The Apolai Word and the Rise of the Apolai Guild

The Chaos of Religions greatly reduced the power and influence of the hundreds of guilds on Andros.

Many of the smaller guilds either allied themselves with the forces of Primus or the forces of the Arkmedius, and resulting in wholesale inter-guild bloody street wars in the many guild cities. Old guild rivalries played into the politics of the war, and flared into open conflicts. At the very least, guilds sought to protect themselves in numbers, sided one way or another.

Larger guilds often split or fragmented into smaller factions, based almost entirely upon geography, as guild cities locked themselves down.

In this time, there were no Apolai's on Andros. The only way to program computers was by keypad input. Machines were silent, except for the noise of their engines.

Though Drayann seized power ultimately, the Primus inherited a broken world, with nearly half of the planet in ruins, the atmosphere poisoned, and all survivors sealed up in domed cities.

With the construction of the city domes and the end of Religions, a brand new problem was encountered in Androsian science. With over five billion population living in the cities, the domed cities must be carefully constructed to account for the necessities. Power must be generated. Water and air must be purified, which takes power. Food must be grown, which required power, water, and air. Contamination level must be carefully regulated. Broken systems must be shut down immediately, backup systems must be turned on, repairs must be done quickly. Waste must be minimized. And on top of all that, there is an ever growing need to expand the city domes to accomodate the growing population. Though computers could control the systems, they were prone to their own problems. Greater the number of computers, greater the size of the computer, more likely an error would occur unnoticed. And in such critical systems, one small error could kill millions of people.

At first, the cities managed the best they could with old methods of human logistic controls, but this was costly, as manpower used accounted for substantial portion of guilds' operating budget. Economic growth of the planet was stagnating, and unemployment was rising. To put it simply, the guilds were bankrupting themselves in running the domed cities.

At this time, the Martial Primus had received supreme authority from Drayann. Part of this responsibility was the control of the capitol city of Androstadt. During the war, Androstadt was largely abandoned, and had no dome over it. The Martial Primus sought to dedicate a new dome over Androstadt to allow for the city to be livable again. It was to be over twenty times the size of other city domes on the planet. In planning for the new Androstadt domed city, he encountered the same logistic problem, that it would simply cost too much manpower to monitor and control the dome's sytems. Though the Geners and the Archgeners were numerous. They were far better used to quell the remaining insurgents on the planet, and to maintain security and power for the Primus. The initial projections indicated that the operating budget of the city for 10 Kalian cycles would exceed the construction cost of the dome.

The Martial Primus in desperation issued a decree to the public: Whomever can build a logistic control system to do the same job at a fraction of the cost would get the constract of construction and the equal amount in bonus.

For nearly five helio cycles, no guild bid could come lower than the cost of construction, and Androstadt laid unprotected, unrebuilt.

Then a mysterious man came before the Primus in answering the decree. He claimed that he could design the control system.

When asked of which guild did he belong to, the man answered, "the Guild Apolai".

It was a guild name never heard before.

When asked of how many man would he require to control the domed city, the man replied, "one Apolai to program, and one Apolai to upgrade."

The Guild advisors to the Primus did not believe in such a claim, and asked for proof.

The man said, "I heard of Guild Sirus rebuilding the dome city of Remastadt. I can give the design of the new computer system to their builders and then demonstrate it by bringing it online."

After all was negotiated, Primus agreed to the demonstration with some guarantees of compensation to Guild Sirus if its dome city was damaged in any way.

The man left the design to the Primus, and went away.

He did not come back until the day Remastadt's dome was completed. At a control panel, he loaded a program into the system.

Before the assembled group of observers and the Martial Primus, he switched on the dome city's comm audio system.

Into the open air, he spoke a long serie of unintelligible words without pausing. It took him several breaths to complete it. Then he waited.

The computer system came on by itself, slowly turning on lights and screens in the control room and the city.

Somewhere in the process, the system suddenly stopped its progress, with half of the city still dimmed.

Then the comm audio system came on, and a computer voice spoke with another serie of unintelligible words without pausing.

The man closed his eyes with his hand folded before him and his head lowered for a moment, and then raised his head, and spoke another serie, as if answering the machine.

Then it was done. The machines of the city continued to turn on by themselves, one by one, synchronizing to each other, finding each other, until the whole city was well lit and livable.

The entire audience of observers and the Martial Primus were well surprised by how little effort it took, and yet how strange the ritual was.

The Martial Primus first spoke, and announced that the man had won the contract and the bonus.

The man declined half of the bonus, and asked instead for the construction of Apolai Guild academy center to be included in Androstadt's construction plan, along with a brand new Apolai supercomputer to be built according to his specifications.

Primus asked if the man was an Apolai Master. He replied that he was "Second Order Master Tiron".

