The Orb

The city of Cerea was on the brink when the orb landed.  The Ordosi were widely despised because they did actual work -- it was work or starve.  The Landosi, on the other hand, were despised because they didn’t work -- they had plenty to eat.  Their wealth came not from ingenuity or invention, at least for many generations, but age-old privilege. The situation clearly was unsustainable and a rebalancing was in order.  Blood was in air.  Then the orb dropped from the sky and landed in the middle of the market square.

Councillor Tallow was the first city councilor to arrive in the market square.  As he stepped through the throng, he saw Master Aretelo already surveying the situation with his assistants.  “Master,” he greeted Aretelo.  “Councillor,” replied Aretelo.  The two men regarded each other.  Both had the respect of the people, and grudging, each other.  Aretelo was regarded the smartest man in the city.  It was he who had constructed the barriers which prevented the devastating mudslides, among many other accomplishments. Tallow’s skills were less concrete, but he always seemed in tune with the mood of Cerea.  Both men knew the fate of city was at stake, and that their voices would likely be at a dissonance.

The orb was actually a relic of the Panophlo-Parthegon war, which occurred 500,037 years ago several galaxies away.  The Panophlo built things that really lasted.  But the orb was ending its service life and now hurtling towards self-immolation on a hyperactive exponential decay curve -- i.e. barring some miracle, it would destroy the city in the next 5 years with almost certain probability.  Might a miracle intervene?  Well think of the odds which had gotten the Cereans in this predicament: that a minor piece of equipment should traverse two galaxies and land in their market square just at the end of a 500,037 year end of life term… perhaps they were due a miracle.

Why hadn’t a civilization as advanced as the Panophlo engineered their equipment to clean itself up more gracefully?  In general they had, but the head engineer in charge of this project was under pressure to finish this piece, both because of the war, and because it had made reservations at the most sumptuous of Panophlan resorts where he wished to take its betrotheds (the equivalent of Panophlan marriages required at least three members of each of the four sexes).  And this is not to say Panophlans in general or the individuals in question didn’t care about future generations, but the head engineer figured it probably wouldn’t be a problem for a generation 500,037 years hence.  In this it was correct, for within 7 years of this momentous decision and marital bliss for the 17 Panophlans involved, their civilization was wiped out.  Together with that of Parthegon in the event, when the suns of both their systems mysteriously imploded.  As the suns were well within the boundaries of their expected life, it can only be assumed that something alien had, whether by design or accident, resulted in their demise.  Perhaps other pieces of deadly space junk from another conflict.

Aretelo was determined to find out what the orb was.  He measured it, tried to move it, chip off pieces, and consulted all the tomes on minerals and metals, but none reached as far as its alien origins.  While it would give out none of its secrets, those  assistants who touched it did notice a feeling of unwellness the next day, but afterwards recovered and seemed to develop an immunity.  Actually, it signified they would die a horrible death after a long debilitation illness.  But this would not develop for -- on average -- 10 years, which was well after their current shelf life.  It was like prostate cancer -- something you die with, not from, where the “from” had become a “with” due to the fact their city was to be obliterated soon.

Aretelo noted the illness.  It convinced him the orb could be something harmful which must be removed from Cerea.  How?  It was 3 meters in diameter and embedded in the ground.  Its rounded shape suggested it could be rolled.  Panglot set to work calculating the best route out and guessing how far would be safe.  Could they just dump it in the Atrevi Lake? But any overflow could poison Cerea, if the orb was indeed poisonous.  The alternative was to wheel it through Cerea’s mountainous surrounding.  A path must be constructed, kind of as Napoleon had done while crossing the Alps.  Napoleon, however, had had an army, a very motivated army.  Aretelo wasn’t sure he had that luxury.

Which was exactly what Councilor Tallow was calculating. For him, the ultimate fate of the orb was secondary.  The option to leave it or remove it depended on which option a coalition could be built around, hopefully a coalition of both factions which would then be amenable to addressing the imbalances Cerea was facing.

Tallow’s first stop was the Mauler Pub, a hangout near the market square.  It was always his first stop to gather opinions.  “Well i guess its here,” said Brinker, who lived in the area, “ a bit crowded with all the gawkers recently to tell the truth.”  “Is that a bad thing?”, said Vendidas, a local shopkeeper, to the approval of some of his fellows.  “They get thirsty,” said Usotsuk, a ne’er do well from an outlying region, who was doing quite well selling water to the gawkers.  He was graduating to selling orb water, rainwater which had touched the orb.  Had the water actually been gathered from the orb, it would have sickened those who drank it.  But it wouldn’t have mattered because they would have died well before its detrimental effects had begun, as detailed earlier.  As it was, Usotsuk told his customers they would feel a bit of discomfort after which they would feel transformed.  Which they did, though the second part was conjured by their imagination and Usotsuk’s enthusiasm.  And his luck that his first batch of customers, being the gullible type, had swallowed the placebo hook, line and sinker.  Later customers, in the face of this enthusiasm, felt unable to resist its appeal.  Indeed it was a welcome break from the ideology fueling the recent tensions.

