14. ZOZ'S LESSON

Teacher Zoz decides to rebel...

Zoz couldn’t believe his biological brain nor any of the silicon add-on components which retained copious modules that covered everything pre-Great Chaos, of which there was more than an adequate supply of tidbits.

The Wise Council had issued a command, and that command went against everything he had believed to be the essence of life on any planet, and particularly on Terraful. And the message had come to him as he waited in a vestibule for an audience with the Wise Council.

Two of his students had, for two completely discrete reasons, been sentenced to the Asylum, the dreariest pit on the planet and one that was reserved only for those who were mentally unstable to the point of being a danger to society as a whole and only kept alive because of the sacred nature of life.

Was Cun a danger, just because she rebelled against the diet imposed on the citizens by necessity? And Fil? Was she a danger because an old Priest had suffered a fatal heart attack as a consequence of coupling with her? That’s what he had been doing, wasn’t it? Coupling in the old fashioned sense with her. And wasn’t that why she was there? Wasn’t that the one aspect of life that kept the people happy?

And now he had to destroy his two most precious students. Orders from the Wise Council were clear. They were bellowed at him.

Destroy then…

But Zoz was wiser than that, he told himself. His memories and the vast array of attachments that preceded them told him one thing: that the Wise Council was wrong. Yes, the thought was unthinkable, but not impossible. And if it was wrong it needn’t be obeyed. The Trumpster had taught the ancients that much because the Trumpster was so wrong when he had declared that humanity could do what it liked in its pursuit of wealth and excess, and no harm would come.

Harm had come. The environment on the home planet had been reduced to the point of its inability to support life. People in their millions had choked or burned or done both, to death. And from that chaos had emerged the simple rule, that life should be preserved at all costs and future incarnations of the Trumpster should be obliterated before they threatened the survival of a people already verging on extinction.

And to Zoz it now seemed that the Wise Council would seem to be emulating the worst decisions made by that ancient tyrant.

Zoz must not obey!

So he turned his magnetic car round and raced as fast at would take him back to the University and its narrow entrance that led down into the long passages and lecture rooms and great villages of personal accommodation with the games rooms all set out with fluffy mattresses and aromatic sheets. As he drove along he had just enough human DNA left to him to regret the amputation of lust from his instincts.

But that wasn’t bothering him at the moment. All he was really concerned about was the survival of his students, particularly the two that had been ill-served by the systems in place on Terraful. It seemed wrong to him that young fems should find themselves at odds with the world they lived on and the society that was already being established there.

His three students were in the lecture room, waiting for him and deep in a somewhat heated conversation that became suddenly silenced as he entered. He recognised the atmosphere as being different, somehow, to what he usually experienced when he burst in. It was too muted, yet with an undertone of anger that was almost tangible.

He coughed.

That was the first time he’d ever done that in order to draw attention to his presence, particularly as all three sets of eyes were on him already.

“Students,” he said in a deep, thoughtful voice, most unlike the usual tone he adopted for lessons, “students, we have a problem.”

They’d never had a problem before, at least not the sort that was announced by teacher Zoz like that, and the atmosphere changed to include an undertone of the scarily uncomfortable.

“What is it?” asked Din at length.

“I have disobeyed the Wise Council,” said Zoz, plainly and without any attempt at embellishment. “I have been ordered to go against my most basic instincts and destroy your colleagues, the fems Fil and Cun. That I will not do.”

The room almost exhaled with the three students in a sigh of relief.

“We heard that there was trouble,” explained Els, “and that our friends were part of it. What is afoot, sir?”

They didn’t call him sir very often. In fact Els had never called him sir before. Zoz noted that and appreciated the deeper meaning behind it, for it must surely be more than a version of respect.

“We know of Cun and her food allergy...” he began. He knew that it wasn’t an actual allergy, a physical reaction to her diet, but it was as good as that. It was emotional. It even went deeper than that.

“She will die if she doesn’t eat,” murmured Pul, “and that is bad, for the rumour is said to be true, that our population is already declining to a point beyond which we will not survive. Cun must eat.”

“And Fil,” added Els, “she was having a game with an elderly Priest, and I heard it was too much for him and he … passed on.”

“Both of those are true,” whispered Zoz, not wanted to be overheard by whatever devices might be monitoring him, “and I wish to address you on the subject of plans, but not in here, not where my words are being monitored. Come, I will take you outside.”

“Outside? To the blue savannah?” gasped Els.

“Sshh, and yes,” whispered Zoz, “now come, and speedily. We have reached a point in time that Perfectoids such as myself have feared for a long time. You see, we are students of the past and know that if we don’t learn from the mistakes made over the long history of our race then there is no chance for any decent future. It has always been like that, from the earliest Flintstone years, through those of the Trumpster and his machinations, even to the present.”

“And what is the lesson we must learn?” asked Els as they trooped out, past Zoz’s magnetic car and towards an almost hidden elevator that would take them to the surface.

“We must learn,” breathed Zoz, “that life is precious, especially human life, and must not be sacrificed without a good reason. Now this way, and swiftly, for I fear that the Wise Council is trailing us even as we make haste!”

© Peter Rogerson 24.04.19