Read Savant for Free Online Page A

that was imposed on the Active. It did not appear to impair his work in any way, and it resulted in a docile College workforce, and a sense of purpose among the Companions and Assistants. Within two Highs, cult members were being recruited from the Drafted, and, within five, all Assistants and Companions were promoted according to their status within the cult, rather than their suitability for the job.
    The religious fervour of the majority of the inhabitants of the College seemed to aid its smooth running rather than impair it, and Service, both Daily and Scheduled, worked virtually without a hitch.
    Without the stimulus of personalities clashing and shifting, and, without the usual office politics, Service at the College became lazy and bloated. Shift patterns were regular, and Named Operators barely worked at all.
    The Active, who was entirely benign in the venture, was considered elderly in terms of effective Masters, and was increasingly infirm, but his ailments had been kept from his followers. Service Central decided to maintain the Active as the figurehead of the cult, in his dotage, and introduce a new Active. That was when the problems began, and, although it was some time before the scenario played out, it was already beyond College Service to recognise or forestall, let alone prevent, the inevitable.
    No one quite knew how, but Abel, the instigator and effective head of the cult, had somehow detected that his Master was Active, and he was also able to sniff out the new Active when he arrived, as a boy of fourteen, to replace a Master who was hospitalised for dementia at the end of High that year.
    Selection procedures had changed and developed over the hundred and fifty years since, evolving into a system that was virtually flawless, and which, certainly, would never allow another Abel to be Drafted.
    In the College’s final hours, Abel set about testing his influence over the Active’s disciples. It proved so widespread, so pervasive, and so utterly outside the control of Service, that he was able to mastermind an announcement, setting out the Messiah’s deathbed wishes, and instigating a mass suicide.
    Service had no warning of the announcement, hearing it simultaneously with the rest of the College.
    After that, everything happened very fast. In half-an-hour the event was over.
    In the aftermath, when the situation was analysed from all angles, by experts in the field, new rules and regulations were set out. It took some time to formulate guidelines that would not restrict freedom of religious expression, but it was finally accomplished. A system was also initiated whereby rules and regulations were constantly tested and verified.
     
     
    S ERVICE WAS TWO hundred years old. It did not run like clockwork, but no one had seen a Code Orange or higher for fifty years, and Service Central was proud to claim that it would never see another Meltdown.
     
     
    T HE OTHER MAJOR incident had happened within thirty years of the first. It had been much less dramatic, and, as it turned out, less damaging, but no one had known that at the time.
    A very well-established College in the Urals came under some criticism from Service Central for corruption, and the decision was made to bring in an entire new Service team. The team of brightest and best had been assembled from all points of the globe, when personal travel was still widespread. Specialists were brought in from South America and Western Europe, and the bespoke team was trained together and all started work on the same day.
    On paper, the new system had looked perfect, impenetrable, with more built-in fail-safes than would ever be required. It had taken two years for the College to fall apart. The collapse was slow, but the problems were deep-seated, political and incredibly divisive. The imposition of an entire new Service team proved too much for the Masters’ entourages, and the Seniors and Students to bear. The problems went deeper than anyone had realised,