His skin tingled at his touch. He guided his hand lower . . . and lower still.
There.
He worked his hand up and down and closed his eyes.
Oh, yes. Right there.
He rubbed his belly, kneading its pillowy flesh, squeezing its prodigious skin folds. It had taken decades of concentrated effort to gain such solidity. He enjoyed the feel of its girth as much as he enjoyed the awe it inspired among the malnourished masses. His chamber, his palace, and his heft spoke of power, prestige, and wealth. No man in Daqin Guojin had more.
No man in Daqin Guojin wanted more, his wife used to say. She had a way of saying it that tread the line between admiration and disdain. That used to bother him, but no longer. She was dead, he was Unum, and he’d amassed more grooll than anyone in the history of the city-state . . . at least for now.
Daoren al Lucien could take it all away.
The Unum stilled his hand and opened his eyes.
Yes, why couldn’t he?
The Unum’s father had secured his son’s position as ruler thirty-one years ago through a—what had he called it?—an unparalleled investment in the Cognos Populi. He bought his son’s place as Unum Potentate, to put an indecorous spin on the transaction. In so doing, he ended three hundred-fifty unbroken years of Asianoid rule. His father hadn’t secured his legacy though; that task rested on his own broad, Slavvic shoulders.
He abandoned his belly and reached for the quantum tile beside the bench. He skimmed the prep-tests displayed on its screen for the third time. Gustar had relayed them through an intermediary proxy an hour ago. It wasn’t the first time he’d forwarded prep-tests, but it was the first time the Unum had demanded their verification. Gustar had done so. Twice.
Daoren had achieved perfect results on his last eight prep-tests.
Sha damn the boy’s eyes! Of all the prospects who could write a perfect S.A.T., why did it have to be Daoren al Lucien? And of all the edicts the old rulers of Daqin Guojin could have declared inviolate, why did it have to be the one guaranteeing any prospect who attained a perfect S.A.T. score the irrefutable right to become Unum Potentate?
Sha could damn their eyes, too.
The Unum sat up and swung his legs off the bench. The crystalline floor kissed the bare soles of his feet. A chill coursed up his legs and caressed his spine.
Perfect results.
Daoren had written his prep-tests remotely, Gustar relayed in his message. The data repository he used to identify suitable prospects for the test-manipulation scheme hadn’t captured the scores. The Librarian typically needed two months of preparation to switch S.A.T. scores between specific prospects. In this case he’d have thirty days. The Unum wasn’t sure how Gustar learned of the boy’s unprecedented scores or whether he could complete the preparations in time, but he knew this; if Daoren wrote a perfect S.A.T. and earned the right of Unum Potentate, he’d strip every ounce of grooll from—
Gigglesnicks filled the chamber.
Ten feet away, Narses and Julinian whispered like conspirators on a divan. Julinian tugged at Narses’ hair, teasing him. Narses protested with a pathetic screech.
The Unum spent a minute studying the pair. He hoped his son and niece weren’t engaging in improper behavior during their idle time. Interfamilial coitus wasn’t an unforgivable social taboo—the ever-draining pool of humanity made it impossible to avoid in some Chengs—but it wasn’t embraced either.
Julinian’s frequent disappearances from the Assembly gave him solace. She’d vanish for hours at a time and usually returned with a flushed glow. He wagered she was stealing time with a romantic partner in a sleeping chamber somewhere in Zhongguo Cheng. Narses never joined her, ruling him out as a lover.
Another wave of gigglesnicks and screeches drifted over from the divan. The Unum’s tolerance breached its limit. “Must you speak in whispers and carry on like little girls?” He pinned Narses with a needling stare. “I’d be far more comfortable with you becoming Unum if you exhibited one of the requisite qualities.”
The comment drew a classic pout, but the boy knew better than to argue. Julinian perked up at the rebuke.
His niece would make a far better ruler than his son, but she had the misfortune to be born to the wrong sibling. Still, the Unum had granted his younger brother’s dying wish and ensured his daughter didn’t perish in the grooll mill. In fact, he’d gone a step further, guaranteeing Julinian’s place in the Cognos Populi by arranging for her test results to be switched with another prospect whose prep-tests showed great promise. What Gustar al Vlodisar failed to divulge was the promising prospect’s name.
