visuals at about 10,000 meters."
"Uh huh. And radar?"
"The blip came in so fast, we didn't have the chance to align the radar satellites. We have a visual sighting only."
"Oh. Have you identified the impact point?"
"No, and that's what's bothering me. Unfortunately it's not bothering anyone else."
"Sir?"
"The storm cleared a few hours after impact. There was a standard sweep of the area, radar and infrared. Absolutely nothing."
"What about visuals?"
"There's not much. The area is in 24-hour darkness now."
"Oh of course. Sorry sir."
Zaafir shrugged. "The military Priesthood Governors officially voted to ignore the event."
"But not you sir?"
"I don't like mysteries, and the lack of an impact crater is gnawing on me."
"Well, how big was it? Could it have skipped out of the atmosphere?"
"Ah, good point. It was coming in at a very shallow angle. But no, it didn't skip. It definitely landed somewhere. Size? A few meters across maybe, five at most."
"Ah, well, something that small, maybe it burned up in the atmosphere."
"That's the official conclusion. But we tracked it down to 10,000 meters, and there was no sign of disintegration up till then."
"Ah... A lot of snow in the area sir?"
"Yes, quite deep."
"Perhaps it struck and caused an avalanche that buried the impact site."
"Other people are very comfortable with that explanation. There was no trace on the infrared scans though. Avalanches generate a lot of frictional energy."
Eliana paused for a long moment. "Then that would be my assignment sir? To find a buried impact crater?" In some sense, the mission sounded quite ridiculous, and Eliana had to stop herself from laughing.
"Well, once you're up there, I hope you'll stick it out and let the other cadet get certified. But it would be good for your credentials too. You'd be a full Ranger, with permanent legal rights to be in any conservation area in the world. That's about half the land mass of the planet."
"Yes, I know." Eliana sighed. "And that does have a certain appeal sir. But committing myself to live with a man I don't know for six months? Do I have any other choices for assignment?"
Zaafir nodded and then laughed and pointed to a pile of papers nearby. "Are you joking? I have over four dozen requests from around the world with proposals for you, both Priesthood and Guild. Eliana, you have a huge number of choices. You can go in any direction you want. I brought up the Ranger position because of the meteor. Cairo doesn't see it as a Conservation issue, and the military has decided to drop it. If you decide against it, I'll have to drop the issue too."
"I see. How long until I have to decide sir?"
Zaafir sighed. "I'd like to give you all the time you want. But I'm going to catch hellfire very soon for not having someone work these other proposals with you."
Eliana nodded. "I understand... Would a couple of hours be okay?"
Her superior looked at her gratefully. "That would be very okay. Thank you for considering this." He looked at the time. "Report back here by 2 AM."
"Yes sir." They exchanged crisp salutes and Eliana left the office.
Eliana wandered about the cathedral complex for a while, stopping briefly at a cafeteria for an excellent lunch. Afterwards she was walking a deserted corridor towards the main Sanctuary when she saw a heavy wooden side door leading to a meditation chapel. An etched plaque by the door announced the chapel was reserved for Command Class and above. Eliana almost passed it by before stopping and laughing at herself.
Her ID clicked the door open and she entered a small oval hall with a domed oval ceiling. The room was in the shape of half an egg. There were perhaps a dozen plush meditation chairs before an abstract altar at the other wider end of the oval. The altar was made of multiple large smooth crystal prisms washed with trickles of water and lit from below by a variety of slowly moving blue lights at the bottom of a pool. The prisms reflected and sparkled and threw peaceful arcs of bluish light onto the dark curving wood above. As her eyes adjusted to the reduced light, Eliana decided that the effect was quite beautiful and closed the door behind her. As a Priestess, she rested her body into a soft leather chair and silently began to Pray.
"My Holy, so great and good and kind, your child needs your guidance. Help me make this decision, help me make a good choice, help me become what you want me to be."
The room was delightfully silent except for the gentle sound of the water falling off the prisms. Eliana tried to relax her body, but her mind was in turmoil.
"I'm so shy!" she wailed in her mind. "I can work and serve and command with men, I'm just fine there, but socially?! Oh Holy, I get so nervous! Six months alone with a man?! How can I do this?! So many of my age mates are married now, Batshir and Liraz are even planning for children! And I feel like such an awkward duck around men at parties. How will I act, how will I feel living in such isolation? I don't know which would be worse, worrying that he thinks I'm pretty, or worrying that he thinks I'm not. Eliana, stop that! That's not a Prayer!"
She took a deep breath and let it out very slowly. "My Holy, love of my heart. You are the potter, I am the clay. Guide me, mold me, help me become what you want me to be..."
And the time passed in the quiet room. Eventually Eliana felt her body relax as she made her decision, all her tension and worry being drained by her loving Guide. It was Eliana's faith that this was a sure sign of making a good decision. Not necessary a right decision. She thought that often the boundaries between decisions are not as simple as right and wrong. But Eliana felt deep peace now and knew she was had picked a good path. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," she whispered in her mind. "Your guided child is extremely grateful."
Her eyes opened. She still had a little time but saw no need to delay. Eliana got up and stretched and headed back to Zaafir's office.
Chapter 3. Cold Start
Time: January 7, 9570 5:54 AM UCT
"It was a good idea, Commander. I thought we were going to find the problem here too."
Eliana stared at the dead consoles in front of her and replied back to her companion, "Basel, please log that command flow appears to be working, and that the problem appears to be internal to the fusion unit." She paused for a moment in the super-frigid room as Basel spoke into his suit's audio log and then asked him, "Any ideas?"
"Is there much else we can do? These packs are sealed assemblies. The Fusion Guild would go nuts if we opened one up."
"Oh, I wasn't suggesting that. Clean-lab-only for breaking fusion seals, I know the standards."
"Commander, I suggest we concentrate on getting our communications up. Maybe we can call Sidon for advice."
"Without main power, getting the satellite link up will take an hour..." Eliana frowned. "As a last resort perhaps. And I don't know what the fusion e-techs could tell us that we don't already know."
"Well, not just Sidon. We could ask to be evacuated."
"Oh, getting tired of my company already huh?" Eliana was trying to make a joke, but realized she was so tired it probably didn't sound that way. She tried to soften her voice and said, "Basel, part of the certification testing is not asking for help."
Eliana thought she heard Basel give a humph noise through his arctic survival suit. He came over and shined a light on a dark display by her side. "It's -59C in here! We'll have an even harder time getting certified if we're frozen to death!"
Eliana humphed back. "You're the one with the physics background! The prime power pack is supposed to be self-starting! Come up with something!"
"Acknowledged Commander! Working on it now!" Basel stomped over to the non-responsive power core and stood before it motionless.
Eliana thought his move was more to get away from her than to do anything constructive. "Oh hell," she thought. "Did I really have to talk like that? I came close to snapping at him! We've been at this for what, close to six hours now, and he's still looking to me for leadership. Well, not that he wants to..." Eliana sighed and thought again how tired she was, in addition to being numb from the super cold. Her arctic suit had superb insulation and the active heaters were protecting her from serious frostbite, but her tired mind and cold body were demanding that she take a nap, and that just wasn't possible now.
