12. THE KING'S LESSON

More facts about Terraful

Zoz glared at his students, unhappy that five had become only three in such a short time. It wasn’t his fault, it couldn’t be, he was the most caring perfectoid. One of the oldest, one of those with the deepest knowledge, whose tendrils of thought wormed their way past obstacle after obstacle until they reached the very root of things, and then more. And it was time, now, for his three remaining students to learn from that great reservoir of learning and, maybe though unlikely, become almost as wise as him.

So he coughed and got their attention. Three sets of eyes looked up at him, and he could tell they were disturbed. Maybe they had heard of the insanity of Cun, that special, beautiful fem with too much sensitivity for this brave new age of humanity. He missed her, even if no-one else did. There must, he reasoned, have been a little bit of that human instinct for lust left in his android brain.

He rather hoped there was. It felt good.

But to the lesson. This lesson.

He coughed again.

“Students,” he began, “in our search for our roots we come to the rule of kings. For a long age the land was unoccupied by any living creature with the ability to form complex societies, societies that demanded a hierarchy. Until, that is, the hominids.” He smiled thinly. “That’s us, or our ancestors,” he added.

“What’s that got to do with us living here on Terraful today?” asked Din, scowling.

“Everything!” snapped Zoz. “As soon as mankind evolved a hierarchy with some people, either by luck, judgement or ability, more capable of forming plans and creating visions, there had to be a leader. A ruler. One who, and this was probably very selfish but it worked, assumed the ownership of everything. We know, in these later years, that every member of our society has an equal right to the land on which he was born and on which he lives. No man or fem has a greater right than any other, yet when the age of kings dawned, those kings assumed the ownership of everything. This was a bad thing because it enabled them to reward their favourites by giving them land that, in all decent societies, was already theirs by right of birth!”

“And the people, the masses, allowed this?” asked Els.

“They more than allowed it, they rewarded it,” sighed Zoz. “It was this breed of kings, for instance, who formed liaisons with other kings and, inevitably, fell out with them, causing a proliferation of wars that marred human society for millennia. But it was not they who fought in those wars. Oh no, unless they could lead an army to a predictable victory, with personal safety guaranteed. No, the young men, mostly men rather than fems, were marshalled into armies and it was they who suffered death or injury, and always with the same message on their dying lips, that they were sacrificing themselves for their country. For their land, which, by our standards, they already owned!”

“It was a c**k-eyed way of going about things,” grunted Pul, frowning.

“So where does that relate to us?” asked Din. “We have no king, no queen, no emperor. There are just we people, and the lands are ours, for what they’re worth, though in all honesty they’re not worth very much!”

“True enough, Din,” murmured Zoz, “and as you say we do not have a king or ruler protecting us, a human being with the power of life and death over us. And yes, that’s what the kings of old, right up to the Trumpster and his nightmares, had. The power of life and death over what they looked on as lesser people. Yet decisions are made. We live here according to rules set down by the Wise Council, and that Wise Council has been at the head of things since the Great Chaos.”

“Impossible!” interrupted Din, “No man can have lived that long before being sent to the vats at Farmer Ted’s farm!”

“Who said we are ruled by a man?” asked Zoz softly.

“Not a perfectoid? Like you?” asked Els.

Zoz shook his head. “Not that either,” he said, and they might have noted the regretful tone of his voice when he uttered those three words. “I am as mortal as you lot,” he added, “though my memory vaults can be upgraded from time to time, and are. But my flesh is derived from human flesh, and like human beings I age, slowly, but move towards a final end with an unpleasant remorseless determination!”

“So who makes the rules? Who cares for us when we sleep or play our games?” demanded Din.

“The Wise Council is in charge,” smiled Zoz, “and the Wise Council is no man. Not at all. But it is an eye that sees everything, an ear from which no word is silenced, a mouth that knows the taste of every flavour under the many suns of the galaxy. For the Wise Council is not a thing of flesh and blood and bones and stuff like that. It is a self-replicating, self-repairing machine, and it rules over us invisibly and carefully and, they say, with love in its mechanical heart.”

“We owe allegiance to a mechanoid?” gasped Els, “a thing of iron and steel and with an electric heart?”

“Indeed. It is our ruler. Our king. Our queen … it has no gender … and because of its wisdom it knows one thing above all others: humans like to play deep and tantalizing games with reach other, and it encourages a huge amount of what used to be called eroticism among the young at heart. You see, without wars to fight, without work to be done, without days to be occupied, the only thing left is play, and you are all supposed to play and play and play your lives away.”

“You mean, that’s all there is?” asked Els.

“Why, didn’t you know? Couldn’t you tell?” asked Zoz, his eyes twinkling. “I’ve seen some of the games you like to play and they’re really… really rather ….”

“Disgusting!” snapped Els, “and now I know the truth I’ll never play again!”

“You’ll join Cun in the asylum then,” smirked Zoz, “they all end up in the asylum sooner or later, but it’s best to make it later. Enjoy your life first!”

“For what?” asked Pul, “there has to be a purpose.”

“For Michaelmas,” suggested Zoz, “and a new generation.”

“But why? If we were on a road it would have to go somewhere, and from what I can see there is no direction to life.”

“Other than down,” added Els.

Din scowled his deepest scowl. “We’d be better off in the age of kings,” he said, “with wars to be fought, and victory if we win, or death if we lose. We’re going to die anyway, sooner or later anyway.”

“All of us,” comforted Zoz.

© Peter Rogerson 22.04.19