Dadr'Ba

by Tetsu'Go'Ru Tsu'Te

  Chapter 26, P’Ko’s Graduation

  Gi’Ya[72] watched the graduation ceremony on the large display panel from her office in the administrative office structure adjacent the Church. Soon the initiates will be escorted over from the stadium.

  There’s plenty of time to walk the short distance to greet them and begin the Ceremony. She tried to remember how many Ceremonies she’s conducted. It has to be close to eight-hundred, the figure made her head swim, that’s a lot. It might actually be eight-hundred exactly, but in the early days, the ceremonies weren’t nearly as organized as they are today. Their ceremonies were conducted on an as needed basis, often with small groups. Which made it almost impossible to put a number to the ceremonies she’s performed.

  She could probably come up with a number, but it would take more time accessing and processing the data than she had available right now. Besides, the number would be meaningless, the Church has, if not officially adopted, cooperated with the CA prohibition against backward looking. There’s logic to it; the past is never actually recoverable and what impact would knowing exactly how many ceremonies she’s conducted have on the present, none. Dwelling on the past wastes processing cycles, and power that could be spent on things that are more useful.

  As a rule, each class of initiates has included a few interesting characters, and based on the CA’s report and the Church’s records this class is no exception. Gi’Ya scanned the reports; the CA report contained the medical and school records as well as psychiatric evals and notable surveillance summaries. She didn’t trust the CA report, over the years, there are numerous occasions that she’s found discrepancies in the report, various truncations, glaring omissions and deletions and not so frequent fabrications of information and all for no apparent rational purpose.

  Gi’Ya supposed it wasn’t much different than the “editing” routinely performed on the records the Church supplies to the CA. The Church’s official report is comprised of the entire genealogy, including retirement records, birth records, church service attendance; notes, on the other hand, may or may not make it into the official report provided to the CA. There is an entire sub-database of information that’s covered under the innocuous title “miscellaneous notes” that only select church officials can access.

  For this Initiation/Coming-of-Age Ceremony, Gi’Ya’s attention was alerted to be watchful of a certain individual by her old friend, Mi’Ka. Mi’Ka had sent Gi’Ya a psychic note to be watchful of P’Ko. He’s not dangerous or threatening, not like some of the miscreant, spoiled D’En’s, that take extra effort, pampering, coaching and coaxing to ensure they survive the ceremony.

  Gi’Ya manipulated the display and zoomed in on P’Ko sitting near but not among the top third of the class. She glanced down at her tabletop and scanned P’Ko’s CA record. Slow learning to walk and talk, slightly above average academically, but comments indicate he didn’t apply himself very hard, had some conflicts with some upperclassman as a Ko’Ka, and early his To’Ta years, but that passed, lately he seems to have gotten along with his peers. Introverted, average IQ, analytical, little psychic ability, but nearly all the evaluated areas have an abnormally wide probability of error.

  Then she spotted within the report P’Ko’s mentor, Z’Shi, using one of her aliases. It’s odd that she’s his mentor, she very rarely mentors men, preferring to mentor women in the art of satisfying a man and the even finer art of satisfying other women or themselves. Z’Shi had gathered a sort of posse of acolytes, some mated some not, but all practitioners of Z’Shi’s art and doing quite well.

  Gi’Ya knew Mi’Ka had to have something to do with Z’Shi being P’Ko’s mentor; she would have to ask Mi’Ka about that the next rare occasion they were able to meet in person.

  Most unusual was P’Ko’s choice of profession, a T’Bm Me’K, (Tunnel Boring Machine Mechanic) a Mi’Nr’s job. He must be only the second or third U’Te ever to volunteer and could be the only one actually accepted into a Mi’Nr’s profession. Not just a Mi’Nr’s profession but one that is the leading edge of Mi’Nr’s professions, maintaining the T’Bm’s.

  This could be a first, in spite of the equal rights to occupation declaration the CA was forced into making centuries ago. So far the CA has successfully discouraged, arranged or pressured possible U’Te candidates against picking a Mi’Nr’s job or selected them for an alternate career choice mandated not to be the same job class as your first choice, and from a job class of your native race.