The last few days had been a whirlwind of activity. Zaafir had her flying a jump jet to Cairo less than 24 hours after she accepted her assignment. There was a huge amount of paperwork to go through to have Eliana become a registered member of the Animal Conservation Guild, and it was done in a rushed manner. Eliana later found out from Basel that a number of the construction Guilds that had built the Ranger station were furious with the Cairo Guild. They said it was not in their design requirements that the station would be left inactive and unpowered for so long in such a super cold environment. They were threatening to void their warranties.
Basel! Eliana wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but Basel certainly wasn't it. In general, men typically had an easy time socializing with women. Men could expect frequent offers for dating throughout their lives, sometimes from a single woman looking for a date, but more often from a pair of women who were interested in polygamy or often just a sexual tryst without any commitment at all. Eliana would sometimes laugh to herself as a child and wonder how ideal the men must think the setup was. But ten minutes after dropping in to introduce herself at Cairo, Eliana decided Basel was just as shy about socializing with the opposite sex as she was.
And here they were now, six hours into their 180-day test and off to a very difficult start. They were on Level-2 of the four-level station, one level below ground in a ten-meter diameter circular area filled with the central controls of the station. The only light was from their arctic suits plus an extra battery light Basel had brought down from Level-4 storage around 2 AM. At midnight when the jump jet had lifted off, they had both been expecting to climb down the access ladder and simply turn the station on and sack out in toasty comfort a few hours later.
Eliana stared at the back of her companion. "And he clearly was not expecting to be the subordinate member of the team. Give him some credit for adjusting to that."
The thought reminded Eliana how quickly she decided to accept this assignment without thinking of the practical implications. Ranger was a lifelong certification, but the Conservation Guilds had an age requirement of fifty years maximum for applying for the job. They had found through long experience that the older applicants as a group did not stay with the job.
"The Holy," thought Eliana. "I'm not considering this to be a permanent career either. And Basel! As a CL6 he was almost guaranteed to get a junior citizen as a partner, not a Commander. Eliana, you know the social norms. As a commander, how many women would be tempted to dominate Basel in a setup like this, perhaps even sexually dominate him? I'm not going to, but he doesn't know my character yet. Hell! I can't remember ever mucking up a leadership role this badly."
"Commander?"
"Huh?" Eliana turned to her partner. "Yes Basel?"
"What if it's not the power pack? I'm thinking your first idea might still be correct."
"It's not getting the command to turn on?"
"Yeah."
Eliana waved her arm at the disassembled control panel. "But we're getting strong output from the signaling lasers."
"Commander, strong doesn't mean correct. What if the cold is deforming the optics?"
"What? Oh! You think the power core is getting blurred commands?"
Basel shrugged, the gesture barely visible in the dim light and super-bulky clothing. "It's possible Commander. I've never heard of anyone trying to dead-jump a power pack this cold. Prime units are normally left on from the moment they leave Sidon assembly." He pointed to a control unit nearby. "That booster battery there is Sidon factory issue. I think it was meant to keep the power pack warm, but it's completely drained."
Eliana nodded. "Do we have enough reserve to warm the pack ourselves?"
"It's not obvious. Almost all the batteries in the station are uncharged. I was lucky to find something for the extra lights. I think it was a fluke."
"Yes, that's part of our certification, charging everything from the fusion pack, I know. Basel?"
"Yes Commander?"
"I apologize for being short with you before. Your concern for our safety is completely valid. What do you want to do?"
"Huh?" He looked at her for a long moment. "About evacuation? Really?"
"Yep. You understand the engineering here better than I do, and thus the risks. You make the call."
"I'd be inclined to..." He stared at her for a moment. "You don't want to give up, do you Commander?"
"No. But Basel, I'm feeling so sleepy, I don't want to trust my judgment anymore, not where I might get us killed."
Basel stared at her. "Wow..."
Eliana was silent for a moment and then blinked. "Huh? Wow? Wow what?"
"I never... Oh, nothing..." More silence. "Commander, I know you're the person in charge, know you'll take all the demerits if we give up. Let me take another shot at this."
"Okay. Need any help?"
"I'll let you know sir." And he turned and began working with the hardware.
"Sir?" thought Eliana silently. "Did he just call me sir? That was the first time! Thank you Basel. I know what that means, for a man to call a woman sir. I'm just not sure how I've earned your respect."
And the time passed. About thirty minutes later, they made a complete sweep of the station and found a partially charged battery in the medical bay on Level-3. They both worked to free it from a medical unit. There was a fair bit of predawn light coming in from the southern windows. Eliana made a comment that the dawn looked almost here.
"It is almost here," Basel agreed. "But it's not going to get here, not today. I think the sun was due south at around 6 AM today UCT, about two degrees below the horizon. That's as close as it gets for now. This time of day, it skims horizontal just below the horizon."
Eliana nodded. "I know what you mean. I've lived at Bandar Arenas for the last six years."
"Ah, a capital girl, huh?"
"Yeah, that's me." They were soon back down in the Level-2 darkness working on the primary system.
Eliana stood near Basel as he worked, adding the light from her survival suit to his. There was nothing else for her to do as he worked. She occasionally clapped her arms and hands to keep warm.
After a time she looked down and saw her suit was the only light source for the room. "Basel, is your suit functioning okay?"
"Almost... got it! Brrrrrr!" Eliana heard his teeth chatter, and then the room became blindingly bright with light. Basel called out happily. "We're on-line! Prime pack now delivering one hundred kilowatts usable power!" He stood up and jumped up and down to get his blood flowing.
As Eliana's eyes adjusted to the light, she saw wires from Basel's suit leading into the heating assembly. "You were heating the power pack with your suit?!""Oh, we were so close. Yeah. Should I have asked your permission Commander?"
"No, I didn't mean it like that. Great job Basel!"
"Thanks!"
"What are you doing with the power now?"
"Well, except for the lights here, I'm sending everything into environmental heating. We should be adding enough energy to raise the air temperature of the station 1C every ten seconds or so. It'll take a bit longer to heat everything else of course."
"Basel, what's your suit's charge?"
"It's drained Commander."
"Plug in and recharge."
"Not a bad idea." A few seconds after he hooked up, he asked, "How's your own charge Commander?"
"Uh," Eliana glanced at a display within her hood. "I'm okay, still at 69%."
"Hand me your leads. I'll top you off."
"Okay, thanks..." Eliana breathed a big sigh of relief as she felt the extra surge of power warming the heating elements in her suit. They still had a huge amount of work to do to certify the station, including energizing the larger but not self-starting secondary fusion packs. But it seemed the hard part was over. Eliana felt her body wobbling a bit as their success and the extra heat helped her relax.
"Basel, mind if I sit down?"
"No, not at all. The chairs are still super cold, but with you plugged into main power like this you should be okay."
"Yeah, thanks."
"When was the last time you slept?"
"Days ago."
"That's what I thought. The Cairo Guild is crazy sometimes. They do that to their new members. Why don't we start a sleep rotation, you first?"
"Really? You don't know how good that sounds." Eliana gave a deep yawn. Basel wheeled over a command chair and pushed it almost into a full recline position. Eliana collapsed into it gratefully.
"You don't mind?" she said sleepily.
"Oh, I'll be okay. I'll do the first four hours of the startup procedures. Then we'll change places."
Eliana yawned peacefully and nodded, unable to keep her eyes open. "Wake me if you need help with anything."
"Of course Commander." Basel stood there wondering if she had heard him. She was rapidly drifting off. He watched her sleep for several minutes before getting back to work. It was six hours later that Eliana woke and traded places with him.

