“Surely it need not then be feared,” she said.
“It is much to be feared,” he said, “for it can mobilize mobs, set a torch to cities with impunity.”
“Surely not,” she said.
“It would be a shadow empire,” said Iaachus, “claiming the right to guide and rule the real empire, or disrupt and destroy it.”
“It would use the force and might of others to promote its own policies and achieve its own ends?”
“That is its ambition,” said Iaachus.
“It seems a lying, terrible thing,” she said.
“Have you heard of a koos?” asked Iaachus.
“No, Master,” said Elena.
“That is just as well,” said Iaachus, “for women do not possess a koos.”
“There are many things I do not possess, Master,” said Elena. “Indeed, I possess nothing, for I am a slave. I own nothing. It is I who am owned.”
“Supposedly only men possess a koos,” said Iaachus.
“What is a koos?” asked Elena.
“It is supposedly the true person, the real person,” said Iaachus, “temporarily attached to the body, but somehow not in space.”
“How can that be?” asked Elena.
“It cannot,” said Iaachus. “Supposedly the body, and its senses, are irrelevant and unnecessary.”
“Why then do they exist?” asked the girl.
“I do not know,” said Iaachus. “I suppose it is another one of many mysteries.”
“A mystery?” asked Elena. “What does that explain?”
“Nothing,” said Iaachus. “It is a substitute for an explanation.”
“This is hard to understand,” said Elena.
“One does not understand the incomprehensible,” he said. “One can only understand that it is incomprehensible, and cannot be understood.”
“How could anyone take such things seriously?”
“Many do not,” he said, “but the verbiage is easy to flourish. It is necessary only to say something confidently and frequently, and many will suppose it must be true, though they have no idea what it might mean, if it means anything. Essentially it is not even a belief or a lie, for something must be comprehensible to be either a belief or a lie.”
“But people take such things seriously?”
“There are a dozen or more sects amongst the Floonians alone,” said Iaachus, “whose adherents are willing to kill, or die, for competitive gibberishes.”
“This is all hard to understand,” said Elena.
“It apparently goes far beyond the conflicting accounts of the teachings of Floon,” said Iaachus. “In some of the accounts, now rejected as untrustworthy, he did not even speak of a koos. He seems to have been more interested in how men should live this life. In one account, now denounced as a false scripture, he seems to have suggested that the table of Karch, at whose board one is to feast, is set on this world, or, in his case, on Zirus.”
“It is unfortunate that Floon is not about today,” said Elena. “He could then explain more clearly what he meant.”
“He would not have the opportunity,” said Iaachus. “He would count as a false Floon, an impostor, a heretic, and be sent once more to the burning rack.”
“I still do not understand the koos,” said Elena.
“Do not concern yourself,” said Iaachus. “Women have no koos.”
“Women do not have a koos?” she asked.
“That is the orthodox doctrine,” said Iaachus.
“Only men have a koos?” she asked.
“Supposedly,” said Iaachus.
“What of animals?” she asked. “It seems they see things, hear things, feel things, taste things, smell things, and such.”
“It seems so,” said Iaachus.
“And they manage without a koos?”
“It seems so,” said Iaachus.
“As do women?”
“Apparently.”
“Why do women not have a koos?” she asked.
“I do not know,” he said.
“If women have no koos,” she said, “why should men have a koos?”
“Do not concern yourself,” he said. “Insofar as the notion is at all intelligible, which seems to be not at all, there is no such thing as a koos, so you are no better or worse off than men. Neither has a koos.”
“But why,” she asked, “should women not have a koos?”
“I do not know,” said Iaachus, “but I suspect because Floonians are not too fond of women. Women are regarded as dangerous, as seductive, as temptresses, as alluring beasts whose charms might divert men from the life of the koos, which would lead them astray from the paths of righteousness, and such.”
“Then, Master,” she said, “these faiths will all be extinct in a single generation.”
“No,” said Iaachus. “Not all adherents of Floon are as perfect, and stalwart, in the faith as others.”
“I see,” she said.
“But they have their uses, for they regularly contribute their pennies, and darins, to the temple’s coffers.”
“What benefit do they receive for this?” asked Elena.
“Two, it seems,” said Iaachus, “first, the assuagement of instilled guilt, guilt inflicted upon them, guilt for their numerous, inevitable lapses and imperfections, for perfection, as you will understand, is difficult to attain. Indeed, the goal is designed to be unreachable. There is always more that could be sacrificed, more that could be done. Second, they are assured, though the matter is always quite uncertain and precarious, that their koos will eventually dine on golden dishes at the table of Karch himself.”
“It is all mysterious,” she said.
“I fear,” said Iaachus, “the empire may eventually find itself embroiled in the feuds of warring dogmatisms.”
“It cannot, Master,” said Elena.
“Already blood has stained a world,” said Iaachus.
“Tolerance is the invariable way of the empire,” said Elena. “The empire has always assiduously avoided the squabbles of faiths, ever maintaining its neutrality in such sensitive matters, always insisting on tolerance.”
“Save when the empire felt itself threatened,” said Iaachus. “Brief, minor, isolated persecutions, on one world or another, have occasionally taken place when some members of one sect or another, Floonians or otherwise, would renounce their loyalty to the state, would publicly and prominently refuse to perform, say, even a token sacrifice of allegiance.”
“I have not even heard of such things,” she said.
“The empire never had its heart in such things,” said Iaachus. “It is not the way of the empire. Such actions, occasional, intermittent and selective, were always founded on a concept of secular expedience, never on zealotry. It would never occur to the empire to systematically, over generations, hunt down and exterminate entire populations. The empire does not even understand such single-mindedness, such radical, fundamental commitment, such devotion, such dedication, such a willingness to despoil, torture, and murder, such unending and uncompromising fanaticism.”
“Why do you speak of these things, Master?” said Elena.
“Sidonicus, Exarch of Telnar,” said Iaachus, “wants the sword of the empire to be unsheathed in the name of Floon, his Floon. He wants the secular sword to seek out and exterminate heretics, namely, those who do not accept the doctrinal supremacy of his particular temple, or temples.”
“He is mad,” said Elena.
“Dangerous,” said Iaachus.
“Fortunately, he is weak, he has no power,” said Elena.
“The empire has power,” said Iaachus. “He wants the empire.”
“Surely he shall not have it,” said Elena.
“Do you realize the horror,” he asked, “should the empire endorse one such faith, one such dogmatism, so obsessive and immoderate, so radical, so extreme, so bigoted?”