  Gi’Ya thought back to the protests, the work slowdowns, (forbidden to be called strikes), by mostly U’Te’s (the numerical majority) but supported by the Bo’R’s. Gi’Ya knew of no D’En that publicly supported the movement. The Church slowly, reluctantly, gave a passive endorsement to the equal rights to profession movement, mostly by staying neutral.

  Gi’Ya glanced up at the screen on the wall and exploded into action simultaneously zooming back and panning away from P’Ko. He had been staring at her, or rather, at the camera, her heart pounding; she wondered how long P’Ko had been looking her direction. As she recovered her wits, she directed her screen back towards P’Ko, panning not too close and pausing on P’Ko for only for a moment.

  This time, P’Ko was looking at, and seemed attentive to, the speaker’s podium. The speaker was finishing, the graduates would soon be standing, going up and getting their personal recognition certificates and new name-profession access badges.

  ____________________________

  The eerie feeling that someone was watching him came over P’Ko, and he looked in the direction the feeling was coming from. At first, he thought that it was Su’Zi, Su’Zi, not liking to go to Nu’Tn; she was probably watching the broadcast from Ol’Tn. As close and emotionally tied to him as she was, she was still uncomfortable going to Nu’Tn.

  P’Ko continued to look up in the direction he sensed the attention was coming from, and focused his attention there, trying to feel if it was Su’Zi and send her a psychic message. Almost immediately, he felt a wave of panic and glanced quickly around himself, looking for the threat, but as suddenly as it appeared the feeling passed.

  He could tell it wasn’t Su’Zi and tried casting his thoughts to her, he got a warm supporting feeling from Su’Zi. Su’Zi had been watching and waiting for his psychic reach.

  P’Ko watched as the last of the speeches concluded and the graduates started to file up, each in turn after the announcement of their name and job and any significant awards. Each graduate proceeded on stage, shook hands with the officials and collected their new name-profession access badge then filed back to their seats.

  When P’Ko’s turn came, P’Ko had no significant awards; the announcer only announced his job. A dead calm passed over the crowd, and then slowly, starting with just a few or possibly only one, the applause grew and spread until nearly the whole stadium was applauding. The applause continued, causing a delay in the ceremony and only stopped when P’Ko returned to his seat.

  After the last graduate had got back to their place and a final applause. P’Ko, and the rest the graduates filed out of the stadium. A small crowd had formed just outside the stadium as he and the other graduates came out.

  He was surprised to spot Su’Zi in the gathering. Upon recognition, she placed her palm upon her chest, then raised her hand to her cheek acting as though she was wiping a tear from her face. She followed with her hand palm out toward him indicating that he didn’t need to nor should respond in the same way.

  P’Ko knew this was part of a special salutation between Mi’Nr’s and also a special message to him. He felt flattered and honored to be recognized as a Mi’Nr and to be cared for by Su’Zi.

  P’Ko did his best to send the psychic equivalent back to Su’Zi, and he wasn’t sure he got it right. Whether he got it right or not, he didn’t need to feel her psychic response, although he did, her broad smile said it all.

  The graduates filed out to an open area just outside the stadium and were greeted by a Church Elder,
as a group of soldiers formed a cordon around them. P’Ko couldn’t tell whether the soldiers provided protection, an honor guard, or prisoners guard. They escorted the graduates the short distance to the Church; they followed the Church Elder into the Church accompanied by several Church Ushers that had been waiting for them outside the Church. None of the soldiers entered the Church.

  ____________________________

  Gi’Ya watched as the initiates filed into the ceremony chamber after the last had entered, relieved that Church grounds are off limits to Soldiers.

  Gi’Ya doesn’t like soldiers, these autonomous or semi-autonomous robots, exceedingly powerful, durable and deadly. There’s no threat on all of Dadr’Ba that justifies such a creation, programmed for a function or a goal by the CASS and incapable of deviation. A single soldier run amok, unopposed by other soldiers could probably kill everyone aboard Dadr’Ba. Such things have no place here.

