The first phase started. First of all the Scientists started to enrol more people than before, but without kidnapping them. They started to go from house to house asking who wanted unite to them, then the voluntaries were screened by CC1AA. The unfitting ones, as not reliable, simply forgot where and how the test took place and were accompanied back home. Then, after the trustworthy recruits were instructed by CC1AA, of which they had to multiply the terminals, the newcomers were infiltrated in the best groups and bands already existing, to gradually be transformed by them. In fact the first phase was articulated in three main policies -- the first being to strengthen agriculture, the second allowing industry to begin, and the third being so that the various warriors group became gradually more and more similar to each other, to transform them one day into one powerful organization. In this first phase the Scientist had yet to act in secret, but thanks to their men infiltrated in the world, the voices about the "Wise Men" spread, being less and less mythical, more and more free from legend.
CC1AA was always in contact with all the men who were infiltrated in the various organizations, so that the picture was always updated and at the same time the fidelity of these key men was guaranteed. At times Chipi and Klare also went around to check in person the evolution of the situation. They didn't really need that, as CC1AA always kept them up to date, but for the two lovers it was a pleasure not to see things just as data. Besides there was no longer the need to be always shut inside the mountain of the Central Seat.
It was about five years that the project had been developing, when Chipi said to CC1AA that in his opinion it was time to form a new grout -- the merchants. That is, people gathering the various products or the things dug out in the cities' ruins, to redistribute them. Still a commerce based on barter, but that would speed up the development of the various communities. So CC1AA elaborated this variant and submitted to the Great Council the new project. It was approved.
Thus Chipi and Klare decided to be the first merchants. This was not in contrast with Chipi's leadership role, thanks to the constant telepathic connection he had with CC1AA, and it allowed them to travel as they pleased.
During their umpteenth journey, when the new merchants were starting to be rather numerous, they stopped at a small community of farmers, composed of five houses and a population of about sixty people. They were welcomed and they talked for a long while with its various members. They came to know that the community had at times to defend itself from small predator gangs, therefore everybody trained in the use of weapons. But this distracted them from their work. Chipi, as usual, made them a proposal -- if they accepted to farm with new, different techniques, they could produce five times more than they were producing, with the same amount of work. Therefore they would also be able to maintain the agricultural technician that Chipi would send to them and also a small group of specialized and well armed guards who would protect them. Lastly they could give to the merchants the surplus in exchange for tools, clothes, and other items for their personal comfort and for their houses.
His proposal was accepted, so the technician and the guards installed themselves in that community. They all were people enrolled and trained by the Scientists. This technique, that they taught also to the others, became the prototype of the new culture in other small isolated communities.
While Chipi and Klare were still in that first community, they met a seventeen years old boy, Ferji. He was a really smart boy, and full of enthusiasm for the wave of novelty that Chipi and Klare brought to his community. He was spending almost all his free time with them, asking them a thousand questions, full of curiosity about everything.
One evening Ferji said to Chipi: "Am I wrong or are you and Klare... more than just friends?"
"What do you mean?" Chipi asked, made curious by the question.
"Well... here they say it is wrong, even if they are not able to say why... but I too have a friend who... is to me more than a friend. His name is Grend, he is twenty years old. His family is insisting it is time for him to marry, but he doesn't want to, because... Grend and I would like to live together and not have to always meet in secret."
"You and Grand are lovers, you mean?" Chipi asked with a liking nod.
The boy blushed but nodded in assent, then hurriedly and worried said: "You'll not tell the others, will you?"
"No, for sure. How long is that you two have been making love?"
"It's three years. We were bathing together down at the stream, we playfully fought, and became aroused, and he kissed me. It has been wonderful. So when he said he wanted to make love with me, I at once told him yes. Since then we make love every time it is possible, and now we don't want to be parted."
"You never thought of going away together?"
"Run away? Yes, but where? And what would we do for a living? We only know how to work the fields."
"Wouldn't you like to come with us to become merchants?"
