To open one’s heart

to the centre of the universe and walk

to the centre of the void

 

to nothingness, to naught

to the inner road

the road of awakening

 

where darkness dissipates

and a luminous road begins to unfold

the one where the heart of creation beats

 

where cells wake up

and pour grains of light

over sky and earth.

 

Bang Hai Ja, « Search for the Light »

 

 

 

 

The Levantine Era

 

by

 

Anne Frémaux

 

 

***

 

 

 

Transl. Teia Maman

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright 2016 Anne Frémaux

 

 

 

 

 

 

___________________________

 

 

 

Chapter One

Jana

 

 

After a six-hour trip aboard the magnetic levitation monorail, Jana reached the Cape Reserve in the Levantine Territory. The Maglev’s speed of 1,970 miles per hour had not given the young woman much time to get used to the changes in the landscape.

Jana was a native of Ustis, the capital of Urbio, and she had almost never left the city, or, to tell the truth, even gone beyond the personal territory allotted to her in childhood. All her daily movements between dormitory, cafeteria, State library and the agronomy training establishment to which she was assigned were within this zone.

She smiled to herself as she recalled the series of events that had led her to this silent, luxurious train, which traveled at dizzying speed without the least bump or lurch.

She had been called in to central government headquarters to learn about her mission. The luxury and refinement she discovered there had left her speechless, as Jana had never been accustomed to the least privilege or distinction.

“You’re AG 458-65, correct?” the Governor asked her.

But she was distracted by a gigantic light fixture overhead that resembled a glass crown suspended by golden branches. Her eyes were also drawn to the furniture, admirably carved in the wood of some ligneous plant that had doubtless disappeared long ago. The wall hangings fascinated her too. Bright as life, they were probably woven of ancient vegetable fibers no longer used these days. She looked curiously at the heavy frames dotting the walls of the Governor’s office, frames that held representations of scenes and personages that meant nothing to her, but whose imperfections, colors and thickness she found astonishing, for they did not appear to be products of any digital program. Could these have been made “by hand?” The idea crossed her mind, but she didn’t have time to mull it over, for the Governor started her from her reverie.

“Are you AG 458-65?” he repeated again, patiently.

This time Jana heard her official identity number pronounced.

“Yes, Governor,” she responded mechanically. “Department of State Agronomis, biologically augmented individual Number 458, period of birth new era 65.”

 “You’re going to have to get used to this kind of, shall we say, more comfortable decor, my dear Jana... I may call you Jana, I trust?”

Without waiting for her to reply, he continued in a voice imbued with authority and a certain gentleness that Jana took as a form of that solicitude with which superior beings sometimes treated their subalterns, so as not to appear haughty.

“You placed very high in your class at school, which does us honor – the province of Urbio and myself as its representative, who have been charged with your education from your earliest years. Despite your inauspicious beginning, you were able to get support from one of our State Departments. This is fortuitous for us as well as for you.”

He grinned with an air of satisfaction, to which she responded with a timid smile.

“In referring to your file,” he continued, “I find the reason your post-ectogenic contract was annulled, making it impossible for you to be adopted, is not an insurmountable problem in our eyes, since…”

And he began reading the file aloud: “The child, after ten months of maturation, the legal period in which contract termination can enter into effect, still presents a predominance of EYCL3 genes, contrary to the contract terms that provide for the prevalence of EYCL2 genes….”

Hunched over the folder, he continued reading it in a low voice, as if to himself, before looking up at Jana.

“So, in short, you had blue eyes instead of the green eyes ordered by the client,” he said. “In the process of biological augmentation, an incident like this is not a real handicap for us, even if blue eyes do demonstrate lesser reactivity to tests of rapidity, and a few shortcomings in precision tests. On the other hand, in control and resistance testing, they’re often better.”

“Yes, that’s correct, Mister Governor,” Jana replied, easing the constraint of having to sit silently during the Governor’s monolog.

She had long been aware of her history and was indifferent to hearing it once more. Everyone in her dormitory and at the government school were like her. Other children, “normal” or “finished” children issuing from the completed maturation process, treated them scornfully to names like “ecto-residue” or “ectogenic residue.” So Jana waited for him to continue, unmoved.

“I’ve opened your file in order to verify your genetic affiliation. The least one can say is that you have some highly interesting baggage.”

He stopped, as if trying to hold onto a thought that would otherwise have escaped him.       “Hmmn…If they hybridized you… Please excuse my jargon. If they augmented you wisely, which, just between us, is not always the case, you could quickly raise your level of consciousness and occupy important functions in one of our state departments.”