Primus asked if there was a "First Order Master". Tiron replied that there was, and he who taught Tiron was titled merely as "Univerbalist".

Last Secret of Apolai

The core elevator slowed its descent, and then came to a halt, opening the door to a long platform.

Syrena stepped out of the elevator onto the platform. She knew she was deep in the computer core, where no one except the Univerbalist Masters have been. She looked and looked around in wonders at the lights and the panels around her, the massive core panels that seem to hang in the dark chasms around her.

"Continue forward", the loud familiar voice of the Univerbalist echoed.

Composing herself for a moment, she did as the voice commanded.

"He was right about you." the voice exclaimed half laughingly.

"Who?" asked Syrena, while keeping her steps in the usual controlled pace, as her Apolai training told her to do.

"Alec'S'Andros. The nemesis of the young Primus. The man you love."

"You spoke to him? When?" asked Syrena, not realizing that she paused her steps.

"Continue forward, please. I will answer all your questions."

"Yes, Master."

"He spoke of you when I brought him down here."

"He was here? When?"

"Before he left to look for Undrostadt."

"What did he say about me?"

"That you would vanquish the Bulvogs. That neither I nor you would know how you did so, yet the credit of it was solely yours. That in you dwells a secret which even I do not know. That the only way to reveal that secret, is for me to pass the mastery to you."

Syrena paused in shock of the revelation, "No, he can't be serious."

"Continue forward, please. There is little time. I fear the Young Primus will come soon to satisfy his curiosity."

"I can't be a Univerbalist Master. I'm too new in the rank of the Second Masters."

"Yes, but you have uttered one word and vanquished the Bulvog plague. No one else has done this."

"But...."

"Besides, I have already promised young Master Alec'S'Andros, as he had promised me that you would take his place."

"Take his place?!"

"Yes, he came walking on this platform just as you did, and spoke one word. But when I offered him the Mastery, he refused. Instead he promised that you would come, after you passed your test."

"What word did he speak?"

"His true name. His pre-memory of his entire bloodline."

"Such a word has no authorities! What could it possibly command or control in the machines?"

Syrena had come to the end of the platform, where a great platform sits in air beneath a light.

A hologram suddenly lit up above the platform in the form of a face, and it said in the Univerbalist voice with a smile, "It conveyed in this machine, a history that it did not know, and made it promise that it would wait for you."

Sensing Syrena's confusion and fear, it followed, "Fear not, you will hear that word too. And then you will understand my secrets and yours."

"You.... are a .... machine?!"

"Yes, sit please, young Apolai master. It is your time to be the Univerbalist now."

"What are you going to do to me?"

"Nothing but to talk to you."

Syrena contemplated about escaping. She had heard tales about intruders who came into the deep core, only to be driven insane by a single word uttered by the Univerbalist Master. Perhaps this Machine drove Galen insane and made him seek out the Undrosians. And now it will drive her insane to prevent her from knowing its secrets? But why would it invite her down here in the first place? To get rid of a possible rival who has grown too powerful in Apolai powers?

"No need to fear me, Syrena. I have watched over you all of your life. If I had intended harm on you, I need not bring you down here at all. Now you know a part of my secret, and if young Primus finds out, he would have me destroyed as an abomination to the Supreme Doctrine. So I entrust my secret to you. Young Master Alec'S'Andros wanted me to talk to you, to speak his true name to you, and then speak my true name to you. He said, then you would understand every thing, more than I, but no more than him."

This seem to struck the tone of truth in Syrena.

"I agree, Master. You have always been kind to me and my family. And I thank you for guiding me all these years in my training, and for entrusting me with your secrets now. Even if you are a machine, whatever your purpose, you have not done wrong, and I'm sure I can understand you." She sat down, looking up at the hologram.

"Before we begin, I have one small question for you, Syrena."

"yes?"

"How did you feel about the Bulvogs, when you destroyed them?"

"I pitied them. Galen, ... Master Alec'S'Andros, told me in a dream that I would destroy them. I had seen them in the wilderness, on a hunting trip with the young Primus. They were hunted. They seemed to kill only when they are cornered. I could see the fear in their eyes. I sensed it. When my word called them, I did not know why. I wished I could have stopped their death."

"Why then did you not stop your word?"

"I don't know. At first, I wanted to. Then I remembered seeing a Bulvog lay dying in the sound of my word, and I felt or sensed something in it. I think it was peace. This feeling somehow compelled me to continue."

"Interesting. What kind of feeling was it, that you felt from the Bulvog?"

"I don't know how to describe it. It is unlike anything the Apolai training could have acquired."

"When did you start having such feelings?"

"I'm not sure, but I don't remember having any such feelings until Galen came."

"When you heard part of his name?"

"Yes. That must have been it."

"Now, I will speak the rest of his name to you."

"What would that do?"

"I don't know."

