The Doors Of The Universe (14 page)

“Stefred and I understand each other,” Lianne agreed. “He knows I’ve kept something from him, yet he’s never tried to pry it out of me. I’m told past lives aren’t mentioned in the City. I suppose everyone must be curious about mine.”

“Well, we’re human. And there were rumors about your reaction to the dreams, so that when you chose to work here, despite how bad it had been for you at first—”

“But you’ve all experienced them; you know… oh, maybe you don’t. You, though, Noren—” She broke off, embarrassed. “I guess I’ve heard rumors, too.”

“What rumors?”

“That you’re a lot like the First Scholar.”

“You mean because I’m supposed to turn into some sort of scientific genius? That isn’t going to happen, Lianne. Oh, I’ll work toward it, but I’m not going to come up with any radical new nuclear theory; it’s not possible.” This was the sort of thing he’d resolved not to say to people, but with the situation now about to change…

Surprisingly, Lianne didn’t argue. “I’m not talking about what you’ll accomplish. I meant outlook, strength—knowing life’s not as simple as most people try to make it. That sort of likeness.”

“I didn’t realize there were any rumors about that. Stefred knows, but he wouldn’t talk about me that way.”

She didn’t meet his eyes. “He wouldn’t—he hasn’t! I suppose it… it must be what he calls my gift of empathy.”

“Empathy?”

“Sensing people’s feelings. That’s why he’s training me in psychiatry.” She caught his wordless surprise and went on, “You didn’t know? Of course not, most of the women who take shifts in the dream room aren’t his personal students, they’re just temporary assistants. I’m to study medicine and psychology, help with interviewing and so forth.”

“I didn’t know Stefred wanted any help.”

“Noren—I’m a lot younger than he is. Someday he’ll have to choose a successor. He’s waited—”

“For someone with the right talents. I see.” I see more than she’s saying, he thought.

Though he had not spoken this aloud, she blushed. “Maybe you’ve heard—other things. They’re not true. It’s not that I don’t like Stefred, I do! He’s one of the most admirable men I’ve ever known. I’m truly sorry I can’t feel as he wishes I did. When he asked me to marry him, though, I had to say no. I don’t plan ever to marry.”

How sad, Noren thought, for both of them. She must have loved someone in the village, someone she’d never see again. “You’re being trained as Stefred’s heir,” he said slowly, “and you know he wants to marry you—yet still you keep secrets from him?”

“I told you, he’s aware of that.”

“All the same, I shouldn’t have come to you with mine.”

“Is it against Stefred’s best interests?”

“No. No, it’s more like what you said—a prior commitment. A—a higher loyalty, if you like. But he’d give almost anything, personally, to know it.”

“He’d feel that way about some of my secrets, too. That’s why it hurts to keep them.” Beyond doubt she was sincere; Noren perceived that it hurt her with an intensity he couldn’t account for.

“I can’t tell you everything,” he began, wondering why he dared tell her anything at all. “I never planned to; I thought you’d be too inexperienced to realize how much I was holding back. I see you aren’t. But if you’re willing to be stuck with something else that’ll be hard to hide—”

“For you, I’m willing,” she said softly, again averting her eyes.

He pulled the recording from his tunic. “I’m not free to say where I got this,” he declared, “and I can’t pretend it’s normal for me to be carrying it around. But it’s a dream I have to go through. Soon.”

She took the container and broke the seal to examine the cylinder within. “How long is it?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“You haven’t experienced it before, then.”

“I’m not even sure what’s in it, except that it’s—significant.”

She studied him, once more seeming to grasp thoughts he hadn’t expressed. “You’ve got mixed feelings. Is there any chance it needs monitoring?” At his hesitation she added firmly, “I have to know.”

“I suppose you do. It’s not fair not to warn you that we could run into trouble. It—it’s probably pretty nightmarish, Lianne. Theoretically I guess it should be monitored. That’s one reason I can’t let Stefred find out; he knows me so well that if he was monitoring, he’d see it’s too important a thing for me to keep to myself. In fact under hypnosis I might talk freely to him—it’s something I’ve no deep determination to hide.”

“So you were going to just give it to one of the untrained assistants, have her put you under and close the door on you as if it were a sightseeing tour of the Six Worlds?”

“I hadn’t any choice.”

Lianne frowned. “Are you sure this was prepared by someone qualified, that it’s not raw thoughts of a person who might have been emotionally disturbed?”

“Absolutely. Whatever strong emotions are in it are there for a purpose.” In desperation he added, “Look, I wish I could explain more, but I’m bound, and I—I
have
to do this.”

“I believe you. But you don’t have to do it without monitoring.” As he drew breath to protest, she rose from the chair and inserted the cylinder into the machine. Her back to him, she said, “Noren, you’re trusting me awfully far. I could do more than tell Stefred, you know. I could copy this while it’s running and experience it later myself.”

Appalled, he could do no more than stand silent. He had not known the equipment well enough to foresee that possibility.

Lianne turned to face him. “I won’t, of course—which you realize, or you’d be calling this session off. So get into the chair.”

He obeyed, discovering that now that the moment was upon him, he was terrified. The First Scholar had warned that this dream might not be harmless.

“We’re going to have to trust each other,” Lianne said quietly. “I won’t tell Stefred—and you mustn’t tell him that I know more skills than he’s taught me.” She tilted the chair all the way back and then with quick, deft fingers she unfastened Noren’s tunic and began taping monitor electrodes to his chest.

“Lianne, how can you possibly—”

“Know how to monitor? That’s like asking you how you got hold of a recording with a seal that’s been intact since before your grandparents were born.”