Time: January 1, 9570 10:00 AM UCT

Daily commercial flight B210 Doha to Judah took off promptly on time. Eliana would have been very surprised if it hadn't. Except for occasional weather related delays, a commercial aircraft had not missed a scheduled departure time in decades. And the sun over the former site of Cape Town, South Africa was brilliant. Eliana took a moment to admire the brief view of the sparkling South Atlantic as the plane banked over the northern harbor area before aligning itself to its east-northeast flight path.
The plane rose quickly, and as it approached its assigned cruising altitude of 13,000 meters, the powerful p-B11 fusion engines throttled up and pushed the craft to Mach 2. The 3800 km trip to Judah would take two hours, limited not by power constraints but by the supersonic friction heating the aircraft. The fusion engines could keep the plane aloft and supersonic for months, pumping as much power into the jet thrusters as the turbine blades could handle.
"Such a change," thought Eliana as she looked around the half-full forty-passenger cabin. "After six years at the capital, I'll be living at the most isolated township in the world." Named Reunion in ancient prewar times, the island of Judah in the Indian Ocean was about to become her new home.
Eliana's eyes wandered back to the window to admire the beauty of the lush farming areas of the African landscape. Locally there were still more than three hours of daylight left. But sunset at Judah today would be at 10:20 AM universal capital time. It would be full night by the time they landed. As Eliana thought about her new life, her hand came up unconsciously to trace the unfamiliar pattern of the diamond insignia on her arm.
"Having a comfortable flight, Commander?"
Eliana turned her gaze from the window and addressed a uniformed CL-2 standing in the aisle. "Oh yes, I'm fine, thank you. Just admiring the scenery."
The man nodded. "I'm Amir, the flight steward." He looked closely at the emblems below Eliana's Class rank of red diamond. "Ah, a priestess, huh? And a military aviator too! Are you qualified for this plane's pilot cabin?"
Eliana grinned. "Well, most of my flight time has been with jump jets. But yes, I'm certified for transports, military and civilian."
"Excellent. We'll be serving a light dinner at 10:50. If you're willing to pass on the alcoholic beverages, would you like to dine with the pilots? I'm sure they'd enjoy your company."
"Yes, that would be very nice. Thank you Amir."
The man nodded and then gave her a playful grin, tilting his head towards her insignias and remembering her recent hand at her arm. "Let me guess. Recent promotion?"
Eliana chuckled. "Is it that obvious? Yes, very recent! This is my first day to wear the diamond."
"Congratulations then! Especially in the military Priesthood, that's quite an achievement." The man gave a final respectful bow and continued to work his way towards the front of the passenger cabin. Eliana settled back into her plush chair.
After a moment she remembered the present her Stateswoman great-to-the-sixth grandmother had sent her from New Jerusalem. It had been waiting for Eliana unexpectedly as she made her quick change of flights at Doha. Eliana ripped open the package and found two books, one new and one old, plus a short note from her dear distant ancestor. She took a moment to open the old book first. It appeared to be a book on fifth millennium art. She then read the note.
"Eli, the family couldn't be more proud of you, to have you reach command rank at the age of twenty-seven! I believe the last person to advance that fast was a man named Ilias, someone I'm sure you've heard about. Hah! It appears that Riding the Assad is not a lost art. Speaking of which, the enclosed art book is a family treasure. When Abdul Hadi died, your great-to-the-thirty-second grandmother Chanah gave this book to Kefira's granddaughter Thirza, and it has been passed down the family tree ever since. Chanah told Thirza that this was the book she found Ilias sleeping with when she awoke from her purge cycle the day they were married. Quite a bit of history! I've also enclosed the commemorative copy of our ancestor's First Tower, hot off the presses! Again, congratulations, and best wishes on your new assignment. Choose well! Love, Naysa."
Eliana traced her fingers lightly over the old book as she contemplated the gift. Chanah's wedding day was now more than 1300 years in the past, and it was a thousand years and two days since the death of the world's beloved Abdul Hadi. Eliana glanced at the familiar pages of the First Tower, and then read the publisher's note at the back of the book.
"Wow," she thought. "Judgment 4, 9570, two days ago. This book really is hot off the presses. Grandmother, how did you do this? It must be a pre-release proof copy." Eliana read the publisher's note again. One phrase stuck in her mind, the comment that the last thousand years had not been paradise. "No, indeed not," she agreed. "Our species seems determined not to live there."
The flight continued to soar above the African landscape at Mach 2. Eliana gazed out the window again. The view showed that all the farmland had disappeared, replaced by a much more rocky landscape of small ridges and valleys. She sighed and closed her eyes and thought of all the history since the fateful year of 8244.
Abdul Hadi had been overly optimistic in his hope that there would be no backsliding on the promises of the world to end female slavery. After he became an eternal virgin, there were a dozen years of township revolts against the new order and his visions of social justice and gender equality. In many of these early years, the warfare would claim hundreds of thousands of lives, typically one to three percent of the world's population. And all the while the world's birth rate was almost zero, less than a thousand per year. The flood of new children out of the abandoned monasteries had overwhelmed a population that had no experience in raising children in a family setting, and almost no one had a desire to add to the chaos. There were times when the future of the world still appeared very much in doubt. It was during these early years that Abdul Hadi began his preaching ministry among the townships.
The combination of Jibran seizing control of the Supreme Council plus the fierce loyalty of the rank and file militia to Abdul Hadi's cause finally allowed the servant of the Guide's vision for a new society to prevail. By the year 8258, the warfare was over and the population count for a few months dipped below twenty-one million. Six short years later, the birth rate exploded, returning to pre-civil-war values of 480,000 by 8264. After several more years, it became obvious that with no childhood culling nor lottery with the anti-aging drugs, the world was on a trajectory for a huge growth in population. The debates over the next decade were fierce and often divisive. It wasn't until the year 8279 that a consensus was reached and the annual birth rate stabilized at 120,000.
Before the civil war, the populations of the 120 townships were extremely uniform. By law, each township had the capacity to house 200,000 people, with had an actual population of around 167,000. The capital Bandar Arenas was populated with its designed maximum of five million. Based on original estimates of new life expectancies, people thought the population would stabilize at 28.5 million, and the construction of twenty-one new townships began.
By the time Abdul Hadi was cured of his eternal virginity at the start of Judgment in 8316, the world's population was 29 million and growing temporarily at a rate of 75,000 per year due to the artificially youthful population profiles. Several of the new townships were already nearing completion, three in northern Africa along its western Atlantic coast and two in New Zealand. The expectation was that the new construction and reserve capacity of the original townships could comfortably house the temporary bulge in the population.
But no one had anticipated that women on lifetime anti-aging drugs would live longer than men, a few perhaps even reaching 400 years of age. By the mid 8400's, it became clear that the population would stabilize at around 32 million, not 28.5, and the peak bulge would approach 40 million around the year 8496. A massive housing campaign ensued worldwide for the 140 residential townships, increasing the maximum capacity of each to 250,000, with the long-term expectation of 200,000 actual residents. In 8499 the Islands of New Jerusalem were voted to be set aside for special purpose, and like the spaceport Xerxes not be a township for permanent residency. In the early 8500's the population began its slow decline to 32 million and the housing problem was considered solved.