"With you and Klare? It would be really great. But I don't know if Grend would like it."
"Well, just talk with him. Meanwhile I'll talk with Klare and if we all agree..."
Klare of course agreed, but he wanted first to consult with CC1AA. When they were connected, CC1AA noted "The data I am gathering on the external world is interesting. On this subject it seems that human beings are divided in those who admit love amongst men and those who refuse it. The Scientists, some bands and gangs, for instance, practice only love amongst men, even if steady couples are not always a rule, rather quite an exception. Some groups deny it, especially the small farmers communities. Possibly, at least according to Dane, because those small communities feel the need to procreate many children to grow and defend themselves. It could then be useful making a group of merchants formed by couples of the same sex, rather characterized right from the beginning by this fact. If Grend and Ferji accept Chipi's proposal, just connect them with me, so I can tell you if they can be accepted."
Grend, seeing the possibility to remain united to his Ferji, agreed at once. Then, withdrawing with them, Chipi explained to them that in order to become merchants they had to undergo a rite.
Grend asked: "But, do we have to make love also with... others?"
"No, don't worry."
"Good, then. What kind of rite is it?"
"Close your eyes..." Klare said.
They made them fall asleep and put on them the bands at their wrists and temples so that all four were connected with CC1AA. Chipi and Klare at once experimented the strength of the love between the two youths. Grend was full of Ferji, and Ferji of Grend. The one lived only for the other and gave him total fidelity. Both also felt admiration and gratitude towards Chipi and Klare that they felt similar to them. They also had a strong sense of honour and loyalty. CC1AA meanwhile had analyzed their parameters, and said that they were suitable to become merchants.
So Chipi pulled off their bands and awakened them. "Grend, Ferji, from now on you are merchants. You will leave with us, we will teach you the trade and soon you can go around also by yourselves."
"But, we two alone... what if we meet the predators?" Grend asked.
"We merchants have means to protect ourselves. We will show them to you. Now bid farewell to your families an then we can go."
When the four took the road with their self-moving chariot, while Klare was driving, the two youth on the back were happily kissing and caressing. Chipi was looking at them with affection.
"You two desire making love. I'll go in front with Klare, so you can do it without worries."
"It's not necessary. It is so beautiful just being able to embrace and kiss Ferji without hiding! We can make love later, it is good also just enjoying our proximity, our desire, our excitation as we are doing. Being with friends who understand and who are like us." Grend answered continuing to intimately caress his Ferji who cuddled against him.
Suddenly Klare stopped the self-mower: "There is a gang in ambush. If you hold yourselves strongly, I possibly can shake them off."
"No, Klare, it is good if this gang also understands that they lose their time and efforts with the merchants, and that at the same time we give to our young friends a demonstration. Stay still and put on the shield around the chariot, then let's go down to enjoy the scene." Chipi said.
Klare smiled and complied.
Ferji and Grend were in alarm: "But they are many, how can we possibly stop them?"
"Come down from the chariot, if you want, but don't go far. And enjoy the show." Chipi said to them.
They went down hesitantly, holding each others' hand, more convinced by Chipi and Klare tranquillity than by their words.
The gang, seeing that the chariot stopped, had rapidly spread as a fan in front and behind them, and were surrounding them.
Then their chief yelled: "We don't want to harm you, if you don't resist. Just give us all your belongings and the car and we will let you go, alive."
"All right. Just come and take it all." Klare shouted.
The hang, at their chief's sign, advanced more, until they first banged against the invisible barrier. Surprised exclamations, then attempts to force it, while Chipi and Klare burst into laughter and, in a while, cheering up, also Grend and Ferji united to that merry laughter. The gang's warriors were funny and also pathetic in their furious attempt to penetrate through the invisible barrier, which to them was incomprehensible.
"How do you do that?" Grend asked.
"We will explain to you later. This and other secrets of the Merchants. Do you see that even if alone, you will not run any risk?"
"Chipi, will we wait until they get tired, or have we make them sleep?"
"Well, Klare, do as you like..." Chipi answered to his lover.
