The Doors Of The Universe (36 page)

“As much as I’m able to give you,” she replied, her voice low.

“I mean the part you don’t know. Does the Service tell individuals facts that can’t be announced openly to their cultures?”

“Occasionally, if there’s urgent need. It must be done very subtly. In this case, to prevent the harm that would result from disclosure of our existence, it would have to be managed in some way that would make your possession of advanced knowledge seem natural both to your fellow Scholars and to this world’s future historians. That may not be feasible. And the time may not be ripe for it in your era—it may be that the genetic change must be thoroughly established before the next step is taken.”

Resentment flared in him again. “They’d let me live my whole life in ignorance of what they foresee? It’s not fair.”

“Life’s never fair to people who set out to change things. In the normal course of progress, strength to strive can hinge on not knowing the future. They won’t tamper with that course unnecessarily.”

“What if I’m not strong enough to keep striving?” Noren began—but then, in a stunning flash of insight, he knew. All Lianne had told him in the past meshed as with a kind of awe he stated slowly, “The decision is mine. It has been, all along. If I quit, they’ll step in and give us aid.”

“Of course.” Lianne’s eyes glistened. “I never denied that it’s in your power to make them do it.”

“I—got things backwards. I believed if I proved deserving enough, I could gain help. I thought they were testing me.”

“You mean you wished they were.” She tried to smile, adding, “Not being tested is harder. I know; I’ve lived both ways, just as you have.”

He’d been living, since his discovery, for the day when he would pass their test and feel triumphant. Now, uncertain not only of his strength but of his talents, would he be right to go on gambling with infants? It wasn’t as if he had no option… . He savored a bright vision: open contact with the alien culture; ships landing, unloading more metal than anyone had seen since the Founders’ time; the Prophecy fulfilled in his generation, cities rising almost literally overnight in accord with the villagers’ naive expectations. The caste system abolished forever. Knowledge freely available to him and to everyone, not merely the Six Worlds’ stored heritage, but greater wisdom than the Scholars dreamed could exist. If open contact was deemed unavoidable, there’d be no point in further delay. One word from him, and he could have all he’d ever longed for; his contemporaries could have it too… and there would be no more defective babies.

But it would mean the loss of his people’s potential. Overshadowed by older species, they would never evolve to Federation level. Future generations would pay the price.

“You have the power to decide,” Lianne repeated. “At the start, I had it. I could have lied in my initial reports, said there was no one here fit to carry your people forward. But I judged that you and Stefred and others I’d met would want to be the ones to pay.”

There was nothing else to be said. After a while, when he felt able to talk without weeping, Noren went to arrange the rite for his dead son.

Chapter Nine

In the days that followed, Noren immersed himself totally in analyzing what had gone wrong with the genetic change. His error could not have been avoided, he found—it had not been a stupid mistake or even a careless one. And it had been made initially by the geneticist of the First Scholar’s time, whose design he had followed. She, like himself, had been forced into human experimentation long before it would have been tried if test animals had been available. Success at so early a stage would have been almost miraculous.

With painstaking care, he redesigned the change and went back to the Outer City’s labs to prepare a new vaccine. He injected himself with it to make sure it wasn’t virulent, but that, of course, proved nothing about its genetic adequacy. It must be tested on someone whose genes hadn’t been previously altered. His agonized doubt over whether he’d have the courage to perform such a test was mitigated, somewhat, by the fact that he saw no immediate chance of finding a volunteer to perform it on. As long as he was busy, he pushed that problem from his mind.

He continued to preside at religious services whenever his turn came. Lianne insisted that a sincere commitment to priesthood was indispensable to his task, rather than simply a means of gaining power among the Scholars; but she would not explain further. She seemed deeply troubled by the issue. “The knowledge of your course must grow from within you,” she told him. “It’s not beyond your reach, not something you need outside help to discover. To give you specific advice wouldn’t do you any good—while you’re unready to face it, I’d only cause you more pain.”