Jana blushed.

“But let’s not rush into things,” he said. “Each thing in its time.”

Suddenly, in what seemed an egotistical impulse that surprised the young woman, he asked, “How old do you think I am?”

For the first time in her life, Jana confronted the idea that even a supreme consciousness was not exempt to human weaknesses, like vanity, found among the lower orders.

“I like asking that question to people when I first meet them,” he added, not looking at her. Instead, he scrolled down the maps, graphs, images and information of all kinds on the graphene screens embedded in his desk.

            Naturally, Jana thought he was following the news of the province, minute by minute, as he was talking to her. Wouldn’t the importance of his role require that?

She figured that the Governor was older than he appeared, regardless of his seductive allure and firm muscular body flattered by clothing of metallic smart-particles that adjusted to every movement, and, as was the aristocratic style, the electronic pigments incrusting his ear wrap and receding hairline.

His graphic-cut black hair, styled elegantly and cunningly, his perfect teeth, his practically smooth skin, depigmented and poreless, gave him a youthful look, or rather a timeless look. It was well-known that the upper classes had recourse to the leading methods of rejuvenation. There was surgery, obviously, even if that was increasingly being replaced by blood transfusions rich in GDF11, a protein abundant in the blood of young people that permitted the repair of aging tissues. The luxury trade in synthetic plasma had exploded thanks to that. And of course there were genetic modifications and electromagnetic implants that replaced or healed aging or ailing organs.

Yielding to his game, but avoiding an attempt to satisfy her superior’s ego, she placidly answered, “At first glance, I’d say…thirty-five, Mister Governor, although the light wrinkling of your hands and neck prove a more advanced age. But I know your position requires a great amount of knowledge, experience and maturity, and I’ve also read books about the province’s administrative workings that date from the Fortieth Era, in which your name figures among the important reformers. Also, you were spokesman for the commission on the laws of augmentation codification, which dates, if I recollect, back to Era 38. Taking these elements into account, I’d estimate your age at sixty-eight, Mister Governor.”

 “Good deduction, Jana, good deduction. That problem of the wrinkles on my hands and neck remains to be dealt with. I will speak to my hebetician. However, I left these lines on my temples and forehead, and these slight smile lines on purpose, to make me more accessible, socially and politically-speaking. In the framework of my functions, you understand, I deal not only with the elite. The people’s Parliament, representing the Fallibles, is sometimes difficult to convince…” 

 “Yes, of course, Mister Governor,” Jana acquiesced, for everyone knew about the eternal struggle regarding access to augmentations, which opposed the popular Parliament to the administration. The people wanted more transparency, and loyal adherence to the democratic spirit that had inspired the creation of the Confederation, while the elite considered augmentations a privilege that precluded sharing.

“But I won’t lie to you. The role I play does require experience, and many years spent in the service of the State. I saw the old civilization perish and our biotechnological society grow up from its ruins. I myself had the honor of proposing the name Urbio for our province. I’m a ‘living vestige of the past,’ you might say, although I prefer that this expression remains between the two us.”

He smiled at her, showing his perfectly white, even teeth.

“I’m one hundred and seven, and I imagine I have numerous great-great-grandchildren, the issue of my genetic bank, who must be around your age.”

“That’s marvelous, Mister Governor!” replied Jana in a burst of admiration she couldn’t repress. His answer had far surpassed the margin of error she had hazarded.

She recovered her impassible emotional state, as per regulation, thinking, “It also demonstrates how spotty official communications are, when it comes to such a sensitive subject like technological augmentation and repair. Could new methods have been developed without the public being informed?”

Once again, the Governor extirpated her from the heteronomous thought she’d begun to formulate. “I don’t tell you that to receive compliments, Jana, or out of conceit,” he added with a slightly fake smile, doubtless the best he could produce with his face’s artificial elasticity.

For the first time, she looked the Governor directly in the eyes, something she’d avoided until now through hierarchical respect. She noticed his pupils dilating and contracting non-stop, a sure sign of permanent direct neuronal interface in people with electronic retinal implants.

“I’m telling you this because youth, like so many other things in this world – if not everything or practically everything – can be bought. Personally, I like my natural biological body, but if an organic silicone body, complete with sensations, gave me two hundred years more, I wouldn’t say no. Immortality will be bought one day, dear Jana. You’ll see. And I hope it happens while I’m still alive, so I can profit from it eternally.”

