Chapter 19: The Windy City

Time: June 26, 8236 2:15 PM

I was sitting in my spacious office at Karbala, mentally preparing for an unpleasant 2:30 meeting. I sat gazing westward out of large bay windows, admiring the beauty of the snow-covered rocky coast directly below while pondering the morality of the decision before me. The afternoon sun broke out and began shining brightly over the cold blue-gray waters of the South Atlantic.

"Well, that's nice," I thought. "After six days of hiding, you finally decide to make a guest appearance!" I leaned back in my opulent chair, allowing myself to be distracted and enjoying the sunlight while I could. Today was the day of the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, and Karbala was even worse than Anqara for winter gloom. Sunrise today was at 7:27 AM, though during this morning's gale, sunrise was a purely mathematical concept. I was optimistic though that sunset today might be the real thing. Perhaps I could look forward to watching the sun complete its plunge into the Atlantic by 3:15.

"Jizari is right there," I thought as I gazed across the ocean, "620 kilometers due west of my office window." Somehow the Security Guild's home township still felt like home to me, even though I had spent so little time there and Security was no longer officially my Guild. I shook my head and brought myself back to the present.

Abigail's archival research has come up with two ancient names for our new island home, Falklands and Las Malvenas. It seems strange to have such different names for two such similar islands, and we can't find a clue which name goes with the eastern island and which name goes with the western, or even if that's the right way to think about the two names. Not that it matters. It's all Karbala now.

Karbala! I knew it had the nickname of "The Windy City", but no one can appreciate what it's really like without living here. The wind never stops! Situated at 51 o 40' S, 10 o 39' E, Karbala is the most diffuse city in the world, many small communities spread over 12,000 square kilometers of the land of two large islands and about two hundred tiny ones. The two main islands are separated by a long, deep sound, varying between two to thirty kilometers across

The city hub is located along the mountainous western shore of the west island and contains less than 70,000 people. The 100,000 people that form the rest of the city are distributed elsewhere around the islands at a hundred sites. Karbala's child monasteries are located 150 kilometers away on the extreme eastern end of the east island, at the ruins of an ancient city Abigail thinks was called Stanley. A massive rail and ferry system links everything together.

And the reason for this unique setup? Sheep! Karbala produces 100% of the wool and lamb meat for the world. Its harsh climate is unsurpassed for generating the very finest wool, and for more than 6,000 years the Sheep Guild here has had an absolute monopoly on the market. The Guild is unique in its combination of having a massive presence in its home township and being non-existent everywhere else.

So much has happened in the first half of this year! I became a Royal Priest in February of 8236, but departing Jericho took much longer than anyone thought. The Royal Priesthood spent a month debating exactly what my status in their society would be. Their discussions dragged on without end, and I wound up riding the Lion at Jericho's cathedral again, making CL-17 and adding blue to the top half of my purple square. It wasn't until late March, the day of the solar equinox in fact, that I was finally transferred to Karbala.

So over the last year, I've been living a lot of time in winter. Someday, I promised myself, I would try to find a post somewhere near the equator and spend my days splashing in the ocean with my two lovely wives... Michal has such beautiful memories of swimming in the ocean at Al Maqwa. Ah, what a pleasant dream...

My wives... Michal delivered her child in early May, a healthy baby boy. By law, she would suckle him for one month, and then the infant would be transported to a nursery either at the capital Bandar Arenas or the northern hemisphere. The storms here were so fierce in early June that there was a ten-day delay before the child could be placed on air transport and shipped out. It was a technical violation of the law, but you can't legislate against physical reality.

It's like this all over the world. By design, the world's population is divided into three regions, the capital, the rest of South America, and finally the Caribbean / North American region. All children must be raised to adulthood in a different region from where they were born. In practice, Bandar Arenas swaps its infants with townships near the equator, and the rest of the North and South American townships swap infants with each other.