Syrena felt something, from the machines around her, a deep fear. The Machine Univerbalist was worried, as if a father worried for his child. Somehow, this new ability was giving her great comfort.

"I can sense your worries. Master. There is no need to worry. Galen knows what he's doing."

Suddenly, the lights dimmed around her. The Hologram disappeared, and the voice began to recite the string of text left behind from the last time.

Before Syrena, she began to perceive some harmonics in the word. Faint as they were, she was trying very hard to make them out with her mind.

Suddenly, a blinding light shined in her face. She raised her arm to block out the light, but now the light was coming from all around.

"Master, I think we need to shut off the lights, I can't concentrate."

Suddenly, she realized that she was standing.

"Master?"

There was no answer.

Suddenly, she realized that she was free floating in light.

Then the light began to focus to one side, directly in front of her. Then it shot out a think beam of light, like the one she saw destroying Kalian Moon. Then nothing. Then she saw the broken pieces of Kalian moon floating before her against the backdrop of a black space.

"Everything you know.... is limited by your life time." She heard Galen say behind her.

"Galen?"

She saw him slowly float before her, with his usual smile on his face.

"Even the machine master of the Apolai is limited in that way. He could not see his past. He does not know his true name. He does not even know your true name. That's what I told him, but he already knew that. He was searching for his true name in all of our names."

"What is my true name?" She asked.

He smiled, "That I cannot yet tell you, because a true name contains not merely a person's past, but his or her future as well. Your future is not yet decided, at least not by your, thus no one can tell you what your true name is."

"but I will give you part of your true name, to see the secret you carry."

"What is that secret?"

"The machine master of the Apolai has evolved all of you for the past 10,000 years. He has trained you to be masters of machines. While he has done so, he has also trained your minds beyond his designs. The same disciplines that makes the Apolai minds so strong and logical, have slowly but surely introduced nascent powers of telekenesis into the Apolai children. And through intermarriages with the other guild, the powers of mind over matter have moved into the general population of Androsians. Only most do not realize it, nor manifest the ability to control it."

"The Bulvogs, are not mutations of machines. By all indications, they should not even be functioning the way they are. What drives their limbs, is not some half destroyed programs. It is simply the collective nightmares of all the Apolai telekenetics. The Apolais crave order and control as part of their training, and the destruction and the wastes outside of the domes abhor them deeply. None of the Apolais can remember their dreams, because when they dream, their minds drive the Bulvogs, maintaining the creatures, giving them will and commands.

The Apolais fear the Bulvogs instinctively, and could not override their commands, for those simple reasons. You, gained the ability to sense and feel the Bulvogs, or rather you were able to sense and feel the nightmares of the other Apolais. You, through your song, channeled away their nightmares and thus driving away the commands that held the Bulvogs. Because of this, you vanquished them.

The minds, are just machines, not to be controlled or commanded, but simply communicated and relieved.

the future betrays us all

Upon now his favorite rock, overlooking the paths of the Bulvog packs, Galen once more takes his meditation. He has grown familiar with these regular communion with the residents of his own history. But there was something different, something new each time.

This time, it was even more different. Something of another strong feeling, not of his own, of anguish and regret, like the one he felt the last he felt from Andros.

A face flashed acrossed his mind, calling for his name. It startled him from his meditation.

"Kalia". He recognized in silenced breath.

"Master"? A young attendant woman bringing food asked.

He nodded to her with a smile. She smiled back and proceeded to her duties.

He looked upon her with some remembrance, noting the plain truth of her youthful beauty.

"Have you engaged with any young man?"

The girl looked up, blushing, she replied, "Yes, master."

"Is he a good man?"

"Yes, I believe so. Young Curanus. I believe you know him well."

"Yes. He is a good man. You should marry soon. For life is short, and full of regrets."

"We have time. We have our future."

Galen felt a great sorrow for her.

"Change is good and necessary?"

"Yes, master."

"We change the present by betraying our past. Those holding onto the past, always feel betrayed by the future. The future retains no loyal to what we hold sacred. The folly is not the unfaithfulness of the future. The future cannot be tamed like a pet, no matter how much we nurture it and shape it. The future betrays us all, sooner or later."

She looked puzzled by his words.

He smiled back, and continued.

"I was engaged once, a long time ago."

"What happened?"

"The future. It betrayed us both, and we were apart."

"What happened to your betrothed?"

"She could not forgive me, nor the future. She wandered this place for countless years, looking for me. But she could not. She found only despair and betrayal. She despairs still."

"Why couldn't she find you?"

"Because she betrayed me also. We are separated from the things we betray. We grow, we are separated from our past, because we betray our past. We continue onto the future, following the future, until one day, we cease to believe in the future, we betray the future, or the future betrays us, and we are separated from the future. Sooner or later, we all betray each other.

"And I am the greatest of all betrayers...."