The Doors Of The Universe (17 page)

He had not told her that in the end he himself must die at the hands of the villagers. It was the only secret he had kept from her. Were it not for that, he thought despairingly, he might go with her, as he longed to do—he would rather share her lot than stay behind as leader. He no longer wanted to lead. The burden was too heavy; without her, he might not be able to bear up under it; others might do a better job of leading than he. But there was no other who would carry through the ultimate phase of his plan.

Resolutely, he lifted the child, held it in his arms, his face for the moment averted.

“Don’t torture yourself,” she murmured. “That serves no purpose.”

“It serves our successors,” he said. “This is necessary for the same reason I observed the nova from the starship—there are certain lessons they can learn only from thought recordings. They’ll know the evils we established, the closed City and the castes. They must be shown the larger evils with which we had to deal.”

“The nova, yes. But how can you record personal contact with a mutant? How can you explain it?”

“To most future dreamers I can’t. In time, though, there will be a person who won’t shrink from the truth. That person may succeed where we’ve failed.”

He turned the child toward him and, for the first time since its early infancy, fixed his own eyes on its vacant ones.

And now, there could be no question from whose mind the image came. Like the nova, it was burned indelibly into the memory of the First Scholar, and the recollection was sustained during the recording process in such a way as to overwhelm whoever experienced the dream. It would make no difference, Noren knew, if he had never seen other subhuman mutants, never been attacked by them and killed them as in fact he had; he would draw from this moment the full shock of all he’d previously undergone. The mindless creature cloaked in human flesh would be no less revolting to him if he’d never been tormented by fears about Talyra’s baby… for as the First Scholar he knew that this was
his
child.

He knew also, while recording the memory, that in the end its mother had been driven with it into the mountains. That the bestial breed established there would carry his genes.

But even that was not the worst. The First Scholar, in subjecting him to this, had meant him to know the agony of personal involvement, yes. But the true evil was not in involvement but in the illustration of what might happen to the whole human race. This was a warning not of the consequences of action, but of those that might follow inaction. The First Scholar had taken the fathering of this child upon himself, as he’d later taken the villagers’ wrath at their exclusion from the City, to spare future generations. Better that his genes should be damaged than that everyone’s should… .

And it was not to justify himself that the First Scholar had made the recording. He had made it for a chosen heir.
That person may succeed where we’ve failed
, his words echoed. He, Noren, had said them, yet as the dream faded and his own identity emerged from it, he was not sure that he wanted to wake.

Chapter Five

Noren knew, of course, what he must do. The secret file gave him the results of the work done in the Founders’ time; the mother of the First Scholar’s child had left specific, detailed data and an analysis of what she believed had gone wrong. Though theoretically, it would have been possible to proceed without further preliminaries, the stakes were so high that he must move slowly. He must develop his skills by personally repeating such work as was possible to do with animals. It was necessary to design and carry through experiments like those done on the Six Worlds, using a vaccine to produce genetic changes in adult creatures and verifying that these changes were passed on to the next generation. None of this was original research—the computers contained complete information about it, and in fact were equipped to handle the actual molecular analysis of the genetic material in living cells. But to him, biology was a new field, and he had no one to tutor him. He had to become absolutely sure of his own competence.

He expected the work to be hard, and it was. But it was not nearly as hard as the things he’d thought would be easy.

His first impulse, after waking from the dream, was to tell everyone about it. Surely all Scholars would be elated to hear that a means had been found whereby survival could be assured and the caste system abolished! That they must face personal risks, suffer new conflicts of conscience, would not deter anyone; they’d earned Scholar rank in the first place on the basis of their willingness to make such sacrifices. Noren shrank from the thought of the chance he himself must take—but he didn’t intend to let that stop him. Was he to be less courageous than the First Scholar? Besides, it would be easier under the circumstances of his own time. He’d have plenty of support.

Or would he? On reflection, he remembered that even before the dream he had perceived that there would be controversy.

