Page 39 - Tales Apocalyptic and Dystopian

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to the era of peace and prosperity we now enjoy. Hierocommand,
unifying all prior centers and levels of authority, both secular and
profane, military and civil, economic and moral, is responsible for the
maintenance of this order.”
Thea nodded. History was such a simple subject: she had
memorized the few events of significance and given them little
thought since early childhood.
“You are being inducted into the mysteries of Hierocommand,
young woman.” The old man’s voice broke into her thoughts. “That
means you will become a hierocom yourself, subject to the special
ecclesiastical laws of Hierocommand. There is no turning back, once
you have received the call. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” She would never see her home and family and friends again.
Hierocoms lived apart, above, beyond.
“The particular secret which you will share with very few others is
that of the technophants. When computers give false answers or
airplanes will not leave the ground, hierocoms fix them. The
knowledge for doing so was well-established at the beginning of our
era, and we have maintained it scrupulously in our archives. We do
not allow our citizens to experiment with any of these machines or
the principles animating them, of course: that would lead to another
dark age of godless materialism and destructive egotism. The
populace goes about its affairs confident in the knowledge that
Hierocommand will keep the system going. Unfortunately, it is in the
nature of complex technologies not to manifest every possible
problem at their inception. Despite our generations of familiarity
with all the wonderful labor-saving devices we take for granted,
malfunctions can occur for which the archives have no solution. It is
then that we require the assistance of one of those dangerous minds
capable of seeing things from a different perspective, trained in
trouble-shooting as well as schooled in the prohibited methodology
of science. But persons of those qualifications no longer walk the
face of the earth.”
Thea was shocked. Her world suddenly rocked on its foundations.
She, like everyone else, had assumed the hierocoms could fix
anything.
“Given this circumstance, one could predict that our society would
have collapsed years ago; the sorts of breakdown we encounter

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