The Doors of the Universe Read online

  From the reviews of The Doors of the Universe

  “Although it is the third book of a trilogy, The Doors of the Universe stands powerfully by itself as a quest for survival on a planet that is basically alien to the Six Worlds’ life forms. This is much more than an adventure story. It is one man’s realization of the need for change and his slow acceptance of the responsibility to lead that change. . . . One never gets bored with the story and it haunts the reader long after it is finished.” —Journal of Reading

  “This Star Shall Abide and Beyond the Tomorrow Mountains ... serve as solid foundation for this powerful culminating volume that treats in far greater depth the philosophical/ethical/religious issues raised in the earlier books. . . . Engdahl’s latest story is certain to appeal to the thoughtful good reader.” —Booklist

  “Engdahl again proves herself a master storyteller in this third book of her sci-fi trilogy. As a converted sci-fi hater, I am again impressed with the depth of ideas that she explores.... The constant twists and expansions of plot keep the reader’s attention from lagging.” —Provident Book Finder, Scottsdale PA

  ““Engdahl can make a reader forget her characters are on another planet, forget that they may not be human in precisely the way the people on this planet are, forget the problems Noren is facing are simply fiction. . . . Humanity, she says, transcends the definitions of outward form and physical location.” —Ypsilanti Press

  “This book and its companions, This Star Shall Abide and Beyond the Tomorrow Mountains, will become classics of science fiction. They will not, unfortunately, be popular [with teens] because the intellectual level and reading difficulty will restrict their circulation to the more intelligent high school students.” —Children’s Book Review, Brigham Young University

  The Doors of the Universe

  (Children of the Star, Book Three)

  by

  Sylvia Engdahl

  Ad Stellae Books, 2010

  Copyright © 1981, 2000 by Sylvia Louise Engdahl

  All rights reserved. For information contact [email protected]. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only, and may not be resold, given away, or altered.

  This is the third book of a trilogy. It is preceded by This Star Shall Abide and Beyond the Tomorrow Mountains. They can be read independently, although doing so will eliminate the suspense of the first book.

  Atheneum edition (hardcover) published in 1981

  Meisha Merlin edition (with minor updating) published in 2000 in the single-volume Children of the Star trilogy

  More information available at www.adstellaebooks.com

  Author website: www.sylviaengdahl.com

  Cover photo © by Ryan Pike / 123RF

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  About the Author

  * * *

  “. . .The land was barren, and brought forth neither food nor pure water, nor was there any metal; and no one lived upon it until the Founding. And on the day of the Founding humankind came out of the sky from the Mother Star, which is our source. But the land alone could not give us life. So the Scholars came to bless it, that it might be quickened: they built the City; and they called down from the sky Power and Machines; and they made the High Law lest we forget our origin, grow neglectful of our bounden duties, and thereby perish. Knowledge shall be kept safe within the City; it shall be held in trust until the Mother Star itself becomes visible to us. For though the Star is now beyond our seeing, it will not always be so. . . .

  “There shall come a time of great exultation, when the doors of the universe shall be thrown open and everyone shall rejoice. And at that time, when the Mother Star appears in the sky, the ancient knowledge shall be free to all people, and shall be spread forth over the whole earth. And Cities shall rise beyond the Tomorrow Mountains, and shall have Power, and Machines; and the Scholars will no longer be their guardians. For the Mother Star is our source and our destiny, the wellspring of our heritage; and the spirit of this Star shall abide forever in our hearts, and in those of our children, and our children’s children, even unto countless generations. It is our guide and protector, without which we could not survive; it is our life’s bulwark. And so long as we believe in it, no force can destroy us, though the heavens themselves be consumed! Through the time of waiting we will follow the Law; but its mysteries will be made plain when the Star appears, and the children of the Star will find their own wisdom and choose their own Law.” —from the Book of the Prophecy

  Chapter One

  The day, like all days, had been hot; the clouds had dispersed promptly after the morning’s scheduled rain. As the hours went by the sun had parched the villages, penetrating the thatch roofs of their stone buildings. Now low, its light filtered by thick air, it subdued the sharp contrast between machine-processed farmland and the surrounding wilderness of native growth, a rolling expanse of purple-notched grayness that stretched to the Tomorrow Mountains. Sunlight was seldom noticed within the City, for the domes, and most rooms of the clustered towers they ringed, were windowless. But since long before dawn Noren had watched the landscape from the topmost level of a tower he’d rarely entered. Like the other converted starships that served as Inner City living quarters, it had a view lounge at its pinnacle. And it was there that he awaited the birth of his child.

  He’d been barred from the birthing room—part of the nursery area where infants were tended until, at the age of weaning, they must be sent out for adoption by village families. That was off limits to all but the mothers and attendants. By tradition, Scholars could not see their children. Even the women did not, except when no wet nurse was available among Technician women. Talyra, as a Technician, would nurse her own baby. Whether that would make it easier or harder when the time came for her to give it up, he was not sure. The knowledge that she could not keep the child hadn’t lessened her gladness in pregnancy any more than it had tarnished his own elation. It would not affect their desire for many offspring in the years to come. Yet it did not seem fair—she’d given up so much for his sake. . . .