“Lianne,” he protested, “I’m ready to face
anything
. I’ve never backed off from the truth, not knowingly, and I won’t start now.” Which she ought to realize, he thought indignantly.

“It’s because I do realize it that I believe you have a chance of achieving the goal,” she replied, grasping more than he’d said, as always.

“I can tell you’re not happy about what you’re concealing,” he said forthrightly, “and I wish you wouldn’t try to spare me. I’d feel better knowing the worst.” Actually, he was sure nothing could be worse than the things to which he’d already resigned himself. The prospect of more pain did not seem to matter.

“There’ll be time enough to worry about it later,” Lianne declared. “I’ll say only that winning the villagers over will demand greater sacrifices than you’ve considered.”

Greater than the sacrifice of contact with her civilization? She did not know his mind as well as she seemed to, Noren thought in misery. Even so, he’d lost peace of conscience, the ability to have children, all hope that the Six Worlds’ technology could be preserved. He’d accepted the likelihood that he would end his days in exile at the now valueless research outpost beyond the mountains. “I’ve considered becoming a martyr like the First Scholar,” he said dryly, “but giving up my life wouldn’t do any good—and barring that, I don’t think there’s anything left for me to give up.”

“That’s because you don’t see how much you have to lose,” she observed sadly.

Contemplating this night after night, Noren confessed inwardly that it did dismay him, not so much because he minded being hurt—he felt past minding, numb—but because of his evident blindness. Why could he not perceive what Lianne foresaw? He tried, yet it eluded him. The fact that the means of gaining village support for a change in the High Law eluded Stefred also, and that she apparently expected no insight into it on Stefred’s part, didn’t cure him of self-doubt.

He saw little of Stefred these days, but Lianne was, of course, a go-between. Stefred allowed Noren to go his way without interference, presumably because he did not guess how far he had gone. Not guessing, he must feel that he, Noren, had turned his back on constructive science, that his youthful promise had gone sour; the thought of this was hard to bear. Some said such things openly of him. He now argued for genetic research and was viewed less as a threat to the established order than as the City eccentric. It had happened before, he’d heard: Scholars disillusioned in youth had become fanatic champions of impractical schemes, and while their right of free speech had been respected, the quality of their judgment had not. He must list the admiration of his peers among his losses, Noren knew, although never having cared much what others thought of him, he did not count it a great sacrifice. The loss of his closeness to Stefred was something else again. He missed that, and like Lianne he hated the deceit he was forced to practice upon the one man in the City most worthy of confidence.

He was free to study genetics; any Scholar was free to study anything—but to devote years to it, abandoning all pretense of research into metal synthesization, was out of the question. Genetic research fell in the avocation class, like art and music. Inner City people were expected to perform essential work, if not out of sheer dedication, then merely because they received food and lodging. Noren, as a trained nuclear physicist, volunteered for a shift in the power plant; and thereafter, since he spent even longer hours on the genetic work, he had a bare minimum of time left to eat and sleep. Fatigue added to his numbness, and for that he was grateful. Only work could insulate him from despair.

Veldry continued to attend Orison whenever he presided. One evening she approached him after the service and asked to talk in private. Too much time had passed for that to start gossip, he decided, and in any case he could refuse no request of Veldry’s. He went with her to her room, suppressing with effort the memories it stirred in him.

“Noren,” Veldry said, “the risk has to be taken again, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” he agreed in a low voice. “I’ve—reconciled myself to that. Only there’s no one I can ask.”

“You could use a volunteer who doesn’t need to be asked.”

“I don’t expect to be let off that easily. Who’d offer, when there’s no support for genetic change even in principle?”

“I’m offering,” she told him simply.

“You—what?”

“I’m willing to try again whenever you’re ready.”

“Veldry,” Noren protested, reddening, “I thought you understood. You and I can’t try again; my genes are damaged, and if I tried to repair them it wouldn’t be a valid test—the risk to the child wouldn’t be warranted. The new vaccine has to be used before the man drinks unpurified water.”