Perhaps the Scholars of his era weren’t bound by the taboo that had shaped the Founders’ views. But they were dedicated to the Prophecy. If this new work succeeded, the Prophecy would not come true. To be sure, it wasn’t going to come true in any case—metal synthesization wasn’t going to become possible. But his fellow priests didn’t believe that. They believed he, Noren, could make it possible! If he were to stand up after Orison some night and suggest abandoning the effort…

No, like the First Scholar, he would have to approach people one at a time.

A few days after the dream, once he’d outlined in his own mind the course he must follow, he sought out Brek. Brek was the only close friend he had, aside from Stefred. Though he was on good terms with everyone in the Inner City, he didn’t form friendships easily. He was a loner by nature; he always had been. And since Talyra’s death he’d avoided social contacts. He’d not wanted to talk, nor had he wanted to intrude—at meals, for instance—when Brek and Beris were together. Or was it simply that it hurt too much to see them as a couple, to see Beris glowing with happiness about their coming child?

Talyra… waiting for Brek in the refectory where they’d agreed to meet, Noren’s thoughts returned to Talyra. If only things had been different. If only…

No, he thought suddenly. No, if Talyra had lived, things would not have worked out well. He could not, of course, have asked Talyra to take the risk.

There would be no risk of producing a mutant like those in the mountains. He could be tested for the genetic damage that would cause that, so if his experiment failed to prevent such damage, he would lose only his ability to father normal children. He could be sterilized and continue a normal married life. Sterility was, to be sure, grounds for divorce; but Talyra would not have divorced him. She’d have borne the disgrace of childlessness rather than do that, and he could have told her in the symbolic language that what had happened was the result of his work as a Scholar.

But the other risk, the risk that would follow success in his trial use of the vaccine, would be one to which he could not have exposed her. He couldn’t have done so even if he’d been willing, for that would have been against fundamental policy; medical experimentation was done on Scholars, and Scholars alone. Technicians could not participate. They could not give informed consent, since they could not be informed.

If he successfully altered his own genes so that unpurified water caused no detectable damage to his reproductive cells, that would not prove his children would be normal—it would only mean they wouldn’t be subhuman. They might suffer genetic damage of some other sort, which he would have no way of predicting beforehand. To ask a woman to experiment with her baby would be even worse than to ask her to permit medical research on her own body. Such a request could be made only of a Scholar woman. Oh, Talyra, like any Inner City Technician, would have gladly volunteered if told it served the spirit of the Star—but that would not be “informed consent.” It would be unthinkable for a priest to exploit religious devotion in that way.

So if Talyra had lived… well, it was pointless to wonder what he’d have done.

And now what? A loveless marriage, he supposed, to some Scholar who like himself cared more about human survival than personal happiness. He could no doubt find a bride easily, for though in the village, where women chose steady men who’d be good providers, he’d been considered a poor match, in the City different qualities were admired.

It was past noon when Brek joined him, and Noren was in no mood to waste words. He filled his meal tray automatically; they were barely seated at their table before he burst out, “What would you do, Brek, if you had a chance to help make sure of human survival on this planet—and it meant changing your ideas about the Prophecy, supporting steps you’d hate?”

Startled, Brek replied, “You know what I’d do. We all made that decision when we recanted. What’s the point of going through it again?”

“That’s what I want to talk about. We may have to.” As quickly as possible he explained, omitting only what had been revealed in the dream. For some reason he’d begun to feel that the First Scholar’s role was a secret to be held in reserve.

Brek heard him out. Then, slowly, he said, “Noren, I know you’re discouraged about nuclear research. Everybody’s discouraged. But it’s not hopeless—you decided when you accepted priesthood that it’s not. We’ve been through all this before, too—”

“No, it’s different now, Brek! When I assumed the robe, I did it because I’d discovered that I believe a way will be found for us to survive. I didn’t know
what
way. Nobody knew—that was the whole point of faith! Well, this is the way; we don’t have to rely on faith any longer.”

