They were cool enough as it was. They didn’t show it openly—they went out of their way not to, in fact—but he could tell how they felt. During his past bad times, they’d been sympathetic; yet he’d refused all sympathy, rebuffed every offer of help, not because he disliked people but because he had never known how to respond to them. Perhaps he’d indeed been guilty of what Brek had termed “starcursed pride.” In any case, Noren reflected ruefully, he’d provided more than enough excuse for them to stop trying and let their real feelings surface.
There was nothing personal in these feelings. Lianne told him that, and he believed her. He could see the logic: he had become a symbol. He was the ordained heir, the youth destined to achieve the long-sought breakthrough and, by synthesizing metal, fulfill the Prophecy! He had been viewed as heir even by his first tutor Grenald, an aged man whose own lifework had failed, and who, last Founding Day, had died whispering Noren’s name. That had seemed significant to people, for the failure of Grenald’s research had frightened them. Fear, not moralism, prompted their current disapproval; for if Noren could not advance the work, could anyone? And he was refusing the role in which he’d been cast.
How very ironic, he thought, when he’d indeed been chosen heir to a different task—and by the First Scholar himself.
Would people support the new goal if they knew the full truth about the First Scholar? Logically, they should; the reverence now felt for him should guarantee its acceptance. He probably hadn’t foreseen such veneration when he wrote the programmed cautions . . . still, he’d already planned his martyrdom, already taken steps to ensure that it wouldn’t lead to his worship outside the City. And he’d nevertheless hidden the secret not only from his contemporary opponents, but from most successors. Something about that made Noren uneasy.
Yet he himself couldn’t delay indefinitely. He felt weak and helpless not so much from the lingering effects of illness as from the fact that as long as his goal remained secret, he was blocked from any action.
He could not return to physics, yet he couldn’t study genetics, either. He could do no more with human genes without better lab facilities, and he could get them only with Council approval. There was other necessary work, many years of it, which during the hours he’d been bedridden he had analyzed. Grain must be enabled to grow in untreated soil and to recover trace elements from organic fertilizers, which could in the future include work-beast manure, more efficiently than at present. Irradiation of seed must be made unnecessary. The need for weather control must be eliminated. Immunity against disease must be made heritable. There were feasible genetic solutions to these problems; the secret file dealt with some of them. But they all depended on the basic alteration of human metabolism being implemented. That alteration had to be tried first, and soon—for it couldn’t be made in the whole species until it was proven in a third generation. Only if his grandchildren were normal could implementation of the change safely proceed in the villages!
He could afford no more lost time. Even without support among the younger Scholars, he must risk telling Stefred.
“I’m glad you’ve finally come,” Stefred said when Noren appeared at his study door three nights after leaving the medical lab.
“You don’t know why I’m here yet.” Noren was sure of this; Lianne had sworn she’d revealed nothing.
Stefred, his smile warm and unsuspecting, pulled another chair close to his. “I thought I did,” he said, “but now—” He broke off, sensing that this wasn’t to be like their previous talks. “You’re—older, Noren.”
“You thought I went into retreat, I suppose, and that I’ve come out to find myself still in need of help.” Noren hoped his own smile was warm; he wanted desperately to preserve this friendship despite the strains he’d been forced to put on it. “I do need help, Stefred, but not the kind you think.”
“Right now I’m not sure what to think,” Stefred admitted. “Your face gives the lie to all the rumors I’ve been hearing. Obviously you’re not here to consult me in my professional capacity.”
“More in your executive capacity. I couldn’t come to you sooner; I’ve learned something I wasn’t ready to bring to the Council. Now I’ve got to. But it’s going to shake people up—even you, Stefred.” Painfully he added, “Especially you, because you’re going to hate me for having concealed it from you.”
Stefred waited silently. Noren continued, finding it hard to frame the words, “You remember what we suspected about my nightmare? We were right.”
“That you got something the rest of us missed from the First Scholar’s memories?” Obviously Stefred was wounded, though he tried to keep his tone even.
“Something he purposely concealed. He arranged things so that I’d uncover it, or that somebody would, anyway. There were—tests, not just what’s buried in the official dreams, but some in the computer system that he programmed personally.”
“Secretly?” Stefred burst out incredulously.
“Yes. With elaborate precautions. I couldn’t get at the file again easily if I ever forgot my access code.”
The delaying action didn’t work; Stefred had caught the key word. “What,” he asked in distress, “do you mean by the official dreams?”
“You’ve just guessed, I think.” Unhappily, Noren held out the recording, which till now had been hidden in his own room, wrapped in the blue robe no other Scholar would touch during his lifetime. Belatedly it occurred to him that this would have been a poor place for it if by some unforeseen chance he’d died of purple fever. “By the Star, Stefred,” he went on, “I wish I didn’t have to hurt you so much, but you’re going to figure out the answer to the next logical question too, and I can’t help matters by trying to avoid it. I’ve been through this dream, and you know I couldn’t have done that without Lianne’s help.”
“Has she been through it, too?” Stefred’s voice was very low.
“No. She doesn’t know who made it or what it contains, though she and a few others have heard some related facts. The First Scholar told me in plain words that I’ve got to be sole judge of whether to share it.”
“That gives you a great deal of power,” Stefred said slowly.
“I never asked for it. But I’ve come to see I may need it—so though I can’t expect you not to inform the Council, I need a promise that you’ll go through this yourself first and that you won’t copy it when you do.”
“You have my word.” Holding the container carefully between cupped hands, Stefred asked, “Am I to assume it’s on the same level as the full version of the others?”
