The stone box was very plain. It had a slurry of water and
paper in it, sitting on his Radiance’s desk. Diryish beamed at it as if it were
his own Heir. “Brilliant Datrus! Absolutely brilliant! If they wish to keep a page they must lift
the deckle out and dry it, else it dissolves into the next day’s news?”
“Yes, Radiance. These need to be
filled with water and fibre, is all. Everyone will
have a stylus to write on the water... the slurry really.”
Diryish poked at the slush in the
stone box. “You mean that requests come
to a central office here if someone writes upon the water? If someone wants a story they write on the
slurry to request it?”
“Yes, Naser. Images as well, though we cannot make them
move the way our ancestors apparently did.”
“That will come later, I’m
certain, given your skill, Datrus. So
people cannot pour trash in here?”
“Fibre. If they pour trash in, nothing happens but rot or evaporation, with associated odours. Just fibres for pulp. If they do not provide
the medium they get no story. Or news
either.”
“People are responsible then for
the material to print upon then? – Good.” Diryish looked at the dry page and
the other pages and laughed. “They will have all news if they throw pulp into
the box! Excellent! We will have enough zardukar to write the Lainz news. We will have a certain number who can write
stories. Any new stories need to apply
to the Sunrise Loggia Zardukar. If the majority of zardukar like the story we shall offer it as well as the
news.” Diryish rose to his feet. “We will see these boxes distributed to every
household in Lainz. From the meanest
hovel in the Basin, to the highest Loggia.”
“Um... Radiance... isn’t that too
much? Won’t that cost too much?
“A stone box?” Diryish snorted. “It is a fraction of the cost of every
wall... every ceiling.”
The designer stared at him. “But
Radiance...”
The Emperor cut him off with a
wave of his hand. “It is pound foolish
to count pennies for every box, for every household’s access to information. Information is the most valuable of our
resources. This one change will transform our whole society!”
The man clearly did not
understand. He stood with his hands
spread. His Radiance spread his own
hands to encompass the whole work, the whole array of offices, the numbers of
creators, the numbers of makers. “These
people... we have been paying. Now we
will have the whole empire paying extra to receive the news of the day and the
stories created by the best story-spinners. Every household will have basic
access to the news for free as far as they are concerned... well, free as long
as they provide the fibre upon which every story will be printed. Education will also be free to a certain
point. Extras will cost, of course. Or a
minor tax upon the importation of raghnall
fibres from Trovi. There will be
revenue once we find out how well this system works.”
“We’re getting an enormous tribute
source of fibres for now, paper and other things from the razor grass plains of
Trovia. And a new means of having the
Hive produce the ink that is so malleable.”
Diryish closed his eyes, dreaming.
“Our ancestors had central machines that printed things. Then they had pages that changed and the news
came from everywhere. We are forced to
skip the central printing step but this will work, as well.”
“We will have to have trained editors
whose taste encompasses much more than my taste in stories alone. I would suggest that all should be available
for the asking. Any citizen should be
able to ask for any story that we have.”
“As your Radiance suggests.”
Diryish could tell he was not
happy. He opened his eyes and gazed at
the man benevolently. “It doesn’t
matter, Datrus. It does NOT matter. We give information. We give masses of information and allow
people to choose what they wish.”
Datrus sighed, “It seems... rather chaotic to me, your
Radiance.” He shrugged and
twitched. “Less controlled than we should
like.”
“Less controlled than YOU should
like, to be certain, Datrus. But not
me. I have a different opinion of the
power of knowledge. Now we have to try
and teach people wisdom which is much harder.”
The designer shrugged. “As your Radiance wishes.”
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