The Doors of the Universe Read online

  Yet Brek had said Beris sent the message—that was odd, since she was neither midwife nor nursery attendant. As a Scholar, Beris had work of her own in water purification control, vital life-support work she could not leave except in an emergency. As they reached the nursery level, Noren faced Brek, asking abruptly, “What’s Beris doing here?”

  “She—she was called as a priest, Noren. I don’t know the details.”

  The door where he and Talyra had parted was in front of them; Noren pushed and found it locked. He felt disoriented, as if he were undergoing a controlled dream like those used in Scholars’ training. Beris called as a priest? To be sure, no male priest would be summoned to the birthing room, and Talyra knew Beris well. But why should any priest be needed? At the service for the dead, yes, if the baby didn’t survive . . . but that would be held later, and elsewhere. He would be expected to preside himself, at least Talyra would expect it, and for her sake he would find the courage, disturbing though that particular service had always been to him. What other solace could a priest offer? Had they felt only a robed Scholar could break the news of her baby’s danger? That didn’t make sense—Talyra would know! She was a midwife; if the delivery didn’t go well, she would know what was happening.

  She’d rarely spoken to him of her work. He knew only that she liked it, liked helping to bring new life into the world. Yet there had been times when she’d come to their room troubled, her usual vitality dimmed by sadness she would not explain. It struck him now that she might have seen babies die before. Perhaps she had seen more than one kind of pain.

  That women suffered physically during childbirth was something everyone knew and no one mentioned. It was taken for granted that the lasting joy outweighed the temporary discomfort. Midwives were taught to employ a modified form of hypnosis that lessened pain without affecting consciousness, or so he’d been told, though Talyra wasn’t aware that the ritual procedures she followed served such a purpose. Doctors—and often priests—could induce full hypnotic anesthesia. Had Beris been summoned for that reason? Had Talyra’s pain been abnormally severe, could that be why they’d sought a doctor’s aid? Anguish rose in Noren; her confidence had been so great that he had not guessed she might be undergoing a real ordeal.

  “I’ve got to go in there,” he told Brek. Having never been one to let custom stand in his way, he felt no hesitancy.

  “You can’t do any good now. When you can, they’ll call you—”

  “For the Star’s sake, she may need me! The doctor may not be here yet, she may be suffering—she’s not been trained to accept hypnosis as we have, and she’s not awed enough by a blue robe to let just any priest put her under.”

  “Beris said something about drugs.”

  “Drugs for childbirth?” Drugs were scarce and precious, not to be used where hypnosis would serve and surely not on anyone who wasn’t ill; Talyra would not accept them during the biggest moment of her life. Unless her baby had already died . . . but no, not even then; Talyra was no coward.

  “I don’t understand,” he protested.

  “Neither do I,” Brek said. “We don’t know enough about these things; sometimes I think women keep too much to themselves. I’d never have thought it could be risky for Talyra. She’s young and strong—”

  Stunned, Noren burst out, “You mean there’s danger to Talyra? Not just to the child?” In sudden panic he threw his weight against the door, but it would not yield.

  Brek grasped his arm, pulling him aside. “The child was stillborn, I think,” he admitted.

  The door slid back and Beris emerged, still wearing the ceremonial blue robe of priesthood over her work clothes. She blocked Noren’s way.

  “Let’s go down,” she said quietly. “I know a room that’s empty where we can go.”

  “I’ve got to see Talyra.”

  “You can’t, not here.”

  “Where, then?” He wondered if they would move her to the infirmary; he knew nothing of what illness might strike during a delivery.

  “Noren.” Beris kept her voice steady. “It was over faster than anyone expected. Talyra is dead.”

  * * *

  Later, he wondered how Brek and Beris had gotten him to the lift. They took him to a room on the next level that was temporarily unused. Once there, he collapsed on the narrow couch and gave way to tears. For a long time they said nothing, but simply let him weep.

  When he was able to talk, there was little Beris could tell him. “It happens,” she said. “Usually with older women, or those who’ve never been strong; but occasionally it happens with a girl who seems healthy. Talyra knew that. She knew better than most of us; all midwives do.”

