The Doors Of The Universe (39 page)

Lianne stopped and faced him, reaching for his hand. “You’re beginning to ask the right questions,” she said, almost with sadness. “Noren, we are coming perilously close to things I must not say to you. If that last question is answered, it must be by you and you alone—not so much because I shouldn’t intervene as for your own sake. I—I couldn’t bear to have you change the shape of your life on my word.”

She gave his cheek a light kiss, then turned quickly and hurried across the courtyard toward the tower where she lodged. Noren was left listening to the echo of her footsteps.

*
 
*
 
*

It was not long before Veldry was pregnant again. By that time, the group of volunteers had grown by another couple and several young men—novices still in adolescence—who were willing to be genetically altered as soon as they could find brides. Once a man’s genes were altered, he would never be free to love Technician women, who could not participate in human experimentation. For this reason Noren decided to accept couples only, and their number was necessarily limited by the number of female novices who entered the City. It seemed a bit unfeeling to tell these women that if they wished to serve the cause of human survival, they must choose husbands immediately from among the eligible men on the waiting list—yet after all, in the villages most marriages were arranged by families. Few girls grew up expecting to marry for love.

Though men and women alike were free to refuse the dream Lianne offered them, none did so, and none, having experienced the dream, refused to support the First Scholar’s secret goal. They were not yet priests and had been told by Stefred that they need never assume the robe; the conflict between endorsement of the Prophecy and advocacy of genetic change was not severe with them. More significant, Noren suspected, was the fact that in working for the latter they were continuing to oppose authority. A new Scholar’s biggest problem was generally turning from heresy to support of the established order.

The risk to the children was no longer a great worry, with Veldry’s baby thriving well. The worst part of the whole business, for Noren and Lianne, was the extent to which they were deceiving Stefred. He had always been close to each Scholar he’d brought through candidacy; now all the new ones, within days of recantation, were being sworn to stop confiding in him. Noren feared some might break this oath, but Lianne seemed to see no danger. “It’s not as if he’s going to suffer any harm,” she pointed out. “Oh, he’ll feel hurt if he finds out about the conspiracy, but they don’t realize that. He’s still Chief Inquisitor to them. Though they trust his integrity, they don’t know he’s vulnerable to personal feelings.”

“You and I know.” Noren bit his tongue; he was sorry that had slipped out, for Lianne was in a far worse situation than he was. She worked with Stefred, saw him daily and discussed the progress of these same novices with him. Furthermore, Stefred was still in love with her, though he’d long ago given up hope of her returning that love, and there was now small chance of his finding happiness with anyone else. Were he to be attracted to some newcomer, that woman would be committed to genetic experimentation before he was free to speak.

Denrul had chosen medical and surgical training, realizing that a physician who knew of the experimentation was desperately needed. On the side, he completed the computer training program in genetics, and Noren began tutoring him privately in the details of his own more advanced work. He himself must have a successor, in case… in case of emergency, he told himself firmly. The Service was not going to take him away aboard the starship, not ever. But the work was too vital to depend on a single person’s presence. And besides, Denrul, who was to specialize in medical research, had more access to lab facilities than Lianne. There was even the possibility that after he was no longer being supervised, they could produce the genetic vaccine in the Inner City instead of having to make clandestine excursions to the officially off-limits domes.

Noren rarely saw Brek any more except at large gatherings, but when he did, Brek’s troubled look was haunting. It was not only that Brek now thought the worst of him. Nuclear physics, for Brek, was finally producing the disillusionment Noren’s greater talent had found there earlier. Even his happiness with Beris seemed affected. One evening, when she wasn’t present, he approached Noren and said miserably, “You were… right. It’s hopeless. I want you to know that I—I understand, better, why you gave it up. I think I even forgive hypocrisy now. I can’t seem to renounce priesthood myself, and you—you never felt as I did about the Star in the first place. You at least believe we have
some
way of surviving.”

“Are you sure my way’s wrong?” Noren asked slowly.

