The Golden Torc

by Julian May

  "You don't know what you're asking of me, Brede."

  "But this must be the solution! So elegant, so logical an extension of the work I have already done for my dear ones. Consider them as they are now, in their disunity! My poor Firvulag, operant but weak and impotent, their psychic energies diffused into silly byways. Their kinsmen, the Howling Ones, festering in bitter despair. And will the Tanu be any different when they in turn achieve true operancy, delivered from their golden torcs? Your operant human race on the Elder Earth might well have perished if it had not been helped in its extremity by other entities who were wiser. Help me to help my people. And then, when they are ready, I also will be ready."

  "You foresee this outcome?" Elizabeth inquired, dubious.

  Brede hesitated. Again the pained, gasping breaths. "I have—always been the guide and teacher of my people. Even in times when they were unaware. Whence shall the Unity come, if not from me? And where can I learn, if not from you?"

  "The difficulties would be enormous. Not only is your mind exotic and therefore unfamiliar to me, but you are also a mature psychic entity conditioned to the torc device over thousands of years. I have never worked with any but humans. Almost all of them were very young children, still flexible and able to absorb the training with a minimum of painful catalyst. I can only compare the process with a child's first acquisition of language. This is a process that seems nearly effortless to a baby; and yet when an adult attempts to learn new languages without using sophisticated ancillaries, he labors and suffers. The bringing of latent metafunctions to fully adept operancy is infinitely more difficult. First, you would have to become operant—and then make the much greater leap to adept status before absorbing the masterclass teaching techniques. There would be atrocious suffering."

  "I will endure whatever is necessary."

  "Even if you survive my education with your sanity intact, there is no guarantee that you will attain full operancy—much less the adept level. If your strength failed at any point, you would surely die. And then what would become of your people?"

  "I will not die," said Brede.

  "There are other ... technical difficulties. The catalyst I spoke of. I can't think of an algetic source of sufficient intensity that would be available to us here in your room without doors."

  "Pain? Is this the only way that the psychic enlargement can be accomplished?"

  "The only sure way. There are others. In my own world, latent humans have attained operancy when certain psychobarriers were overcome through sublimation of the will to the cosmic Unity. But these other roads are uncertain—and in any case, I'm only qualified in the one technique. It has its roots in the preliterate cultures of my own era. The primitive people of Elder Earth were fully aware that pain, endured steadfastly and with dignified acceptance, acted as a psychic refining agent that opened the newly sensitized mind to wisdom otherwise inaccessible—as well as the individual spectrum of meta functions."

  A panorama of pre-Milieu adepts flashed before Brede's mental eye. Elizabeth showed her monks and nuns and prophets and yogis, shamans and warriors and consecrated leaders, aboriginal healers and seers from all of the wild places of pre-Intervention Earth—humans enduring self-imposed ordeals in the belief that they would emerge transfigured.

  Elizabeth said, "As we humans attained high technology, the creative use of suffering was nearly lost. Most high-tech civilizations are zealous in the eradication of pain, both physical and mental. Up until the time of the Intervention, very few of our intellectuals would have placed any value on it—this despite the teaching of earlier philosophers and the clear evidence to be gleaned from anthropology and even from developmental psychology itself."

  "My race was as yours in this respect," said Brede. "Understand that I speak of my original home planet—not of these Tanu and Firvulag, who are different. The best of the dimorphics still celebrate life-passages with ordeals. The very Combat itself has roots therein."

  "But still perverted! Immature! Among the advanced human cultures of pre-Milieu times, we had comparable kinks. One form of physical suffering that was esteemed was that endured by athletes. Ritual game playing. Do you see the parallel? But our human race never valued any form of psychic pain. That attendant upon the normal education process was tolerated as a necessary evil—but there were constant attempts to ameliorate it or eliminate it altogether. It never occurred to our primitive educators that suffering per se had a positive influence upon mental growth. A few religious groups did discover how pain worked as a tool for mental enlargement. My own church had a rather muddled concept of algetic offering that at least produced the proper endurance-discipline. But the faithful saw algetics only from the spiritual angle. When certain practitioners happened to levitate or read thoughts or perform other metapsychic functions, everybody was highly embarrassed."

  "Yes ... yes." The great jeweled headdress nodded. Exotic reminiscences floated through Brede's mental vestibulum. "We of Lene also held to the belief that suffering was evil. And those who denied it were sadomasochists and hopelessly anomalous. For example—these exiles! My dear foolish people. I have never, until now, completely understood my deep motives for adopting them and helping them to escape from our galaxy. But now it becomes obvious that my prolepsis recognized that tiny kernel of psychic validity in their aberrant mind-set. The Firvulag, especially, who endured the greatest rigors in their natural environment, were keenly appreciative of ordeals. And yet—they stalled in their mental evolution. As did the Tanu, seduced by their torcs, and most of the other people of our federation as well ... As I have told you, all but the incompatibles embraced the mind-amplifying device after the last of the wars."