Sha could damn Gustar’s eyes as well! Thanks to his grievous oversight, a decent boy had been harvested and a decent man culled. For that there would be a reckoning.
The Unum scooped grooll from the urn beside the bench. He needed sustenance to soothe his stomach and energy to ponder the way forward. He foresaw two possible paths.
If he issued a cull order against Daoren before the S.A.T., he could mitigate the threat with one dagger stroke. Quick. Simple. Certain.
If he let the boy sit the test and had his score assigned to Narses, he could guarantee his son’s ascent to Unum Potentate. That would forego the need to buy his place and forever protect billions of pounds of grooll. Not so quick. Not so simple. Not so certain.
Which path to take depended on two unknowns; Daoren’s potential to write a perfect test, and Gustar’s ability to make the necessary preparations. The Unum loathed unknowns.
Pyros entered through the door leading from the outer chamber. He walked with his back hunched, a man burdened.
The Unum munched grooll and studied his Primae Jiren’s demeanor. Pyros had been more sullen than usual since culling Lucien and slower to respond to summons. Behavioral changes were never a welcome sign, and never more unwelcome than in men who held influential positions. He’d have to monitor him more closely.
Pyros halted before the bench and bowed from the neck.
“Well?” the Unum asked, picking his teeth with his thumbnail. “Did you locate him?”
“Yes. Daoren was bio-scanned entering the Librarium.”
The Unum stuffed another handful of grooll into his mouth. “When?”
“Four hours ago. There’s no evidence he’s left the grounds yet.”
“He has no tutor,” the Unum said, chewing. “Why would he go there?”
The last time he’d seen Daoren, the boy was tending to his mother at Lucien’s funeral. But before that, wasn’t he talking to Laoshi? The Primae Librarian was a friend of the family. The two might have been exchanging vapid condolences. Then again, Daoren shunned social niceties and they’d spoken at length. If it was any other prospect, he might have dismissed the interaction out of hand. Daoren, however, wasn’t like any other prospect.
The Unum swallowed. “I want him locked in your sights until he sits his S.A.T.”
“Jireni can’t enter the Librarium, Unum. By edict.”
Rasplaughter triggered undulating waves across the Unum’s belly. Pyros’ skills as a tactician far outstripped his skills as a political strategist. “Then divest a few Jireni of their titles before you send them onto the grounds. Dress them as Libraria.”
He glanced at the divan to make sure Narses had glommed the deft maneuver. Of course, the boy hadn’t, but Julinian appeared keen and attentive. The girl didn’t miss a trick.
The Unum snatched another handful of grooll and flung the pieces at his son. “Pay attention, boy! Do you see the qualities needed in an Unum?”
Narses nodded, more startled than engaged.
The Unum couldn’t be certain he understood. Pyros proved easier to read. He stiffened, as he was wont to do whenever he disagreed with the Unum’s decisions. What of it? He could be as stiff as ceramic armor for all the Unum cared. He wouldn’t dare disobey the order, not with his daughter’s S.A.T. approaching and her prep-tests so dismal.
“Another couple tarries in your outer chamber
for an audience,” Pyros said. “Shall I bring them in?”
The Unum folded his tunic closed, leaving his undergarments unbuttoned, and slipped his feet into his sandals. “In five minutes,” he said with a dismissive wave.
Pyros trudged toward the door, rounded spine bearing the ills of the sterile world.
Hushed gigglesnicks ebbed over from the divan. Narses’ emasculating screeches punctuated them.
The squabbling boiled the Unum’s blood. He hurled his tile.
It whizzed past Narses’ head and smashed into an urn. Shards of ceramic and pieces of grooll cascaded across the floor.
* * *
IN THE VOID, Daoren and Heqet stood upon the lumenglass panels, transfixed by a rotating plasmonic projection as large as the Temple. Laoshi tarried by the edge of the stage and let them gape. They’d need time to process what they were seeing.
