THALES

 

Thales stormed from the apartment and caught the conduit back to the Temple, not knowing where else to go.

Young men need exercise? Rene was treating him like a maladroit: an uneducated common man with no discipline over his urges.

Thales controlled his desire to hit something, vowing to prove her wrong by finding his composure in prayer. Yet, as he exited the carriage he experienced an irresistible urge to visit Villon’s statue instead of the upashraiya.

He hurried past the Jainist Temple, along the well- swept Avenue de Montaigne, and into the gracious sweep of Sextus Circe. The Circe was criss-crossed by streaming spotlights that roamed the neat garden borders and flashed across the colossal statues of the great philosophers—The Children of God. As Thales walked among them he found peace in their solidity; like the relief as a child of returning home after vacation, to a place where the world felt stable.

Villon’s statue was on the northern side of the Circe, between his philosophic predecessors Shelaido and Averro. Thales sought it out and laid his forehead on the young Villon’s feet, seeking solace. If his father was alive and here, he would, perhaps, have gone to him; and his father would have pulled him into his embrace with warmth and humour and eternal optimism.

Why did he not carry that same optimism? Why was he so quick to become angry or excited over thwarted principles and ideas, and yet found little to care about in the common decisions that a man faces?

Lofty, the girls in his home town had called him, with a snide curl of their lips.

And then later, at the Noble Studium, lofty became gifted. And the girls had smiled—softly, invitingly. But all the while his father had loved him for those ideals, and encouraged and been proud of him.

Why aren’t you proud of me, Rene?

Perhaps he was more like his mother than he cared to admit. But she had left them when he was so small that he had not known her well enough to make a truthful comparison. She was gephot, though, a member of an undeniably intellectual race who some thought had spawned the beginnings of transhumanism. Maybe his father’s patience stemmed from recognising the gephot in him.

Thales finally lifted his head, and noted the fully darkened sky. The spotlights had steadied into a pattern. As he watched one full sequence, it occurred to him then how heavily Scolar was influenced by Cerulean philosophies. Other than Greatest Elder Muuluan, there were no uulis immortalised here, nor mios, nor skierans. Indeed, only one other non-Cerulean statue held its own in Sextus Circe—a huge flat, smooth jade block upon which rested a marble representation of a flame: the flame of the sentient spirit and a tribute to Exterus, the first true Extropist. The Flame had been placed in Sextus Circe over five hundred years ago to celebrate the vast difference in Sentients’ beliefs.

Thales threaded his way over to Exterus and was surprised to find a small circle of candle-bearers kneeling at its base. He sank to the pavement beside them.

The one closest to him dropped her veil. The woman was of a similar age to Rene, and had a face that, surprisingly, he knew.

‘Thales?’ she whispered.

‘Magdalen? May I join you?’

‘What are you doing here?’

He forced a smile. ‘Is it unreasonable for a native of Scolar to be sightseeing in his own city?’

‘If that is all you were then I would welcome you to our remonstration. But you are part of the Pre- Eminence and that would serve neither us, nor you.’ Her dark eyes were lined with kohl, which seemed to accentuate their hollowness. She and Rene had been friends until Magdalen had chosen to follow the doctrines of Eclecticism. Rene had found its system too unformed and open to perversion.

‘I am not part of the Pre-Eminence,’ Thales said hotly. ‘I am me, Thales Berniere, Jainist.’

Magdalen smiled in a way that reminded him of his wife: patient and almost amused. ‘When you married Rene Mianos you married the Pre-Eminence, Thales. To declare anything else is self-deception.’

Thales’s anger returned in an instant, as if it had never really left him. He refused to have his life defined by his marriage or his relatives. The welling of his bitterness was so fierce and came from so deep within him that he could barely maintain a civil tone. ‘I am not Pre-Eminence!’ He did not shout, but the vehemence of his tone was meant as such.

‘And neither are you Jainist, if you raise your voice in such a way,’ Magdalen said coldly.

Her reaction stemmed Thales’s moment of vitriol and he swallowed hard to moderate the harshness of his voice. ‘Forgive me, Magdalen, but it has been a difficult day. Tell me, what remonstration is it that I am likely to disadvantage? Why are you here?’

‘Haven’t you heard?’ Her surprise had a mocking note to it. ‘Exterus is to be razed.’ She touched the block base and the marble crumbled off in her hand. ‘It has been injected with an industrial detrivore that will tunnel through it like a termite. In a matter of days it will fall. And it is only the first. Villon is next, then Averro.’

‘But that is outrageous!’ exclaimed Thales. ‘The Children of God are sacred.’ He glanced around the small group of candle-bearers, no more than ten of them. ‘Where is everyone else? Where is your assemblage?’

Magadalen pulled her veil up to cover her face again and her reply was muffled but unmistakable. ‘This is all there is.’

 

* * *

 

Thales left them and returned home, choosing to run up the stairs rather than take the lift. They mustn’t harm The Children. The thought burned him. He must tell Rene. She would help extinguish the terrible heat in his chest.

The moud opened the front door but Rene’s remained locked.

‘Rene!’ He hammered on it. ‘Rene, we must talk. The Pre-Eminence is planning to desecrate The Children.’

Rene’s cool voice entered his head through the moud. Be quiet, Thales. I can hear you.

‘Open the door so I can see you.’

Your tone suggests that you are not in control of yourself. I would prefer to see you when you have calmed down. 

‘Did you hear what I said? The Children—’

I know. My father has spoken of it.

‘Your father?’ Thales pushed his palms against his temples to suppress the building pressure. ‘You knew?’

It is only selected statues, Thales. Villon was an agitator. It will not be a significant loss.

Not be a significant loss. Rene’s last words shredded Thales’s self-control.

In one quick movement he overturned the table, dislodging papers and Rene’s favourite drinking cup. Then he tore the apartment’s aspect cube from its mounting and threw it against the wall. As it shattered he looked for something else to break. Anything, anything to relieve the unbearable frustration. He lifted a chair and hoisted it at the window.

Alambra, call the politic, Rene instructed.

The moud set off the house alarm.

Thales threw the chair down and fell to his knees. ‘Rene. Come out here,’ he shouted. ‘Moud, override that.’

The moud remained silent.

I am Alambra’s priority, Thales. She will obey me. I think that you need appropriate reflection time.

I don’t need reflection time. I need your appreciation.

I need your prescience. I am being marginalised, shelved because of my ideas. What does that say about Scolar, Rene? What does that say about your father and the precious Pre-Eminence? To Thales’s chagrin his frustration turned to tears.

Behind him the outer door opened. He swung around to see the red sabres and brown robes of the politic guards as they swept into his view.

Rene, for Jain’s sake...