----------------------------------------

<02/24/40,578 {Avion 41} - 08:15 | Empyrean Temple, Karnak, Genosis, Altiri Sector Space>

In the cold desolate world of our home, the opening eye casts divine light from above, shading detail to reflect every particle of ice and snow. The planet is cold, the air still gaseous, calm as breath or wild as our constant refreshing blizzards howling day and night.

I am nearly nothing, a speckle, one out of several millions of Altiri people, though I was also molded and put together by the hands of our creator. I am something, for I was born in the eye of God, certain, though indirect as it may be. All who are born here know of our sacred hymns, our ethereal cries, and our invincible honor. I need not search for God, for he is already here with us, all the time, in years never ending.

I come to this place daily, as millions of others visit the Empyrean Temple of our divine creator, to pay tribute, to show appreciation, and to honor ourselves as all who are one and one who is all. On the surface of Karnak, centuries after several scientific revolutions and our growing space exploration program, I, Trinity, hereby swear unbreakable loyalty and respect to our ruler; Legasso.

My words are not needed, only my presence. So here I stand in silence, directly in the grand halls of our leader, watching others come and go, walking in and out, bowing and praising in between, while Legasso's team of disciples in science deliver more reports about the many projects. In all I could know, it was a peaceful day; silence eluded us, yet peace resonated and echoed in all of our minds, with our brains closely connected in the psi-field.

I was just as relaxed as ever, taking another sip of my purified water from the frozen ice container, reminiscing on how old, yet innovative this technology is. We Altiri used to melt the surface of our ground with our hands, initiating some kind of hyper-sonic resonance that sublimated the material on contact, so that we may ingest and drink. Ever since 8,400 (Avion 8), the massive purification plants that our scryers developed - automated a melting process for us, saving us so much time and energy, though our power to invoke what our ancients used to was removed. We can keep and drink melted purified water from having our handouts, and thus live on forever, less anything befalls us.

As uneventful and beautiful as I believed today to be, the fate of our unison brought us something unexpected, the adult Altiri slowly and gracefully walking through our cathedral halls. Her very entrance took my attention, for the girl was most beautiful in her display and in her gentle elegance. Unlike all visitors however, she wasn't wearing a smile parting her lips, her face that of uncertainty or curiosity. Her eyes narrowed forward between the halls of God, who sat further down in the largest chair, with Legasso delegating without moving.

I too believed this beautiful stranger came here as well to pay tribute for all the accomplishments he sent us through, but after long enough, I realized her business here was of another matter. The woman approached the central chamber throne carefully, and this much was enough to turn all heads. All Altiri know the protocols for speaking to God. Those who have usual business approach the throne chair and Legasso with respect from either the left or the right side-halls, while those only paying respect keep distance and do so without disruption. This stranger did neither, and approached Legasso's throne chair from down the middle, indicating to us that she had some urgent business to discuss, something bigger than an ordinary issue.

I didn't need to get any closer to the throne deck to watch and listen to all that would unfold, because our ears could hear from much further away and amplify, while our eyes could see from much further away and enhance. While it wasn't polite to pry, the unusual timing of this unexpected visit had me too curious to keep my senses out of their direction, and so I watched and listened, as an ordinary observer comparing two people; the stranger who entered the temple, and Legasso, who now delivered his full material attention to the lady.

"Welcome to Empyrean Temple, young disciple." Legasso greeted the lady respectfully, though because of his many differences, his own voice was much lower and deeper in pitch than the rest of us. Much about Legasso was entirely different in physiology compared to other Altiri, proof to many that he is beyond our ascensionary righteousness. "Please bestow upon my ears, your name and your troubles." Legasso made easy eye contact with the woman, and for a while, the exchange seemed as humble as it was lengthy.

At first, the stranger didn't verbally reply at all; she merely stood in place, bobbing her eyes of and around Legasso, as if to observe something she was desperately looking for. "My name is Quvailah. I am not sure where I could begin, though the simplest matter would be to resolve the issue in our town, Moors."

"Moors? That is a name most unfamiliar to me. I shall presume it is only a small town. Remind me what the situation of Moors is."

"You should know," Quvailah swiftly returned. "You sent your disciples into our town, and ordered almost everyone to abandon the area. My friends and I worked hard to set things up so that we could live closer to the deadzone. Why are we forbidden from living near that area so long as we avoid the storms?"