Klare smiled, hid inside his hand the small paralyser and went near the barrier. He aimed with his index finger towards a warrior and this one, at once, slowly glided to the ground, benumbed. The warriors near him looked with fear regarding their mate, and rescued him taking him far from there. Klare repeated his gesture in other points of the barrier, and what seemed like a witchcraft happened again. So that in a short while all the warriors, bodily taking away their unconscious mates, abandoned the field. Then the four friends went again into the chariot, and, reducing at the minimum the shield to be able to move yet maintaining protection, they resumed their way.
"Did you kill them?" Ferji asked with a slightly worried tone that pleased Klare.
"No, don't worry, they will just sleep for a while."
"But how did you do that, just with a gesture? Do you have magic powers?"
"No, all the Merchants can do that, using this small device." Chipi said showing them the small cylinder. And he started to instruct his two new recruits.
What hit Chipi was the extreme simplicity with which the two boys, overcome with first amazement, accepted the existence of those small wonders of science and technique knowledge and how fast they learned to use them. With the help of CC1AA he made them also learn to read, write and do accounts. When later in that evening they decided to hit their beds, Chipi thought to give them another present.
"If you want to make love really in a new and special way, put on these bands as I showed you, and ask CC1AA to make an exclusive connection between the two of you."
"And then?" Ferji asked with curiosity.
"And then just make love." Chipi answered with a smile.
In another part of the chariot also Chipi and Klare started to make love.
"Do you hear them?" Klare asked caressing his lover.
"Yes, and they are tender."
"Never as you are. Do you know that the more I know you, the more I am in love with you?"
"It is great being able to experience what our two friends are experiencing, but it is also more than great learning to know each other gradually, in the old way."
"Yes, Chipi. The union that CC1AA allows us to have is precious, but just for once. It is beautiful growing together with just our means."
"Klare?"
"Yes, Love?"
"Anyway one thing I learned, thanks to CC1AA."
"Yes? What is that?"
"Not to be any more ashamed to tell you that you have a wonderful cock, that drives me mad. To no longer think of those words as vulgar, but rather as a really beautiful reality to whisper to the man I love."
"It is true. There is nothing vulgar in sex if it is an expression of love. Who knows why human beings create so many stupid taboos?"
"But now..." Chipi murmured.
"Yes..." Klare answered kissing him.
On the following morning, when they went to wake up the two boys, they welcomed Klare and Chipi with a radiant smile. "It has been fantastic! For the first time we really, completely felt one, as we always desired. We succeeded in... telling each other things that we would never have been able to say just with words. If CC1AA existed only for this purpose, it would be a more than sufficient reason. I deeply understood what my Ferji needs and how I can give it to him. And he too. You really gave us a fantastic gift. Thank you."
"Good, Grend, I counted on that. But it has been possible only because your love is strong and sincere. If it was not so, you would now have split, instead of feeling more united."
Later Chipi, when connected with CC1AA for the usual update, came to know that it had just been discovered that a new real religious faith had been born in the area of Shikeo and that it was slowly but constantly spreading. Its name was "The Way" and its believers called themselves "Wayfarers". This new religion was based on two simple points -- the first was that the acknowledgement of ones own limits is the base for personal progress, and the second was that working together is the basis for social progress. The priests of this faith, that was creating its own liturgies and cult places, were called "Guides" and were formed in a special school in Shikeo. CC1AA proposed to use also this new religion as a mean to speed up the change of the society, and for that proposed to entrust Dane with the task to prepare a new program.
Chipi was at once fascinated by this possibility, therefore he entered in contact with Dane. After talking with him, they decided to try to enter together the Guides' school. Therefore, after Chipi entrusted the guide of the Merchants to Salem, who was the best Merchant and who had been working with them for three years, he with Klare, Dane and his lover Hores, were brought with a flier to Shikeo. Here it was not difficult to single out the seat of the faith of the Way, that was called by the believers "Agency". The Guides Merrin, a thirty years old woman, with her companion Mild, twenty five years old, welcomed them. Both where wearing a clear violet tunic with a white band around their head, a wide white belt and shoes that were also white. The attire was simple and yet rather elegant.
