The Face of Heaven: The Realms of Tartarus, Book One

by Brian Stableford

  By the time the Euchronian Millennium began, the Underworld had slowed in its evolutionary progress. But the stable horotelic rate which was becoming characteristic of that world was by no means the same as the horotelic rate in the Overworld. In the Underworld there was still a régime of rigorous competition demanding evolutionary divergence. In addition to that there was an extra, and by no means insignificant, load imposed by the high frequency of mutation. The radiation output of the Overworld was directed downwards. Radioactive wastes were disposed of down below, and though they were carefully packaged the rate of leakage was high.

  Man—omnivorous, intelligent and at the very highest level of the biotic hierarchy—changed least of the species at that level, and even the human race suffered a tripartite sub-speciation. The species which changed most were the semi-intelligent species which had cohabited with man the concrete jungles of the age of psychosis. Such species had been under considerable adaptive pressure for some centuries before the advent of Euchronia’s Plan. Under the new régime that pressure burst the conceptual barriers which hindered mind development, and three species quickly evolved intelligence of an unusual order.

  While the Euchronians began their new life after the Plan had been brought to a successful conclusion, the people of the Underworld were still faced with a fearsome struggle for existence. While the one world settled down to embrace total stability, the other remained in a state of virtual chaos.

  Chapter 11

  The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by Carl Magner became available at all household lineprinters and the usual public outlets within a matter of minutes after the job of coding it into the cybernet was complete. The information that the book was so available took a little longer to circulate, and even then there was no mad rush to have a look at it.

  Many people misinterpreted the use of a well-known title by William Blake. It was by no means uncommon in Euchronia’s Millennium for people to write long commentaries on, and even new versions of, prehistoric literature. After all, the essence and the meaning of ancient works had changed completely in the light of brand new Euchronian perspectives, and there was an eleven-thousand-year gap in the more abstract realms of cultural studies to be intellectually bridged. The assumption that Magner’s work was intimately connected with Blake’s was not unnatural. It is entirely possible that some of the men and women who did read the book soon after publication actually misread the whole text on the basis of that presumed connection. It is not inconceivable that given a decent interval and a certain amount of wayward luck Magner might have become something of a literary phenomenon, hailed as a genius in some quarters and viciously slandered in others.

  But the avant-garde missed their chance (or Magner missed his). It was not too long before it was realized that the work stood by itself, that what it proposed was real, and that Magner actually meant what he said. This revelation caused something of a stir, but it was a stir of an entirely different kind.

  The book gave a detailed account of life in the Underworld as it was lived by the human race. The account was possessed of a strange kind of hysteria, and the images presented lacked overall coherency though they had undoubted force and individual clarity. Many readers came to the conclusion that Magner was, if nothing else, a consummate artist. The bizarre and the terrifying were not common in the literature of the Euchronian Millennium.

  The book also presented a strongly worded argument to the effect that Euchronia was guilty of extreme inhumanity In that it chose not to share its wealth with the men on the ground. Magner claimed that Euchronian civilization should not have shut the door on the Underworld when the platform became a single unit. He claimed that the opportunity to join the Movement should have been made available throughout the history of the Plan.

  He further claimed that the citizens of the Euchronian Millennium had a moral obligation to throw open the doors to the Underworld, to resume commerce with the men on the ground, to supply their needs, and to allow them—if they wished—to leave the Underworld and take their place in the sun. “We have no right whatsoever,” wrote Magner, “to deny the people of the world below the Face of Heaven.”

  Chapter 12

  It was some two weeks after publication that the Magner affair began to get off the ground. The man who initiated the cause célèbre was Alwyn Ballow, a software processer for the holovisual network. He took it to Yvon Emerich, who was the major influence in the live media.

  Emerich was a busy man. He was a man with a burning need to keep himself busy, to burn himself out. He had a great deal of energy to expend and he expended it all outwards, sending it worldwide throughout the network, throwing his sound and fury into every household which cared to switch him on. The sheer power of his extrovert determination was enough to command him a vast audience. He had innumerably more enemies than friends, but his enemies loved him more than his closest allies. He had nothing to offer friends but everything to offer enemies—people luxuriated in the charisma of his attacks, and he attacked everybody, tearing down all points of view with equal verve. No one really suffered from an attack by Emerich simply because in the laissez-faire world of the Millennium no one had the level of commitment necessary to suffer destruction at his hands. Argument was a gladitorial game, in which the loser changed his ground and everybody enjoyed the show.

  Ballow was scared stiff of Emerich, but he was willing enough to absorb his fear if he could start something in motion. He confronted Emerich and came straight to the point.

  “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” he said.

  “What about it?” demanded Emerich.

  “Have you read it?”

  “You know damn well I never read anything. I know what it’s about. What the hell would I want with it?”

  “It’s good.”

  “Call Sauldron. He’s an arts man.”

  “Not that sort of good,” Ballow persisted. “Good for a run. It’s got one hell of a bite—the first real bite we’ve seen for a long time. Could be the biggest ever.”