In Eliana's opinion, her ancestor Abdul Hadi saved the world twice, once during the civil wars and again when he helped create the present form of government. The Citizen Level system was preserved. There was still a universal desire to run the society as a meritocracy, in spite of the new family structures. But the value of the promotions changed profoundly. There were only modest increases in stipends between levels, barely more than token amounts. Housing and medical care and basic staples were provided free to all. The real value of promotions came in influence and voting rights.
The names for Royalty (CL-16 to CL-23) and Ruling Royalty (CL-24 to CL-31) were changed to Governor and Statesperson. The Governors typically ran the Guilds, and the Statespersons, typically about 800 in number, formed a body with combined legislative and judicial power. The top eleven Citizens also formed a supreme executive council.
But the real power of the government was distributed back to the general population. Each person had a weighted vote equal to their Class Level, and a 40% weighted no-vote could nullify any legislative or judicial decree of the State House. The State House could design laws, but the ultimate decision of whether the laws would stand forever rested with the lack of a 40% weighted dissent of the population. The ultimate power of the government had thus been returned to the people. The form of government was summed up in a child's nursery rhyme, "The State will propose, and the people will dispose."
"Is it fair?" Eliana thought, as she pondered the structure of her government. All infants legally become one-year old on the Judgment 1 after their birth. At the age of thirteen, they all become CL-1 and have one vote each. Not much to be sure. Eliana guessed the entire class of CL-1 (all children 13 to 20 years of age) would have less than 1% of the world's vote. But at least they were part of the franchise, and Eliana couldn't think of any ancient country that had opened up voting rights to so young an age group.
At age 21, all children became CL-2 and had two units of voting rights. In the following years, citizens could compete for promotional advancement at Judgment, and one in thirty for each age group and each Level would advance, gaining influence in the society both in voting rights and within their Guild.
"Not a paradise," Eliana thought. "No. Perhaps the closest we've come to it was in the early 8500's. Those were good times..." The society had been vibrant at the time. Abdul Hadi had used his enormous influence to resurrect the space program. There were a set of orbiting research space-stations and lunar bases, and dozens of interstellar probes were being launched each year to the surrounding stars. It was a pure gift to the society's far-future children. The light-burner drives were in their infancy then, and now in 9570 more than 80% of the probes still had not returned. 
After Abdul Hadi's death, the world seemed to drift. By 8700, the last of the lunar bases was abandoned and all funding withdrawn from the interstellar exploration program. The world suffered through centuries of drug abuse and lawlessness, searching for a new morality to cope with growing pains of the new society.
Men and women might live to be 300 to 400 years, but female fertility ended around age seventy, and most women preferred to have their one or two children between thirty to forty years of age. The result was that for the first time in history, people had the opportunity to interact with their ancestors eight to ten generation back, with the older minorities holding much of the weighted voting rights. At times, the system of government seemed designed to maximize generational tension.
"I wonder if the new voting profiles are posted yet." Eliana thought to herself. She opened her eyes and pulled out her laptop and linked to the UGW (unified global web). After a moment of typing a Class population query for her age group, she had the following information on her screen:
Age 27: CL2=96193 CL3=17851 CL4=1380 CL5=57 CL6=1 CL7=0 CL8=1
"Yep, there I am," she thought. After a bit more typing, Eliana pulled up a table on the first ten voting Classes and found that CL8 represented a Class peak in voting rights.
1.17 million CL-1held 0.62% of the vote, average age = 16
3.58 million CL2 held 4.37% of the vote, average age = 52
3.55 million CL3 held 5.63% of the vote, average age = 83
3.38 million CL4 held 7.16% of the vote, average age = 114
3.20 million CL5 held 8.46% of the vote, average age = 144
2.98 million CL6 held 9.48% of the vote, average age = 172
2.73 million CL7 held 10.10% of the vote, average age = 198
2.41 million CL8 held 10.22% of the vote, average age = 219
2.05 million CL9 held 9.77% of the vote, average age = 238
1.66 million CL10 held 8.80% of the vote, average age = 253
Eliana's uniqueness was not due to reaching Command rank as such, 70% of adults would do so in their lifetimes. Her uniqueness was that she had done it so young, passing all six of her annual attempts at Class advancement. People would typically enter command rank around the age 200. For Eliana to do it at age 27 was remarkable.
"I wonder what Amir would think if he knew I just turned 27. He was so respectful, treating me as an elder. I'm likely to be half his age. Would he be happy for me, resentful, would he feel deceived, what..." Eliana frowned. "It would be awkward to tell him. It would seem like boasting."
Her thoughts returned to the world's history. "And then the late 8900's, what a mess that was." For a brief number of decades, the government tried to push against the human genome's designed birth ratio of three females to one male. The negative feedback from the older society was severe, and from both genders. The males resented the thought of the increased competition and their freedom to choose from both monogamous and polygamous marriages. The women still had a sharp collective memory of their eight millennia of enslavement, and greatly resented the possibility of giving up their hard-won 75% majority in voting rights. 
And the artificial gender selection techniques also brought back memories of the horrors of the last time humanity meddled with the human genome, in the thirty years before the War of the Burning Metals. By the year 9000, all official attempts to shift the population gender ratio were cancelled.
Eliana sighed. "Are we in paradise now? The people of Abdul Hadi's time might think so. No major problems, certainly no wars, technology is still advancing, though very slowly, social discontent is at an all-time low. When was the last time I read a news report about vandalism?"
Eliana giggled. "Oh yeah! Four years ago, early 9566, that business at Aleppo, those fake holograms and spoofed news reports about a giant octopus attacking the docks! But that was more hilarious than malicious, playful and artfully done. And the technology! Who would have guessed you could fake a hologram over that large an open area? They had the monster a thousand meters long! Very innovative! It was almost worth the few minor injuries from the evacuation."
The smile faded from her face. "And yet... Are we drifting? Where is our sense of wonder, our yearning to explore? The technology makes life so easy. A typical work-month is fifteen five-hour shifts, and most people don't even work that. There's no need. And yet... We have the technology to explore the universe, have a human presence on Mars for the first time ever. We could be there in five years, maybe a permanent base in eight. What's stopping us? Why don't people care?"
Eliana sighed and stretched and knew she would not find an answer to her question. She glanced back at the sun sinking rapidly to the western horizon. A moment later Amir came and politely escorted her to the pilot cabin.

if you want to read more measge me and ill send you some chapeters!

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.

not all my blogs will be extreamly graphic but will contain muture contint

Chapter 1. The Stone Floor

I lay prone and exhausted on the floor, arms by my sides, the smooth stone against my forehead hard but pleasantly cold. I was midway into the last hour of prayer for the day, the hour of The Prayer of Repose, and I could feel the polished stone chilling my sweat and pulling the excess heat from my body. I remained motionless in my thin white Initiate robe. After the previous grueling hour of The Prayer of Weakness, it would be so easy to drift and relax and dream. But that would be a fatal mistake.