"Welcome, friends. Would you perhaps like to become Wayfarers?"
"Well, it's possible. We heard about the Way, we would first like to know what exactly it is about."
"Come in, come in, we are at your complete service."
They made them enter into the Agency, a wide white room with black seats in circle around a tall round table where there sat flowers and fruits, a tall ceramic glass and a book, a small brazier where fragrant rosins were burning, and a lit lantern. Merrin started to explain to them their faith, reading some passages from the book, then explained to them the liturgy and the symbolism. There was not a fixed cult day, but each "party", that is a group of believers engaged in the same work activity, just chose a half day each five working days -- they would spend all this half day in the Agency to purify themselves with songs, dances, lectures, sermons and the communal meal.
At a certain point Hore asked to Merrin: "All you are explaining to me seems really interesting. But I would like to know, how does the Way look on human sexuality?"
"Ah, it could be a cohesive force, a fundamental one for human beings, if lived well."
"Yes, OK, but what does that means, practically?"
"That for any human being it is essential to find the right partner for his or her life. In fact only steady and really united couples can become Guides."
"More concretely, according to your faith, who is the right partner? Who decides that?"
"The concerned parties, it is evident. Who else could decide that? We preach that any Wayfarer, when he reaches puberty, has to start his or her first sexual experiences, both with people of their own age than with adults, so that they can experiment and understand what love and sex mean, and what is the relationship between them. And so that, in the turn of a few years, to find the right partner. When he finds it, he comes here to the Agency and we celebrate the union in front of all the party, or of the two parties if they come from different groups."
"And what if the couple, after they are united, become aware they made a mistake?"
"They ask advice of their Guides and, if they are really convinced they can no longer live together, we celebrate the unbinding ceremony. Simply that. If there are children, the parents decide who they are to grow up with and if there is no agreement, the Party expresses its opinion and, at the limit, if no one of them wants the children, the Party entrusts them to another Wayfarer."
"But the couple should be composed of a man and a woman?"
"Why? This is decided by the concerned parties. If they are in love with one of their own gender, where is the problem?"
"And a couple of the same sex can become Guides?"
"Of course!"
The four friends asked more questions to which Merrin and Mild answered exhaustively. What Dane and the others liked very much, was the serenity of the two Guides and their perfect harmony that by itself, showed how they were a staunch couple. So, they decided to become postulants.
After a few days of instruction, Klare asked: "How can one become a Guide?"
"It is very simple. If someone is really interested, we introduce him to our school. But it is essential he or she is a couple and that also the partner wants to become a Guide. In the school they will be instructed in terms of one month each and after each term they have to pass an examination. After completing twenty-three terms, they will be consecrated Guides and will be sent to an Agency where they will take the place of the expert Guides, and the old Guides will go elsewhere to found a new Agency. Each six months one of the couple in turn has to go back to the school for a short update period."
"How do the Guides live?"
"They are maintained by the Parties who refer to that Agency. We in fact possess nothing, but we miss nothing. All you see here, included our clothes, belongs to the congregation of the Party-leaders."
So, while Dane and Hore went back to the Scientists Centre to study the new program, Klare and Chipi entered the School, maintaining the contacts with them through CC1AA that meantime was boosted for the new tasks.
The Guides hierarchic system was simple -- each of the then couples of Guides elected a couple as its Responsible for ten years, each of the couples who were Responsible elected a couple as a Supervisor couple for a period of eight years. Ten couples of Supervisors elected for six years a Planner, and all the Planners elected for four years the couple of Guarantors. In each couple one was the leader and the other the councillor, to avoid, in case of different opinions any immobility. Each superior could, with a written and motivated decision sent to his superior, and after his signature, remove an inferior. But the removed couple could appeal to the superior of the people that signed the removal, and get the decision turned over on an appeal.