  For the world’s sake, she would say, and it was truer than she imagined. “In our children shall be our hope, and for them we shall labor, generation upon generation until the Star’s light comes to us,” she’d quoted softly the night before, when her pains began. Unlike himself, Talyra had found the symbolic language of the Prophecy meaningful even during her childhood in the village. He too now used it, not just to please her but with sincerity.

  “And the land shall remain fruitful, and the people shall multiply across the face of the earth,” he’d replied, smiling. Then, more soberly, “For the City shall serve the people; those within have been consecrated to that service.” He knew that Talyra indeed felt consecrated, no less than he, though in a different way. Still, it troubled him that she could not know the truth behind the ritual phrases. She could not know that the City and its dependent villages contained but a remnant of the race that had once inhabited six vaporized worlds of the remote Mother Star, that to bring forth babies was not only an honor and sacred duty, but a necessity if humanity was to survive. Nor could she be told the main reason why Inner City people were not free to rear families, though it was obvious enough to her that the space enclosed by the Outer City’s encircling domes was limited.

  She’d clung to his arm as they left their tiny room and walked across the inter-tower courtyard. At the door to the nursery area, she’d
leaned against him with her dark curls damp against his shoulder. The pains were coming often; he knew they could not linger over the parting. And there was no cause to linger. Childbirth roused no apprehension in Talyra; she was, after all, a nurse-midwife by profession.

  “It’s nothing to worry about, Noren,” she assured him happily. “Haven’t I been working in the nursery ever since I entered the City? Haven’t I wished for the day I could come here as a mother instead of just an attendant? Men always get nervous—that’s why we keep them out. We’ll send word when the child comes, you know that.”

  “I’ll wait at the top of the tower,” he told her, “where I can look at the mountains, Talyra. Ours is the only child in the world to have begun life in the mountains. Maybe it means something that the wilderness gave us life instead of death.”

  “It gave you your faith,” she murmured, kissing him. “We were blessed there from the start, darling—not simply when we were rescued. Let’s always be glad our baby’s beginning was so special.” She drew away; reluctantly, he let her go. They’d be separated only a few days, after all. Past separations, before their marriage, had been far longer and potentially permanent; he wondered why he felt so shaken by this brief one.

  “May the spirit of the Star be with you, Talyra,” he said fervently, knowing these words were what she’d most wish to hear from him. The traditional farewell had become more than a formality between them, for Talyra took joy in the fact that he, once an unbeliever, had come to speak of the Star not only with reverence, but with a priest’s authority.

  Now the long night had passed and also the day, and still no word had come. Far beyond the City, sunset was turning the yellow peaks of the Tomorrow Mountains to gold. Noren stared at the jagged range, the place where during the darkest crisis of his life, their child had been conceived. It was there that his outlook had changed. He did not share Talyra’s belief in the Star as some sort of supernatural force, yet he had felt underneath that the world’s doom was not as sure as it seemed. Perhaps that was why the aircar had crashed—perhaps there’d been more involved than bad piloting on his part; only that, and their unlooked-for survival, had kept him from his rash plan to publicly repudiate the Prophecy. . . .

  After the crash, thinking himself beyond rescue, he had felt free, for once, of his search for peace of mind; he’d shaken off the depression that had burdened his previous weeks as a Scholar. He had at last stopped doubting himself enough to accept Talyra’s love. It had been a joyous union despite his assumption that they were soon to die, and afterward, he’d known she was right to maintain hope. Talyra, who knew none of the Scholars’ secrets, was almost always right about the things that mattered.

  On just one issue was she blind—she saw nothing bad in the fact that Scholars kept secrets. Though she’d learned that they were not superhuman, she never questioned their supremacy as High Priests and City guardians; she perceived no evil in the existence of castes that villagers thought were hereditary. And she was therefore ineligible to attain Scholar rank. Talyra simply hadn’t been born to question things, Noren thought ruefully.

  He could not communicate fully with Talyra. He couldn’t have done so even if no obligatory secrecy had bound him. She’d come to respect the honesty that had condemned him in the village of their birth. She had protested his confinement within the walls and had been admitted to the Inner City, given Technician rank, because she loved him enough to share it. The explanations she’d received contented her. It mattered little that she did not know, could never be allowed to know, that he’d ranked as a Scholar before committing himself to priesthood; the true nature of Scholar standing was past her comprehension.

  While his status was concealed from her they could not marry; and though there’d have been no objection to their becoming lovers, he had held back while their future was uncertain. Talyra had been puzzled and hurt. Already she’d longed for a baby, Noren realized with chagrin, although she was as yet too young to be pitied for childlessness. In the City she wouldn’t be scorned as barren women were in the villages. He had assumed that since she could not rear a family, a delay in childbearing wouldn’t disturb her, or that if it did, she would break off her betrothal to him. At least that was what he liked to tell himself, though he knew he’d been too absorbed by his own problems to give enough thought to hers. There had been a time when he’d not cared to live, much less to love.