  She paused, touching the gold at her own throat that was half-hidden behind the lowered respirator. "And this torc, which seemed such a boon, resulted in a dead end for the Mind of an entire galaxy. Unless ... the evolution continues here. And it must! But, Almighty Tana, why is my vision so dim?"

  Elizabeth said, "The time-dimension may be much greater than you ever suspected. Our Milieu perceived the past manifest in the present, the present manifest in the future."

  "Elizabeth!" Brede's voice caught. "Six million years? Ah, no!"

  "We had legends. And there is the compatibility."

  "And the Ship," Brede whispered. "I told my dearest one to choose the best."

  She raised her glittering mask. Tears fell onto its red metallic smoothness, losing themselves in the crystal ornamentation. The women sat silent for a long time. Between them on the table rested the exquisite glass model of the interstellar organism that had been Brede's mate. Together the disparate spouses had shared a kind of psychounion that, inadequate as it was, had partaken in a small measure of the true mental conjugation Elizabeth had known among her own kind. But Brede's Ship was dead. And she—like Elizabeth—was alone.

  "Whatever the risks," came the amplified voice from the hidden mouth, "you must teach me. I know that the Mind of my people will mature, just as I know that the destinies of Tanu and Firvulag and humanity are interleaved. Perhaps the Unity of my people will perfect itself soon and perhaps late. But there must be a teacher. And if not me, then you."

  Elizabeth flared in anger. "Oh, no you don't! Damn you! Can't you understand the way it is with me? I don't want to sacrifice myself for your people. Not even for my own people! Can't you accept that operancy doesn't equate with sainthood?"

  "There have been saints among you."

  The person behind the mask seemed to melt, to change. Elizabeth stiffened, shocked by the metaphoric thrust that she instantly repudiated.

  "No! You can't trick me that way. You're no saint and neither am I! I'm an ordinary woman with ordinary flaws. I once was able to do unusual work because my natural talents were trained up for it. But there was never any ... consecration. When I seemed to lose my abilities, I didn't offer up the loss and make the best of it. I chose this Exile route. I'm a flyaway and glad of it! My being trapped here in the Pliocene, separ
ated forever from the Unity, with my metafunctions restored and monsters nipping at my heels, is a cosmic joke. And you are, too, whoever you are! And I still want my balloon back!"

  And that is enough for you loving none loved by none O high-flyingfleeing Elizabeth?

  "I loved once and suffered the loss. Once was enough. Love costs too much. I won't be a mother to your people. Not physically and not mentally."

  Brede's mind and mask mirrored only Elizabeth.

  Bitter mind-laughter underlay the vocal speech of the human woman. "Oh, that's clever of you, Two-Face! But the ploy won't work. I know all about my sin of Olympian selfishness. But you can't prove that my duty lies with your people, or with exiled humanity, or with any hypothetical merging of the races."

  Brede raised her hands. The mask came down and there was only the sad, patient smile. "Then help me to fulfill my duty, which does lie with them all. Teach me."

  "We—we don't have a pain source of sufficient intensity."

  "We do." Brede's determination was unshakable. "There is hyperspatial translation. My body can be sustained in the superficies of the continuum for as long as necessary. I have the legacy of competence from my Spouse. I require no mechanism whatever to span the width of this galaxy. I have never considered using the translational power before this, simply because there was no question of deserting my people. And of course I would not actually leave them now. I would return."

  "If the attempt at mental enlargement doesn't kill you."

  "I am willing to risk all, to suffer all."

  Elizabeth exclaimed, "How can you love these wretched barbarians so much when they can never appreciate what you do for them?"

  Only the smile, and the invitation to enter the mind.

  With great reluctance, Elizabeth said, "There's another thing I haven't touched on. The teacher ... shares the ordeal."

  O Elizabeth. No I did not realize. I have been presumptuous and you must forgive. I see now that I have no right—

  Elizabeth broke into the protesting thought with brusque words. "Brede, I'm going to die. Even if I fly out of here, your dearly beloved people are going to track me down sooner or later and finish me off. And so ... why not? Perhaps, if I succeed with you, it would be a kind of epitaph. If you're willing to chance the ordeal, I'll take you. You'll be my last student. And if your vision of joint racial destiny is fulfilled, perhaps you can even be my justification."

  "I never intended to cause you more pain. And I commiserate."

  "Well—don't waste it." Elizabeth's tone was wry. "Every bit of suffering is valuable!...Are you sure you can work the translation?"

  Brede's mind showed her. Elizabeth would not physically accompany the exotic traveler, of course. But her mind would remain meshed with Brede's to channelize the neural fires.

  "Whenever you are ready," the Shipspouse said, "we can go forth."

  The ceiling of the room without doors opened. There toward the south was the milky river of the Galactic Plane. And behind its dust clouds, the Hub; hidden beyond that lay the other arm of the spiral, almost a hundred thousand light-years distant.

  "All the way across," said Elizabeth. "Now."

  ***

  ...And there they were, in an instant and forever, stretched on a rack the width of the starry whirlpool, poised between gray limbo and black, distorted, spangled space. The atoms of Brede's physical body had become more tenuous than the rare atomic fog that floats in the void between the stars and vibrates still with the birth cry of the universe. The mind of the Shipspouse shrieked on the same frequencies as the agonized particles. And in this manner, the enlargement began.