He pronounced this last with a forced laugh, as if proud of his little joke.

“Of course, Mister Governor,” Jana replied mechanically. She still didn’t know why she had been called into the executive’s main office, or what was behind all these confidences, and she suddenly felt uncomfortable.

“As you know, we’re already pushing back the basic limits of our mental and physical capacities, eliminating aging and even psychological death, thanks to holographic avatars and synthetic reality, which has just come out. Soon, we will go even further…”

He interrupted himself and looked at her meditatively. “I shouldn’t be telling you that, for many citizens consider immortality of the consciousness more than sufficient – superior to any biological life anyway. But the problem of sensations remains unanswered, in my thinking. I can’t yet resign myself to living without the pleasure of breathing, of feeling emotions, of really living! No doubt I’m a bit old-fashioned. I still love my earthbound condition, and have not resolved to leave our old planet. But as you probably know, our new research budget is oriented toward the road to departure.”

“Yes, Mister Governor. I heard about the Council’s vote in favor of the Andromeda Project, to the detriment of your own propositions.”

“Yes, unfortunately. You can’t always win. As Fiodorov said, ‘To feel also means to suffer. The future belongs to spiritual machines, to mechatronics.’ To live ad vitam aeternam upon silicone supports that will open up the exploration of new worlds, to establish ourselves in places unfit for human life – isn’t this the current market demand we need to address, my dear Jana?”

“I don’t know, Mister Governor,” Jana equivocated, afraid to make a gaffe. “I confess I’m unable to form an opinion on that question.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” he mumbled, as if recognizing the impossibility for an inferior mind to understand such issues.

“Well, these ideas are all the rage,” he continued. “Thanks to the last space colonizations, most likely. People want to see for themselves what’s going on in these hostile places, especially young people, always seeking for adventure. Some are even downloading their peresonalities onto non-biological supports before their natural death, so as to be first to benefit from the privilege of exploration. You know how our upper classes scorn anything biological.”

His pupillary activity was intense as he spoke to her. He was probably replying to messages, reading reports or even dictating a speech to his hologram while they talked, Jana suspected. His cognitive faculties were augmented through the consumption of holeum and by cerebral implants that interfaced his conscious mind with the main computer. She conjectured that his intimate, confidential tone, his apparently heterodox declarations and even his smugness had only one object – to bring him closer to his own degraded biological humanity, to his own imperfection. She realized she was letting her heteronomous thoughts distract her once again, and immediately tried to regain control of her mind. She knew only too well that her tendency to abstraction was her principal weakness.

“And all this, dear Jana – eternal youth, life among the stars or who knows what else – this can belong to you too, and undoubtedly will. You don’t want to get old or sick or even die miserably like those men and women of the lower echelons?”

At mention of the Fallible, he grimaced ever so slightly. This did not escape Jana, even though his expression of disgust came and went so quickly that an average brain wouldn’t have had time to notice.

“Not all the ectogenic individuals unable to enter the adoption market have your luck. Some end up doing menial work in the slums. What a waste! But we’d like to give you a boost, for in spite of your…rough start, you’re an exceptional human being. You’ve received excellent results in all your final school exams, and in those you’ve encountered throughout your education. Even the reactivity and precision tests I mentioned earlier turned out brilliant.”

Jana smiled in response to the Governor’s compliments, all the while trying to hide her stress and uneasiness by applying the psycho-corporeal mastery techniques she had learned in her emotion suppression classes.  

Emotional reactions block logical reasoning of non-hybridized beings, she recited to herself like a mantra. And she remembered her teacher’s introductory lesson in emotional control:

Emotion is a primitive expression of our personality that brings us closer to our animal origins instead of distancing us from them. Suppressing emotion is to suppress anger, fear, sadness, disappointment and attachment in its irrational form, and that implies suppressing the causes of conflict and of incompleteness.

Don’t forget the book of Fiodorov’s wisdom: “We were made men in order to become gods, and we can become gods only by becoming machines.” Have you ever seen advanced non-biological supports show boredom, despair, sadness or dismay? Have you ever seen a computer commit a crime of passion? No, and this is why they surpass us. They don’t grieve when they lose their loved ones; they have no overweening pride, nor are they troubled or bored by having to perform the same task day after day. Maybe someday you’ll have the luck to be downloaded into an artificial support. Who knows? Do you think that means the end of happiness? Do you consider yourself happy or fortunate to have been born and to live in these proteic sacks – our biological bodies – with their pains, their incessant needs, their inherent imperfection? No, on the contrary, you would begin a life without sorrow, and have a consciousness without defect, that would never again suffer from the absence or presence of another, and that would no longer be saddened by external events. The obliteration of emotion, which I will teach you here, is but a minuscule step on the road to perfection and liberation. It’s just the first, very modest stage unfortunately, up the steep path to awareness.