  “She never said—”

  “Of course not. You would be the last person to whom she’d have said such a thing.”

  “Did it happen on the Six Worlds, too?” Noren asked bitterly. “Or could she have been saved there?”

  “I don’t know. At least I don’t know if she could have been saved at this stage. It’s possible—they had equipment we haven’t the metal to produce, and they could tell beforehand if there were complications, so that their doctors could be prepared. Sometimes they delivered babies surgically before labor even began.”

  Beris paused, glancing uncomfortably at Brek; her own pregnancy, though not yet apparent, could scarcely be far from their thoughts. “Talyra wasn’t a Scholar—she didn’t know how it was on the Six Worlds. But I do. I suppose men don’t absorb all that I did from the dreams the Founders recorded . . . but you do know it wasn’t the same as here. I mean, people didn’t have the same feelings—”

  Noren nodded. The Six Worlds had been overpopulated; women hadn’t been allowed more than two children, and they’d had drugs to prevent unplanned pregnancies. Hard though it was to imagine, people hadn’t minded—at any rate, that was what all the records said. Sterility hadn’t been considered a curse. Some couples had purposely chosen to have no offspring at all; they had made love without wishing for their love to outlast their lifetime.

  “Well,” Beris went on, “it was the custom there for women to be seen by doctors, not just during delivery, but all through pregnancy. They knew a long time ahead if things weren’t going right. And so pregnancies that were judged dangerous were—terminated.”

  Noren was speechless. Brek, aghast, murmured, “You mean deliberately? They killed unborn children?”

  “Their society didn’t look on it as killing. And it wasn’t done often once they had sure contraceptives—only when the child would die anyway, or when the mother’s health was at stake.”

  “Talyra would not have done it at all,” declared Noren.

  “No. That’s what I’m trying to say, Noren. She wouldn’t have, even if the option had been open, because in our culture we just can’t feel the way our ancestors did. Our situation is different. So unless the Six Worlds’ medical equipment could have saved her without hurting the baby, our having that equipment wouldn’t have changed anything.”

  But the baby died too, Noren thought. She’d given her life for nothing. Perhaps these things happened, but why—why to Talyra? It was the sort of useless question that had always plagued him, yet he could not let it rest.

  “She was so strong, she loved life so much . . . there’s got to be a reason,” he said slowly. He recalled how in the aftermath of the crash, Talyra’s indomitable spirit had kindled his own will to live. She had refused to let him give in. All the hardships—the terror of the attack by subhuman mutants, the heat, the exhaustion, the hunger and above all the thirst—had left Talyra untouched. How could she have come through all that, only to die as a result of the love that had led to their near-miraculous rescue?

  “She believed the Star would protect her,” he persisted, “even in the mountains where we knew we were dying, she kept believing! You were there, Brek—you saw. I couldn’t disillusion her. That was what pulled us through. It’s so ironic for her faith to let her down in the end.”

  “Talyra
was a realist,” Brek declared, “I remember she said, ‘If we die expecting to live, we’ll be none the worse for it; but if we stop living because we expect to die, we’ll have thrown away our own lives.’”

  “She didn’t feel faith had let her down,” Beris added. “It comforted her! She knew she’d lost too much blood, she’d seen such cases before—and she wanted the ritual blessing. That’s why I was sent for.”

  “You gave it to her, Beris? You said those words to a dying person as if they were true?” Noren frowned. May the spirit of the Mother Star abide with you, and with your children, and your children’s children; may you gain strength from its presence, trusting in the surety of its power. He had conceded the words were valid when said to the living, who were concerned for the welfare of future generations. But in the context of death—death not only of oneself but of one’s only child—they took on a whole new meaning.

  “I’ve never used ritual phrases lightly, not as a priest, anyway,” Beris answered. “The words do express truth, just as much as the ones you say every time you preside at Vespers. Of course I said them, and part of the service for the child, too, because she wanted to hear it.”