  It would be all the more difficult because Brede's latent powers were so great. All of the well-worn psychoenergetic circuits leading from the torc would have to be rerouted through the syncytial mazes of the right cortex, reeducated to operancy within the refining flame of the ultimate pain that the universe could inflict upon a thinking, feeling creature. By enduring, Brede might pass in a short time through a process that ordinarily took many years. But the pain in itself was worthless unless discipline could be maintained and the divarication of the mental network kept firmly under control. This was where the guidance of a skilled teacher was all-important. While Elizabeth's great redactive power clamped around the pulsating psyche and kept it from disintegrating, she also directed Brede's flaring limbics as though they were countless metapsychic torches burning away the accumulated cortical debris of a lifetime 14, 000 years in length.

  The mind of the operant, steadfast in the mutual anguish, led and braced that of the aspirant. The two of them hung locked together in the inferno between true space and hyperspace, where there is but a single dimension, an afferent input that sentient beings of all races apprehend only as pain...

  The process went on and on, simultaneous and eternal according to their shared subjective consciousness. Brede knew in her agony that changes were taking place within her soul—but she could not rise above the fire long enough to study herself. She could only accept and affirm and continue to be strong, hoping that when the suffering was done her mind would still live in the physical universe.

  The pain lessened.

  Now Brede felt Elizabeth's binding energies soften to gentleness. She became aware of other life-forces besides their own two, appearing to sing amidst the diminishing flame. How odd! And what was that? There, so far away, beyond the gray and the black and the humming megatonal song and the rack of invisible waning fire was a glimpse of brightness that might have been approaching; and the clearer her perception of it, the more irresistible it became. Brede abandoned discipline, forgot all self in her sudden eagerness to reach it, to see and join with it, now that she was capable of the Unity...

  Return.

  O no Elizabeth not now let me go on—

  We have reached the limit. Return with me.

  No no we exiles together continue on with me to the end of it and join beyond pain where it waits for us loving...

  We must return. I'm going to draw you back. Don't resist.

  No no no no—

  Let go. Stop looking. You may not have that and live. Come back now from there submit to my redaction fly back across the expanse don't struggle Sancta Illusio Persona Adamantis ora pro nobis wherever you are submit Brede submit to my guidance rest in me we are almost there ... there...

  ***

  The Shipspouse sat unmasked across the table from Elizabeth. "Gone. It's gone. You took me away from it."

  "It was necessary for both of us. And the culmination of the pain in your ordeal. Which was successful."

  Tears streamed down Brede's face. There was a slow rekindling after near-extinguishment, and regret that would be a part of her until, at last, she died. In the silence of the room without doors Brede recovered.

  There was an opening and an invitation. Brede ventured in, then cried aloud as she knew the first true Union with a mind of Earth.

  So that is—how it is.

  Yes. I embrace thee Sister.

  The exotic woman put fingertips to the lifeless gold at her throat and unfastened the catch. She held the open torc at arm's length for a moment before laying it on the table beside the Ship's likeness.

  I live. I function freely feeble an infant tottering on first legs but the metafunctions are released and such richness and the Unity is two-inone now but later when I know the loved Mind—

  There will be spontaneous growth with joy instead of pain until you are filled to capacity. This last is subject to the limitations of your physical body as well as the state of the local Mind. Since you already love the Mind, you will be able to pour forth without diminishing. This is something I cannot do.

  And that which I saw—

  What most of us operant or no shall see and possess ultimately. Not many aspirants catch a glimpse of it. Fortunately.

  Once more the two women sat in mental silence.

  "There is no memory of anguish," Brede finally said out loud. "But I can s
ee that there would not be. The guiding and the acceptance are all-important in differentiating unproductive misery from creative purgation. And after that comes joy. Yes—that, too, is what one would expect. Not mere absence of pain, but ecstasy."

  "Almost all mature humans are aware of the thin line dividing the two—even if they can't understand what to make of it. If you wish, as part of your further education, I'll share some concepts of the Milieu essence that our philosophers and theologians debated."

  "Yes. You must show me all that you can. Before you—go."

  Elizabeth refused the gambit. "The psychology of each sentient race savors the theosphere in a unique way. We might study the possible niche that your people might occupy. And now that there are two of us, we can do what no single operant mind can do—partake together of the essence in a limited fashion. It will be dilute because the Mind of the Pliocene is still so infantile, but you'll find it wonderful."

  "It is already wonderful," said Brede. "But the first thing I must do with my enriched newness is look once again along the lines of probability in search of the all-important pattern that was unclear. Will you join me?"

  The teacher and sister vanished. Mental doors slammed. "I might have known! Brede, you're an incredible fool."

  The exotic woman's mind was fully open but Elizabeth would not go in, would not look.

  "I'm leaving your room without doors," Elizabeth said. "I'm going to find your King and tell him your judgment concerning my fate. Your new judgment. And I'm going to find the balloon, and in my own sweet time I'm going to leave this place."