What made emotional control so difficult was the variety of nerve centers involved, the differences in individual cerebral maps. And the ever-changing, dynamic, supple aspect of emotions entailed frequent, customized updates of the instruments that analyzed and measured them. Naturally, non-technologically augmented people hired by State departments had to take inhibitors, which palliated to a certain extent the absence of artificial control.

The Governor could not ignore the fact that Jana had shown certain weaknesses in controlling her postural feedback. This had always constituted a major handicap in her group exercises. Nor could he misconstrue the fact that Jana had failed her conditioning tests, or that some of her trainers had judged her unruly and stubborn, even though all of them agreed that she was totally devoted to the well-being of the Confederation.

Her Molecular Biology teacher had exclaimed one day, “Too much critical sense, too many heteronomous thoughts, AG458. You don’t need to know everything to be a good public servant. We only ask that you apply methods. Is that clear?!”

This was because Jana had questioned her about the location of the ancient seed banks, where they kept genetic profiles of vegetable species that had disappeared long ago and whose existence was mentioned in old agronomy books.

“But does this bank still exist?” she had insisted.

Glaring at her, the teacher had coldly retorted, “All we ask of you, AG458, is to optimize production of the synthetic plants we have selected. No more, no less. We’re not asking you to manage the Confederation, or to philosophize… So stay in your place and the ectogenic embryos will be well-guarded.”

Her exit reports had been marred by remarks describing her curiosity and her critical sense as “susceptible of becoming obstacles to the application of regulations and the following of procedures.” Naturally, this had led her to expect she’d have to accept a routine job like production inspector in the synthetic algae food industry.

Her thoughts kept galloping on at lightning speed, until the Governor once more recalled her to the present.

 “So, since you’ve just finished your education, and will soon be assigned to some task useful to the public, I propose that you enter our central government headquarters, where we have a mission to entrust to you, a mission that will allow you to fully optimize all your skills in biology.”

During their long conversation, Jana had had time to ask herself many questions: why would the Governor be so affable in offering her a position that no one, especially her, could refuse? Why does he pretend ignorance of certain of her failures? Why try to convince her this way, in person, rather than simply send her a mission order?

Despite her prejudices and her doubts, she maintained as neutral an expression as possible, avoiding frowns or mouth contortions or eye movements that could unconsciously betray her “whirling thoughts,” as her cognitive control instructor called them. She knew that her face was being analyzed by the central computer as she talked with the Governor, and that he was receiving instantaneous results of the psycho-morphological study.

As if he were reading her thoughts, the Governor responded to her questions. “You’re wondering why I chose you, and your uneasiness is quite legitimate. Let me enter into the details of what brings you here…

“You’re undoubtedly aware that our holeum plantations are strategically important for us. You’ve heard that famous saying from the Book of Wisdom: ‘We have sipped the holeum, we have become immortals, and we have dethroned the gods.’ And you must know the Agronomis research centers still haven’t managed to synthetically reproduce a type as pure and effective as that supplied by the Cape Reservoir in the Levantine Territory. Don’t ask me why. I don’t understand how a civilization as technically advanced as ours can still be bested by old, totally vulgar natural processes. I do have some ideas on the subject, but no certainties. At first glance, it’s simply absurd…”

 Jana noticed the Governor’s facial feedback when he pronounced the word “natural,” betraying a hint of contempt this time. So, even the supreme consciousness is not perfect, she thought, before quickly pushing that negative assumption aside.

“Whatever the case, the synthetic holeum we’ve produced is only good enough to improve the memory of the elderly, or stimulate a few pleasure centers for the amusement of our young aristocrats. We could also distribute them to the masses for free so they can amuse themselves with taking any great risks… This is why we need competent public servants prepared to control the production of holeum in those territories. Not only to figure out this enigma, but also to figure out why the latest deliveries of holeum have caused certain anomalies during the augmentation process, even though the concentrations of nootropine have proved to be unchanged. I don’t know what these Cape tribes are doing, but I’d like to find out.”

