Chapter 24: The Wau Council

For the first time in his life, the Wau had requested to convene the Council of the Order.

It was within his power; he could have done so at any time but had respected the presumably busy schedules of his peers who, just like him, watched over a small part of the countless problems within Human Society and its emanations. He had only seen his counterparts once before, at his induction—a lengthy, rather technical meeting explaining the capabilities of his provisions (the Armor, the Dark Unit, the Sanctum, transhuman injections) and the philosophy of the Order: safeguarding Humanity’s welfare.

At the end of the hallway in his section of the Sanctum, a door opened onto a seat designed specifically for him and a large, semicircular room. In holographic projections, his brothers appeared one by one, too numerous to all be displayed at once (those highlighted were the ones whose heads moved slightly, detected by the AIs).

Within less than two minutes, the first had already appeared. After seventeen minutes, the average time it took a Wau to reach the most distant points of the HS, the Council announced that everyone was present.

The Wau wondered if he could have made it in less than seventeen minutes himself. Probably not in every situation. They are stronger and more deserving than me. I am a disappointment. On the screens, they all looked identical.

One of them spoke: “Dear brother, we have responded to your summons.”

The Wau described his recent failures and the possibility that the Transients might now know the location of the Sanctum. He concluded his report with these words:

“I no longer feel worthy of wearing the Armor. I propose that you exclude me from the Order of the Wau.”

A heavy silence followed, then another—or perhaps it was the same one—spoke in an ancient, possibly feminine voice:

“We have no means to exclude one of our brothers. This is not provided for in our Order.”

“To be more precise, we are experiencing a normal situation,” added another voice, quicker, less noble in phrasing.

“Once the Armor is bestowed, it cannot be reclaimed,” declared a third voice, female again, deep and serious. “That is the way it is.”

“Brother, you repeatedly used the word ‘failure.’ It requires more than a man and more than a god to judge a failure. What you perceive as failure,” continued the one with quick phrasing, “may not actually be one. There is no complete failure. The selection process of the Order is so rigorous that most successful candidates have never experienced failure, and considerable time passes before any form of failure emerges. Experiencing failure is formative and necessary. We consider it essential. There are no hierarchical ranks in our Order, but we have something we call the Compass.”

“The Compass? I’ve never heard of it,” admitted the Wau.

“We speak of the Compass only to those who discover it. The Compass guides us in our mission,” explained an older voice, belonging to a brother hidden behind the others. “It consists of six cardinal points, revealed only when experienced. The South represents failure. Other points will be revealed to you as you experience them.”