  “The man’s a lunatic,” said Emerich shortly—though the fact that he was prepared to argue meant that he was prepared to listen and take note—”and you can’t make a big thing out of a lunatic. In the end, a lunatic will make you look a fool. Every time. No percentage.”

  “No,” said Ballow. “This proposal might be insane but it has mileage. It’s going to attract some pretty hot discussion at all levels. If we can get in now we can carve up that discussion and feed it. It’ll go right to the top, and I mean the top. The Eupsychians will take it up purely as agitation, but it’s not really a Eupsychian thing. It goes deeper. When this gets to the Hegemony they’re going to find that it’s hot. It can’t be ignored and it can’t be laughed off. Heres and his cohort have been retreating toward the wall for forty years or more now and it won’t take much more to break their back. This could be it, if it’s blown up enough. Somebody somewhere is going to try, and try hard. And we ought to be in there to feed on it. This is our meat, Yvon, provided it’s handled right.”

  Emerich stared at the other man for a few seconds, and then made up his mind. “Okay,” he said, and cut the image. The voiceprinter screen faded to dull gray. Emerich remained staring at it for a few seconds more. He was hooked. He would have to chase it if only to find out what the hell Ballow was talking about.

  He requisitioned a couple of copies from his desk unit, and scanned the first few pages as they fluttered out of the lineprinter. He grimaced dramatically, and dropped the printout with distaste. He reached for the voiceprinter again. He would have to find someone to read it for him.

  Chapter 13

  Having predicted that something was going to start as a result of Magner’s book, Ballow was fully committed to doing everything in his power to start it, and thus justify his prediction. He began calling his valued acquaintances in all fields of work as soon as Emerich cut him off. Nobody he called had read the book, and few of them would bother to catch up on it as a result of his
recommendation. But most of them would be prepared to talk about it if it was going to become a big talking point.

  Within a matter of hours Ballow had precipitated something of a rush on The Marriage. Lineprinters in the most unlikely corners of the world were busy clicking out copies at a furious pace. Not many of the copies would be read from beginning to end, but everybody who intended to involve themselves in the debate wanted to have some familiarity with the shape of the work and the style of presentation.

  There was something of a snowball effect when the cybernet made it known that there was expanding interest in the book. The controversy grew by leaps and bounds as individuals selected standpoints and prepared for argument. The promotion of the book to a position of some importance was almost entirely a matter of fashion. It was all something of a game. In the wake of the Euchronian Plan there was not much else it could be. Everything was a game, now the Plan was done with. When a single-minded people lose the objective of eleven thousand years of completely focused purpose, it takes time to rediscover anything like a range of purpose and endeavor. The whole of life and action is reduced to triviality, and the whole structure of social action has to be rebuilt from the ground up.

  The citizens of Euchronia’s Millennium had to evolve into their new circumstances, and in the strategic absence of virtually all basic social pressures, that evolution was not something which could take place overnight. There had to be some form of struggle to find new things to need—not simply to want—and the context of that struggle made it a very difficult one. Euchronia became a world of children and eccentrics the moment the Plan was laid to rest. The Hegemony of the Movement were not surprised—they accepted that a long period of adjustment would be necessary. Indeed, they welcomed the fact, because it gave them a chance to plan the kind of adjustment which would evolve, and it gave them time to fulfill their aim of shaping a stable society. Their work on the physical environment was over, but their work on the human factor was only just begun. By the time that Magner’s book was published they had made very little progress indeed (some would have argued that they made none, or less than none) but they were prepared to be generous with time. They still had faith—perfect faith. Again, that was the legacy of eleven thousand years’ commitment.

  Thus, though Ballow was not an important man, he found it fairly easy to make an issue out of Magner’s ideas. If he had not, someone else would have. They were, when all was said and done, rather revolutionary ideas. The fact that virtually no one took Magner seriously in the beginning did not handicap the progress of his work towards popularity (notoriety, at least). And it was inevitable in a world which so desperately needed some kind of ideological commitment that he should gradually begin to win supporters.

  The snowball grew, and Magner moved ponderously into the political arena.

  Chapter 14

  Rafael Heres was by no means pleased when Enzo Ulicon took it into his head to demand an instant discussion of Carl Magner’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

  “I’m in the middle of a game of Hoh,” he said, his tone making it quite clear that he resented the interruption.

  “Postpone it,” said Ulicon.

  “I’ll lose all semblance of control over the situation,” said Heres. “What about the others? They aren’t going to take kindly to the interruption.”

  “Rafael,” said Ulicon, “you’re the Hegemon. You can’t fit the running of the world into the interstices of your social life. There’s a storm brewing.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Heres. “This business of opening the Underworld is a farce. It’s all under control. It’s just a nonsensical argument thrown up to confuse the real problems we have to face.”

  “You aren’t going to solve any problems playing Hoh,” Ulicon pointed out. “I have to talk to you. This is urgent. It’s not just talk any more. This thing is touching one of the most fundamental of our problems. The most fundamental.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Interrupt your game and I’ll tell you.”