“But can’t we get by without this plant, Mister Governor? It seems amazing that we still have to depend on natural mechanisms.”

“Theoretically we could, but the result of cerebral augmentation is immeasurably enhanced when associated with holeum consumption. The plant stimulates neuroplasticity in a striking manner, and allows for spectacular augmentations. And the current situation is disrupting our ongoing processes. It’s also worrying our investors and aggravating the urban elite who form our clientele. The waiting list is growing longer, as people prefer putting off their projects. I’m afraid that if this situation continues, it will eventually lead to questioning of the State’s monopoly. There are many private corporations who would love to see the augmentation market deregulated, and an end to public monopolies. Now, we can’t let such a thing happen without risking political chaos.

“You know our history, dear Jana – we’ve been able to avoid collapse only at the price of nearly-total centralization, and its headquarters have ended up in Ustis. We could no longer leave private companies in charge of regulating trade or production domains, and we could even less afford their shaping the future of our civilization by their ill-thought-out innovations. It’s up to us to plan and make the strategic choices that control the Confederation’s structure. And concerning this point, the augmentation domain is particularly sensitive because the hierarchical order of society is at stake. Letting the lucrative augmentation-approvals market revert to private hands would open us to new conflicts. It would be a dramatic step backwards. The elite leave us in peace as long as things work smoothly, and the Fallible accommodate themselves to their fate as long as they know no other. As you see, the stakes are high and…”

Here Jana boldly interrupted. “But Mister Governor, if I may… I’m not the only one who wonders why we don’t leave holeum production in the hands of the Reserve peoples? And why hasn’t Urbio ever considered retaking that territory? Everything would be so much easier – we could analyze the chemical elements in the soil and air that help optimize production. Our measuring instruments would easily give us answers to our questions. Then we wouldn’t have to depend on the goodwill of these people, who are strangers to our civilization, after all.”

“Yes, yes, certainly, Jana…” the Governor said, pausing a moment, during which his pupillary activity was particularly intense. “You must understand that living conditions in the Reserve are especially difficult, with the climate, the drought…but above all, and this is a fact we hardly like to communicate, in order to avoid giving our enemies grist to the mill…”       

He paused, and continued on another tack. “You must be aware that we’ve already endured terrorist attacks by non-assimilated people from the miner’s territories. Well, we don’t want some new, useless war. But the main reason – and this must remain between us two, Jana – is that it’s an electromagnetic quagmire. Its volcanic lands are subject to constant magnetic disturbances, spontaneous inversion phenomena or weakening of the earth’s magnetic belt, which impairs the effectiveness of the magnetosphere and gives free rein to the solar winds.

“Rest assured, the risk to humans is not really biological, but rather of a technological order, because all our tools of measurement and communications get disrupted as soon as we enter this area. Our devices’ memories get erased or irreparably damaged. When the sun ‘goes on a rampage,’ so to speak, it can set off geomagnetic storms that penetrate our instruments’ shielding, and destroy everything in their passage. Augmented individuals are subject to significant malfunctioning, or worse. As for drone soldiers, there’s no use considering them, as they’re disabled as soon as they cross the border into the Reserve. In fact, that’s why we abandoned the colony. Only some backward-looking reactionaries opposed to progress have settled there. We force no one to live there. It’s up to them, and they’ve deliberately chosen to refuse the march of civilization, and settle in these desert regions. All in all, this suits us in many ways…for holeum production, of course, but also on a symbolic level. The Levantine Territory constitutes a sort of ideal for our society. You can’t imagine, dear Jana, to what point the illusion of liberty can count for more than the true exercise of it. In reality, no one with any real sense would go live there, due to the health risks and the fairly primitive way of life, but the simple idea that it’s possible to go there suffices to ensure us a certain social peace.”

Jana looked surprised, never having imagined the political agendas guiding Urbio’s governance. The cynicism of his statements bothered her.

The Governor pretended to mistake the cause of her surprise, though. He was used to political maneuvers, which he considered necessary to maintain confederal stability, and he was determined to rattle the young woman’s innocence.

Making as if to reassure her, he said, “Don’t worry yourself pointlessly. The living conditions there aren’t as terrible as you may have heard in our news bulletins. We have to exaggerate a bit, right? We can’t be encouraging our people to emigrate to these resource-rich lands, which are of great strategic importance for us. In any case, to cross the magnetic frontier from either direction requires a pass, and the interruption of the electromagnetic vortex that holds off the solar winds. Concerning the Levantine people, the deal has always been clear – we leave them to the tranquility of their simple lives, we supply them with some of the materials they need for their rudimentary engineering, and in exchange, they deliver five hundred Teralans of holeum three times a year. Up until now, we haven’t had occasion to complain of the situation.”

