Beyond the Tomorrow Mountains Page 13

  “Don’t you want to come for a day or two, at least?” Stefred asked. “You can go out again with the next supply car—”

  “No,” Noren declared. It was not merely that he wasn’t willing to admit any need to consult a psychiatrist, for he was sure that once he met Stefred face to face and confessed the whole truth, as he would feel compelled to do, he would not be allowed to go out again. He would not be trusted to do anything. And furthermore, he could not endure the thought of confronting Talyra.

  “I won’t force you, Noren,” Stefred said slowly. “If you need help, I’m here—we’re all here, and we’ll stand by you. But quite possibly this is something you have to resolve alone. Perhaps work at the outpost is the best thing for you right now.” There was a long pause, so long that Noren wondered whether the radiophone was malfunctioning. Finally Stefred’s voice continued, “There’s a good deal I could say, but I don’t think you’re ready to understand it. Just remember what I told you the other night.”

  Noren was too numb to be angry, and though his impulse was toward rage when he recalled their talk in the observation lounge, he was too honest not to know that it was mostly rage against himself. There had been plain suspicion of his vulnerability to panic. Stefred had been troubled from the beginning, and had offered warnings that he, Noren, had chosen to ignore. Still, it was unlike Stefred to take an “I told you so” attitude.

  Avoiding Brek, Noren went to the camp leaders and asked for work. There was plenty to be done. The camp was in wilderness, and not all the allocated equipment had yet arrived. Little would be provided in any case; the occupants would live under conditions of extreme difficulty, much as the first-generation villagers had, but with the added hardships of the Founders. They would receive nothing but what was necessary to sustain life.

  The first priority was construction of a foundation for the tower. It was being built of stone and mortar without the aid of either machines or metal tools. The hardiest men among the Scholars had arrived some days earlier to start it, but the job was not finished, and Noren’s strong back was welcomed. He in turn welcomed heavy physical labor that left him no time to think.

  He worked ceaselessly, finding that hands that had learned masonry in boyhood did not forget their skill. In the villages stonesetting was not a trade, but a measure of manliness, for whenever a new house was raised all the neighbors came to help. Most Scholars had been reared as villagers; they’d known well the ancestral methods of building that had been passed down from father to son. Like all of the other unchanging village ways, the methods were effective. They were not subject to improvement, for the engineers of the first generation had been ingenious people quite competent to devise the most effective uses of stone.

  It was more laborious in camp than in the villages, since there were as yet no work-beasts. Getting a work-beast into an aircar would have been an utterly impractical undertaking. Aircars were not very large, and work-beasts were not very cooperative; their adaptation to unpurified water and native fodder had, of course, been detrimental to their intelligence. Moreover, there were more vital things than beasts of burden to be carried aboard the few aircars available. Nor was it feasible to herd any beasts by land, for aside from the length and difficulty of the journey—which would necessitate climbing to high altitudes and packing enough food and water to last many weeks—there were savages in the mountains, the now subhuman mutants whose ancestors had fled there after heedlessly incurring genetic damage. They too had lost their intelligence, but they were fierce and dangerous. So work-beasts could be brought only in embryonic form after the laboratories were ready, and until they arrived and matured, the wicker sledges on which stones were moved must be pulled by hand.

  Wheels would have been a tremendous advantage; villagers, having never heard of them, did not miss them, but the Scholars never ceased regretting that the one invention most basic to the civilization of the old worlds had proved impossible in the new. Each and every person who learned anything of the Six Worlds found it hard to believe that there wasn’t some way a wheel could be fabricated. On the Six Worlds they were made of wood, but the new world had no trees. It was simple to cut one from softstone, as sledge runners, furniture, and the like were cut; but softstone wore away quickly from friction, and besides, stone wheels would not turn properly on stone axles. They just weren’t efficient enough to be worth the trouble. It was equally impractical to manufacture plastic wheels, for though plastics of the required hardness had been developed from native vegetation, there was no metal to build the high-pressure equipment needed to mold them. Villagers had potters’ wheels and millstones, but for transport the primitive sledges were indispensable.

  Sledges were meant to be drawn over sanded roads, but in the camp there were no roads at all. The road-grading machine—there was only one in existence—was being used by Technicians in the establishment of a new village. Under the High Law whenever forty families petitioned for a village of their own, they had a right to hire the Technicians’ services: road-building, clearing of farmland, initial fertilization and treatment of the soil, purification of the clay for a pipeline to connect another common cistern to the City water supply—all the necessary jobs that could be done only through the use of the sacred Machines, climaxed by the installation of a Radiophone Machine in the new village center as a symbol of religious sanction. That took precedence over the Scholars’ needs. Until the obligation to the villagers had been met, the camp would do without machinery.

  The site of the settlement was anything but attractive. Noren, once he became clear-headed enough to survey it, observed that it was very much like the land he had known all his life: undulating gray country, in this case unrelieved by the fresh green of quickened fields. There were fewer knolls, perhaps, and fewer of the purple shrubs that grew mainly on high ground. Then too, the mountains were closer, and their crags of white and yellow rock rose further above the horizon. But somehow he had expected “beyond the Tomorrow Mountains” to be a more novel region.