He remained silent as she adjusted the band to his head. “I didn’t have to be so honest with you,” she pointed out. “I could have attached the monitors after you were asleep. But you’re too tired to be plunged into this without deep sedation; I’ll bet you haven’t closed your eyes since the night before last. I’m going to put you into trance, and for that, you’ve got to trust me completely. You’ve got to know I’m hiding no more than I’m required to hide—and that I’m competent.”

“Stefred hasn’t taught you deep trance techniques yet, either.”

“Hardly.” Her voice was even, yet somehow reassuring. “Nevertheless, this isn’t the first time I’ve used them. And there’s something else we need to consider. If you fear you might speak openly to Stefred under hypnosis, you might to me. I won’t probe, but if you talk freely—”

“You wouldn’t understand enough of it to matter.” He looked up into her face and then murmured, “Or would you?”

“It depends on what you mean by ‘matter.’ You say you’ve no underlying determination to hide the dream content, yet you were ready to risk physical shock rather than confide in Stefred.”

“Well… Lianne, it’s not just a—a personal thing. Stefred couldn’t treat it as a medical confidence. It may be relevant to fulfilling the Prophecy, so he’d be obligated to tell the whole Council.”

“I’m not bound to that yet. I haven’t assumed priesthood.” She appraised him thoughtfully. “But
you
have.”

“Yes.” He saw that he would have to say more. “If a person’s been given cause to suspect a conflict could arise between fulfilling the Prophecy and following the First Scholar’s plans, what should he do?”

“In your place,” she declared, “I’d be sure I knew all the facts before getting the Council involved. And Stefred is one of its senior members.”

Noren didn’t answer her. Lying still for the first time since last night’s inspiration, he found his mind beginning to drift. It touched questions he’d overlooked before. Genetic alteration of humans… but
how
? The analysis and modification of genetic material itself was something he’d studied; it would surely work with human cells as well as animal ones. But how would that help? The work-beast modification had been done on embryos. There’d been no room aboard the starships for animals; the embryos had been transported in test tubes. They had in fact been conceived in test tubes on the Six Worlds: an agricultural technique he had read about. Such a thing could hardly be arranged with humans, even if people would tolerate the idea of it, which of course they would not. There was only one way of conceiving babies, after all; the mere suggestion of interference would be indecent… and besides, there just wasn’t any means by which…

He felt his face grow hot. Lianne was bending over him; he caught sight of a monitor light flashing red. It was a good thing her “gift of empathy” didn’t extend to the actual reading of minds.

“I’ll put you in trance, now,” Lianne said. “I won’t use quite the routine you’re used to, but it’ll work the same if you want it to.” As her hand closed on his she added seriously, “Being scared of the dream is all right. But you mustn’t be nervous about
me
. I understand all kinds of feelings. I suppose you don’t expect that from women, even Scholar women.”

“Old ones, maybe, who’ve been priests for a long time.”

“But the young ones, scientists or not, are still influenced by village customs. Noren, I’ve never thought the way the villagers do.”

“Of course not. You became a heretic.”

“I don’t mean just that.”

An idea came to him. “Were you accused of witchcraft?” That could explain a lot. Most alleged witches, village women reputed to have strange powers, were innocent of real heresy and were given Technician status if condemned and delivered to the City; but there were occasional exceptions. And according to Stefred, some witch-women did use hypnosis.

Lianne laughed. “Witchcraft? No, but I probably would have been if people had known more about me. I’m—different. I can’t pretend not to be.”

“I used to feel that way myself, sometimes. As if I belonged in some other world.”

Very quietly she said, “That’s a good way to describe it.”

“I think if I’d heard then about the Visitors, the aliens who left the sphere we found in the mountains… Do you know about that, yet?”

“Yes,” Lianne said. “I do. I’d like you to tell me more, though, Noren… only first you need to sleep… .

She was skillful; he didn’t have time for apprehension.

*
 
*
 
*

As in the other dreams, he was the First Scholar, but retained consciousness of his own identity. He was standing in a wide space within the inner courtyard of the City—it was a time when not all the towers had been erected, so he knew it was some years before the end of the First Scholar’s life. The images of the dream, having been recorded as a long-ago memory, were less clear than in most. But the emotions were strong. Though he could not yet comprehend them, Noren was immediately aware that these were the undefined emotions of his nightmare.

Reaching out as he’d learned to do, he found he could gain no quick understanding of his situation. It was like his first experience in controlled dreaming, when he’d lacked the background to interpret what came into his mind, when he had sensed only that the First Scholar’s underlying thoughts were acutely painful. He would not grasp what was happening till he heard words spoken by himself and people around him; he must confront it one step at a time.

And the feelings were worse than those in the earlier controlled dreams. There was horror of a different sort from the horror he’d felt while watching the nova, or during the Founders’ reluctant seizure of power. Then, he had been horrified by things outside himself. Even while letting the village people think him a dictator, he’d known that he was not what he was forced to seem and that he was not going to hurt anybody. Now he knew the course he planned might bring someone harm. Indeed, it might bring harm to one intimately close to him… .

“It is unthinkable,” said the man who stood beside him.

“So was our sealing of the City,” Noren replied. “That went against all our ethical principles, too.”

“Yes, but we had no choice. There was no other chance for human survival,” the man replied. The personalities of the First Scholar’s companions were dim in the dreams, for he’d focused not on them, but on issues, in recording his memories for posterity. Noren was aware, however, that this man was one of his best friends—they were discussing something that to the Founders as a group would he unmentionable. “We supported you,” the friend continued, “because you convinced us that without preservation of the City, our grandchildren’s generation would be subhuman. It’s presumptuous to tell you that my conscience bears a heavy load. I know yours bears more than mine, and that you suffer from it. I will simply say I cannot bear a heavier load than I now carry—nor can any of us. We could not violate ourselves as you ask even if we saw justification.”

“Do you not see it? Death of our human race will be just as bad generations from now as it would be for our grandchildren.”