What they were seeing transcended any frame of reference they possessed. The projection rendered a structure of irreducible complexity in exhaustive detail, but at a scale orders of magnitude smaller than its real-world counterpart. Two-hundred narrow platforms nestled in parallel, resembling the river-spanning suspension bridges of antiquity. Each was crowned with two-hundred ovoid pods that reminded Laoshi of the eggs of an extinct bird species; Turdus migratorius. A maze of transparent pipes undergirded the platforms, terminating in a series of open tanks at their base. Support cables criss-crossed the structure. Some cables tracked at shallow angles from the platforms to the floor beyond the tanks.
When Daoren and Heqet ripped their focus from the projection, Laoshi knew they were ready to hear the truth. “This marks a historic first,” he said. “No prospects have ever seen the grooll mill. Not even those unfortunate enough to fail the S.A.T. and end up in there see it with their own eyes.”
“Why’s that, Grandfather?”
“Because they’re stunned by electric shock before harvesting.”
Heqet’s eyes widened. Daoren’s gaze returned to the projection. He glowered, perhaps thinking of his brother’s fate.
“It’s better that way,” Laoshi said, hoping to ease Daoren’s mind. “In fact, it’s a kindness compared to the feeding method used by the mongrel colonies beyond our border.”
“What do you know of their methods?” Daoren asked.
Laoshi drew a weighty breath. “I fought in Havoc during the resource war, well before you were born.”
“You fought in the resource war?”
“I wasn’t always a Librarian, boy. And while I was in Havoc, I saw the breeding farms.”
“Breeding farms?” Heqet asked.
“Low structures framed in blackened nullglass that stretched to infinity,” Laoshi said, “in which women younger than you underwent artificial insemination to induce multiple births. Women whose gestation periods were genetically shortened to maximize production, who spent their miserable lives in cramped pens as they bred brood after brood.” He shuddered at the memory. “We called it Hope’s Graveyard. I’ll never forget the sound of tens of thousands of wailing infants destined for the slaughterchamber, not if I live another sixty-five years.”
Heqet paled. Her hands shot up to her mouth.
It pained him to illuminate this dark matter for her, but she deserved to know. Every prospect deserved to know what lay beyond the border . . . and within it. He motioned to the projection. “But in Daqin Guojin, our brightest minds spent generations perfecting the grooll-making process. A more humane, civilized process that initially relied on those who died of natural causes to feed the population, that is until—”
“Until it couldn’t keep pace with population growth,” Daoren said.
The boy’s candor impressed Laoshi. “That’s correct. And in time, those—”
“Those lacking technological ability came to be viewed as a drain on society,” Daoren interjected, “consuming a precious resource while contributing nothing in return. So the Cognos Populi came up with a solution two hundred years ago. They called it the S.A.T.”
Laoshi couldn’t contain his surprise. The roots of the S.A.T. had long been buried. Scrolls that discussed the subject, even in passing, had been locked to prospect access for close to thirty years. Daoren must have deduced the facts on his own.
“And in their infinite wisdom,” Daoren continued, “the Cognos Populi have kept raising the S.A.T.’s frequency and passing score in the centuries since.”
“All the more prospects to harvest,” Heqet said.
“Which means all the more currency to acquire and hoard.” Daoren leveled an accusing glare at Laoshi. “That’s the true cause of the grooll shortage, isn’t it?”
Laoshi marveled at Daoren’s insight. He was hearing his own thoughts, channeled through the mouth of a nineteen-year-old boy who didn’t even know the roots of his own existence. “The truth of the grooll shortage is that there should be no shortage,” he said. “The dietary requirements of Daqin Guojin’s inhabitants can be met with a ration of one pound per person per day. For a population of fifteen million, that works out to five-and-a-half billion pounds of grooll per year.”
“Five billion, four hundred seventy-five million pounds.”
Laoshi raised his eyebrows. Either Daoren had worked out the sum in advance or he performed the calculation in his head. Whichever was the case, it made another impression. “And do you know how much grooll is produced every year?”
Daoren shook his head.