  Maybe it was, he thought ruefully. He was really in no condition to judge. He was still detached from the world; it was flat, unreachable, as if an invisible screen stood between him and what he saw. It was more dreamlike than any of the controlled dreams had been, and far more frightening. . . .

  Grimly he turned to the work, swinging his stone pick with a strength he’d not known he possessed. He was thankful the sun was not out, and not merely because of the heat—the sun was too vivid a reminder of those other suns that had overwhelmed him. Could it be possible that he was insane? he wondered in terror. Should he have told Stefred the whole story? He was repelled by the idea; his mind, the sharpness of his mind, had always been what he most valued. Unable to keep his thoughts blank, he allowed them to drift, feeling a strange astonishment that despite the seeming unreality of his surroundings, he’d lost none of the knowledge he had acquired.

  He thought of the mother world. Impressions from controlled dreams returned, arousing sudden longing. One dream in particular had taught him much about the lacks of his planet; a dream in which he’d immersed himself in cool water . . . immersed himself fully, so that he was floating in it! Both the City and the new outpost had been purposely located far from deep bodies of water. Maps made from orbital surveys showed many big lakes, yet no lake could be approached safely until such time as synthesization of metal made large-scale purification feasible. Although the High Law was an adequate deterrent to drinking impure water, a taboo against all swimming would be impossible to enforce. As he labored in the dry outdoor heat for the first time since his enlightenment, Noren understood that, and he raged anew at the cruelty of his race’s exile. Before, he had simply accepted it. Now every turn of his mind led to the unanswerable why . . . why. . . .

  At midday everyone paused to eat. Noren had no appetite; he scarcely noticed the meagerness of the meal, though he knew that the plan was for the expedition to subsist on as short rations as possible. While there was plenty of foo
d to spare in the settled area of the planet, room for transporting it aboard the aircars was very limited, and until a local harvest could be produced, hunger would be the rule. Hunger—and also thirst. So far all pure water, too, had to be transported, and the likelihood of rain was small. The general overcast that had made the planet look predominantly white from space rarely produced rain, and the equipment for weather control could not be duplicated. The purification plant, when installed, would have to serve for irrigation of crops as well as for drinking and bathing; strict water rationing was destined to continue.

  These discomforts were not discussed. No one complained; no one reminded anyone else to be abstemious. The rations for the day were set out on a crude softstone table and each man helped himself. People sat around in informal groups to eat, talking and laughing, with inward resolve to accept the demanding conditions of camp life as a personal challenge; their morale was high. After all, everybody had wanted to come. The thrill of the venture was ample compensation for the drawbacks.

  Noren stood apart, reflecting with bitter dismay that the thrill could no longer reach him. He ate because one must eat to work, but the bread seemed tasteless and his mouth was so dry that it was hard to swallow, although he took his fair share of water. The fear in him grew steadily: fear not of any external threat, but of a self he had not met before and did not wholly trust. His normal confidence in himself was gone. If only, he thought numbly, there were some way to reverse time . . . to get back what he’d had before confronting the naked stars!

  Yet if there were a way to reverse time, it would also be possible to get back all that had existed before the nova. Why must time be as it was? Why, for that matter, must any laws of the universe be as they were? The science he’d studied explained them, but it did not explain their reason for being. It did not explain why six worlds should be destroyed by a nova, nor, in fact, did it tell why even one world should exist in the first place. . . .

  Seeing Brek approaching, Noren gulped the last of his bread and went back to work. He spoke to no one, and, once he’d rebuffed them, the others let him be, respecting his desire for privacy. Toward evening the clouds broke, and he avoided glancing at the sun that burned down on him, confining his thought to the effort of handling stone.

  He stopped for supper with reluctance. Everyone else was exhausted, since even the former villagers were not yet reconditioned to heavy labor, and those born as Technicians, like Brek, had never performed it before. Noren welcomed the pain of his muscles as a sign that he was still in bodily touch with the world. Ordinary things—the smoke of cook-fires, the spongy feel of the moss on which he sat, the sound of people’s voices—seemed like random bits of a cup smashed beyond restoration.

  Brek came toward him again, and this time Noren could not escape. “Look,” Brek began, “we don’t have to talk about it if you’d rather not. But I want you to know that I—I understand, and—well, that I don’t blame you—”

  Understand? thought Noren wretchedly. Brek couldn’t possibly understand what had happened; nobody could. It would be impossible to describe even if he wanted to confide in someone. “I’m all right now,” he said sharply. “I just want to be left alone.”

  “Aren’t you coming to Orison?”

  “Orison—here?”

  “Well, not the formal kind, but everybody’s getting together around the fire. You can’t just sit here in the dark by yourself.”

  Noren got up and strode away, his back to the flickering glow of the bonfire on which, now that the cooking was done, more moss was being heaped. He could not, he felt, maintain his composure at such a gathering. The idea filled him with panic.