  Then, in the mountains, everything had changed. He’d thrown problems to the wind and followed his instincts, and instinct led him not only to love, but to strive beyond reason for their survival and their child’s. They’d had no sure knowledge, of course, that there was a child—yet what couple would believe their first union unfruitful?

  He couldn’t remind Talyra that she would not live long enough to give birth; certainly he couldn’t remind her that perhaps she had failed to conceive. More significantly, he found he could not tell her that it made no difference to the world one way or the other. Science had proven the Prophecy vain—according to all logic, the human race was doomed by the alien world’s lack of resources. But he could not destroy Talyra’s faith. This too had been instinct, and through this, he’d discovered to his surprise that he could serve as a priest without hypocrisy. The role of a Scholar was to work toward a scientific breakthrough that could fulfill the Prophecy’s promises; the role of a priest was to affirm the Prophecy without evidence. He no longer felt the two were inconsistent.

  He owed much to the child he would never be permitted to see, Noren thought: the child who would grow up as a villager—where, and under what name, he would not be told—and who, knowing nothing of his or her parentage, might someday in turn fight the High Law’s apparent injustice. . . .

  “Noren—”

  He looked up, expecting news from the nursery, but it was his friend Brek who stood in the doorway. “I guess you’re wondering why I didn’t come to the refectory,” Noren said. It was their habit to take their noon meal together in the Hall of Scholars, the central tower where as advanced students, they normally worked. “I wasn’t hungry, I’m as nervous as all fathers—just wait till it’s your turn.” Brek, quite recently, had married a fellow-Scholar; their delight in their own coming child had been plain.

  Brek hesitated. “By the Star, Brek,” Noren went on, “it’s taking a long time, isn’t it? Should it take this long?”

  “Noren, Beris asked me to tell you. They’ve sent for a doctor.” Brek’s tone was even, too even.

  A doctor? Noren went white. Rarely had he heard of a doctor being called to attend a birth. The villages had no resident doctors; babies were delivered by nurse-midwives, trained, as Talyra had been trained in adolescence, for a vocation accorded semi-religious status. In the City there was no cause to usurp their prerogatives. Besides, it was improper to intervene in the process of bringing forth life. Only if the child were in danger . . .

  Vaguely, from his boyhood, he recalled that babies sometimes died. So too, in the village, had mothers who were frail. It was not a thing discussed often, unless perhaps among women—though he had never known a woman whose eagerness for another child wouldn’t have overshadowed such thoughts.

  “I think you’d better come,” Brek was saying.

  As they descended in the lift, other boyhood memories pushed into Noren’s mind. The child might be past saving . . . against many ills doctors were powerless. They’d failed to save his mother. Though at the time he’d been outraged, he now knew she couldn’t have been helped; the poison in the briars she’d touched had no antidote. But some things without current remedies had been curable with Six Worlds’ technology.

  Had the Six Worlds had ways of ensuring safe births? The computer complex could answer that, of course; he wondered, suddenly, if any past Scholar had been moved to ask. He himself was prone to ask futile questions as well as practical ones, a tendency not widely shared when it could lead only to frustration.

  Brek was silent. That in itself was eloquent—Brek, N
oren reflected, knew him much too well to offer false reassurances.

  It had never occurred to Noren that the baby might die. He could face that himself, he supposed; he was inured to grim circumstances. The seasons since his marriage had been the happiest of his life, too good, he’d sometimes felt, to last. But Talyra’s sorrow he might find past bearing. It was so unjust that she should suffer . . . after all the grief and hardship he’d brought her in the past, he’d wanted to make her content. He’d vowed not to let her see that a priest could have doubts, or that even when closest to her he knew loneliness.

  Was it only because of her pregnancy that he’d succeeded? If the child died, if she was desolate over what she’d surely perceive as a failure as well as a sorrow, would her intuition again lead her to sense that his own desolation went deeper? “You are what you are,” she had told him long ago, “and our loving each other wouldn’t make any difference.” It hadn’t; for a time this had seemed unimportant, yet throughout that time, the child had bridged the gulf between them. . . .

  Talyra would blame herself if it wasn’t healthy; village women always did, and she’d been reared as a villager. It wouldn’t matter that no one in the City would consider her blameworthy. Noren cursed inwardly. Village society, backward in all ways because of its technological stagnation, was both sexist and intolerant; and while Talyra might be openminded enough to be talked out of most prejudices, she wouldn’t listen to him on a subject viewed as the province of women. Among Technicians there was less stigma attached to the loss of a child. Brek’s wife Beris had been born a Technician, in the Outer City, as had Brek himself. Maybe later on Beris would be able to help.