“Five hundred-thousand prospects sit the test annually,” Laoshi said. “Half are harvested and processed into grooll precursor. On average, eighty pounds of precursor is derived from each failing prospect, which is then mixed with the silica substrate at a one-to-five-hundred ratio. How much does that yield?”
Daoren lifted his gaze to the rocky ceiling. He lowered it again after a few seconds. “Ten billion pounds.”
Laoshi smiled. The boy’s response clarified whether he’d calculated the previous sum on the spot. “Which means if we rationed grooll in equal measure to every inhabitant, we’d enjoy a surplus of more than four billion pounds every year.”
“But we don’t ration it equally,” Heqet said.
“No, child. The ruling caste accounts for eight percent of the population, but over fifty percent of the grooll ration. But taking unequal distribution into account, we should still have an annual surplus of two billion pounds.”
“Then why don’t we?” she asked. “Millions are starving throughout the city-state!”
“Because the surplus—and more—is being concentrated in the hands of a few wealthy elites,” Daoren said. “You don’t teach that in the Librarium, do you, Laoshi?”
“No, Daoren. In the Librarium, we teach that grooll is the answer to our petitions. We teach that the S.A.T. is a fair process because all prospects, regardless of wealth or lineage, must sit it. We teach that it’s a necessary adaptation for ensuring the survival of our species.”
Heqet’s brow crimped. “You don’t believe it anymore.”
Laoshi drew another weighty breath. He stopped believing it when her mother and father were taken from her, but she didn’t need to know that . . . not yet. “When grooll was just a food source, it may have been true. But now?”
“A minority amasses a fortune while the majority starves,” Daoren said.
“Sapient Sha,” Laoshi said. “If you only knew.”
13
A Staggering Sum
JID 736390-112489-ZC-SUP
PRIMAE JIREN’S EYES ONLY
SUBJECT: LAOSHI AL EUCLIDIUS
1. Gustar al Vlodisar has located two excavation tunnels leading into the void beneath the Temple. Both tunnels are intact and may allow undetected ingress into the site.
2. Gustar has indicated his willingness to investigate the subject’s subterranean activities. He is demanding 40,000 pounds of grooll in exchange for this service.
3. Though considerable, the sum reflects the intelligence value the investigation could provide. With your permissio
n, I will authorize the reward and task him to perform this service.
Survival Through Sapience.
Cang alum Aridian
District Commander, Zhongguo Cheng
* * *
THE UNUM SAT behind his desk, undergarments and tunic cinched and regal once again. Over by the divan, Pyros conversed with Narses and Julinian. That was unusual; the Primae Jiren always excused himself from these meetings and rarely deigned to speak to the pair. The Unum pricked up his ears, hoping to pick up pieces of their conversation, but the trio was out of earshot. He made a mental note to ask his son and niece about the topic.
“As I was saying, Unum, he’s a hardworking boy . . .”
The Unum brought his focus back to the Indonoid husband and wife—the couple seeking an audience—groveling before his desk. Their purple shenyi marked them as members of the ruling caste. The fabric’s cheap quality marked them as less-affluent members.
“. . . but our son doesn’t have the cognitive ability needed to pass the S.A.T.,” the husband continued. “Medical practitioners say it’s an attention deficit, but he’s smart. He could contribute to the city-state in many positive ways.” He cast a fretting glance at his wife. “We hoped we might come to an agreement.”
The wife clasped her hands before her chest. “Please, Unum, we beg of you.”
“No need to beg.” The Unum hoisted a crystal orb dangling from the Newton’s Cradle atop his desk. He let the orb drop, setting off its clacking pendulum motion. “A passing score will cost a minimum of five thousand pounds, but that’s all it is. It may not be high enough to confer any other rights or privileges. For ten thousand pounds, however, your son can secure a score that will also guarantee union, reproduction rights, a fulfilling vocation, and a private abode.”
“But, Unum,” the husband said, voice raised to compete with the cradle. “Daqin Guojin allots each of us one thousand pounds of grooll a year!”
“One thousand pounds each, hmm? You’re nano-engineers?”
Survival Aptitude Test: Sound (The Extinction Odyssey Book 1) Page 14