  But as darkness deepened across a clear sweep of sky, the panic became worse; and resignedly Noren turned toward the light that outshone the distant, disquieting stars.

  * * *

  One day was much like another. The stone foundation was finished and erection of the tower began; its sections were brought down from orbit in the proper order for reassembly. Noren had little aptitude for work requiring manual dexterity, but he had been taught the use of the special tools and was thoroughly familiar with the starship hull’s design—moreover, he was determined to perform flawlessly. It was the only way to stave off the solicitousness of well-meaning fellow Scholars. He did not want their pity. He knew that they sincerely wished to help, but there was no help for what had befallen him.

  At first he didn’t think he could possibly find the courage to walk in space again, but when the other two teams had made trips, so that it was rightfully his turn—and Brek’s—Noren knew there was only one course. Steeling himself for the most blatant lie he had ever attempted, he approached the camp leaders and begged for another chance, insisting that he was not afraid. “I panicked before,” he confessed grimly, “but by the Mother Star, I won’t let it happen again.” He had met panic repeatedly since the flight, panic just as severe although even more groundless in terms of tangible cause, and he’d managed to keep it under control. He hoped no one guessed how much weakness he was hiding.

  It was no use. His request for further space flights was denied. That was scarcely surprising in view of all that hinged on the success of each one, but it was a blow to his faltering self-esteem. He went away hating himself because inside he felt more relief than resentment.

  Though he was sure Brek must despise him, there were no outward signs of it; Brek tried to go on as if nothing had changed. Noren, to whom the whole world had changed, was irritated by this and sometimes hot-tempered, for he could not endure any friendly gestures of sympathy. Before long a new space partner for Brek was sent out from the City, and the flights proceeded on schedule. Brek never spoke of anything that occurred during those flights within Noren’s hearing, but he talked incessantly of other subjects. He went out of his way to ask advice, and although Noren was brusque, his pretense of normalcy demanded that he offer what he could. It proved to be a strain even when the queries concerned science.

  For the prospective scientists in the group, training was soon resumed. Gradually the camp started to take on some semblance of a civilized community. Though no effort could yet be expended to build shelters, which were not required by the climate, people chose personal living areas and began to spend some of their evenings away from the community bonfire. A few of the City’s study-desk screens were sent out and new discs for them, along with recharged power cells, came aboard every aircar. At first Noren was pleased, since his practice in disciplined concentration enabled him to shut out the world through study whenever he was not working. But the experiences he’d undergone had left their mark. Science was not the joyous pursuit it once had been; its lack of certainty had robbed it of weight, and the basic questions that were tormenting him had raised doubts as to how much of it could be considered valid. Brek did not know that. To Brek it was all new and exciting and authoritative. As his tutor, Noren found himself more and more a hypocrite.

  He had never expected to be one of Brek’s permanent tutors, and in fact the appointment was not official; but everything was informal in camp, and since no one else assumed the role, it fell to him by default. The Scholars who would normally have held the responsibility, specialists fully trained in nuclear physics, were not at the outpost; they were all in the City devoting themselves to the culminating experiments. Brek did not need their guidance, for he was still at an elementary level and his immediate job left little leisure for study. There was no possibility of his progressing beyond Noren’s ability to instruct.

  Insofar as he could, Noren kept their sessions strictly technical, and there were plenty of safe topics to occupy Brek’s attention, First, there was the matter of why the natural resources of the planet could not be utilized for the building of machines. That they could not was something a new Scholar accepted uncritically, for no villager or even Technician had the background to realize that certain metallic and semi-metallic elements did exist in the native rock; but once a trainee’s study of chemistry be
gan, simple explanations became inadequate. It quite naturally appeared that since the Six Worlds’ scientists had been so knowledgeable, they ought to have been able to find substitutes for the metals they’d used at home. But in this, at least, Noren was on firm ground. He could assure Brek categorically that it was impossible to obtain usable metal by mechanical or chemical processes. Metals with the properties needed for machines—strength, durability, and so forth—had never been present in large quantities, and what deposits there once were had been taken by the mysterious alien visitors of the past, whose technology had apparently surpassed that of the Six Worlds.

  Plastics couldn’t serve as a substitute, either, any more than they could be used for wheels. The large-scale manufacture of plastics would require more than the raw materials; it would demand high heat or high pressure, neither of which could be obtained without metal machinery. The same was true of glass and ceramics, which like plastics were limited to the small amounts that could be produced with the City’s existing equipment. The planet offered no fuel that would burn hot enough to melt such materials. Without heat or, for that matter, metal cauldrons, there could be no progress beyond unfired pottery.

  Thus the Founders had pinned all humanity’s hope on transmutation of specific elements through nuclear fusion, in full knowledge of their audacity in setting such a goal. Only recently had Noren come to see how audacious they had been. Foolishly so, perhaps. Still, they’d had no alternative. The orbital surveys had shown the entire solar system to be metal-poor; if there had been a chance of getting metal from any of the moons or other planets, the Founders would have tried it—but there’d been no such chance. The Visitors who’d preceded them had done a thorough job.