Chipi and Klare liked very much the system, its contents, everything about it. The only problem was the honesty and righteousness of the single members of the hierarchy. To that end a test could be made by CC1AA, it was sufficient only to find a way to insert him into the system. Chipi decided to take the shortest way. When the Guarantors couple went to visit the School, Chipi and Klare asked for a private audience. They were received in a room. As soon as they were alone, Chipi paralyzed them and put on them the bands, connecting them with CC1AA. Even if at distance he could make a summary test and at the end told them that the couple was reliable and also able to understand.
So then. Making them recover consciousness without them suspecting anything that happened, Chipi said to them: "We think that the Way is splendid, but also that most of its future depends on the honesty and righteousness of the Guides."
"Yes, it is really so. And also on the orthodoxy. This is our main problem. Often there are those who infiltrate us who just want to take personal advantage from the force that the Way is acquiring. We normally succeed in singling them out, but..."
"If you had a mean allowing you to judge those qualities, without possibility of a mistake, would you adopt it?"
"What a question, of course!"
"Even if this meant reading in the mind of every aspiring Guide, and seeing what were his true intentions and motivations?"
"It would certainly be the ideal solution, but such a thing is not possible. So, we try to remedy it with our tests and with a cautious control."
"Well, we on the contrary know it is possible." Chipi said.
"What? Reading one's mind? An old dream of human beings. How can you assert it is possible? Telepathy doesn't exist."
"We can show you to the contrary, if you just accept to undergo an experiment. We can allow you to read our minds."
"And how?" the leader asked thinking they were bluffing or just deceiving themselves.
"Please put these bands on your temples and wrists, like we do now. In this way a telepathic contact will be established and first of all you can see you can trust us. And see that it works."
"These bands?" they asked examining them, then they wore them with an amused smile but, as soon as the contact was established, they changed their expression.
"How do these bands work?" they asked. CC1AA answered them. Then they asked: "And you are willing to let the Way use this?"
"Of course, for that need you have of making sure that control is maintained. This would speed up very much also the preparation of the new Guides, once you insert inside those elected via CC1AA all the things you want to teach to the Guides."
"It would be a splendid thing. But why are you proposing to do this for us?"
"Didn't you read in our minds our motivations?"
"Yes, it is right. But we cannot decide such a thing by ourselves. We are not the masters, the owners of the Way, but just some provisional employees."
"For that we propose that you two, one after the other, persuade all the couples of the Planners just using your words. When all the Planners accept and enter in the system, in contact with CC1AA, they will convince the Supervisors, who will persuade the Responsible, down to the Guides."
"And what about those who are not convinced?"
"Don't you think they will not accept because they have something to hid? In this case you just remove them. But in this way and in a short time, all the Guides of the Way will be tested and surely faithful. Moreover CC1AA, once you fix your parameters, can also say which couples are fit to become Guides and which not. We only ask you that the existence of CC1AA is not brought to the knowledge of the believers if it is not useful, at least for the moment. We would rather not create unnecessary problems."
"But the ones we remove, can talk."
"There is also the possibility, if you want, to erase from their memory the part concerning CC1AA."
"This possibility to erase the memory, can't it be used badly?"
"Once you fix the cases and the limits, CC1AA will apply them rigorously."
At the end, after questions and explanations, and a new connection with CC1AA, the Guarantors accepted Chipi and Klare's plan. They left the school (as they had clarified the real meaning of their entering the Way's school and also their intention not to continue) and took themselves back to the Central Seat of the Way. With their assistance they started to test the Planners and meanwhile they observed the proceedings. When all was well started. Chipi and Klare left, after explaining how to keep the contacts with them if there were any problems, through the black bands and CC1AA. The Way was entering in the great project of Chipi with success.
They went back to the Center of the Scientists, that evening Klare, in their room, said to Chipi: "Are you satisfied? You are doing a huge job."
"Yes, sure. I'm happy. But above all I'm happy being with you. Without you all this would not have a taste, how beautiful it could be. You know this, don't you?"
