Chapter 4: The Choice of a Lifetime

The jet was a lot smaller than I expected, only four passenger seats. Everything about the interior screamed wealth and power, four huge plush leather seats arranged two by two with the aisle in between. We received Anqara departure clearance at 5:28 AM and took off immediately. The plane rose steeply right after takeoff, the turbine engines near maximum power. As we approached our cruising altitude of 20,000 meters, we went supersonic and the ramjets activated. The acceleration was considerable, and within a few minutes we reached our target velocity of Mach 3.77. We were cruising at 4000 kph, and scheduled to land in Bandar Arenas shortly before 9 AM.

I was in the rear left-side seat. To my right was the capital's Royal test monitor, Mufeto Khatib, with his executive assistant Dabir sitting directly in front of me. Fadil sat diagonally across from me.

I couldn't help but stare out the window after takeoff. This was not just my first jet ride. This was my very first trip away from Anqara. I stared at the township in the moonlight, watching it fall rapidly away. The moon was full and the sky clear. The view of the snow covered landscape of ancient Quebec was mesmerizing.

I finally tore my eyes away to glance at my fellow passengers. They were all busily working with their laptops, totally ignoring the view out the windows. I however found the sight of the virgin Earth from twenty kilometers up irresistible.

There was a chuckle on my right. I turned back from my window and saw the mufeto smiling kindly at me. "We are scheduled to fly over Aleppo twelve minutes after going supersonic. Its runways will be a hub of activity today, and should already be well lit. You're on the right side of the plane to see it."

I nodded gratefully and gazed again out the window. I could see the Atlantic shoreline angling in from the horizon to meet us, and then, there it was up ahead, Aleppo! I sat transfixed at its beauty. I could even see one plane far below us, its lights flashing in a landing approach. At 4000 kph the scene fell rapidly behind. The shoreline actually receded east for a while, but then three minutes south of Aleppo all land abruptly ceased.

"That's it for land until we pass over Metula," the mufeto went on. "Probably in about another thirty-five minutes. That far south, it'll be well past sunrise."

I turned back and nodded again slowly. I was more than a bit puzzled by his kind demeanor. The mufeto was acting like a tour guide, and to a lowly CL-2 no less! His smile was totally different than the stiff and formal countenance I saw during my Initiate testing.

The next township he was referring to was built near the ancient city of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 18 o 29' N, 1 o 0' E. It seemed incredible to be traveling around the world this quickly. I paused for a moment and considered the time. It was almost 6 AM. Something was troubling me. "Great Mufeto," I asked. "May I ask a question?"

He laughed. "Oh, when we're alone like this, just call me Khatib. I'll tell you a secret. I'm an honorary member of Security. Isn't that right, Fadil?"

Fadil looked up from his laptop, gave one snorting laugh, and then went back to his work.

I would not have been more stunned if a giant pterodactyl had magically appeared outside my window and seized our jet in its massive beak. A CL-12 treating Royalty like this?! Was Fadil insane?! What was going on? Was this some elaborate test to see if I would also be disrespectful? If not, there were clearly dynamics here that I did not understand. I suddenly felt very tense and was unsure how to proceed. I did not understand my environment. I looked across the aisle and saw the mufeto waiting for my question.

I cleared my throat. "Yes, thank you for the honor Khatib. My question, how will morning prayers be done while flying?"

"Ah yes, thank you for reminding me." The mufeto waited until precisely 6 AM, and then clicked on his intercom to the cockpit. The two pilots from the air transport Guild respectfully acknowledged his call at once. Khatib recited a Prayer of the Mind in Ascension, one of the shorter ones, and then clicked off and went back to his work.

"What?!" I thought. I felt totally confused about what to do next. Back in my monastery, idle chatter now would be severely punished, even to the point of death. But my three fellow passengers were acting as if they were still not in the Prayer Cycle. Again I felt a shiver of fear and wondered if this bizarre scene were some sort of test. Fadil sensed my distress and looked up from his work. I stared at him grinning at me.

"Ilias, you're going to have to learn that being an adult is not like living in a monastery. Observance of the Prayers varies by Guild. Not in public though! When you are on a Guild mission, you'll put in a full eight hours of Church in whatever township you are. But alone like this, or at Guild headquarters, things are a little more... relaxed."

Dabir spoke up from ahead of me. "At Jizari, you'll find hourly prayers during the Cycle, but most days the only real time commitments will be the Prayers of Purification and Weakness. Security likes to keep our members fit!"

"Our members?!" I thought wildly. But Dabir was a priest! I suddenly realized Khatib was being perfectly candid when he revealed his closeness to my Guild. But I still couldn't figure out why he, and Dabir too for that matter, were so open with me with such remarkable information. I suddenly felt grateful no one was pressing me for conversation. I'm not sure what I would have said. I took out a book from the seatback in front of me. It was a leather bound copy of the Book of Bel'dar.

Shortly afterwards Dabir got up and began working the controls on the cabin's galley. After a few minutes he began informally to serve us all a hot breakfast, Khatib first, then Fadil, and finally me. I glanced at his insignia as he served me. Imagine the center point of a triangle being used to form three inner triangles. Dabir's emblem had a lower yellow triangle framed by a green triangle on the upper left and a blue triangle on the upper right. It was the emblem for Top Management, CL-7. And below that was the insignia for his priesthood.

There are some 648,000 priests in the world, 20% of all adult males, and Dabir was in the top 10% of that population. And yet, here he was, casually serving breakfast to me, my green circle of CL-2 barely a few hours old. As Dabir returned to his seat with his own meal, I worked to understood the implications.

In all my years of nocturnal reading, there had been no hint of much informality between the classes, and certainly not with the Priesthood! Clearly something very unusual was being shown to me. I thought in silence as I ate my excellent hot eggs, bagel and fruit.