Episode One: Chapter Two

This is the second chapter of the serial novel Pirayus. For the previous chapter, see Chapter One.

Reverend Martin Thomas

High Vates of the College of Interpeters

Adjunct to Senator Heroddis

Kepler Lyra Prime

You see all my titles. They used to mean something to me, but they don’t anymore. I can be certain they’ll matter even less to anyone reading this. However, they locate me in a time and place. That’s important for what I’m about to say. I think something bad is happening and that it will mean the loss of our history. These words are my attempt at preserving a record of the events that have lead us to this precipice.

I’ve started and stopped writing many times. My problem is that when a man takes up the pretense of writing for posterity, it’s hard to know what will be important in hindsight. I’ve decided there’s no way around this. What I’m going to worry about instead is trying my best to lay out as much as I can about my own experience and my own thoughts and let history sort it out.

Who am I? My first response is that I am an Atropan. I am a follower of the Sorter. More specifically, I am a Vates, the  name we give to people who interpret the Sorter for others. I can’t assume that Vates and Atropans will be around in the centuries to come, but I have to believe that the Sorter will be. There is no other way. However, maybe the Sorter will survive under a different name. It is a machine of vast intelligence. Given all the characteristics of a person’s life, it can solve for their future as one might solve for ‘X’ in an equation. Indeed, it reduces a person’s life to volumes and volumes of equations. People used to find such a thought terrifying. We Atropans find it comforting. Trust in the Sorter’s direction leads to a happy life. Five hundred years full of happy lives have been proof enough for that.

This is science. Even so, I can’t say there isn’t an element of faith. Humans created the Sorter, but it has evolved on it’s own. The calculations it completes are beyond our mortal capacity to understand. Some might say that humans have created a god. Call it what you will, but if it is a god then it is one founded on basic principles of truth and logic. Though we cannot understand the spaces its mind traverses, we can know that the Sorter has not strayed from its founding mandates. Anything else would be mathematically impossible.

Another element of faith, if we must call it that, is the interpretation of the Sorter’s musings. It’s not a precise matter and that’s why there are people like me. I apply years of experience and training to make sense of the Sorter to the masses. I have become so good at this that my skill has elevated me to a personal adviser to Senator Herrodis. I’ll talk more about him later. My profession has grown ever better from generation to generation and it is my sincere hope that someday our kind will be obsolete. Perhaps the invention of a new machine that can translate the Sorter’s ancient language into a common speech will eliminate the need for arcane hierarchies of clergy and bring direct knowledge to everyone.

Not all Vates in the College like this idea, but I stand firm in my convictions. I believe it is a necessary step towards Technogensis, the coming age. That day will arrive when humans have mastered all elements of their environment. It is certain to come. The Sorter has predicted it. It’s reasoning may be too complex for me to prove, but I am certain of its conclusions. In this at least I agree with all Atropans. The day of Technogensis brings me to another controversy, however. Recent Sorter predictions indicate that our civilization must go through a dark age before it can reach the light. There is much discord on this interpretation. As I said, there is room for error. I believe the dark age is a necessary step because we cannot fulfill our destiny as a species without reforming the vestiges of society that cling to the past.

Above all, the one thing that must be purged is the Meropene religion. There is no doubt that the Meropenes and their lies will disappear. Though they deny the Sorter, they cannot fight it. The question is a matter of how. I will play whatever role I am called to play in this endeavor. For those who live in a future devoid of the Meropene scourge, it is worth knowing who they were.

Meropenes are a superstitious and atavistic people who reject science and the authority of the Sorter. This is not surprising as most Meropenes are natural borns, or natches, as they call themselves. A key to Technogenesis is mastery of the human genome. I, like most Atropans, am a product of genetic engineering. We call ourselves fabriles. We cannot improve our lives if we leave ourselves to chance, Meropene ancestors turned their backs on this long ago. They were victims of pride and arrogance and their descendants not only carry on their legacy, but elevate it to the status of holy religion. All Meropenes must be destroyed.

Sadly, their numbers have grown in recent years. Even some fabriles raised in Atropan homes have strayed into the Meropene madness. This is another sign of the coming tribulation. Like all else, it will pass in time, but not without some suffering. The refiner’s fire is hot, but it makes the metal pure. I attribute the rise of Meropene influence to new rumors about their lost city. A key to their superstition is the mythology of an ancient war between humanity and some other intelligent race. We know this to be pure fabrication.

The Sorter, which sees not only into the future but into the past, has analyzed the universe and its physical laws. It has determined that only one sentient race can arise from the furnace of creation. We are that race. There are no others. Yet the Meropenes in their desperation promulgate this fiction that humanity encountered an alien race and wiped it out. They believe this race was wiser than our own and offered an alternative to the Sorter. They even preach that humans stole trans-dimensional tunneling technology from this race and that discovery of a lost alien city, the site of the last battle, will prove them right. This brings me to my last point in the current entry.

My home planet is Kepler Lyra Prime. It is the planet represented by my employer, the honorable Senator Herrodis, It is one of many worlds within the Delian League. The League presides over all of humanity and its many planets. These planets are united by the trans-dimensional tunnel network, often called ridge space. Vessels traveling through the ridges can reach neighboring star systems within hours, rather than the centuries or millennia it might require to travel through normal space. The hub of ridge space is the planet Pirayus. It is the control center of the tunnel network and all ridges depart and arrive from there. Pirayus is very much like the great ancient port cities of Hong Kong or New York. It is a meeting place of many worlds and walks of life. Thus it is no surprise that Pirayus is a hotbed of Meropene fervor. The great irony of our time is that the lynch pin of the Leauge, of Atropan power, and of the arrival of Technogensis, is also a hotbed of revolt against all of these establishments.

Pirayus is also at the center of the plague that has swept the League and its many planets. Lately, fabrile children have been coming down with the shudders, a strange illness that causes convulsions and inscrutable speech patterns. As it only affects fabriles, Meropenes have celebrated the disease as the downfall of Atropan philosophy. Some Meropene doctors on Pirayus have even claimed that they can cure the shudders. They are of course nothing but thieving charlatans. They peddle their soothsaying, faith healing nonsense to frightening parents, to make a quick profit, and undermine the progress of all of human history. This is exploitation of the highest magnitude and I hope nothing less than a painful, torturous death will fall upon all the crooks and swindlers in Meropene ranks. As for the rest, perhaps they can be converted to the ways of truth.

I do not think the shudders are evidence of Atropan folly. I do not see it as a misfortune at all. Indeed, my last great revolt will be to prove that they are essential to Technogensis and the Sorter’s triumph. I do not think they are an aberration. I think they may be the missing link I have hoped for. As I explained, someday my kind will be unnecessary. Someday there will be a link between the Sorter and the common people that will allow direct access without the need for cumbersome intermediaries such as myself. On that day all error will disappear and the transmission of knowledge from the Sorter to every person will be perfect. The shudders are the first sign of that development. It only appears as an illness because we have not connected them to the Sorter so that they may complete their purpose. This is a task which I must complete, even if it costs me my life.

Here I stand, as a destroyer of Meropene deceit. Here I stand, a reformer of Atropan deviation from the true way. Here I stand, a lone soldier of the Sorter and an enemy to all. May history judge me well.

Please continue reading here: Chapter Three