“I’ve still got faith.”

“That’s fine, but it’s not enough, not when there’s a means of action. Just sitting back and having faith was constructive when we had no other choice, but now that there’s an alternative, we’ve got to
act.”

“I’m studying physics,” Brek insisted. “That’s action. But you, Noren, you aren’t really trying any more, are you?” He hesitated; it was obvious he wished the discussion hadn’t gotten started. “I haven’t said anything till now,” he continued unhappily. “Nobody’s wanted to—we all know how hard things have been for you since Talyra died. Only… only people are beginning to wonder how long your mourning’s going to interfere with the work that needs doing.”

“You don’t think I’m serious about what I just told you?”

Brek dropped his eyes. “I—I don’t see how you could be. Oh, I know you’re honest about it. You’re the most honest person I’ve ever known; you always were. But—but it’s not quite the same, you know, to get all this abstract information out of the computer as it would be to do what you’re talking about doing. Stop and think what it would mean for a man—” He broke off, embarrassed not by the subject itself but by the sudden realization that it might be tactless to speak of it to a friend whose wife had recently died.

“I’ve thought,” Noren assured him. Grimly, he recalled the dream, which he was now sure he must not mention. Brek had not yet experienced the full version of the First Scholar’s official recordings; he wouldn’t be qualified for exposure to the secret one until he had done so. Perhaps he wouldn’t be qualified even then—the First Scholar had taken care not to impose it on anyone who was unready. He had foreseen that not all his successors would be ruled by reason, any more than his contemporaries had been. With dismay, Noren began to grasp the magnitude of the task he himself had been chosen to take on.

He was not good with people. He had no inborn gift for sensing their emotions, persuading them to see things as he saw them. For a while, when they’d both been younger, he had influenced Brek strongly by his confident expression of heretical opinions; but Brek, who had admired his courage more than his realism, had long ago learned to use his own mind.

“I have thought, Brek,” Noren repeated. “Don’t try to spare me.”

“All right, then—have you pictured how you’d feel if it were you, your wife instead of Beris—”

“Do you suppose I’d ask this of you and Beris without trying it on myself first?” Noren demanded.

“No,” said Brek in a low voice. “No, you wouldn’t. I’m sorry; it was unfair to assume you haven’t considered remarriage. Only that doesn’t really change things. One test wouldn’t be enough. And you just aren’t going to find anybody else with your kind of tough-mindedness.”

“What kind?”

“The willingness to sacrifice everything to logic… to—to set aside all human decency, all normal feelings… for an ideal. For a future none of us will live to see. I’d give my life, Noren, but I wouldn’t—well, I hate to be so blunt, but I wouldn’t sleep with Beris knowing I could beget a genetic freak. You know how I feel! In the mountains you suffered agony rather than drink that water—”

“For Talyra’s sake. Talyra couldn’t have consented; Beris can. She’s not only a Scholar, she’s even accepted priesthood. Doesn’t she have the right to decide for herself?”

“For herself, but not for me—and not, I think, for the child, who wouldn’t be a Scholar, wouldn’t even be consulted. I don’t believe any of us have that right. If you want the truth, which I know you always do, I’m giving it to you.”

That was the beginning. Noren knew, then, that he was indeed going to face more difficulties than he’d imagined.

He spoke, without receiving any encouragement, to several other men, ones he felt he could trust to keep quiet about it—young ones either unmarried or married to Scholars. The older men he avoided in fear they might let some rumor reach the Council; more and more, he saw it was too soon to get the Council involved. For that reason, dishonest though it made him feel, he hid all hint of his new goal from Stefred. Ostensibly out of pride, he let Stefred assume he was still learning to live with the nightmare. It was hard not to enlist his aid, especially since Stefred would surely support the plan. If anyone was tough-minded, he was. But Noren knew that Stefred hadn’t enough power to sway the Council alone.