Page 15 - Tales Apocalyptic and Dystopian

The Mount of Darjeela

“But we must give our attention, yes, to what in fact transpired,
not send our minds willy-nilly after alternatives to the present which
are karmically impossible. The wheel of time has yoked human
destiny to the rise and fall of great cycles in nature; it is for the wise
man to learn his place within history by studying the akashic record
as well as the databases of our great universities. As I was saying, that
last great war, brought to a conclusion just short of mutual
annihilation, left the court scientists in a rebellious condition. Many
of them were foreigners, brought in by the kings from conquered
dominions to improve the royal armaments and arsenals, and lacked
an appreciation of the subtleties of our stratified social order. Their
own status, of course, was not much above that of the present-day
electronic repairmen or programmers of sacred holograms.”
A tiny hiss, a barely-suppressed gasp of astonishment, reached
Guru Bhastrika’s failing ears. Somewhere in that surrounding splash
of orange cloth and brown skin shock had registered: scientists
treated like the scheduled castes! The old man was pleased; the lesson
would not be a total loss.
“Yes, those early scientists had become disgusted by the carnage of
war and their responsibility for much of it, and they decided to take
their knowledge away from the authority of the state, sequester
themselves apart from the rest of mankind, and build their own
ahimsic utopia. It would be free of all the old restraints on behavior
that our sages had developed over the ages in accordance with the
laws of karma and dharma. No man would have a higher status than
any other, and conflicts would thereby be abolished. Science and
technology would serve the interests of peace and economic
development exclusively. All the old rituals were to be discarded and
only their own deities honored. Food would be freely prepared and
shared amongst all the people, and disagreeable tasks evenly
distributed—yes, even the cleaning of public conveniences!”
Now the undifferentiated mass of inert youth began to twitch
and pull in all directions, discomfited into idiosyncrasy. But Guru
Bhastrika had no intention of letting his authority slip away.
“Now, pay attention!” he rumbled, with a yellow-toothed
smile translucently masking the menace. “The kings were obviously
outraged by these plans. But they had their pride: it was not for them
to remonstrate with these revolutionaries. And the palace guard could

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