“I understand, Mister Governor. As for the poor quality of synthetic holeum, you’ve likely already thought of it, Mister Governor, but I read that these plants were extremely sensitive to radiation and to every form of pollution. A weak emission of electromagnetic waves and solar particle bombardment must have a positive effect on their development.”

He smiled benignly, nodding. “Yes, absolutely. And yes, I’ve already thought of that, as it would explain the advantage of natural holeum over artificial holeum. We’re researching it. But what we need to elucidate right now, imperatively, is the cause of the qualitative degradation that we’re being exposed to at this very moment.”

The Governor stressed these last words. After a short pause, during which his pupillary reactions took off at high speed, he began again, “Dear Jana, I’m sure you now understand the sense of your mission. You will leave tomorrow. My holographic secretary has prepared your road map, which he’ll give to you as you leave. It contains a variety of information, especially about the most essential data you need to gather, as well as the learning programs you’ll need for your stay there. You’ll have to assimilate some rather novel survival skills. You’ll see. Enough to satisfy your curiosity. Don’t be surprised at these people’s strange way of life. Their methods of building, heating, transport and social leadership are quite basic, so you’ll get to taste the exoticism of rusticity. Consider this trip as a moment spent in a kind of dream incubator transporting you into the faraway past. I haven’t been there for a very long time, but it should hardly have changed. Things evolve slowly there…”

He added, laughing, “That is, when they don’t simply remain at a standstill. You’ll also make some amusing discoveries there, as they live in company with other mammals and forms of life quite different from the few natural species we’ve preserved in Urbio. That will be a change from your archive books. You’ll have all of tonight and your travel time tomorrow to prepare yourself and download all the necessary data. Uh, that is, in your case I should say, ‘memorize,’ right? So, is all of this clear?”

“Quite clear, Mister Governor,” Jana said, rising and bowing according to custom. “I rely on your judgment, and I thank you for the confidence you’ve shown me.”

“Hold on a minute. One last thing. Do you understand why we’ve chosen you?”

Jana reflected an instant before answering, then chose to tell the truth. “To be honest, no, Mister Governor.”

“Well, it was for just that – we chose you because of your honesty. You’re, how can I put it…‘fresh’ and ‘spontaneous.’ That description probably doesn’t suggest much to you, but it’s exactly what we need.”

“I’m a little surprised, Mister Governor, as we’ve always been taught that spontaneity has no positive value, except when a machine gives that illusion thanks to its calculating speed, and that only attests to its superiority. On the contrary, among non-augmented humans, who calculate slowly, spontaneity is an inferior method, an eternal source of errors.” 

 “Yes, yes, all that is true, dear Jana,” he replied with a disparaging sweep of his hand. “That’s good Urbian doctrine. Let’s just say this is a kind of imperfection that perfectly fits your mission. A ‘perfect imperfection,’ if I may, that will be much more useful than the imperfect perfection of our machines. Perfection can be a handicap at times. These people are not like us. They function by instinct rather than by logic. They don’t understand us. So don’t expect to be accepted right away. They don’t much like us, but they’re obliged to answer your questions and accompany you in your research, as their peace depends on it. Your curiosity might please them, and be useful to us if you get the data we need. When you get back, your memory will be scanned so we can judge for ourselves what you’ve discovered there. I know of your devotion to the Confederation and I know that you won’t disappoint me. I’ll see you out.”

As he stood up, he opened one of the numerous compartments of his desk, and took out a sort of cylinder, white and supple, that did not look like a graphene sheet.

“You know that taking holeum is strictly forbidden to the lower classes, Jana,” he said as he walked her to the door. “You’ll be tested when you leave the Reserve territory. I’m sorry to have to remind you of that, but these are normal procedures.”

“Yes, of course, Mister Governor,” said Jana, who had integrated the notions of class and privilege long ago, in early childhood.

He handed her the cylinder, secured with an equally supple filament, saying, “This is paper, my dear, a material produced from vegetable fibers. It’s a message I want you to put into the hands of a man named Gildamesh. You’ll easily find him in the Reserve. He’s not very accommodating, you’ll see, but as an introduction, tell him that Dmitry Atskov would like to make peace with him. Have a good trip.”