“Maybe not. Maybe I’m simply a coward—only Beris… I couldn’t let Beris—”

“Even if there were healthy babies before hers?” Telling Brek would do no harm now. He would never betray anyone, and though he might be shocked, sickened, by the now-available dream of the First Scholar’s involvement, it would lend weight to what he’d viewed as an indefensible position. Things were not the same as before the birth of Veldry’s son.

“That’s a hypothetical question,” Brek declared, “to which there’s no honorable answer. I couldn’t ask others to do the dirty part.”

“Nor could I,” agreed Noren; “but the issue’s not hypothetical any more.” He went ahead with the whole story, omitting only the truth about Lianne.

“There’s no excuse for me, for the way I doubted you,” Brek said when he’d heard it all. “I’ve known you too long and too well. I’m not saying I could have done what you did—I’ve never been as strong as you—but I should have known things weren’t as they seemed. I’ll talk to Beris. I’ll go through this dream; I owe you that much. Only… about the Prophecy… I’m not sure. Even if we keep working at the outpost, we’ll know that cause is lost—”

“We know now,” said Noren sadly.

Hypocrisy about it wasn’t a solution—not for him, not for Brek, not for anyone. Yet neither was abandonment of the symbols. They must be reinterpreted, not abandoned; he’d known that since the night of Veldry’s wedding… but how? How?

“I’ve been going at it backwards,” he said to Lianne. “Destruction of symbols doesn’t work, I know that! I tried it in the village when I was condemned for heresy, and then later I crashed the aircar on the way to trying it again. Stefred permitted it both times because he knew there was no danger of my succeeding. Yet I’ve still been thinking in those terms, and so has he. We can’t ever get people to break the High Law by destroying their belief in it—”

“No more than the First Scholar could have overcome people’s attachment to the Six Worlds by revealing those worlds were gone,” she agreed.

“He gave them something
constructive
,” reflected Noren, “turned a symbol of tragedy into one of hope.”

“That wasn’t unprecedented,” Lianne said. “Successful religions of many worlds have been centered on symbols with transformed significance.”

“Then what we do with watered ale at wedding feasts is more than dramatization of our defiance?”

“Well, it represents defiance, but not just of the Law. We defy our fear of destruction, Noren, and our confinement within the limits this world’s environment imposes. It’s a small thing, of course, not the equivalent of the Star and not nearly so powerful. Yet many religions do incorporate rites that involve food or drink with symbolic meaning—that’s a missing element in what you’ve got here, where there are only negative taboos. It would fit naturally.”

“But nobody not already willing to drink impure water would accept it, or get any lift out of it if they did.”

“No. By itself it’s not the answer.”

“What is?”

“Read up on the Six Worlds’ religions, how they originated, how they changed,” Lianne suggested, evading a direct answer.

He’d come to the end of the genetic design work and had found no way to experiment with plants past the sprouting stage, so he followed this advice—and was soon absorbed in a field of inquiry wholly new to him. In the past, he’d questioned the computers about beliefs; now he sought detail about the histories of those beliefs. It fascinated him and at the same time disturbed him… so many of the beliefs were manifestly untrue. And yet, it was not true that a miraculous star controlled the destiny of this world, either. Had the symbols of the ancients, even those taken literally, been less valid?

To be sure, evil as well as good had been done in the name of religion. There had been hideous episodes in which whole opposing populations had slaughtered each other in the belief that their causes were holy. Manipulation of symbols could, as Lianne had acknowledged, be dangerous. But the danger lay in the character of the manipulators.
Anything
could be twisted, perverted, used to destroy people’s freedom, their minds, even their lives; still a man of integrity could lead without destroying. The First Scholar had done it. Before him, there had been others. An appalling number of them had died as martyrs. Unlike him, some had been openly worshipped after their deaths. Yet, Noren realized, the worthy ones never sought this, would never have wanted it personally—it was a price to be paid for the victory of the truths they’d lived for.