There is a grand balance between the South and North American regions, sixty townships in each, and the process runs smoothly. The Priesthood has been running the world this way since the fourth millennium, when the last of the townships were founded.

My wives! It was so difficult for Abigail not to be melancholy when Michal's child was shipped out. But any sign of this sorrow would have been a disaster. Her full burqa helped hide the loss.

Abby and I noticed that Michal was also melancholy in the first days after the child was gone, though she had absolutely no memory of him, knowing of him only through her diary. Abby and I have a private theory that Michal's emotional bonding to the child went beyond physical memory, beyond the hormonal changes at the end of lactation. We're not sure what we could ever do with this knowledge, and we are keeping very quiet about it, not even mentioning it to Michal.

I looked at the clock, 2:24 PM, six more minutes. I stretched and worked to relax my muscles. I had a suspicion about how unpleasant and perhaps even dangerous this meeting would turn out. It involved a top level Priest Commander, the former cathedral overseer in fact. A confrontation seemed inevitable.

All Royals, all except for the very singular exception of me, are based at Bandar Arenas. Together they form the central government of the world, it all of its Holy Bureaucracy. The eleven highest members form the Supreme Executive Ruling Council (The Cunif Califar, CL-31, and the ten Grand Mufeto, CL-28 to CL-30). The next group is the rest of Ruling Royalty (CL-24 to CL-27, currently 75 members who wear the purple and red and are referred to as Glorious Mufeto).

The next group of four classes are the Gallant Royalty (CL-20 to CL-23, about 520 members who wear the purple and yellow), and finally the remainder of Royalty (CL-16 to CL-19, close to 3600 members who wear the purple and are addressed at Great Mufeto.)

I had just made CL-20 four days ago. It's a big jump, to trade the purple, green, and blue to purple and yellow. I went from top fish in a big pond to new fish in a much more exclusive environment. The classes of CL-20 to CL-23, now 521 in number, form an extremely powerful club, second only to Ruling Royalty. Internally it operates as two separate entities, those who have ridden the Asad to CL-4 and thus have the possibility of promotion to Ruling Royalty, and those who don't. Within the group, that distinction is often more important than class rank.

This grouping by four extends down into the eight Commander ranks, and my current problem involved the Upper Commander Priests at Karbala. Without my presence, they would form the core of the executive city government and would, within limits, run the township as they saw fit. Royalty rarely involves itself with township politics. They view it as a step backwards. It was no surprise to me then that some of the Holy Upper Commanders resented my presence here.

The Holy presence in all townships is identical, 3900 priests, evenly divided among the three areas of militia, police, and administration. There are 27 Upper Commander Priests in each town, nine in each of the three areas, with a total of three CL-15, five CL-14, seven CL-13, and twelve CL-12. The breakout among the areas is as even as possible, two sets of 1,2,2,4 and one set of 1,1,3,4. At Karbala, it was the administrative area that had the 1,1,3,4 set, with single administrators at CL-15 and CL-14, three at CL-13, and four at CL-12.

My injection as Royal Overseer of the Karbala cathedral was bound to be a source of friction. Within limits, I've tried to make allowances, and in two of the three areas, I considered myself successful in building solid working relationships. I have gotten along very well with the Militia Commanders, and even my dealings with the Police Heads are mutually respectful, perhaps even borderline friendly.

But with the Holy Administration, I was stomping directly on their turf. The situation was a dried-out forest waiting for a match, and the Holy Admin CL-15, the former Overseer who still reports directly to Jibram, had two strikes against him. First, he had nothing to do, and for someone who felt driven to crawl up the ladder of success, I had some empathy for his unfortunate position. But second strike against him was that he never learned not to play with fire, and in a tinderbox forest, that really is an unforgivable sin.

It was 2:30 PM. My secretary buzzed and informed me that Husam had promptly arrived in my outer office. A moment later he was standing before me across from my desk. I took a moment to study him.