"Ah, I now recall our dealing with the Moors situation. It was a while ago." Legasso inhaled softly, preparing his answer to Quvailah, as I too was curious what this was about. "The location where you have set up town in Moors was deemed too far in distance from Empyrean Temple. It would be too difficult to maintain any needed supplies to or from such a place, and we need assurance that all may deliver their appreciation over time. I trust everyone has long since evacuated and moved closer to safety?"

"If I may speak so boldly Legasso, our presence in that zone was fine the way we were. I know that settlements on the far side of Karnak have become nearly extinct if not entirely by now, but the place we Altiri choose to live is entirely up to every sole individual. Our safety is only of our own concern."

Eyes raised in all throughout the cathedral, silence becoming that of a total vacuum of noise amidst the outdoor blitz of frost. What Quvailah said just now, as well as the placement of her tone, it bordered right on blasphemy! I'm not the only one in the room who noticed either.

"I trust that you have long since overcome any residual pang of loss to that zone; I sense no real anger within you. The people choose to live closer to our highest order and of our highest population, because it is right, because it is safe, and because it is our promised future. If any wish to live on the far side of Karnak, excluded from any chance they have to our mass purification zones and from the rest of society, they may do so, but they shall not receive any assistance from this order." Legasso knew where to put his foot down, telling Quvailah how things should be in no uncertain terms. "Is that all? You have forgotten to bow and respect—"

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

"I'm not finished." Only now, Quvailah let some of her inner defiance show, though she maintained as much of her wits and respect as she could, while the rest of us stared in silent shock. "I must beseech another matter simultaneously to this one. Ergi and Henna. I doubt you know who they are, but they tried very recently to apply for official scryer registration, to conduct some private study, and I learned that your order turned them down, for the reason I already know of. Tell me Legasso. Since when did Altiri require both permission and your exclusive trust in order to operate like many previous scryers before us, scryers who were here before and during your time?"

Legasso froze too, for what was only a second or two, puzzled by the most unusual display any of us have ever seen. Legasso is God to all of us, so none oppose his order, his rule, or his respect. That's how it's always been.

"That is incorrect, Trinity."

What?! I glanced around nervously, and soon after, others did as well, searching for the unfamiliar telepathic voice in our minds. It was obvious soon after that the voice was coming from the same woman before us today.

"Search your memory, all of you. This order is not how things always were, even if they have been for a very long time." Quvailah spoke to many of us, though not all of us, throughout the temple, excluding Legasso and a few others while the two of them spoke verbally.

"The mouth on you lacks a certain discipline. There are dozens of reasons why we cannot allow just any Altiri to research something at random, just because they feel like it. Right now, our focus and concentration is to the depths of outer space, so that we may expand our domain, to capture and seize control over more worlds like this one. The road to Zinod will be built sooner or later. I won't waste too much of our time chasing phantom ideas of psionics."

"Nobody said you had to use your time to look into it."

While Legasso and Quvailah were arguing, a separate cascade of voices and emotions filled our sisters, such intense disruption and confusion, all sourced from the disrespectful stranger. "Legasso performed for us well, but he is not in charge of our actions or our thoughts. Deny his power should he take it away from you." Meanwhile, it was clear enough that Legasso could not hear Quvaila's telepathic rant, while I desperately wanted to understand how my thoughts could so easily be read, when she and I were not directly linked.

He delivered his answer to the stranger once more. "I rejected their claims because it wasn't in line with our top priority. That's all there is to understand. You want to know why we can invoke telepathy so selectively? It's because we have evolved over the years, thanks to my help."

"I knew what the real problem was before I walked through these halls." Quvailah pointed to the resound leader in her next accusation. "The real problem is you, attempting to embrace too much under your control, especially when the sake of it is only a means to maintain such control."

"I'm afraid the entire world disagrees with you there. There are only two ways to live in this world. You either embrace and acknowledge me as your rightful ruler, or you shall live in exile, far from our reach, free from our protection and grace, though vulnerable to the elements which claim many lives every dozen or so cycles. As leader, I control all that I need to; that is how society functions."

"Then I renounce my loyalties to this broken system." Shocked gasps and murmurs followed Quvailah's admission, including from myself. I can't believe she would say something like that, right in front of him too! "I will go as I please, live how I want, and do as I must, even without your supposed protection."

