Voyage to Alpha Centauri: A Novel (88 page)

“It would depend on the nature of the tool An explosive chemical compound like the one used to open fissures in our mines is intended entirely for good purposes. It is not inherently evil. Yet it might also be exploded by a malicious person here in our park, taking many human lives to death by unjust violence.”

“Speedily and with great force.”

“Therefore, to avoid this potential, should we return to picks and shovels when we dig for iron? A pick, after all, can end another’s life swiftly in a moment of madness.”

“I know these arguments”, Arthur said, with a hint of impatience. “I know where they lead, for I have wrestled with them over and again until my brain spins. Remove all tools, all potential for evil through such tools, and a man is still capable of picking up a rock and hitting his brother over the head with it. Perhaps the problem is better examined by asking where, precisely, are the limits—where the benefit of a tool, or an invention of any sort, overwhelms its user and makes of the man an instrument for
its
purpose.”

“The analogy is somewhat flawed. The tool has no will, no intelligence of its own. It is man who is ever the problem.”

“Yes”, he said quietly. “But what can we do with man?”

“Do with man? I cannot see that we are able to
do
anything with the human race that would prevent evil from rising within us—either individually or as a people.”

“I agree, Anselm. Truly, I understand what you’re implying. To attempt to control our nature by limiting freedom in order to prevent evil would be to exchange one form of evil for another.”

“Precisely.” I paused, wondering what was really bothering him, and where the discussion was leading to. “We have a functioning democracy, Felix, which has not failed us in two and a half centuries.”

“Say rather that we have not failed
it
. For democracy is only as good as its people are good.”

“Which is true of any form of government, don’t you think?”

He fell silent, looking doubtful.

“Leaving aside tyranny”, I added.

I pondered the fact that since the foundation there had been no war on this planet, nor had there been much place for sly, voracious politics. The member states of the Commonwealth were at peace with each other, united in common purpose. Nor had there been in their internal affairs any tribal skirmishes, so to speak, no petty battles between villages or regions.

“Consider that we have no armies on any of the continents,” I continued, “nor are there developed mechanisms in the social order that would reward the greedy or those who might lust for power.”

“We do have police”, he said with a frown.

“Of course, every hamlet and city has a few just men who help pull carts out of ditches and remind the young not to carouse late at night to the detriment of their neighbors’ sleep.”

“Or try to catch thieves.”

“Yes, there are thieves among us—and on occasion crimes of passion, such as that most rare and horrible thing, murder. And there is a jail-farm on every continent, though I’m sure you would agree that their residents are few in number.”

“I think you are too optimistic about human nature.”

I smiled. “I am a confessor, Felix. I know human souls.”

“Then you should admit that evil persists in us.”

“I do admit it. Moreover, I believe we must never forget it.”

“But you see my point, Anselm. Given the wrong circumstances, these impulses within us might grow and grow, might be acted upon by greater numbers of people. Then comes governmental reaction, control, suppression—fostering even worse evils.”

“That is always possible, without grace.”

He nodded absently at my obvious thought, and said, “I know as well as you do that the crucial thing is faith.”

“Yes, the revelation given from above and paid for by unspeakable suffering. The Crucifixion. . . . And do not forget the Resurrection.”

“I don’t”, he replied with a quick look.

Arthur turned his gaze to the sea and said nothing for a time. I knew that his great mind was churning over a dilemma that he was hesitant to tell me about, and that his great heart was involved too.

Finally he broke his line of private thought and faced me directly. “I have invented something that could propel the people of Regnum Pacis too far, too quickly for our minds, and maybe even our souls, to cope with. Power is enormously attractive when presented as an instrument for bringing about some good. But it is dangerous. And what I’m referring to is near-angelic power. Near-instantaneous knowledge and velocities that are presently unthinkable for us. Illusions of immortality, you see.”

“Something that would undermine our experience of natural limitations, you mean? And hence deform our sense of place in the holy cosmology?”

“Yes. Very much the kinds of things that our forefathers thought they had mastered—before the catastrophe.”

