Beyond the Tomorrow Mountains Page 24

  “You had enough to worry about that day without keeping track of me,” Noren said. “Besides, the computers weren’t telling me anything.”

  “That was because they are programmed to teach lessons that can’t be learned in one short session,” replied Stefred, “lessons that in your case proved more painful than was intended.” He went on to explain, “The Founders knew that young Scholars would think of the computer complex as the repository of all truth, and must sooner or later be made aware of the distinction between truth and fact. They also knew that since the beginning of time the key to advancement of human knowledge has lain not in discovering the right answers, but in discovering the right questions to ask. So in certain areas of inquiry—areas that a person doesn’t explore until he is mature enough to grasp such ideas—they deliberately refrained from programming leading responses. They didn’t expect any Scholar to leave the City, of course; and given time, you would have persisted until you caught on.”

  “Is that what you meant when you said I’d have access to a kind of knowledge that would help?”

  “No,” Stefred declared. “I wasn’t referring to the computers then. You won’t understand what I meant until you attain such knowledge for yourself.”

  * * *

  Noren went to the computer room; he sat at a console and calmly, carefully, phrased his questions: not WHAT IS LIFE’S MEANING? but WHAT HAVE PEOPLE THOUGHT ABOUT LIFE’S MEANING? . . . NOT WHY WERE THE SIX WORLDS DESTROYED? but TO WHAT CAUSE DID PEOPLE OF THE PAST ATTRIBUTE UNPREVENTABLE DESTRUCTION? He stayed there until long past the hour of Orison, and by then he realized that the study of what had been written on these subjects would absorb not mere days, but years. Yet he had seen enough to know certain things.

  He knew that others had suffered as he had, and that there was no way to escape it except by giving up the search.

  He knew that there were two paths one could follow if one were willing to give up: one could decide it was all too futile to bother with, or one could fool oneself into thinking that one had already found the answers. Some people had done that. Some, in fact, had felt such a great need to convince themselves of what they’d found that whenever anybody appeared whose answers were different, they’d fought over it. If they’d been powerful men with many followers, the fights had, at times, turned into wars.

  But Noren also knew that there’d been some who had not given up. They had recognized mysteries that they could not resolve and had borne it; they’d gone on gathering the bits and pieces of truth available, in full knowledge that they would fail to assemble the whole pattern.

  And he knew that these people had been sustained only by faith.

  Their faith hadn’t always been called a religion. Sometimes it had; but many, particularly the later ones, had simply trusted that there was a pattern without using any symbols for the elements beyond their grasp. For the most part, such people had not been in a predicament as difficult as the Scholars’. Those facing adversity had tended to find symbols indispensable.

  Noren thought back to the dreams in which he had become the First Scholar, remembering the painful yet triumphant time while he lay dying. For years the First Scholar had sought symbols; he had, Noren realized abruptly, sought them not only for his people’s comfort but for his own. WHAT WAS THE FIRST SCHOLAR’S PERSONAL RELIGION? he keyed in, perplexed.

  THE FIRST SCHOLAR WROTE NOTHING ABOUT THAT, responded the computer. IT IS BEST UNDERSTOOD FROM HIS RECORDED MEMORIES.

  But aside from the idea for the Prophecy, the recordings had contained nothing of this, at least not unless one counted the First Scholar’s sureness that a way for humankind to survive permanently would be found. Noren perceived that this surety, which had been so puzzling in the light of his scientific knowledge, must indeed be counted as faith—yet that wasn’t enough. If questions about why instead of how occurred to all wise and courageous people, they must certainly have occurred to the First Scholar. No such questions had troubled him during the dreams.

  He returned to Stefred. “The dreams I had before my recantation were edited,” he declared, “to conceal the First Scholar’s plan for choosing successors. Later I experienced them in a more complete form. Was that edited, too? Is there a third version?”

  “Yes,” Stefred admitted, “for those who request it; and it’s a more constructive thing to go through than another dream of space would be. But if I were you, Noren, I’d wait a while. Wait till you understand what happened to you more thoroughly, because something quite similar will happen in those dreams.”