I am Ilias, and tomorrow will be the first day of The Holy's Year 8235 and the beginning of the 52rd year of the reign of Abdul Quddus, the 83th Great Cunif Califar and First Servant of the Holy. The numbers signify a year of Jubilee. It will also be the year I reach twenty-one years of age, and as such tomorrow I will be at the last of the three great gates of my childhood. In two days I will either be an adult or dead.

The faint sounds of my classmates' breathings are totally ignored. My senses are tuned to one purpose, to detect the presence of Fateen as he walks among the Initiates in his clothed feet. He is Citizen-Level 13, only three levels below royalty, and it is somewhat unusual for such a high ranking Priest to work as Imul with children. But Fateen loves his work, and he is a master of silent walking.

When I was very young, two years before my eighth year and the first of my childhood gates, a group of my classmates and I had quietly discussed Fateen's age. Recklessly ignoring the danger of the conversation, we had all concluded he must be at least a hundred years old, and probably much more. It was impossible to tell by outward appearance of course. With the anti-aging drugs, Fateen looked exactly the same as when he completed his own journey from child to adult. But to all of us though, the image of Fateen as child was beyond our comprehensions.

There has been no detectable sound, but I sensed the vibrations of footfalls along the stone, and then, stillness. Fateen was standing a meter in front of me. I did not have to open my eyes to know upon whom his gaze was fixed. For all the hundreds of Initiates in my class, only I had never received demotion in Open Prayer. In all the years, I was the only Initiate Fateen had never managed to trip up, and we both knew tonight was his last chance. I focused myself in a Prayer of Suspension, and kept my heartbeat slow and resting.

There was the slightest sound of a touch as Fateen's onyx rod came upon the Summoning Apex of the stone before me. My head snapped up in obedience with my eyes wide open, alert and bright. Any sign of drowsiness now would be a sign of drifting and impure thoughts. Such a mark of weakness so close to my control gate could well be a fatal handicap in my imminent competition for survival with my classmates. By holy Law, one tenth of Initiates do not survive each childhood gate. I gazed into Fateen's eyes and waited for his test.

"Ilias, describe the holiness of the digits."

I kept all expression of surprise from my face. Fateen had asked me a question proper for a child approaching his first gate, not his third. Any slip now with such a simple question would be a disaster. I quoted verbatim from my earliest Catechisms.

"The digits two, three, five, and eight are holy, ordained by the Holy for His Greatness. The digits four, six, and nine are the digits of the Earth, not directly holy but formed by holy products. The digits zero, one, and seven can not be the product of holiness, and thus must be the digits of Shaitan."

"Ah, very good young Ilias. But how do we know this is true?"

A dangerous question to ask, especially for someone below royal level. But it was an even more dangerous question for an Initiate not to answer. I worked to keep my voice calm as I spoke the correct affirmation from The Book of Bel'dar. "Because it has been preached, and the Holy is One, and Bel'dar is His one true preacher. Thus he preached, therefore thus he preaches."

Fateen stared at me, his eyes hard and cold. I returned his stare in obedience, and almost didn't catch the slight lifting of his rod off my Apex. I immediately snapped my head down and closed my eyes. There was the softest of sounds as the rod gently touched the stone again. Damn him! His summoning call was far softer than appropriate. But it would be hard to debate the issue if I were dead. My eyes snapped up and locked with his. I watched him glare at me.

"And what is the order of the day?"

Another question from my early youth, this one going so far back my response came from my nursery days, when females encapsulated in blue body coverings watched and cared for us as the priests taught their lessons. I replied immediately. "The order of the day is based on the holiness of two, three, and eight. One third of our time is for The Holy, one third for Earth, and one third for Shaitan. The holiness of two divides the Holy time into morning prayers and evening prayers."

"And what is the direction of the day?"

"The four morning prayers take us from Shaitan to Holy. Then in a state of Holy grace, we work eight hours for our masters the Priesthood and the Guilds. The four evening prayers return us from Holy to Shaitan, leaving us eight hours to dream in his low impurity."

"And what are the names and directions of the prayers?"

"The morning direction is mind to body to church to Holy. The names of the four hours are The Prayer of Ascension, The Prayer of Purification, The Prayer of Wonder, and the Prayer of Counted Failings. The evening direction is the reverse, from Holy to church to body to mind. The evening prayers are The Prayer of Uncounted Failings, The Prayer of Joy, The Prayer of Weakness, and the Prayer of Repose."

The rod left the Apex. My head snapped down. There was the faintest whisper of a click. My eyes and head snapped back up, none of my internal fury visible upon my face.

"Tell me Ilias," Fateen whispered without a sound, moving only his lips. "You are the top student. There's no doubt you'll pass tomorrow. We're all expecting you to book the run. How far will you ride the lion?"

Was he mad?! To begin chatting as an Initiate during Prayer, especially about personal ambition, would mean instant death. And yet, not to respond on point to such a direct question would also disqualify me from adulthood. Did he really hate me that much? If I spoke to such a question, even with my lips alone, my death was assured; and his also, once the security videos of this conversation were reviewed by the local execution council. But if I remained silent, it would be up to Fateen to decide whether to press a charge of disobedient silence against me.

I realized my Imul had entwined us, both of us holding both our lives in our hands. I had first choice, to decide whether we both would die, or if we both had a chance to live. If I voted in silence for life, both our fates were in Fateen's hands. I stared at him and thought, "Perhaps he missed his last chance for promotion, or perhaps he is so old the anti-aging drugs are about to fail anyway. Does he hate me so much, that he will drag me down with him into oblivion?"

I had no wish to die. My mouth remained closed, my lips unmoving. I waited for Fateen's decision.

The rod left the stone. My head snapped back down. After a timeless period of utter silence, I heard the whisper of my Imul's dry voice. "Excellent Ilias. Your discipline serves you well." I sensed the faint clothed footfalls moving on.

Chapter 2. Day of Judgment

According to the preacher's texts, The Holy revealed His new calendar when Bandar the Wanderer entered the seaport city of Punta Arenas at the southern end of the ancient and mythical country of Chile. He came less than a month after the War of the Burning Metals and the blazing of Shaitan's fires across the globe. Eight years later the Holy revealed Bandar as His preacher and anointed him Bel'dar, creating the first of the Cunif Califar.

We are all taught geography as children of course. It is fascinating to think what life must have been like back then, with the survivors of the war forming a global refugee population. The southernmost areas of the globe suffered by far the least of the fallout, and for decades they were the only regions habitable. The place that eventually became Bandar Arenas had one of the lowest radiation levels in the world outside of Antarctica, and it was a magnet for humanity.

It's difficult to imagine how small the city was at the beginning. The Book of Bel'dar suggests its population was only about 100,000 before the war, 2% of the present size of five million. By current law, both the world capital and the Priesthood contain one fifth of the world's population.