"Sure, my love, I understand you. At times I ask myself what I would be without you."
"Or I without you."
"Right. Do you feel like using once again the bands to make love?"
"Poor CC1AA. We will have to boost him more if he has to take care also of this." Chipi said with a smile while he was wearing the bands.
"Don't worry about me, Chipi. I can grow and multiply without problems and give to the lovers the possibility to experience their love in a more complete way. And this is not the less important of my tasks." "What do you know about love, CC1AA?" "What I'm learning from you, Klare, nothing more and nothing less." "But will you ever learn to love?" "What a silly question, Chipi! I am just a machine. A book where is written all the possible and the known about love, who could ever fall in love? I can't feel emotions, I just record, analyze, measure them. My task is just that." "Yes, I know. But by ability of being able to communicate with you, I almost consider you a person." "Ah, this is anthropomorphization, one of the preferred sports of human beings. Do you imagine me as a male or a female?" "Male, of course!" "Thank you Chipi. Said by you it is a compliment. But now I'll withdraw and let you unite quietly."
During the night, when Chipi woke up, at the faint, warm light of the lamps reduced to their minimum, he looked at the beautiful naked body of Klare, lying at his side. The sweet curves of that virile body languidly abandoned in its sleep, the light hint of a smile that lingered on the satisfied face of his lover, were of a moving beauty. Chipi thought: "Is he dreaming? Who knows if it is possible to share his dreams too?" After making love he didn't pull off his nabs, CC1AA simply disconnected them to allow him to sleep. "Certainly, Chipi. Do you want to?" "Yes, I would like..." "So, then..."
A golden light, a sweet warmth like that of a serene spring afternoon, undulations in the air like those of a sheet of water barely blown by a not sensible breeze. A far away music, all pervading and coming off from everything, the same music as that of the universe. And the sensation of a physical contact, pleasurably diffused. He fluctuated in the air... who? Klare? Chipi? It was The Couple, they were both of them but it was One. The Couple kissed and the kiss was visible, sensible, and yet it was not like in a movie, but, in a mysterious way, form inside. The Couple were united by a kind of union that had a start and an end, and yet was unlimited. The Couple moved, one inside the other, but who was Klare, who Chipi, it would have been impossible to tell, and yet it was them. The rhythm of that union, strong and manfully passionate, sweet and calm like a summer sea, was the same pulsating heart and life. A mystery without veils, where the Couple rejoiced in silvery laughter, amongst pearls of iridescent, ecstatic pleasure, where giving and receiving were the same thing.
The Couple was slowly turning in the air, suspended and weightless, searching, finding, enjoying each other with merry, serene passion. Sensitive and yet immaterial, physic and yet spiritual. The Couple looked at itself in the clear waters, in the scented flowers, in the song of birds, and in the eyes of thousands of other invisible lovers. Then The Couple became a couple, two beings slowly parting, but without pain, without regrets, because it knew, in its more intimate essence, that it was not a real parting. One they were and One they would remain, even if in two different bodies. They smiled a each other a smile that contained all of mankind, all the history, all the universe.
Now it was possible to single out a Klare and a Chipi, and yet the couple knew that inside Chipi there was Klare, inside Klare there was Chipi and that nothing, not even that odd appearance of void that man calls death, could ever part them. They were parting for kilometres, for myriads, for aeons, and yet they could see each other clearly, with the heart's eyes, who can see better than the body's eyes. They were fluctuating in opposite directions, knowing that soon they would meet, unite again, because in reality nothing could split them. And they knew, one about the other, their real name, that one who contains the real essence of things, that it is not just a label, but the true and only significance, they knew one the name of the other and it had only one name -- Love.
And Chipi, at the faint, warm light of the lamps reduced to their minimum, looked at the beautiful naked body of Klare, lying at his side. The sweet curves of that virile body languidly abandoned in its sleep, the light hint of a smile that lingered on the satisfied face of his lover, were of a moving beauty. He and the love they shared were everything in one, and all that really mattered...