The Green Monks
Once
upon a time, the Council of the Order of the Green Monks sent young Brother
Viriditas to Reactor Hall in their Alchemy Museum. There Brother Viriditas met old
Magister Ambrose.
The alchemist pointed to
the Hall’s mothballed liquid-salt thorium reactor. He asked the Green Monk, “Have
you kept it in working order?” Viriditas
nodded. Ambrose said, with a smile, “Even though it produced ‘the Devil’s Dung’?”
Viriditas
smiled back and said, “Please do not read too much into Brother Verdi’s anti-alchemic
sermons. He is pious and fervent; but the others on the Council routinely overrule
him. We keep our reactor in good condition, as we have done for the past three
centuries, to honor heritage and history.”
“Has
the dung that this devil shat out finally cooled off?”
“Yes,
the alchemic waste dump is at last radiologically safe,” Viriditas said
quietly. “Our three-hundred year guardian mission is now complete.”
“And
your stash of alchemic rhodium is now exhausted,” said Magister Ambrose. “I
should know, for the Council paid me its last kilogram! And for what? I’ll tell
you! You see, dear student, the Council has, over Brother Verdi’s strenuous
objections, signed an electric power deal with Lord Syko.”
Brother
Viriditas gasped. “You mean…”
“Yes, the Order has hired
me to restart the reactor; and I have chosen you, my best though most naïve
student, to be my assistant.”
Brother
Viriditas said, “But why? And why now?”
Magister
Ambrose said, “Lord Syko wants a ‘new industrial revolution’, if you please. He
desires skyscrapers and jet planes and spaceports; sun, wind, water and
geothermal aren’t powerful enough for his insane ambitions; so he turns to alchemic power! The Council will humor him
because they’re out of rhodium; and also because the mad lord made them an
offer that they couldn’t refuse.”
“But…
how much power does he want?”
“Gigawatts,
for decades; easily within this reactor’s capacity. Have you any starter fuel?”
“Well,
yes, some U-233, we’ve kept it pure –”
“– as heritage and history, right. Good,” said Magister
Ambrose. “Then with your help we should have the reactor up and running by next
month. Lord Syko has already given us a tonne of thorium, and will deliver a
tonne a year.”
“But,
but the waste! Each year a tonne of thorium will become a tonne of deadly
radioactive alchemic waste! What’ll we do with it all?”
“The
same thing you did with the Devil’s Dung three hundred years ago. Hide it in
the dump, wait ten years, extract a stash of rhodium, and guard the rest for
three centuries.”
“Rhodium!”
brother Viriditas exclaimed. “Is that
what this is about? After all this time, the Council betrays anti-alchemism for
base financial gain?”
Magister
Ambrose laughed. “Oh, no, no, no, dear monk, rhodium is just a means to an end!
To be sure, it will represent fabulous wealth; but that, to the Council, is not
the point!”
Brother
Viriditas said, “Then what is the
point?”
“The
waste itself, of course! An anti-alchemic guardian order needs alchemic waste to guard!”
Brother Viriditas said, “So…
though we Green Monks are anti-alchemic
activists, we’re really part of the alchemic
power system?”
Magister Ambrose said, “Sharp
lad! Good catch! Yes, the Order needs to be needed; so for its sake let’s make some
waste!”
Moral: The good born of evil owes a debt.
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