The Doors Of The Universe (44 page)

As he perceived this, much fell into place for Noren. Most villagers had a naive view of the Prophecy: they thought Cities would rise overnight on the date of the Star’s appearance. The Scholars considered themselves enlightened, yet he’d wondered, lately, whether their view might not be equally naive. Not false, as he’d feared in his despair over the impossibility of metal synthesization, but—well, oversimplified. Too literally tied to the Founders’ specific plans. The First Scholar himself had known better than that! He’d made provision for genetic change, knowing that would mean loss of technology; yet the ideas of the Prophecy had all been in his deathbed recording. It was on those ideas he, Noren, was now drawing in his own words to the people, rather than on the interpretation priests were taught, the narrow interpretation that kept them from facing the real world. Stefred knew. It had been he who’d declared it wasn’t a blueprint. But he knew, too, that most Scholars would hold to their interpretation as fiercely as the villagers to theirs. They would not pursue truth to a third level.

Was that why he now felt no hypocrisy? Noren asked himself. Because, paradoxically, he still cared more about searching for truth than did others?

One evening as he entered a village, people took him to the house of a critically sick man. He stood appalled by the bedside, his mouth dry with more than the thirst of the weary day behind him. They expected him to cure the man’s disease! They believed Scholars could do anything. If he failed, as he inevitably would, they might think him no true Scholar—yet if by chance the man survived, he could not accept the credit that would be accorded him. There were limits beyond which he would not go.

“I can do nothing,” he said, inwardly groping for inspiration. “You must call the Technicians; illness can be cured only with Machines.”

“The Technicians came yesterday, and said they could not help. But surely, Reverend Sir, if you merely speak the words—”

It was possible. Noren knew from things Lianne had said that faith could often heal; if the man was a believer, and heard, he might recover—even from an illness beyond the skill of City physicians, he might. But he also might not. Some things mind could not do. If only he knew the diagnosis… but no, it was better this way. It was better if he himself did not know the probable outcome.

“May the spirit of the Star abide with you,” he said gravely, placing his hand on the sick man’s hot forehead, “and if it be fitting, may you be healed; but rest assured that the light of the Star falls on realms beyond this earth.” He turned, and to the family went on, “Do you think we Scholars would permit any deaths if we could prevent them? We are but stewards, guardians of the Star’s mysteries. The power to give life or take it is not ours. I do not know how long this man will live.”

And because this was true, they nodded in acceptance and let him go his way. If he’d been certain the man was dying, Noren perceived, what he had said would not have satisfied them. They’d have sensed a presumption of power at least to foresee. Only by keeping an open mind could he function as a prophet; he must make no predictions, good or ill, unless sure beyond logic that they were genuine.

He had as yet no permanent followers, though people walked with him from village to village. Usually, now, he lodged with the heads of village councils, these being the most prominent citizens, deferred to by others desirous of the honor. It was ironic, considering the scorn he’d once received from the council of his own village that had tried him for heresy. When he asked himself whether his hosts would do the same, he knew that most would. He didn’t like to think of what might happen to youths of these villages who dared to express doubts about his status, yet wasn’t he serving his original aim? The more heresy he inspired, the better. It was good if boys and girls looked upon him and were set to thinking, good for the world, and good for them, too, in terms of their real fate if they were condemned on that account. But it was not good on the part of those who did the condemning. They were not the sort he wanted in Futurity; he could take neither such men nor those they judged, who, if not sent to the City, would be deprived of their birthright. So he must find some way to make contact with the folk who stayed in the background. Those like Talyra…

Thoughts of Talyra came often to him, for with her he had shared the open land. He had sat with her on the gray moss; walked with her down roads like this, lined with dull-hued fodder and purple shrubs, past the green of quickened fields; taken her in his arms under the wide sky alight with silver crescents and the red bead of Little Moon. The memories, all too poignant, came back—still, he could not wish for those days. That part of his life was gone. His heart would always be in the City… or, when Lianne went, would it go with Lianne? Noren honestly did not know. It hardly mattered; that life was gone, too. Only his goal remained.

Dwellings grew fewer as he traveled outward from the City, and villages were farther apart. There came a night when he stopped at a lone farmhouse once more. The husband and wife were respectful but less diffident than most; were it not for the now-tattered blue robe, he thought sadly, he might have talked with them as friends. Yet he sensed that they were troubled. No family was present, and the woman, beneath her courteous welcome, eyed him with the desperate plea for aid he’d now seen, and helplessly sorrowed over, in too many people to count.

After supper she approached him privately. “Reverend Sir, I wish no favor,” she said, “yet for my husband’s sake I will speak, since you have paid us honor such as we could not have hoped for. As you see, we have no children. We are undeserving of anyone’s esteem. Yet he has not divorced me, shame though my barrenness is on us. If I merit punishment so heavy, can it not take form that falls on me alone?”

“Barrenness is not a punishment,” Noren began. But then, having learned much from Stefred’s ways, he added, “Do you feel you are justly punished, and if so, why? I warn you that you mustn’t lie to me.”

The woman drew breath, then met his eyes steadily. “I am aware of no weighty sin. I thought you, Reverend Sir, might enlighten me; for it’s hard not knowing what I’ve done wrong.”

If she had been guilt-ridden or had shown false humility, he would not have pursued the matter, but he saw that this woman and her husband were fit parents. Since they could have no children of their own, why not some of his wards? The tradition whereby Wards of the City were placed only with large families, barren wives being considered unworthy, was senseless. Besides, he must take only childless couples, for he disliked the thought of inoculating young children who’d been born with unaltered genes and he did not want to limit the settlement to newlyweds. He alone would have authority to place the experimental babies—that was necessary, since only he would know which were in fact siblings who must grow up as foster-kin lest they later, unknowingly, intermarry—and no one would challenge his decisions.