"You shall hereby be exiled then. Your very own name will be forever tarnished, and you will not receive any protection from myself or our society." Legasso was becoming just as unhinged, angry to a point none have ever seen before.

"The only difference I see between you and the rest of us, that so many fail to acknowledge, is that you are a valid leader to our kind, but you are not one who created our entire existence. We were here long before you, and if you really were God, you would not pretend that our real history was a lie."

Legasso finally stood from his chair, shouting at the woman. "How dare you, blasphemous traitor! I have already banished you from our collective family. Must you add insult before you go?"

"I only have one more thing to say; not an insult, rather a warning. Legasso, I know you probably can't see it within yourself right now, but your inner-behaviors are most distressing to us all. You cling to power and control beyond the reach any leader should have. You shut down any attempt of free-will among other members of society when they wish to divert in a new direction. Worst of all, your arrogance, in thinking that your physical differences make you superior to the rest of us are a taint of evil that could grow to inhospitable levels. You make little effort to suppress these traits within you, though they seem invisible now, as the amount of pure loyalty to you, while welcome, is still unbalanced and unhealthy for everyone involved. I only hope you one day wake up and control such wild inhibitions dwelling within you"

"Such insolence!" Legasso bellowed, his muscles tightening with newfound anger. "After all I have done for this barren world, you would dare speak in such malice against your ruler?!"

"You are no longer my ruler," Quvailah reminded. "Besides, while you played an important role in driving us to develop better technology, the accomplishment alone does not belong to you; it belongs to all of us as a whole race."

For a moment, Legasso seemed to ease up a bit, calm in his dismissal of the maiden while seating himself again. "Someone as tainted as you clearly has no idea what she is talking about. You could not possibly know what traits, thoughts, and emotions run through my blood anyway, for you and I never linked before."

"I do not need to link to another to learn this much about them." It was something some of us were learning firsthand, though the news was still shocking to all of us. No Altiri has that kind of mental power, telepathy without a direct link... Though maybe it is something else. I don't really know what is going on here. All I know is that this is scary on a new level, and Quvailah needs to leave. "You see Legasso, that research you rejected would have explained a bit more about how our psionic powers could be expanded. I for example have the ability to sense all the disturbances inside you. It's as if you are restless, a soul unable to relax, cursed with an infinite hole in all possible satisfaction, and to me, that's dangerous, because it means you might do anything to keep the control you already have. This of course also puts a hole in the whole God theory you've used to indoctrinate the others."

"Guards!" Legasso called with swift action, waving his arm to get them to his side. "Escort this lost one from Empyrean Temple. Mark down her name and face. She may never return to this temple at any time, less punishment of execution be enacted." It was a very rare thing to enact, let alone state. Execution means to terminate the life of the punished intentionally and willfully, though it's never been done before, I don't think.

The guards did as they needed to, while most of us and myself just stood by in shock, observing without any certainty on what to do or what to think. To me, it seemed like all she did was enter this temple only to mock our leader and then escape from her treachery. It didn't make a lot of sense really. I can't begin to imagine what was going through Quvailah's head, but as she was being dragged out by two other Altiri, she kept going on and on about the future.

"You may banish me, but I don't need a leader to live Legasso. I will go to the far side of Karnak, and I'll take a few people I know with me, people who also want the same freedom and future that we all want. You will see one day, king, that you cannot control everything and everyone to such lengths."

Legasso simply growled at her remark, waiting for the woman to be far out of earshot from us all. Maybe she thought it would have all been profound, but whatever Quvailah wanted from all of us, she wasn't going to get a single thought from such encouragement. Quvailah spoke so strongly, as if a mass defiance would follow in her solo rebellion, but instead, the opposite happened. To my own comfort, in what I would hear later that day, Quvailah was publicly shamed everywhere she went, and later banished from the colony to live on her own as she so desired. It sat well with everybody involved, but that day, no matter how affirmed we were in ridding our world of this one pest, something changed within Legasso.

It was enough to notice, but not enough to identify, nor was it a swift change. For many years to come, we would live in a world constantly growing and evolving, while the roots in the leader we've so long trusted began to crumble, taking all of the Altiri with it. Quvailah was gone, and Legasso remained, though with each day that passed since their encounters, neither the two were ever the same again, their understanding beyond our comprehension.