“Surely, Felix, you are not arguing for ignorance.”

“No, I’m asking myself where are the frontiers: Where does pursuit of knowledge become folly; and where should prudence prevail?”

“An excellent question. Indeed, an ennobling search. Yet the answer to this cannot be reached by equations and formulae.”

“I know. I’m just asking for your thoughts on the matter.”

“You called it a moral question. It strikes me rather as a prudential matter, a question of discerning the will of God.”

“And you’re a man of God. Give me some guidance on this, I beg you.”

It was now my turn to look out over the sea. Infinite it seemed, always beautiful, sometimes dangerous in its powers, sometimes serene; sometimes harming mankind, sometimes aiding us.

“I will pray for you, Felix. I will ask that you be given light on this question and that you will receive it and proceed in good conscience and good peace. Do not be anxious.”

He clapped me on the shoulder with his large old hand.

“Thank you,” he said. Then came another sigh, and I could see that he was still not at peace.

We both returned to gazing at the sea.

“Somewhere up there, above the equator, is a little anomaly in the sky”, he said quietly. “I think it is a ship. My heart tells me it is a ship. If I am right, it is a seed with so much encoded within it that if the seed be replanted on our world the errors of the past might well repeat themselves. Can we risk it?”

“Is not all choice a risk . . . an act of hope, a step made in trust? And is there not inherent in all right choice the belief that everything works to the good for those who love God?”

“How many love God, I wonder? In our world, most do, or very many, I should say. But what was the condition of the people who lived on Earth, the ones who sent the
Kosmos
on its voyage?”

“You know as well as I do what they were like. Would it have been better if they had stayed at home? Where would we be now if they had chosen not to cross the sea of the heavens to explore this planet?”

“I understand what you’re saying. I can see that the hand of the Creator was upon the venture. But why so much destruction, why all the carnage?”

“Man’s freedom, man’s choice. Both good and evil issue forth from within the human heart. It is the same in this world as it was in the world of our origin.”

“Earth”, said Felix with a scowl. “What a hellish place they made of it. And nearly made hell here too.”

Troubled, he lifted his eyes to the sky above us.

“Last week I was at McKie Observatory, and I looked at it through the new telescope. Just a pinprick of light orbiting around its sun. It’s still there, or was there 4.3 light-years ago. Why the silence? I ask myself. Where are they now? What happened? Maybe we’ll never know. But I can’t help wondering if the prophecies of Revelation have come to pass.”

“I often ponder this very question”, I said. “But here we are in the heaven in the heavens, after all. We came from those people, and, for good or for ill, we are a continuation of them. It seems to me that God has not yet finished with salvation history.”

“Silence, darkness, absence”, Felix went on in his most somber tone. “Did they destroy everything? Or was a remnant left?”

“There is so much we do not know. Is there still a Church somewhere on that sad, old planet, with brave and holy souls continuing to tell the true story against all odds?”

“Are there priests, bishops, even a pope?”

“There must be a successor to Peter still alive on Earth”, I said, surprised by my own intensity—and longing. “Perhaps we will one day reconnect with him or one of his successors. Until then, we can be thankful that Rome gave Bishop Nagakawa an indult to ordain priests and consecrate other bishops in the event that the expedition could not return.”

“And so we were given a second chance.”

“A new beginning.”

“Yes,” he sighed, “but how will it end?”

“Look at the horizon, Felix”, I said, pointing southward over the water. “Can you see it?”

“No, the day is very fair, but the haze obscures the arc of the planet.”

“Exactly. Yet it is there. Why do you think we are looking for it, now, at this very moment?”

“The sight is a beauty to behold. It consoles and beckons.”

“Yes, but there is more: Does not man look up into the infinite because he knows in the heart of his soul that this is not our permanent home? That he is more than he thinks he is?”

“I suppose you’re right. Yes, we know this instinctively—if
know
is the correct word. We are not bio-mechanisms. We are not clever, talking animals.”