  Soldiers have been known to “accidentally” kill people. Striking or crushing them either by reflex; (they’ve been programmed to take defensive action at the first hint of attack or feigned attack) or inadvertently activating a preprogrammed defensive posture with no regard to who or what is around them.

  Young Ko’Ka’s and naive To’Ta’s were particularly vulnerable, the initiates here today are old enough to know better than to attempt a tease let alone a taunt of these mindless killing and maiming machines.

  The CASS insisted on “supporting” the graduation and ToG ceremony by providing “escorts.” They made it sound in the beginning like it would add to the grandeur and prestige of the moment. However, Gi’Ya had always thought that it had more to do with creating a visual reminder to all that the CA is everywhere and is in control of everything. Gi’Ya knew full well that everything within eye and earshot of these mindless brutes makes its way back to the CASS for analysis and exploitation.

  The Church manages to restrict the presence of the soldiers; they are a distraction, and their presence interferes with the psychic aspects of church business. The psychic aspect is the core of retirement and procreation on Dadr’Ba, without which Dadr’Ba itself would die. Therefore, the Church successfully restricts soldiers from access to church grounds or offices.

  The initiates filed into the old chapel, which was actually below the street level of the current Ol’Tn. This had been one of the original gathering places of the Touch of God survivors, and where many died.

  Over the years, this ceremony has become well-coordinated and controlled. A room like this exists in all the sectors. This social and religious rite of passage must be identical for everyone.

  The only ones to escape or avoid the ToG Ceremony, have either died, having no chance at an afterlife passing a part of themselves to their descendants. Or are outlaws or outcasts, they’re the “unclean”, who are who are supposed to be hunted by the CA and eliminated. To the Churches, disappointment many outlaws and outcasts hide out in the back alleys and outskirts of Ol’Tn’s where the CA has little presence. There, unless they make trouble, they are ignored, avoided or reviled, perhaps for the better, a fate worse than death.

  Since The Touch of God, the Chosen have built Nu’Tn’s in each of the sectors with modern larger improved quarters and gathering places. Though, in a higher radiation area, the Touch of God survivors and their descendants have the gift of a much higher tolerance for radiation. The preserved the lower chapels, like this one as memorial’s and modified them to serve the critical function of today’s ceremony.

  Gi’Ya spotted P’Ko immediately and watched him carefully as he took his seat. P’Ko didn’t seem to pay too much attention to her, being more interested in, as most of the others were, the surroundings.

  P’Ko listened attentively, as Gi’Ya gave her introductory speech, he and the others showed no indication they knew what was going to happen. At the appointed moment, Gi’Ya left and went behind the stage and watched on monitors as she got that all clear from the ushers, charged the system and pressed the switch.

  The initiates jerked, muscles in contraction, then twisted, and doubled over, many vomited, despite the warning against eating or drinking, and then as the charge dissipated collapsed to the floor in convulsions.

  Gi’Ya and the ushers strolled slowly back around the curtains within view of the stage. The sound of retching had stopped, replaced by slowly receding spasms, coughing and choking. Then all was quiet as the initiates entered coma, beginning their journeys, as the acrid smell of stomach contents, filled the room.

  The waiting began, it will take several hours, perhaps longer for all the initiates to recover and based on Gi’Ya’s evaluation, she expected one, not P’Ko but this other one near P’Ko, to die. This one, which had low cognitive scores and only average circulatory function, should pass quickly into oblivion.

  Gi’Ya noticed that upon shock this one had gone immediately into the eyes wide and fluttering, arched back, stiff armed and legged, posture of pre-death strained-rigor-mortis. Symptoms, indicating a total cognitive break, instead of the cognitive arrhythmia and convulsions that the shock is designed to induce.

  Once all of this one’s energy is spent, it will go flaccid and limp, lifeless, voided, an empty container that once held the hope of everlasting life for its parents and grandparents. She could sense its pain, like a massive cognitive muscle cramp, but a thousand times worse. It took an effort to close her mind to this one’s pain, but it should subside soon. As for the other initiates, they are lost in their universes, oblivious to this one’s pain, and each other’s struggles. It will take an hour or more for even the first of them to find their way.