It took the Earth several hundred years to recover from the war. Two of the most serious isotopes in the fallout were cesium-137 and strontium-90. They both have half-lives of about 28 years. It also took several centuries for the ozone layer to recover from being destroyed by the nitric oxides produced by the bombs. The primary lingering health concern from the war is now carbon-14, with a half life of 5600 years. Fortunately the oceans and biosphere have recycled much of it out of the atmosphere.

Bandar Arenas is the southernmost city on Earth, at 53 o 10' S and, by definition, 0 o 0' W. There are also 120 townships scattered in North and South America, with populations averaging 167,000 each. Each township is sponsored by one of the 120 Guilds, and the Priesthood is the sponsor of the capital.

The name of my childhood township is Anqara, and it is the home township of the Guild for specialty metal fabrication. We are located at 48 o 20' N, 0 o 6' W, built at the ancient site of Bagotville, Quebec. Anqara has the distinction of being the farthest township from Bandar Arenas, but with our close match in longitude with the capital, we also have the smallest shift in solar time. Our solar noon occurs only 24 seconds later than official solar noon. Official time is the same everywhere of course. There are no time zones. The rhythm of the daily Prayer is not fragmented. 

In Bel'dar's calendar, each year has 2x2x3=12 months, and the months have kept their ancient names. Each month has 2x3x5=30 days. In addition to the twelve months, there is a five-day festival to celebrate the Holy's Judgment. The festival is at the beginning of year, shortly after the summer solstice in the southern hemisphere. When the calendar year is divisible by twelve, the festival is lengthened to eight days in order to keep the calendar in synch with Earth's solar orbit.

The festival of The Judgment is the appropriate time for the childhood gates, and also for the gates that control adult advancement from one citizen level to the next. The childhood gates are used to test and cull all male children as they enter their 8th, 13th, and 21'st year of life. Each of the three gates culls 10%. There is also continuous culling due to medical, behavioral, or heretical problems, for both children and adults. The end result is 65% of the 120,000 male children born each year survive the challenge of entering adulthood.

The First Day of Judgment of 8235 began as usual for me with 6 AM prayers. I and the 577 other members of the Initiate class of Anqara found ourselves in the presence of the Bandar Arenas test monitor. Some seemed to find it difficult not to be intimidated by his purple insignia of royalty.

The class moved through the familiar cycle of the morning prayers. The Prayer of Purification hour was filled with tests of power and form in the martial arts. The exhaustion tests of endurance would come later in the evening Prayer of Weakness.

At 10 AM I began eight hours of qualifying tests with the Guild that had been sponsoring me since my thirteenth year. I have spent the last eight years of my life as an acolyte member of the Security Guild.

Security is a coveted Guild for membership. It is a small Guild, only three thousand adults, but it is very well represented in the royal levels. All rulers and royalty are part of the Priesthood of course, but 25 of the 4,092 current royals (citizen levels 16 through 23) entered royalty through the Security Guild. The previous Cunif Califar, Abdul Matin, Servant of the Firm, entered royalty through Security.

The ancient counterpart of the Security Guild would be a combination of domestic and international spy agencies. The Guild does not do installation and maintenance of the worldwide monitoring systems, but it does have ownership of their operation and technical evolution, and Security works closely with the Priesthood, in particular their embedded military and police units.

The Security Guild's township is called Jizari. It is located 360 km northeast of the capital, across the Straits of Magellan at the ancient site of Rio Gallegos, Argentina, 51 o 37' S, 1 o 37' E. Not surprisingly, Security's home is the closest township to Bandar Arenas.

There is a saying all males learn in nursery school, that the boy chooses the girls, but it is the Guild that chooses the boy. As a young child though, I discovered I have a unique talent, a secret gift that is the fuel for my hidden ambition. My gift let me choose my Guild. I have a perfect memory.

Am I a mutation? Probably. So many of our religious practices evolved from the mutations problems of the war, and how urgent it was to adapt society to the new reality. The culling was necessary to stop the degradation slide of the human genome, and it made the Genetics Guild one of the most powerful organizations under the Priesthood.

Major genetic changes were engineered in the first few thousand years after the war, as the Genetics Guild mastered the science of writing DNA at the level of complexity of the human genome. Evolution jumped from geological to generational timescales, and the Ruling Priesthood became the supreme legislature for determining the definition of human.

The ability of the species to repopulate was a critical concern, and one of the first successful genetic modifications was to change the male/female probability birth ratio from roughly 1:1 to 1:3. There are currently 120,000 male births a year and 360,000 female births. Daily sleep requirements are also half of what they used to be before the war.

Another genetic modification made the human genome compatible with anti-aging drugs. No one has lived to be 400 yet, but with continual use of the drugs 300 to 350 years of life can be expected, with all but the last few months in fully functional health.

My memory mutation is a powerful gift. It goes far beyond the ability of perfect recall of experiences. I have perfect recall over everything I sense. I can stare at my monastery study monitor flashing several pages a second and then read what I've observed at my leisure when I have time to close my eyes. I was six years old when I learned the trick of stealing Imul passwords by glancing from the corner of my eye, watching them type long and rapid password strings. I would later replay their finger movements in my mind.

For years I did nothing with my illegal access to knowledge. But when I was nine and had passed my first gate, my class went through a basic course on network security, and I realized Anqara has a weakness in its local security design. There is a six-second window every night at 11:30 PM when the township's network establishes new security handshaking protocols with the worldwide web. During this period, worldwide Security can't monitor local data access directly, and relies on the local logs to bridge the six-second gap once handshaking is reestablished.

But there is a flaw in the local monitoring software. It polls central video memory every 400 milliseconds for the image being transmitted to my room's monitor. With access to the monastery computers through an unrelated course on graphical displays, I used my stolen passwords and left behind a small and I hope untraceable daemon.

The end result is I have fifteen 400-millisecond windows every night to access adult data. I start my process just after the end of the security polling cycle; loading the data into my video buffer, flashing it to my screen for 350-ms, and then shutting down and terminating the data request before the security poll asks my video buffer again what it is doing. End result? I get fifteen views a night with as much data as I can fit onto my screen, and there is absolutely no record of my activity.

In the last decade, I have had access to vast stores of information, far beyond what an Initiate is ever allowed to see. It is an extremely dangerous game. Sidestepping the local audit logs is not easy, but my greatest fear is someday showing that I know not too little but too much.

When I was eleven years old, I decided that the only truly safe way of protecting the use of my gift would be to have access to the Priesthood's master security logs, and the only way to do that would be from inside the Security Guild. I modified my performance on my aptitude tests to appear especially attractive to them, and at my thirteenth year, when the Guilds pick their acolytes from the survivors of the second gate, I succeeded in my quest to have the boy choose the Guild.

And the years passed. I reached my third gate. My final day of childhood continued. After four hours of Guild testing, I was pleasantly surprised to be served a lunch at 2 PM. Except for Guild training materials and courses, all children are completely under the control of the Priesthood, and the acolytes for adult Priesthood would be finding this a fasting day. But the other acolytes are owned by both the Priesthood and their Guild on Judgment Day, and it is permissible after morning prayers for the sponsoring Guilds to feed their acolytes.