  “You mean it happened to him?” There had been a gap of many years in the dreams, Noren recalled, and he had never been told exactly what the First Scholar had undergone during the interim.

  “I’ve said before that his mind was very like yours,” Stefred replied simply, “and after all, he had witnessed the destruction of the worlds he knew.”

  “But he went on to create the Prophecy . . . and it—it meant more to him than a way to give people hope. It symbolized his whole attitude toward the universe! If anyone had faith in the future, he had.”

  “Did you suppose he was born with it? Some people are—people like Talyra, for instance—and their faith is entirely valid. Those who are born to question must find it through experience.”

  Noren swallowed. “Is there any chance, do you think, that I—” He broke off, embarrassed by the strange, compassionate look Stefred gave him. There isn’t, he thought, and he doesn’t want to hurt me. “Only you can be the judge of that,” Stefred answered, and Noren left without asking whether one could live without faith indefinitely.

  He found Brek waiting for him in their old room, and it was apparent that he wanted to talk. “I—I messed things up pretty thoroughly,” Noren said after an awkward silence, knowing that any attempt at specific apology would be too weak. “I don’t expect you to understand—”

  “It’s not that,” Brek said quickly. “We’ve both done things we’re sorry for, and they’re past. Only there’s something else.” He paced nervously from one side of the compartment to the other. “I wish we could go back to sharing the same ideas, but—well, there’s something I’ve got to tell you, something you won’t understand, and that you’ll probably despise me for. I can’t help it. In this I’ve got to make my own decision.”

  Puzzled, Noren stood patiently while Brek paused with his back turned and then, with quiet determination, announced straightforwardly. “I’m assuming the robe tomorrow.”

  Noren’s initial amazement gave way to surprise at his obtuseness. Of course. Brek had not been born to question; though he’d defied injustice and had balked at accepting the seemingly privileged status of a Scholar, once those obstacles proved unreal, there was no barrier to his becoming a priest. He would be a good one. “I don’t despise you,” Noren declared. “I—I think I envy you, Brek.”

  “Envy me—you?” Brek burst out. “But Noren, that’s crazy! If you no longer feel that commitment’s wrong, why don’t you wear the robe yourself?”

  Why didn’t he? Because there was more to it than right or wrong, Noren thought unhappily. Priesthood was not merely a matter of committing oneself to certain ethics and certain actions. A priest must know more than science could teach him. Brek could represent that other knowledge—the kind one must attain for oneself—without hypocrisy; he himself could not.

  “I’m unfit,” he said in a low voice, “and anyway, as a relapsed heretic, I’ve forfeited the right.”

  “Did Stefred tell you that?”

  “He didn’t have to.”

  “It’s not true,” Brek contended. “Commitment concerns only the future, and you’re no more a relapsed heretic now than I am.” He spoke with cool assurance, and for the first time, except during that one exchange made in anger, he’d contradicted Noren directly. Their roles had been reversed, Noren realized. Brek did not need his guidance any more.

  “Noren,” Brek went on slowly, “there’s another thing I think you ough
t to know. It’s none of my business what’s passed between you and Stefred—”

  “No,” declared Noren firmly. “It isn’t.”

  “But he risked a lot for you, and since he’s not likely to mention it, I’ve got to. The man I heard it from must have had that in mind when he didn’t pledge me to silence.”

  “Risked?” Noren inquired in bafflement. “How?”

  “By not ordering you recalled from the outpost.”

  It was true, Noren thought, that except for the promise not to force him, such a move would have been natural; Stefred had known what was troubling him and must have had a fairly good idea of how he would react. “I suppose so,” he admitted despondently. “I might not have gotten people to fight the system, but if I’d been killed trying, the scientific talent everyone’s had such fine hopes for would have been lost.”

  “Don’t belittle it. It’s important to others if not to you, and he took a big gamble. But more than that, he staked his own career; the issue was raised in the executive council, and he told them that if they reversed his decision, he’d resign as department head.”

