“PRODIGY TAKES OVER REINS OF GOVERNMENT.” A smile crept around the edges of Metis Salmacis’ lips – a smile he tried to keep from growing bitter – as he recalled the news headlines right after the election. It had been a heady time. For the first time in twelve years the Divine Wisdom Party had drawn the majority of votes from both continents as well as from the islands, giving it control of parliament. And he, Metis Salmacis, leader of the party, a mere 42 years old, had become the youngest prime minister in the history of the 31st Planetary Republic of Efrasteia. Yes, it had been an exhilarating cycle, the 17th of Agrotis – the Dawn Month – back in the year 1730. Standing apart from the other ministers, Metis looked out the window of the Cabinet Room located on the highest floor of the Tower of Parliament.  Splendidly, the city of Retz spread out below him. The buildings were mostly white, cream and beige – soaring, gleaming, spired and gabled and arched in a stylish blend of architecture dating from the 30th Republic to the present. The streets were paved in smooth white stone that always sparkled spotlessly clean. Citizens going about their business moved down there, colorfully garbed, tiny as children’s toys. Weighty matters of state occupied his thoughts as he somberly stared out the window. Soon he would have to return to the debating group of ministers to weigh in with his arguments concerning the proposed hi-tech satellites. He didn’t relish the prospect. The conflict at hand was as old as the eternal differences between his own party, the Divine Wisdom Party, and the opposition Scientific Progress Party. In this particular case, leaders of the Science Party, as it was known for short, wanted to build surveillance satellites capable of frequency matrix modulation and deploy them to the planets Blue, Red and White. These were the nearest planets to Efrasteia, named for their predominant color as seen from space. (Efrasteia, in this context, should have been Green – but the citizens of Efrasteia would never abide such a prosaic designation for their planet)  The Wisdom Party opposed the satellite bill for a variety of reasons, not least because the technology involved wasn’t yet fully understood and could prove dangerous. As the prime minister ran over his options in his mind, he paused to gaze across the    city’s huge central square at the edifice for which Retz, the capital of Efrasteia, was famed throughout the local galactic sector. Not nearly as tall as the elegantly soaring Tower of Parliament, it was massive, squat, and very ancient – a great white cathedral with high, narrow windows, a steeply slanted roof, and a single square tower. Built long before any of the current structures of Retz existed, this was the fabled House of Moksha, chief Temple of Spiritual Wisdom in the solar system, extant both on the inhabited frequency matrix level of Efrasteia and on a slightly higher, supraphysical plane where many past Masters of Light and Sound lived and taught. Material existence, Metis understood, was comprised of an infinite continuum of matter vibrating at complex sets of frequency levels. Each set of frequency levels – also called a plane or a matix – encompassed a limited range of perception that appeared as the sole reality to the senses of the beings living in it. For example, the average person living at onephysical matrix level of reality – say, on one of Efrasteia’s neighboring planets – couldn’t see the inhabitants of the other planets at their respective matrix levels of existence unless his or her civilization possessed advanced frequency matrix modulation technology. With this technology applied to starships travelers could “cycle” themselves up or down to match each planet’s inhabited matrix or “slice” of the reality continuum. Only then would they be able to see and physically interact with the life forms on those planets. At all other physical matrix levels above or below their respective inhabited levels the planets and moons of the solar system appeared to the average observer to be either too barren, too cold, too hot, or too poisonous to support life. From his own experience Metis knew that a few planets in the solar system possessed advanced frequency modulation technology; most didn’t, including Efrasteia. Alternately, however, spiritual students on Efrasteia and some of the other planets were taught that individuals could develop the ability to observe other frequency matrix levels with their spiritual senses, which was a natural way to perceive all planes of reality using the power of Soul. As a spiritual adept Metis possessed this ability, and from his position at the parliament tower’s window he could discern a constant stream of near invisible traffic that flowed to and from the Spiritual Wisdom temple at supraphysical frequency matrix levels. . .