I was touched by my Guild's generosity. They had sent me a magnificent lunch, one worthy of a royal. There was a fine selection of delicate fishes and meats wrapped in small pastries, plus an assortment of fresh fruit slices and greens from the southern hemisphere. It wasn't a large amount of food, but with the Prayer of Weakness testing in six hours, stuffing myself now would be foolhardy. The lunch was perfect. I thought about the message my Guild was sending me with their extravagant feast as I savored each bite.

I had to keep my wits about me during the last hours of testing. I was being asked to make intelligent guesses about matters that I had factual knowledge of only through my nocturnal data access. I intentionally made numerous guesses reasonable but wrong, especially those concerning the political alliances within the ruling Priesthood (the 87 Priests of Citizen Level 24 though 31).

One of the last tests from my Guild measured my memory and manual dexterity. I was shown long strings of random characters on a monitor for a brief period of time, and then required to rapidly type them. All adults have a minimum requirement of entering twenty-character complex passwords in ten seconds, but Security's requirement is a minimum of twenty-four characters in eight. I passed the test easily, overshooting my Guild's requirements by a considerable margin, but then holding back so as not to reveal my hidden talent.

The hours of Prayers passed quickly. I had no trouble with the theology. It did surprise me that the Hour of Weakness was used for unrelenting full-contact sparring. I am not the most aggressive fighter, but my form is excellent, and I received only three minor demerits, two for taking too long to defeat my friend Afeef, a clearly weaker opponent, and a third demerit for being too merciful with the selection of the combination kick that ended my final contest. The judge ruled I had a perfect opportunity for a back-knuckle strike to my opponent's nose.

My class spent the Hour of Repose in perfect silence. It didn't feel like a test until near the end, when I realized other acolytes bruised from the sparring or worried about passing might be finding it difficult to maintain the required perfect stillness. When the closing bell sounded, there were numerous sighs of exhaustion. We all rose and quickly walked to our small bedrooms. I glanced around at some of my classmates, trying to make eye contact and offer encouragement. The testing was over. Talking was not strictly prohibited, but it certainly wasn't encouraged either, and we all make our way back to our rooms in silence.

I closed the door of my room as required, hearing the lock click and the door seal behind me. The time was 10:09 PM, and the Day of Judgment was almost over. Sometime within the next five hours, I would hear a gas hissing into my room. It would either be a simple nitrogen-oxygen mix, or something just as odorless but extremely lethal. By tradition, acolytes void their bladders and undress, in order to minimize the work of the acolytes in next year's class.

Some acolytes doubt this, but bedrooms really are unmonitored. The human psyche needs a place to wallow in peace during the hours of low impurity, and the Priesthood does provide that place. One thing I've learned about the Priesthood over the years is that they are many things, but they are not liars.

I actually fell into a restful sleep shortly after entering my room. I was that confident, and regardless the matter was out of my hands. I've learned the lesson to grab rest when I can. I was awakened by the faint sound of hissing air. I opened my eyes and glanced at the clock display on my monitor, 2:53 AM.

It was later than I expected. The test administrators are required by law to complete all executions by 3 AM. I shuddered as I thought about being one of the thousands of judges for the gate. A vast amount of the scoring is based on computer tabulation, but the final decisions are human, done over a worldwide teleconference. With over 87,000 Initiates per year, there are rumors of many heated discussions for the exacting rankings near the cutoff.

I laughed at myself as I realized I was sniffing the air. My subconscious demand to live was overwhelming my reasoning. Sniffing the air made no sense. I tried to calm myself by thinking of the soft hissing sound as relaxing. I looked at my sealed door, and waited for my adult life to begin.

Chapter 3. Adulthood

At exactly 3 AM the hissing stopped and I heard my bedroom door unsealing. A moment later the lock clicked and a woman entered carrying adult clothes for me. I couldn't tell what she looked like of course. She was encased in a full burqa. Purdah (the curtain law) forbids any part of a woman's body to be visible in public. I thought she might be one of the wives of the monastery's priests. It was the first female I had seen in thirteen years.

I got dressed quickly. My shirt had insignia on both arms, showing a bright green circle (the symbol for Citizen Level Two), and underneath that the insignia of the Security Guild. There was also a small card telling me where to report to my Guild's representative for my debriefing.

All males are required to display their Citizen Level when in public. There are color codes for the different levels. Blue is for children (Level One). Green is the base color for labor (Levels Two and Three), and like Level One uses a circular emblem. Yellow is the base color for management (Levels Four through Seven) and uses a triangular emblem. Red is the base color for command (Levels Eight through Fifteen) and uses a diamond shaped emblem.

At the very top is purple for both Royalty (Levels Sixteen through Twenty-Three) and Ruling Royalty (Levels Twenty-Four through Thirty-One). Royalty uses a square emblem, except for the Cunif Carifar who wears a pentagon bearing all five colors, signifying his role as the representative of all people to the Holy.

My bedroom had been my small place of refuge for the last thirteen years. I took one quick last look around and then left.

The hall was busy with the new adults heading off to their own meetings. Within the coming hours and days, we would all be traveling to the home cities of our various Guilds. Mixed with the feelings of joyful relief and excitement was an air of nostalgia. After two decades of very close living, most of us would not see each other again for years. Or never. I grimaced when I saw Afeef's door had not unsealed.

The door was open to my interview room. I saluted the superior there from my Guild, a CL-12, his diamond emblem red at the bottom half and yellow at the top. I was pleased someone of such high rank had been sent to debrief me. The man snapped a sharp salute back, and then signaled me to close the door and sit down.

He went back to reviewing his monitor while I waited. I couldn't see his screen, but I guessed he was reviewing my test scores. Finally he sighed and looked up at me. "I'm Commander Fadil. Welcome to Security! Before we begin the debriefing, is there anything you'd like to know?"

"Yes, thank you sir. The testing, how did we do?"

"You mean Anqara?"

"Well, that would be interesting too, but I meant Ghazi and Hakem." I was referring to two CL-23 Royal priests who were both taking their advancement tests this year. Both had entered Royalty through the Security Guild.

Fadil raised his eyebrows and then smiled in approval at me. "That's the right attitude Ilias! And the answer is the Guild did extremely well! As of today, we have twenty-six Royalty from Security, including two at the ruling level." He then shot me a sly grin. "Can you guess who was promoted?"

I weighed my answer before I replied, "Ghazi sir, I'm almost sure."

The Commander blinked. "Correct! Judging from your test essays, I thought you might pick Hakem."

I nodded. "With all respect sir, I had to document my essays with references to official capital news. There was nothing from Bandar Arenas to suggest Ghazi, nothing that I had access to anyway, and putting unsupportable hunches into my essays would be, well..." I smiled and shrugged my shoulders.

Fadil gave me a long, thoughtful stare. "Indeed. I'm beginning to see why the Guild is so excited about you." He finished up with his monitor and then looked at me. "Let's begin the debriefing. Your combat scores, do you think they were fair?"

"The three minors?" I paused for a moment. "Yes sir, the demerits were fair."

"In total, I think so too. Maybe not the last demerit itself, your combination roundhouse spin kick was a thing of beauty. But in your eighth match, you pulled a knife-hand strike to the throat so early the blow wasn't scored, and the judge let that one go."

