A to Z Lies in Space - Greer

I have seen much of this galaxy.  I know most of its secrets.  But there is one thing I'll never understand, and that's how everything I know collapsed around me.

The Sapo Order was one of the few things older than me.  It's true, I am very old.  I count my days in centuries.  The Sapo were guardians of order. They ministered to the needs of a thousand worlds, and were the most respected institution anyone knew.  Then one day, Reeve defected from the Order, and set himself up as tyrant of Zala.  After that day, the road to ruin was assured.

On another day, Ulysses appeared.  He was an outsider, who didn't belong in the Sapo Order, and yet he was admitted into our number despite my objections.  At first, he seemed to be the greatest of us, or at least had the potential to be.  It's true that he defeated Reeve, ended what appeared to be the most grave threat our galaxy had ever known, but then things spiraled out of control.  The Order began to disintegrate, and with it, the order of the galaxy itself, so that we descended into anarchy.  We lost the great gift of civilization, or the semblance of it that some of us had spent all our lives cultivating.

Perhaps all this is a matter of my own hubris.  I could very well be imposing an interpretation of these events favorable to my ego.  I lost what was most precious to me, and so I retreated away from galactic affairs.  That I can't dispute, that is the very least anyone could say about me, now, in my exile.  For all anyone knows, I am dead.  I might as well be.  I weep for what was lost, even as I struggle to define what it was.  My worldview?  My delusions?  Or perhaps, the best thing the galaxy ever had.

I could very well be the galaxy's biggest fool.  I think I was meant to die with my secrets...

"But this is not the story," says Kindly.