The one group adamantly opposed to the orb were the Mystika, a sect who were always ideological and never frivolous in their opinions.  To them the orb was foreign.  It was new.  As such it was anathema. The Mystika railed against people moving in from the countryside, or heaven forbid, foreign cities, against the explosion of commerce which was growing Cerea and making some of its merchants rich.  These riches the Mystika viewed as corruption, and it became the favorite target of the Mystika High Preacher.  As their following grew, it was noted that the High Preacher’s riches also grew, and he didn’t really give it away as some might suppose, but his rhetoric was so fierce that few dared question him.  The Mystika were right about the orb in the case, but for all the wrong reasons.  Had it been a flowerbed of bounties, they would have been equally Tallowreperous.

“We must move the orb,” Master Aretelo advised.  “We cannot move the orb it is a gift from the gods,” insisted Tallow as eloquently as any Trojan fooled into advocating for a Greek horse.  Usotsuk and the water sellers loudly concurred.  The orb had indeed been giving them manna since its arrival.

Ultimately it was the intransigence of the Mystika that determined Cerea’s fate.  On a day when the High Preacher thought he had noticed a particularly inordinate amount of foreigners -- actually they were citizens dressed in a newish fashion which the High Preacher wasn’t yet acquainted with (close enough!), he decided the orb must be done away with.  He rushed to the marketplace and after a long harangue, beat the orb with his staff.  This caused Usotsuk and the water dealers considerable consternation, but as the Mystika were regarded as some combination of holy and devilish, he held back.

The following day Cerea filled with smoke.  It was from a distant volcano, which had erupted several weeks earlier, but this did not prevent the unsuspecting citizens from suspecting it had something to do with the orb beating.

The High Preacher did not back down, however, and the following day, after an even longer harangue, the High Preacher again struck the orb, this time so forcefully that his staff broke.  

Coincidence did not back down either, and the following day, a pendant accumulation of mud at long last decided to flow downhill from a nearby hill and  flattened several hovels on the outskirts of town.  This caused even greater consternation among the Cereans, but not the High Preacher.  The hovels on the outskirts generally were foreign quarters, and he took their demise as a sign he was in the right.

Master Aretelo knew that were the priest to belabor the orb again, a further rebuke from the probability gods would be the end of his endeavors to move it.  As it was, it would require some time and a careful construction of arguments to gain consensus to move the orb.  This he would try to impress upon the High Preacher, who like the rest of Cerea, accorded him at least begrudging respect.

Unfortunately his plans were overheard by Usotsuk, who, feeling the fire of his future wealth being burned up, hastened to Councilor Tallow.  Tallow lost no time.  He had his most dogged assistant go with the head of the guard to waylay Aretelo and convince him the most urgent business required his presence at Council Hall.  Aretelo, though far from naive, was unable to convince himself that Tallow would declare a non-existent emergency, so he dispatched his most convincing aide to the Grand Mystic to forestall him.  This aide, however, wasn’t so convincing, and anyway Tallow was taking no chances.  The aide ended up in the spare bedroom of a nearby widow and could in no way remember how he had gotten there.

When the Grand Mystic approached the orb, the populace was tense, but none dared speak out. But Tallow could see the fear in their eyes, and as the Grand Mystic raised his newly acquired staff to strike the orb again, Tallow stode forth and grabbed his arm.  “Shall we allow this man to rain more tragedy upon us?” he cried.  “No! no!” shouted Usotsuk and the populace, once the holier than devilish spell had been broken, raised their voices in wrath.  The guard clapped irons on the High Preacher and his followers.  Landosi hugged Ordosi, or would have except for the smell.  But there were a few smiles and attitudes began to soften.

Aretelo, hurrying back from the ruse at the Council Hall, viewed the drama with resignation. While he felt strongly that the orb should be removed, and had no doubt the smoke and mudslide were anything but coincidence, yet he had little positive evidence the orb was pernicious, and he was a man of facts.

Councilor Tallow’s “wisdom” was widely lauded.  He became Cerea’s most popular man and the Council acclaimed him Chief Councilor for the next term, a formality confirming the position he enjoyed since his hand touched the High Preacher’s staff.

Aretelo bided his time.  Before you laud his wisdom too much, reflect that of all the flotsam strewn across the Universe from the Panophlo-Parthegon War, 62% was harmless.  And the rest was overwhelmingly rich in things like niacin, folate and other line items you might see on food labels with recommended daily values from the FDA. Only a handful of the artifacts were harmful.  Had Aretelo known these odds, he would have likely revised his opinion and been unlucky (there are many ways to be unlucky).  But these odds were above his pay grade, so, unable to perceive any clear benefit from keeping the orb, he fell back on a healthy dose of risk aversion. 

Chief Councilor Tallow used the nascent spirit of cooperation following the Orb “victory”, to make it convention to breach Cerea’s more unreasonable socio-economic customs.  And as the years raced towards Cerea’s deadline, most of its inhabitants felt a growing sense of prosperity.  Were anyone to survive to write Cerea’s history, it would have acclaimed Tallow one of its foremost patriarchs, with perhaps a mention of Aretelo as well.