I nodded. "I agree sir."

"But your third match, the one with Afeef, what was up with that?"

"Ah..." I thought for a moment and decided to be completely honest. "A friend sir, since early childhood. I suspected he was low in the rankings."

Fadil typed on his monitor for a moment. "Fourth percentile, not even close. You should have known you had no chance of pushing him above the cutoff."

I was properly chastised. "Yes sir, agreed."

Fadil looked at me. "Ilias, your defensive skills are world class. Seriously, if defense were everything, you could compete in the world competitions right now. You're that good. And nobody is ignoring the fact you were the only Anqara Initiate who did not suffer a single solid hit during the sparring. But you have to work on your aggression!"

"Yes sir!"

He shook his head in disbelief. "Your ninth opponent, Uday, you took him down in less than five seconds."

I smiled at the memory. "I had no choice. His punches are lightning! He could well have taken me in a longer fight." I have a reputation for being a careful fighter, and I had used my reputation as a weapon against a superior opponent. Uday was so surprised by my wild combination attack that I scored a quick takedown.

Fadil finally understood my strategy for the competition. "Interesting," he mumbled as he went back to reviewing the test scores. "You'll be happy to know you're the top rated Initiate from Anqara. And Anqara made their 8% again, which means you're among the top scorers in the world, out of 78,044 survivors to adulthood. You're definitely in the top 1%. Security will be very interested in your decision about booking the run."

To understand Fadil's comments, I'll have to explain how promotional gates work.

Worldwide, across the 120 townships and the capital, 90% of the Initiates survive the final childhood gate. It's a worldwide ranking, but the competition between townships is also capped by a minimum monastery culling of 8% and a maximum of 12%. Anqara has a reputation of having one of the toughest monasteries on the planet, and it is one of a handful of townships that consistently hits the lower cutoff.

Adult gates are designed differently than the childhood gates. There is no culling for failure, at least not directly. The name for Citizen Level Two is Lower Labor. Under usual circumstances, I would take my tests to advance to Level Three (Upper Labor) in two years, on the First Day of Judgment in 8237. Test success is based on ranking. The top 20% of the applicants will advance to Level Three (which has an emblem of a green lower hemisphere and an upper blue), and 80% will remain at Level Two.

For those who fail the first gate, there is a second gate three years later, again with the top 20% of the remaining applicants passing. Similarly, there is a third gate five years after that, a fourth gate eight years later, and a fifth gate thirteen years after that. By the time of the fifth and final gate, citizens would have lived 31 years at the same Level. Success at any gate starts the whole process of advancement over again, taking the next Level's first gate two years later.

Failure at the fifth gate is not an immediate death sentence, but it does put your future access to the anti-aging drugs into a lottery system. There is no further possibility of promotion, and the lottery odds get exponentially worse each year, culling about half the population after ten years, and then rapidly culling the remainder. The record for survival in the lottery system after failing a fifth gate is twenty-two years. That record was set over three thousand years ago.

Citizens in the lottery show up for their annual shots along with the other citizens, but the lottery system might assign them a placebo. Somewhere between their fifth and eighth month, those who receive the placebo will notice their bodies begin to age rapidly, more than one year per day. By this time their medical condition is hopeless, even with access to the real drugs. Death always comes before the twelfth month, and in mercy the Priesthood will offer assistance in suicide.

In addition to the C.L. gates, there is also adult culling due to criminal behavior or heresy. There are no prisons. The end result? Slightly less than 62% of all citizens entering each Level will advance to the next higher Level, and 38%+ will die within the Level. The average age for all adult males (exclusive of children) is 51 years and 4 months, including the long, thin tail of the distribution of the citizens living hundreds of years. By law, the average age of the adult women is exactly the same, although they are on a completely different system.

There are only two exceptions to this process, one at each end of the Citizen Levels. Promotion and culling within the Ruling Royalty are processes not of formal testing but political infighting, and the Cunif Califar is appointed for life. At the other end is the Asad, the Lion. That is what Fadil was referring to when he asked me about booking the run.

The Lion is only available to the top 1% of the surviving population entering adulthood. From what Fadil told me, a total of 780 new adults would be offered the chance for advanced placement in the Citizen Levels. Historically, close to 90% will accept the challenge, and a third will target two-level advancement for immediate placement into management. How far the new adult wishes to "ride the Lion" is declared to the Priesthood on the Fifth Day of Judgment. Once declared, there is no turning back.

Lion tests are given on the 21'st day of each month, starting in January for the advancement to Level Three. Most of the testing is over by February, though a very few ambitious candidates will target the higher levels. Success brings the additional status, prestige, and privileges of the higher levels, including the entitlement for an adult male to have his number of wives equal his citizen level. But the primary reason to ride the Lion is the dream of Royalty. One must start adult life at a minimum of Level-Three to have any chance at Royal promotion. On average, there are 93 promotions into Level-Sixteen each year. And one must start adult life at a minimum Level-Four Management Level to ever enter Ruling Royalty (an average of two promotions per year into Level-Twenty-Four).

The downside risks are considerable. First of all, Lion passing rates are wildly unpredictable. The scoring process is somewhat of a mystery. All scoring is supposed to be by computer, but some years almost all will make it, and other years less than half. There seems to be a large random element for how high the bar is raised. The year 7777 was a horror, when not a single candidate made it to Level Four.

Failure on the Lion automatically fails you for all your future adult gates. You get 31 guaranteed years of the anti-aging drugs, and then are put in the lottery. Declining the drugs at the beginning of adulthood and trying to age normally is not an option. The human genome (at least in its present definition) can not tolerate that.

Is it worthwhile to ride the Lion? The risk of failure plus the lost years of not living at the lower Levels result in no net increase of life expectancy. Booking the run is really about ambition, not the desire to live longer through Royalty. And in three days I would have to declare my choice.

Fadil smiled at me and went on. "I reviewed the security logs of the day before your exam. What Fateen did to you on December 30th was way out of line. Do you want the Guild to make an issue of it?"

"The Hour of Repose, his last question? No sir, not at all. I realize now Fateen was teaching me one last lesson, about ambition and discipline, a lesson well worth knowing."

Fadil nodded slowly. "Very well." We chatted a bit more about my performance, and then he surprised me with an unexpected offer. "The Guild's ramjet will be taking off for Jizari at 5:30 AM. We'll make a brief landing at Bandar Arenas first, to drop off the Royal test monitor. There's one vacant seat on the plane." He grinned at me. "Want to hitch a ride?"

It was an extremely magnanimous offer. The other new adults in ancient Canada and the ancient U.S. northeastern seaboard would be flying to the hub city of Aleppo, at 42 o 21' N, 0 o 9' W, the ancient site of Boston Massachusetts. The city had been slowly rebuilt over centuries, long after being directly burned by Shaitan's fire 8,235 years ago.

The Judgment Days are the busiest time of the year for air transport, with all the successful Initiates making transfers to their new homes. The opportunity to travel sub-orbital in the Guild's plush private jet was a pure gift. And I would probably have the chance to chat informally with the Royal monitor. Fadil's offer was priceless. I gratefully accepted, and we left for Anqara's airport shortly after.