  “But why?” Noren gasped.

  “That was his only recourse; he could see he was about to be outvoted.”

  “I mean why should he go to such lengths to keep his word? I’d have released him; I’d have come back voluntarily if I’d known.” With chagrin, he remembered how Emet, just after an executive council meeting, had asked him to remain in the City for his friends’ sake.

  “I’m in no position to judge,” Brek said, “but I think there was more to it than the fact that he’d promised. The others all wanted to help you, but Stefred felt you should be let alone. And he thought you were better off outside—that if you stayed, you’d redeem yourself.”

  Then he miscalculated, Noren reflected, and such a great miscalculation was scarcely to be believed of Stefred. Yet it was either that . . . or Stefred still knew more than he was telling.

  * * *

  He did not want to see Talyra, for he knew that when he did he must break their betrothal. He would not do so publicly until the child was born, if there was to be a child; but he could no longer let her think there was hope of their marrying. Nor could they go on as they had begun in the mountains. The joy of it could not last. His burdens had been set aside then; now they were back, and in time those burdens would crush their love, for he could not keep up a convincing pretense of happiness. Talyra had put up with his dark moods too long already, and she deserved better. He would not have her stay with him out of sympathy.

  All the next day he avoided her by remaining inside the Hall of Scholars, but he had to attend Vespers since Brek was to preside, as it was customary for the newly committed to do. There was little ceremony attached to commitment; one simply signed the official roll book and then, the same evening, donned the blue robe and appeared to Technicians as a priest. The service was no different than it was when conducted by a Scholar who had been doing it regularly for years. No special notice was taken except by one’s friends.

  Noren purposely delayed his arrival until the last moment, so that when he approached Talyra the hymn had started and she had no chance to speak. He did not intend to touch her, but as Brek mounted the platform he found himself reaching for her hand. She would be astonished, of course, and perhaps flustered; he must not add to her bewilderment by failing to greet her with affection, though his throat ached so that he could not sing.

  The others’ voices resounded through the courtyard; then, in the hush that followed, Brek began the invocation. “. . . The Mother Star is our source and our destiny, the wellspring of our heritage. . . .” Talyra’s eyes were raised devoutly, so she had not noticed yet; but at the familiar voice she turned to look, lips parted in awe. Noren pressed her fingers. “. . . it is our life’s bulwark. . . .” Brek spoke with utmost sincerity, and he was not talking about the Six Worlds’ sun alone. He had seen life in a way that he himself could not, Noren thought wistfully. It would be nice to go on believing that he could not take that view because he was too honest to accept false comfort, but real honesty told him that doing so would be a greater self-delusion. What Brek had attained was the result not of blindness, but of vision.

  “I’m so glad for him,” Talyra said when the service was over and they walked hand in hand across the dusky courtyard under three orange moons. “I sometimes wondered if he was a candidate—I mean, his having been a Technician outside and all. You must have suspected, too. Oh, I know we mustn’t speak of people’s backgrounds,” she added hastily at Noren’s frown. “But aren’t you curious about how they chose him?”

  Talyra did not know that Brek had been a heretic, of course; though everyone in the Inner City was aware that some of the Scholars were former heretics, the Technicians had no reason to suspect that they all were. Past lives were not mentioned, and she wouldn’t even have known that he was a Technician by birth if she hadn’t seen him at Noren’s trial. Nor would she ever learn that he’d been a Scholar before he assumed the robe. “The choice does not lie with the Scholars alone,” Noren told her. “The role of High Priest must be earned, but it must also be chosen by the candidate himself; that much is no secret.”

  “Did you know when we were in the mountains that he wanted it?”

  “No,” Noren declared, “I didn’t.”