  He turned away, realizing that though he himself could not have denied Talyra’s wish, he’d have been choking back more than tears. “A priest gives hope,” he said softly, “that’s what Stefred told me when I agreed to assume the robe. It’s a—a mockery to use the symbols where there’s nothing left to hope for.”

  “But Noren—” Beris broke off, seeing Brek’s face; she did not know Noren’s mind as Brek did. “Talyra hoped for you,” she continued quietly. “The last thing she said to me was, ‘Tell Noren I love him.’”

  Noren sat motionless, already feeling the return of the emptiness that had paralyzed him during his weeks at the research outpost. Brek and Beris seemed far away, their voices echoes of a world he no longer inhabited.

  “This isn’t the time to tell you this,” Beris was saying, “but Talyra made me promise. She said you must have more children, that it’s important, because otherwise the world will lose twice as much—”

  “She knew I wouldn’t want anyone’s children but hers.”

  “That’s why she said it—she did know. She knew you don’t hold with custom and might not choose someone else just for duty’s sake. And there was something about what happened in the mountains that I didn’t understand, she said it would become pointless, what you suffered there.”

  “I suppose she meant your drinking so little water,” Brek said. To Beris he added, “I never told you the whole story. Noren nearly died of dehydration; he couldn’t drink as much impure water as Talyra and I could because he’d already drunk some as a boy in the village.”

  “You’d drunk impure water without need?” Beris was shocked.

  “Just for a few days before I was taken into the City,” Noren assured her. “I didn’t believe in the High Law then, not any of it—it wasn’t only the injustice that made me a heretic. And I’d decided I’d outgrown nursery tales about stream water turning people into idiots.”

  “But then how could you dare to—”

  “I was tested for genetic damage, just as Brek was after we got back from the mountains. He must have explained about that, or else you wouldn’t have married him. Anyway, I’d been told how much more I could safety drink, and in the wilderness I kept within that limit for Talyra’s sake. We’d seen the mutants, you know. Talyra hadn’t heard of genetics, but she knew they were subhuman because their ancestors drank the water . . . and, well, even though I thought we’d die there, I couldn’t let her fear, while we were sleeping together—” He broke off and concluded miserably, “She was right; it’s turned out to have been pointless. I’m not likely to want another child.”

  “If you say that, it’s like telling Talyra your love for her made you stop caring about the future. That it was hurtful to you.”

  “To me?” Wretchedly he mumbled, “If it weren’t for me, Talyra might have lived a long, happy life in the village.”

  “How could she have? She’d surely have tried to have children, so the same thing would have happened.”

  “Would it?” Noren burst out, “Beris, my child may have killed Talyra! You’ve learned all these things about pregnancy, things they knew on the Six Worlds—hasn’t it occurred to you it may not always be the woman’s fault when things go wrong? How much do you know about genetics?”

  “Not much,” she admitted. “I don’t think anyone does, beyond the fact that technology’s needed for survival here because something in the water and soil damages genes if it’s not removed.”

  “There must be more detail than that in the computers—they preserve all the Six Worlds’ science, and more must have been known in the Founders’ time.” The idea came slowly; as it formed, Noren wondered why no one had ever spoken of it. “In the dreams, the Founders knew the genetic damage was unavoidable without soil and water processing. Yet there weren’t any subhuman mutants then. The mutants came later, as the offspring of rebels who fled to the mountains rather than accept the First Scholar’s rule. That means the First Scholar predicted the mutation, and he couldn’t have done that without understanding what genes are! What’s more, there must have been cases of genetic damage on the Six Worlds themselves, because the concept wasn’t a new one. Perhaps there were mutations that didn’t destroy the mind.”

  “Genetic diseases, yes,” Beris agreed. “I did get that much from one dream. But not necessarily mutations. A lot of people had defective genes to begin with, only not all the genes a person has affect that person, or all her offspring.”

  “Why aren’t some of our offspring still affected, then?”

  “The Founders—women and men both—passed genetic tests,” Brek reflected. “Don’t you remember, Noren? When they knew their sun was going to nova, how they chose the people eligible to draw lots for the starships?”