“You have heard me speak of Futurity,” he said slowly, “where barren land will become fruitful. Unfruitful marriages will also be blessed there. I cannot promise that you will conceive a child if you come, but whether or not you do, you will be mother to Wards of the City.”

She dropped to her knees despite his earlier prohibition, joy and gratitude illuminating her plain features. Noren took her hands. “It will not be an easy life,” he warned. “Get up and call your husband, and I will tell you what the people of Futurity must venture.”

Before he left the next morning, they had pledged to sell their farm and come after him. They were mature, reliable people, a good balance to the adolescent couples who would of necessity make up the majority of the Chosen Families. To them, he decided, he would give Veldry’s children.

The alteration of people’s genes must be done dramatically, for it must be made clear from the start who was free to drink impure water and who was not. Furthermore, people would want the assurance of a rite. They would even want the rite to be frightening; though ordinarily the injection involved was painless, they’d feel better afterward if it were made an ordeal. Again following what Stefred had taught him of initiations, Noren realized that it would be necessary to give the volunteers proof of their own worthiness. Also, almost too late, he remembered that in the case of those yet to be married the injections must take effect before the weddings, and in fact brides must be required to swear by the Mother Star that they were not already with child. He dared not inoculate a woman who might be pregnant; the effect on the unborn baby’s genes would be too uncertain.

In the last village, therefore, he waited. He spoke of how Chosen Families must qualify, and word spread, by the traders and by radiophone; before long barren and betrothed couples began arriving from other regions. Most were years younger than himself, youngsters fresh from school eager to embark on a glorious adventure. They made him feel ancient—as, now full-bearded, he indeed must look to them, if they looked beyond his priest’s robe at all.

He’d expected to call on the village for help in building, but he soon saw that that would be a mistake. There were far too many volunteer couples; he had to make the conditions hard. They must be willing to raise the new “city” unaided, stone by stone. It was well, and necessary, for them to come anticipating miracles; but all that could be done without miracles they must do for themselves. This wasn’t only a screening strategy, he realized. Later, they would take pride in what they’d accomplished.

Gradually, through many interviews, he chose those with the soundest motives. He explained the goal with half-truths, nonetheless valid for being partial. “Families grow, the villages grow, there are more and more people every year—and this is as it should be under the Law. Yet the City does not grow at all. A time will come when the world needs more farmland than can be quickened, more water than can be made pure; the Technicians will have too few Machines to serve everyone. The Law does not say this, for the Law does not speak of the future. The Prophecy does not say it, for the Prophecy tells of the time when the Star will become visible. But the Scholars know it. They know someday the Law must change, and my work is to teach you to live with tomorrow’s Law. To this, if you are willing, you will be sealed; but if you choose it, you cannot go back, nor can your children. You will belong to Futurity as Technicians belong to the City… .”

They were, Noren feared, spellbound. One by one he listed the hardships: no preexisting village comforts, no buildings except those they raised themselves, no City goods such as traders sold elsewhere. Limited social contacts outside the new settlement. Poverty unprecedented in their world, since they’d have no harvests or craftwork to sell and no time free to work for wages. Mysterious changes in the High Law that would not be spelled out in advance; still more mysterious risks that might extend to their descendants. Most sobering of all, a rule that their children must marry within the community or face charges of heresy. Noren had read enough to know that while many of these provisions would, under other circumstances, be wholly unjustifiable, in most societies it would nevertheless be easy for a self-proclaimed prophet to find people who’d voluntarily comply with them. The magnitude of Stefred’s trust in him impressed him anew. What he was doing was dangerous, though it was a lesser evil than extinction, lesser even than the caste system his work would ultimately abolish.

Yet Futurity would indeed produce heretics, or so he hoped. His people, like all other citizens, would be free to choose dissent; and it wasn’t as if the dissenters would suffer harm.

He gave orders by radiophone; Technicians from the lab came out by aircar, bringing the genetic vaccine. They did not know what it was, of course, and since they were used to inoculating villagers against disease, they wondered only that he took personal charge of the equipment. They knew nothing of the rite held that evening for the chosen couples alone. The volunteers themselves did not know the true significance of the needle to which they submitted, though since it was a metal object they looked upon it as holy. “It will mark you as pledged to Futurity,” he told them, “and ever after, until the fruit of Futurity is spread throughout this world, you and your children will be set apart. I believe the spirit of the Star will favor you, but I have no sure foreknowledge. You are the vanguard, for good or for ill—if your children should sicken, it would be a sign that peril threatens the coming age. Against such peril the world must have warning. What is new must flourish in one place before it can flourish everywhere. Do you accept the role of forerunners, knowing these things to be true?”

Individually they gave assent, elated not only by the honor of being chosen, but by their own excitement. Noren wasn’t gentle with the needle; he knew how Stefred, or even Lianne, would handle it, and overcame his reluctance to offer a symbol more memorable than words. The triumph in the initiates’ faces told him he’d judged accurately.

But this rite was not the real test, either of them or of him. So far he had not asked them to do anything against their inclinations, nor had he presented them with any conflict between their image of a Scholar and his demands on them. To induce them to break the High Law’s taboos would be far harder. With growing apprehension, he faced the thought that the time for that step was at hand.

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The weddings were to take place in the new community, and the feast, Noren declared, was to be attended by its members alone. Farewells to friends and relatives must be made before departure. “You will set forth to no household,” he warned, “and the moss of the wilderness will be your marriage bed. But from your children and foster-children will come new strength for the world, and the light of the Star will shine upon the City you establish.”