Crown Worthy Atman Part II: The Yield of Souls
Three months after inheriting Shadum, Arin had discovered a troubling truth about civilization: the more important a secret, the less likely anyone was to discuss it. Libraries explained taxation, atmospheric engineering and diplomatic protocol in exhaustive detail, yet subjects affecting trillions were treated as common knowledge. One word appeared throughout the inheritance archives: Atman . It surfaced in agricultural reports, demographic projections, migration forecasts and resource assessments, sometimes beside planets, sometimes species, sometimes entire civilizations. Arin initially assumed Atman was a form of energy, but the evidence made little sense. Wealthy worlds did not necessarily produce much of it, and impoverished worlds could generate astonishing quantities. Technology, military strength and political influence seemed irrelevant. The system was measuring something science had yet to identify. The oldest records made the mystery worse. Thousands of civ...