  “And there was something about genetics in the First Scholar’s plan, too,” Noren recalled. “It was one of the reasons he wouldn’t let Scholars’ children be reared in the City, even the Outer City. Their being sent to the villages had something to do with what he called the gene pool.”

  “You’re right, there’s got to be a lot of stored information,” said Brek. “I suppose no one’s ever taken time to study it because it’s so irrelevant to our work now. Till we find a way to synthesize metal, so that soil and water processing can continue indefinitely, it doesn’t make any difference whether we understand genes or not. Understanding can’t prevent the damage, only technology can.”

  True, thought Noren grimly. Still, he’d always wanted to understand things—and to him, this was no longer irrelevant.

  * * *

  It was near midnight when he returned to his own quarters. At Brek’s insistence he had accepted bread and a hot drink, knowing that one should not go more than a full day without nourishment. “Or without sleep,” Brek said worriedly. Tactfully, he avoided any direct suggestion about hypnotic sedation.

  “I’ll sleep,” Noren said quickly. He did not see how he could do so in the bed he’d shared with Talyra, but the Inner City was crowded; barring the infirmary, there was nowhere else to sleep. And after all, rooms were nearly identical, having once been cabins aboard the Founders’ starships. There were no personal furnishings, for such materials as could be manufactured were allocated to the Outer City, while the Inner City practiced an austerity that even to villagers, who had wicker and colored cloth, would have seemed strange. Talyra had kept her few belongings neatly stored in a compartment beneath the bunk; none would be in evidence to torment him.

  “Noren,” Brek continued hesitantly, “the service tomorrow—”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “Will you preside?”

  “I—I can’t, Brek.”

  “I understand, of course. So will everyone. But it’s your right, so I had to ask.”

  “You don’t understand at all,” Noren told him.
“I wouldn’t crack up. I’d like to be the one to speak about Talyra, what she was, what her life meant to us. It’s the ritual part I can’t do.”

  He thought back to the first such service he had ever attended, the one for his mother, and how awful he’d felt hearing the Technicians, who in the villages performed priests’ functions by proxy, read the false, hollow phrases over her body. His mother had believed those things. She’d believed her life and death served some mystical power, the power of a star not yet even visible in the sky.

  He had since learned it was not all a lie. But the service for the dead was not part of the Prophecy that science might fulfill. Nor did it deal only with the Mother Star. It was one thing to accept the Star as a symbol of the unknowable—as he’d done when he assumed priesthood—as well as of the heritage from the Six Worlds. Symbols no longer bothered him. But in this ceremony alone, the Founders had gone further. “I’m not like you and Beris,” he told Brek. “I can’t feel the words about death symbolize truth.”

  The night dragged on. Noren could not cry any more, even when alone; he did not believe any emotion would return to him. He’d been right, perhaps, when despair had first gripped him, the year before at the outpost. His marriage had been only a brief reprieve.

  Toward dawn he drifted into sleep and was immediately caught up in nightmare, the old nightmare induced by the controlled dreams through which Scholar candidates learned of the Founding. He was the First Scholar, yet at the same time, himself; the woman dying in his arms had Talyra’s face, Talyra’s voice. . . He surfaced, telling himself as always that it was just a dream, Talyra still lived, in experiencing the First Scholar’s emotions he had drawn images from his own memory. But when fully conscious, he knew that never again would it be a dream from which he could wake up.

  The First Scholar too had lost his wife. She had killed herself because she could not bear the knowledge that the Six Worlds were destroyed. That had been what convinced the First Scholar that the secret of the nova must be kept; it was a key episode, so despite its pain it was one new Scholars had to go through. What kind of woman would prefer death to serving the future? Noren wondered. Talyra wouldn’t have! Why then had Talyra died? There was no sense in any of it . . . the First Scholar’s wife had served the future after all, for her husband’s decision had hinged on hers, the symbolic interpretation of the Mother Star itself had hinged on it. How could the future be served by senseless tragedy?