  Gi’Ya not willing to remain and watch the dying one, turned back around the curtain and closed her mind to wait out the last moments, the ushers clearly distraught by the scene followed suit.

  It bothered Gi’Ya significantly. Waiting for death, death with no passing, saddening but not the mortal sin of the death of an adult member of Dadr’Ba society.

  As with others in the past, the death of this youth is God’s work, God’s choice, viewed by the Church as the same choice that was made over eight-hundred years ago, when God choose who was worthy of survival and who wasn’t.

  Finally, Gi’Ya cautiously opened her mind and sensing the pain of the dying one was gone, she walked out around the corner of the curtains within sight of the initiates and froze. She couldn’t believe her eyes, or her mind, she didn’t know what to do, in all of her eight-hundred-plus years she had never seen this, there’s no precedent and no protocol what to do.

  P’Ko was awake and kneeling next to the initiate who should have died. The dying one lay relaxed, no longer in the pain arched pre-death strained-rigor-mortis, breathing even and regular, the posture of those seeking their way, P’Ko sat back as Gi’Ya rushed forward.

  “What did you do?” Gi’Ya exclaimed in a harsh whisper straining to keep from screaming.

  “Ne needed help, ne was dying.” Said P’Ko emphatically.

  “How did you know; how did you do this?” pressed Gi’Ya in the same harsh whisper but without the underlying scream.

  P’Ko, uncertainly, “I’ve… I’ve been there; I’ve been lost before.”

  “Just now? But there wasn’t time; you couldn’t have!” said Gi’Ya trying to understand what had just happened, trying to figure out how P’Ko did the impossible.

  “No, before.”

  “Get away!” Gi’Ya commanded, loud enough to startle the ushers standing nearby. None of the rest of the initiates had yet recovered, she pointed to a spot on the far corner of the stage, apart from the rest. P’Ko still on his knees scooted over to the place indicated, away from the one he had just helped.

  Gi’Ya for an instant wished she there was a soldier nearby; her first impulse was to have it take this abomination away; she didn’t know where but just away. She wasn’t fearful of P’Ko, she sensed no threat or maliciousness from P’Ko, but she was scared, terrified of what this would lead to and what the consequences w
ill be.

  P’Ko had just unknowingly shattered one of the Churches commandments, and it was her fault.

  “Sit there, face that way and don’t move, don’t do anything,” Gi’Ya commanded. P’Ko puzzled, sat quietly, cold, hungry, wet with and smelling of vomit, gazed off in the direction indicated dejected and wondered.

  P’Ko didn’t know what he’d done wrong; he had, contrary to his nature acted on impulse when he saw the young initiate dying. P’Ko wasn’t fully recovered from the shock himself, and hadn’t yet regained all of his pre-touch (shock) memory. When he saw the dying one, he acted on impulse. He saw and felt the initiates excruciating pain and the underlying drift towards the abyss of death. The initiate only needed a little help to relax, thereby slowing down the spin just enough to recognize nir’s center, a prerequisite necessary to spot the distant star that would guide their way out.

  Slowly, Gi’Ya reclaimed her composure and began cautioning the initiates as they recovered against helping the others still finding their way, doing her best to ignore P’Ko.

  Gi’Ya searched for a way out of this debacle; it may be that P’Ko had, technically, Gi’Ya hoped, not violated the prohibition against helping someone find their way, but only kept the initiate from dying, then let them find their way. The initiate, though more slowly than all the others, looked on the right path. Perhaps P’Ko had only prevented the initiate from dying outright. This is sure to create a stir within the Church. If condemned, what would the penalty be? Or if accepted how it would settle against all those like this one that the Church has let die in the past? Gi’Ya didn’t know what the outcome would be.

  There had been, thankfully, rarely, Touch of God Ceremony compromises, but due to the nature of the event, prior knowledge had little actual impact on the ceremony, the charge used to induce the experience far exceeded that necessary to cause temporary memory loss. Advance knowledge about what to expect did nothing to help initiates find their way because, theoretically, if the charge is calculated right, the knowledge is unavailable during the ceremony.