  They sat on a low stone bench in the shadowy triangle between three towers, and Talyra caressed his face fondly, expectantly. Noren kissed her, but he dared not do so with passion, and he knew that she was baffled. With sorrow he began, “Darling, I have to tell you . . . I’ve learned that permission for me to marry can’t be granted. There was . . . well, the aircar, you see—”

  “But that was an accident! Surely they wouldn’t punish you for it!”

  “No . . . but I shouldn’t have been in that aircar at all, you know. It’s not a matter of punishment, but of—consequences. There’s more to it that I can’t explain—”

  “You needn’t,” Talyra said reassuringly. “In time they’ll absolve you, and meanwhile, we’ll just go on being betrothed.”

  He should have known that it would not work, Noren thought. He must be cruel to spare her the greater hurt of seeing their love wither from his failure to find contentment. “Talyra,” he said painfully, “we shouldn’t have done what we did . . . those nights. Now that we have, you see, there’s no stopping, no going back to the way we were before—”

  She shrank away, wounded. “Do you want to stop?”

  “Of course I don’t, but you—well, you should, because you’d be better off with someone like Brek than with me.”

  “I’m not in love with Brek!” she exclaimed, shocked.

  “I don’t mean him specifically. He’s not in love with you, either; do you think I’d give you up for his sake? What I’m trying to say is . . . he has the same outlook you do, and there are plenty of others who have. I’m not one of them. You’ve told me that yourself. I—I can’t make you happy, Talyra.”

  “Can I make you happy?”

  “If you can’t, no girl ever can. But it’s just the same now as when we said goodbye in the village. ‘You are what you are,’ you said, ‘and our loving each other wouldn’t make any difference.’”

  She was silent; then, turning back to him and taking his hands between hers, she murmured, “I also said that someday you’d find the spirit of the Mother Star had been with you.”

  “Someday may be a long way off, Talyra.”

  “It’s already here! Do you think I could watch you week after week, loving you, and not notice when it came?” At his confusion, she shook her head, laughing softly. “Darling, you’re blind. You’re still off in the sky somewhere, dreaming; you haven’t looked at the world since it happened!”

  “Since what happened?”

  “Do you really not know that during those days in the mountains you stopped being afraid?”

  “I resigned myself to dying, that’s all.”

  “No,�
� she told him. “Not to dying—to living! You were never afraid of death, and I think that when we crashed, you . . . you almost wanted to die. I won’t ask why. That doesn’t matter any more, because all of a sudden you were aware of the Mother Star’s protection. You knew that however things turned out, it wouldn’t fail us, and then, when you stopped worrying, you were at peace with the world. You were whole and free.”

  “I wish that were true,” he said sincerely. “It’s not, though. I didn’t have any hope of our being saved, the way you and Brek did.”

  “But Noren,” she protested, “you did, underneath. All along you did. Why else wouldn’t you have drunk more water?”

  He stared at her, his mind reeling. He’d asked himself why he should abstain and had obtained no answer. Nevertheless, he had refrained from exceeding the safe limit; could he have done so without any underlying purpose? The water would not have harmed him; it would have been damaging only to any children he might subsequently father. If he had been totally without hope—if he’d been sure that Talyra would not live long enough to bear a child, nor he to love again—he would have had no reason to suffer thirst. He would have had no more qualms about drinking than in the days when he had believed the High Law was groundless.

  Yet he had known positively that there was no logical chance of survival. He had climbed the cliff where the sphere lay only to please Talyra; he’d not thought it could possibly be of any use. That it might lead to rescue had not occurred to any of them. If underneath he’d had knowledge not born of logic, knowledge that had driven him to struggle against such odds, wasn’t it conceivable that the wish to continue his work rose from the same source? And wasn’t it valid to hope that the research might also succeed against all logic?

  Through experience, Stefred had said. Those who are born to question can attain faith only through experience.

  Talyra sat looking at him, waiting; and all at once Noren knew that the gulf between them no longer existed. Perhaps it had never been as unbridgeable as he’d believed. “You saw what I lacked before I did,” he whispered, “and you saw what I’d gained before I did, too.” He took her in his arms and there was no need for either of them to say anything more.