Time went on. Noren resigned himself to an interval of inaction. The pain of past losses had dulled, and while he could not call himself happy, his appreciation of the inner City—of his access to the computer complex and the Six Worlds’ accumulated wisdom—began to return. It was anguish to know that Lianne’s people had far more knowledge than the computers, knowledge he could not attain. Still, he had by no means exhausted the resources available to him.
More than you can absorb in a lifetime
, Stefred had promised him long ago; and that was true. Lianne herself knew only a fraction of what the Service knew.

Lianne too was unhappy. Increasingly, she shielded even her emotions. He wondered if she missed her people despite her insistence that she did not. “It’s normal in the Service to spend long periods alone,” she declared, “that is, apart from our own kind. I’m not really alone. Here, I’m among people equal to my own—with individuals, the evolutionary distance doesn’t count. That’s significant only for cultures.”

Another child was born to Veldry, a girl, Denrul’s daughter. Soon afterward, a son was born to the second genetically altered couple, premature but otherwise healthy. That made three healthy children, two of whom had the altered genes from both parents, and since several other couples had been recruited—including Brek and Beris—more were already on the way. It was almost time for the first child’s weaning. He would be sent out for adoption soon; a plan for keeping track of his whereabouts must be made.

“Is this the tradition I must somehow overthrow?” Noren asked. “We can’t rear families in the City, both because there isn’t room and because the castes mustn’t become hereditary. But I suppose the custom of losing track of our children isn’t essential. It was set up merely because the Founders felt Scholars should sacrifice normal kinship ties.”

To his surprise, Lianne shook her head. “It’s far more important than that; the system couldn’t work without it. If Scholars’ children weren’t reared as villagers, indistinguishable from the others, a question would arise that no one here’s ever raised: the question of how much more survival time could be bought if some villages’ life support were cut off. There’d be a kind of division even the castes don’t create.”

Horrified, Noren protested, “We’re stewards! We couldn’t possibly prolong life on this planet by not spreading the resources equally.”

“That’s what a starship captain does in an emergency,” Lianne pointed out, “where it’s a choice between death for some and ultimate death for all. And that’s what it would come to when the time ran out here with no metal synthesization in sight. The Founders foresaw it. They barred specific records of adoptions because they knew Scholars wouldn’t cut off their own offspring as long as there was any alternative.”

“It’s a tradition I can’t tamper with, then.”

“You can’t abolish it,” she agreed, “but you’d be justified in modifying it because with genetic changes, the villages will be self-sufficient. It won’t matter if the advocates know where their children are… .

She went on talking, but Noren was deep in thought. As always, it came back to the problem of how to withdraw City aid without bloodshed. Religious sanction… but he was no closer to knowing how to provide that than he’d been seasons ago. “You told me to study how the Six Worlds’ religious traditions changed,” he said reflectively, “but things were different there. The leaders with new ideas, the prophets, weren’t shut away in a City, and usually they weren’t the official priests. They were often considered heretics, as far as that goes. They lived among common people and interacted with them.”

There was an abrupt silence; Lianne cut off what she’d been saying in mid-sentence. “Priests here begin as heretics,” she said, her blue eyes focused on his. “And they do grow up among the people.”

“But as heretics they can’t persuade anybody to change. I know; I tried it! And after they get in a position to speak with authority, they’re isolated.”

Lianne kept on looking at him. “Must they be?” she asked quietly.

“Well, of course; the most basic tradition we have is our confinement to the City—” He broke off, struck suddenly, horribly, by the implications of what he had said.
Tradition
. By tradition, Scholars did not mingle with villagers. When he and Brek had planned to defy that tradition, they’d gone as relapsed heretics, not as priests, and would not have been recognized as Scholars. But if a robed Scholar were to walk into a village square, people would listen to what he told them, listen in a way different from the way they listened at formal ceremonies. On the platform before the Gates, Scholars were anonymous figures; in a village they’d be seen as individually human.