“I do understand. The man doesn’t have to drink it, the woman can. Genetically it doesn’t make any difference which parent gets the vaccine, so I’m volunteering to be inoculated.”

“Oh, Veldry,” he burst out, deeply moved. “It’s brave of you, but you mustn’t have a baby who might die, not twice—”

“I lost my special baby,” she said softly. “I want another to take his place—and anyway, why should more people than necessary get involved before we know it’s safe? I’m already committed. It’s better this way, really.”

Perhaps it would be, Noren thought. It had meant a lot to her; perhaps the chance of a happy ending was worth the danger. He paused, embarrassed, wondering if she’d really grasped the extent of the risk she was taking. “What if I fail again?” he asked.

“You won’t.”

“I may. I refused to accept that, the first time; I told you the change I’d made might not work right, but I never actually believed it. Now I do, and it has to be considered.”

“I wouldn’t be the only woman in the world to have lost two children.”

“You’d lose a good deal more,” he reminded her. “You’d lose your ability to have normal ones.”

“I’ve had my share in the past.”

“That’s not the only thing,” Noren said bluntly. “There are only a couple of doctors in the City qualified to sterilize a woman, both of them senior people we don’t dare to confide in—”

“I’ve had my share of lovers in the past, too,” Veldry broke in. “I thought I’d made clear that I want to do something more with my life.”

“But—if you should ever find the man you’ve been looking for, the one who’ll see beneath your beauty and whose love for you will last—”

“Then it will last till I’m past the age to have babies, and if he sees beneath my beauty, Noren, he’ll know that’s not such a lifetime away as you think.” She smiled ruefully. “You’d be surprised, I suppose, if you knew just how old I am—but didn’t you ever wonder how it happened that I’d experienced the full version of the First Scholar’s dream recordings long before the secret one was found?”

He drew breath; he had indeed wondered, for he’d assumed she’d arrived in the City only a few years ahead of him, and young people rarely sought the full version. It hadn’t occurred to him that being beautiful might mask the usual effects of age.

“I ask just two things,” Veldry went on levelly. “First, I’ve got to have your permission to tell someone the truth about the first baby.”

“Well, of course. I wouldn’t do this unless the father of the second one was informed. May I—ask who it’s to be, Veldry?”

“No, you can’t,” she replied. “That’s the second thing; I may never be able to name him to you, though I’ll get you a blood sample.” After a short pause she added slowly, “I may have to tell more than one person, and I can’t consult you about who. Do you trust me to choose?”

“You mean you’re just going to… persuade somebody?”

“I’m in a better position to do that than you are, after all.” Bitterly she continued, “I’ve got one asset, which has never done either me or the world any good. Is it wrong for me to take advantage of it the one time I might accomplish something worthwhile that way?”

“No,” he said. “No, maybe this will make up for all the grief it’s caused you. I trust you, Veldry. Tell whoever you need to, just so the facts don’t reach anyone who’d put a stop to the birth of genetically altered children.”

“If I have a healthy one,” Veldry declared, “nobody can stop it. Under the High Law I have a right to get pregnant as often as I want, and my genes will be changed for good.”

*
 
*
 
*

With grim determination, Noren injected Veldry with the corrected vaccine. When the alteration of her genes had been confirmed, he and Lianne stood by her while she drank from the courtyard waterfall. Veldry, having been told that Lianne was barren, not only shared the widespread assumption that she and Noren were lovers but rejoiced that they could remain lovers despite the necessity that he father no more children—in her eyes, Lianne’s apparent curse had become a blessing. He could not yet be sterilized; there was no doctor at all in whom he could confide, and the High Law prohibited sterilization except in cases of proven genetic damage. Unlike the First Scholar, who had been in the same position, he was young, and he was realistic enough to know that a time might come when this aspect of his personal sacrifice would become more burdensome than it was in his present state of depression. He might someday want love, and Lianne would not be in the City forever… but at that thought he turned, wounded, from all such reflection.