“The Kingdom of Heaven is within us, though it is not yet realized in its fullness. The Kingdom is beyond us too, and it is for the eternal union that we long.”

“The horizon shows us the way, you mean.”

“The infinite horizon and the horizon within you are one horizon.” Arthur glanced at me with some uncertainty.

“You will know”, I said at last. “Whatever your invention may be, the light will be given and you will know what to do.”

Three months after this conversation, he came by the abbey to see me. We had lunch together in the refectory with the brothers, and then we went off to my office for a quiet chat.

By then, it was no secret to anyone in the scientific community that he had invented a spectacular new kind of machine. But what it did exactly—rather,
how
it did it—was a secret known to none save its inventor.

“I received light, Father Abbot”, he began without any preamble, when the door was closed behind us. “I have prayed as I have never prayed before, and have arrived at a discernment, subjective though I may be.”

“The Lord knows very well our subjectivity”, I said. “He communicates with this in mind.”

“That is my hope.”

“Can you tell me about it?”

“I owe at least that much to you, my friend. It’s regarding the machine—the anti-gravity machine. No doubt you’ve heard about it.”

“The whole world has heard about it, Felix, but that is nothing new.”

“You remember when we last spoke together, the day by the sea when the children were dancing? I mentioned I had invented something, you recall.”

“I remember.”

“It is a device that adapts our simple form of electricity to the sophisticated circuitry and energy protocols of the anti-gravity machine we removed from the old shuttle.”

“And. . .”

“And my invention communicates with it. It works. It works very well in fact. We have been experimenting with elevating considerable weights to high altitudes within the stratosphere. Anti-gravity is now fully functional.”

“And will you use it to reach the . . . ship?”

“We will use it. However, the grace I received concerns the extent of the use.” He stared at the floor for a moment, then looked up and continued. “I am the only one with access to my notes and diagrams. I am seriously considering destroying them. My invention will work only for a limited series of projects.”

“How do you know this?”

“I made the thing to be so.”

“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.”

“Crucial internal components of my invention have a brief operational span. They are calibrated to a certain number of usage events. I have also included an altitude factor. We are guaranteed numerous test flights below the ionosphere, but only two flights to the ship in the heavens.”

“You planned it that way.”

“Yes, I did.”

“What is to prevent other scientists from simply replacing the outmoded parts with fresh ones?”

“The invention is sealed. It has a self-protective function. Any attempt to enter it now would initiate an internal reaction, using white phosophorous, carbon allotropes, disulfide, and various other components that would interact in such a way as to immolate everything inside, rendering it unintelligible to analysts.”

“Have you told anyone about this?”

“Only you. Of course, I will inform the other committee members before any more flights are made.”

“Good. That is absolutely necessary. You cannot risk human life.”

“There is no real risk, as long as the use does not exceed the parameters I’ve set. The invention is solid and reliable.”

“Until it destroys itself. Why did you do it?”

“To set a limitation on what we can retrieve from the ship. It’s my hope that the mission team will focus on seeking understanding of the past, and not on new keys to dangerous kinds of knowledge.”

“An old debate, Felix—the rights of Science and the rights of Prudence.”

“Though I am a scientist, Anselm, I would rather err in the direction of prudence, considering the calamitous mistakes made by the scientists who brought the
Kosmos
to Regnum Pacis, and who probably are responsible for the Earth’s present silence.”

We regarded each other mutely for some moments. As I pondered what he had told me, I saw that he had a point. Yet his decision had been made, in human terms, entirely on his own; he had consulted no one but God. How well had he heard what God was saying? How subjective had he been, really? Did he have a right to do what he had done? On the other hand, the invention was his own. The materials he had used were his own. He had been asked by the Commonwealth to apply his gifts to the project, but he had never been their salaried employee; he was not paid by anyone. He had rendered a gratuitous service that was already an enormous achievement, one that would in all likelihood be of great benefit to mankind regardless of how few the flights to the ship. Little did I know that he would not live to see this happen. A few months later, he would succumb to a massive heart attack while working in his lab at the science center near Foundation City.