  Heres, reluctantly, phased himself out of the game, leaving the other players to carry on without him or to let the game go cold while they awaited his return, as they pleased. When he was alone—switched out of the other call circuits, that is—he gave his full attention to Ulicon. He was still wearing his displeasure prominently.

  “What is it?” he snapped.

  “I’ve been trying to find out where Magner gets his information,” said Ulicon. “He’s pretty close-mouthed about it. There are no sources offered in the book or in any of the associated material.”

  “Magner’s son went down there.”

  “He didn’t come back, so far as I can tell. Nor did any of the others. I’ve conducted a fairly thorough search. If they were using the net they’d be easy to find, but they’re not. They could be in Sanctuary, but every source I have says that they aren’t. There are four of them—and it’s not easy for four men to stay unfound up here. Everything suggests that they went into the Underworld and are still there. In addition, Magner’s other son—the younger one—has also slipped out of sight. You may remember the fuss there was about him when he was a child. Anyhow, he’s gone too. But Magner hasn’t contacted either of them since we first mounted our watch.”

  “Are you saying that he made it all up?”

  “It’s a possibility,” said Ulicon, “but no, I’m not saying that. I heard a rumor which was much more significant, and I’ve checked with Magner’s doctor. He wouldn’t tell me anything directly, but with police help I got some records out of the net. Magner has been consulting his doctor regularly for twenty years. He complains of bad dreams. Nightmares.”

  “That’s not possible,” said Heres.

  “It’s possible, bearing in mind what Magner went through with regard to his younger son. But rumor says that Magner’s picture of the Underworld comes straight out of his dreams, and if that’s so it’s a fact we can’t ignore. It’s a fact with some rather weighty implications. We need to find out for certain, but what’s more important is to decide what we have to do if it is true.”

  “Nothing,” said Heres. “It’s absurd. It can only be a freak even if it’s true. We’re hardly likely to have an epidemic of nightmares.”

  “I’m glad you’re sure,” said Ulicon. “But it still needs checking.”

  “You want a meeting of the close council?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Couldn’t we keep it between ourselves?”

  “Rafael, it’s bad enough the close council keeping secrets from the Hegemony, without keeping secrets from one another. All right, I know this will give ammunition to Eliot, but believe me, if the implications of this are as bad as they might be, then Eliot has a strong case. We have to work this out. All of us.”

  “When?” said Heres.

  “Tomorrow. A forgathering. This can’t go through the net. We need to talk off the record. But in the meantime I’m going to do some prying and I advise you to do the same. Emerich’s on to Magner and there’s going to be a splash soon. If this business of dreams crops up and Magner isn’t the only one, then we have a very big headache indeed. You see?”

  Heres saw perfectly clearly. His mind was already working on the point. The implications of Ulicon’s argument were deadly, not only to his own personal position, but to the standpoint of the Euchronian Movement.

  Chapter 15

  The basis of Euchronianism is the philosophy that better things lie ahead. The Euchronian Movement was founded on the principle of directing change, not on a small scale, but on the largest scale possible. The Euchronian Movement preached the doctrine that to design a model society and predict that it would one day come about was simply not enough. The Movement demanded commitment—commitment to an ideal state which lay so far in the future that no man would live to see it, nor his children, nor his children’s children—only descendants so remote that they might number half the human race. The Movement demanded ultimate sacrifice i
n the name of a goal which could only be a racial goal.

  William Blake’s “prophetic books” offered the first Euchronian philosophy.

  Karl Marx’s social science offered the first Euchronian doctrine.

  Fundamental to Euchronianism is the intellectual transcendence of pure selfishness. Euchronianism is not necessarily religious, nor is it necessarily socialist. It is, however, necessarily altruistic.

  Chapter 16

  Cudal Canal, for the whole of its length, marked the boundary of the land of the Men Without Souls and the land of the Children of the Voice which had come to be called Shairn. It was a natural boundary, and one which nobody was particularly keen to dispute, but over the centuries walls of earth and stone had been erected on either side to emphasize it and to allow some sort of defense of it if the need arose. The canal itself was a vile place—its water was undrinkable and even the crabs would not use it—and the land on either side of it was diseased and swarming with flying insects. It was land that was crossed only by wanderers and invaders. But once now and again it became necessary for a meeting to take place in the neutral territory—a meeting between the Men Without Souls and the Children of the Voice. The former usually came out from Walgo, the latter from Stalhelm.

  The Men Without Souls often hit hard times, and when times became too hard they had no alternative but to turn toward Shairn for food. The Children of the Voice managed crops on a large scale and rarely went short of food, even when the migrations threatened to starve them of meat. In peaceful times the men from Walgo would trade regularly with Stalhelm, offering fish and tools for grain and bricks. But times were rarely peaceful, and Ermold of Walgo was by no means a peaceful man. Trade had ceased during the time of his reign, and the meetings by Cudal Canal were rare—forced by necessity upon Ermold’s people.