1. THE FIRST LESSON

In a class of the far future.

It was easy being a teacher on Terraful as long as your banks were kept topped up with the latest garbage from Central. There were diversions, of course, sometimes quite awesome ones, but mostly the garbage was published fact, indisputable and verified by the Headbod, a magnificent creation in his cap and gown of authority.

Zoz had been a teacher for two generations and he knew his stuff like no other. He’d been upgraded twice and his memories checked for viruses roughly once every Beacon moon, which was handy because it coincided almost exactly with the old lunar cycle of the original (now long destroyed during the Great Chaos) home planet, possibly called Earth, but records were fragmented. Lozenge had a longer orbit, being further away, and its trajectory was only used by those seeking full and permitted use of menstrual cycles.

“Attention,” he said in his easy clipped voice, “today the subject, young folk, is ancient pre-history. So take heed.”

Els sighed and groaned. She was a rare beauty on a world on which beauty was endemic, especially amongst the fertile females, and she was fertile all right though she had yet to apply for a permit for menstrual use. But she was young yet and no doubt would consider such a thing come Michaelmas, which was the annual legal date for conception.

“Young Els,” spoke forth the teacher, frowning, “what ails you?”

“Ancient pre-history,” she sighed, “we did that last semester. The home planet, all that sort of thing, the failings of the Trumpster and the machinations of the Maybot. We know it all, by heart if I may dared say so.”

“But today we’re going further back into genuine and scary pre-history, and you’ll like it. Not a lot, but I guarantee you will. What do you know about Priam?”

Els shrugged. “Nothing, Master, but need I?”

Zoz shrugged his magnificent almost human shoulders and his teeth rattled.

“If you have dreams of following the Lozenge as she rides the Michaelmas skies then you must, for Priam of Old was a great breeder,” said Zoz solemnly. “There are records, illegible now but transcribed before I was created and stored in my oldest memory banks, that tell how Priam, a mighty King of an ancient and wonderful fairy land called Troy...”

“But Master,” interrupted Els, not to be put off, “we are not here to be taught fairy stories as if we were nippers! We are here for true education, to know where we sprang from, and I for one did not spring from the loins of a fairy!”

“Els,” said Zoz, dangerously quietly, “it is decreed you learn the roots of things and the roots of our civilisation had its birth in a fairy tale called Troy and the bloody wars that ravaged, when Priam, old beyond the dreams of men back then, and father of fifty sons...”

“Fifty!” ejaculated Din, a bright young male rampant and ready ready for his first venture into the Lozenge trajectory of being. “That’s impossible, sir,” he added, out of politeness. After all Zoz was a non-breeder but a perfectoid manufactured in Clingle and he didn’t want to cause pseudo-jealousy to erupt before the lesson had even properly begun. Perfectoids could get jealous, largely because they were incapable of some of the more pleasurable aspects of permitted liaisons.

“If you pay attention to this classical piece of ancient history you may well learn something to your advantage!” Zoz’s voice was drier than tinder ready for a flame. “Once there was a land called Troy, and it had a king called Priam and many enemies at its border. Greeks, they were, and little is left in our memory banks concerning them. But those of Troy, or Trojans as they are sometimes called, were warlike...”

“Which is illegal,” put in Cun, a pretty little thing, barely twenty summers old and with cascading hair that told its own story of her ripeness for a permit.

“Ah, sweet Cun,” intoned Zoz, “if I were a mortal man I’d sweep you off your feet, no doubt about it. But I’m a perfectoid and have had by far the greatest part of lust left out of my system, which I sometimes look upon as a shame when I see youngsters like you cavorting in the hay! And yes, war is illegal nowadays and punishable by public execution and fifty thousand volts, but back in pre-history it was encouraged!”

“That must have caused some deaths,” mused Els, “fighting and all that. And death, as we all know, is the last resort at the end of being.”

“Yet millions have died in wars,” sighed Zoz. “It was the scheme by which ancient humanity controlled its population growth. Free reproduction, no permits involved, was allowed and people bred at an unbelievable rate, so wars were used in order to amputate great swathes of young males from populations, thus reducing the available youth for the females to choose from. It worked for so long, and then, when the wars became ever more murdersome, common sense developed and eventually the execution of war-makers replaced the random extinction of masses.”

“And this Priam was a father of fifty sons?” asked the rather plain Fil, small of bosom and with a scarred face. Even on Terraful there were occasional accidents that caused scarring, and if the scarred was impoverished, as some were, then surgery to remove scarred tissue was out of the question, as had been the case with Fil who wore her scars as a sort of badge of pride. “Did he have any daughters?” she asked.

“The old texts say many, but as they are of no significance, being female, they are rarely mentioned,” admitted Zoz. “It was not a very equal society back then. Males fought each other to the death and women, many unnamed and unmentioned in texts, did the weeping.”

“I don’t like the sound of that at all,” grunted Pul.

“But you wouldn’t, lad, would you?” almost smirked Zoz. “War is now illegal and punishable by the huge number of volts that I mentioned and populations are controlled by the Lozenge trajectory on Michaelmas, which makes a great deal more sense. Permits are earned by young delights like Els here, and when they choose the Michaelmas that best suits them and have a warmth in their regions, they choose a mate and have some fun!”

“And in the olden pre-history days they had that same kind fun all the time, whenever they chose?” asked Cun, frowning.

“They did, sweet maiden, but they paid the price in blood and tears, in pain and in huge graveyards where bones were allowed to turn to dust and their owners soon forgotten, along with millions of others. Names unrecorded, hopes and dreams eliminated. The pleasure, my young friends, and the price.”

“It’s better now,” shivered Cun, “when I choose Michaelmas it will be for ever.”

“Or a very long time,” agreed Zoz.

© Peter Rogerson 10.04.19