“Not exactly,” Noren said. “It’s got the things he edited out of the others. It’s . . . rough. Very rough. You won’t enjoy it.”
“I suppose I should count myself fortunate that you’re not telling me it should be monitored, which would make me ineligible till Lianne’s trained.”
“Don’t laugh. For anyone but you, it does demand monitoring—and for some people we’ll need an edited version.” How unreal it seemed, Noren thought, for him to be offering Stefred advice on such a matter. He rose to go, knowing that before he reached the turn of the corridor, tonight’s scheduled user of the Dream Machine would be bumped by a priority requisition. He hoped Lianne was on duty; perhaps he should have checked and waited for a night when she was sure to be. It was hard to imagine Stefred needing monitoring, yet with no advance preparation . . . well, it wouldn’t hurt, and she could start it after he was unconscious.
“Stefred,” he warned, realizing that perhaps he hadn’t been explicit enough, “this isn’t just a private memory, though parts of it are—well, personal. It’s the most important thing any of us have learned since his era. Till now we haven’t been given the whole plan, you see.”
Startled, Stefred demanded, “It affects the future? The Prophecy?”
“I told you it’s Council business.”
“I thought you meant simply because of the right-of-access rule. If it’s relevant to his plan, then why—”
“I’ll explain if you want. But it might be better to see what someone without preconceptions draws from the recording.”
“You’re right. Come back, say, around midnight.”
“No. You can do without monitoring, but not without sedation before and after. Surely there’s somebody qualified in hypnosis you can call on.” He didn’t know whether Lianne had yet disclosed her talent in that area. “I was psychologically tested before receiving this. I assume your training means you can cope with it. All the same, it’ll be stress.”
When Noren returned the next morning, Stefred looked even more shaken than he’d expected him to be. His face was ashen. “What were you doing these past weeks in the medical lab?” he began without preamble.
“You know, or else you wouldn’t be asking.”
“And Lianne?”
“She watched, mostly, and helped me get supplies. It was her own idea,” he added hastily. “You know how intuitive she is; she guessed why I’d gone in, just from my having gotten her opinion of the basic concept.”
“Is she committed?”
“To what?” Noren hesitated; at first he’d assumed “committed” was a reference to priesthood, as it normally was.
“To this—experiment.” For the first time in the years they’d known each other, Stefred lashed out in anger. “The Star curse you, Noren—you know what I mean.”
Noren turned white. “Lianne—with me? What do you think I am?”
There was a long silence. Finally, in control of himself, Stefred said levelly, “I think you’re the most dangerous man in the City, because you believe you’ve inherited a sacred charge and you’re strong enough to let nothing stand in your way. If I was wrong about the extent of Lianne’s involvement, I apologize. But she visited you daily while you lived in that lab; she made excuses to go there—I could see she looked forward to it. And she is the only unmarried woman you know well who might wholeheartedly support what you’re trying to do.”
Bowing his head, Noren mumbled, “She’s the only supporter I’ve found, all right. We were working with fowl; she kept a coop for me on the aircar deck. I got as far as modified chicks.”
Stefred didn’t respond at first. When he did, he sounded no happier. “Please forgive the emotional outburst,” he said, “but you know better than I do what going through that dream is like. Last night I thought you must be exaggerating; I was wrong. Only there’s so much you don’t yet see.” He got up and came to Noren, who was still standing. “Noren, about Lianne—she has refused me. She’s made plain that she won’t change her mind. If you and she were to love each other, I wouldn’t begrudge your happiness. Did you think I was accusing you of taking her from me?”
“Weren’t you? I wouldn’t blame you; I can see how it must have looked.”
“You misunderstand. She’s refused me; whoever she chooses will have my blessing. What I feared was that she might have accepted a sacrificial role in this genetic scheme, as apparently she has.” At Noren’s protest he went on, “Oh, I realize it hasn’t gone that far yet. But if she encourages preliminary lab work, she will go further, if not with you then with someone else.”
“And you can’t endure the thought of her babies being genetically modified?” Noren burst out, astonished. “Stefred, you’re a psychiatrist! You’re training her to be a psychiatrist! Surely you don’t feel the way the Founders did, with their taboo, I mean—you couldn’t call it obscene just because it might involve Lianne.”
“No,” Stefred agreed, “though you’ll find people today who will feel it’s an obscenity. Traditions like that don’t disappear in a static society. But as to Lianne, I am human, Noren, and I love her too much to see her hurt in a futile cause.”
The implication of the last phrase didn’t strike Noren immediately; he was absorbed with the sudden realization that for Stefred, the woman in the dream would have been Lianne. It was just as well if she hadn’t been present to monitor after all. “I’d hoped,” he said frankly, “that in time, if it works with me, you and she—”
“You thought I’d support this goal?”
“Why yes, in the Council for now, but later personally, too.” The evident reluctance bewildered him; it had never occurred to him that Stefred would be anything but a strong ally.
“I’d better make clear from the start,” Stefred said, “that it won’t get my support in the Council or in any other way—and in general meeting I will vote against it. I will fight you by every means at my disposal, Noren. When I said you are now dangerous, I meant that.”
Noren, stunned, was unable to reply. Not evading his eyes, Stefred continued, “If I’d had the courage of my convictions, I would have destroyed that recording this morning. I didn’t. I couldn’t take it upon myself to do that. It’s part of the heritage to which all priests have a right—or perhaps the right is only yours. A man’s memories are his own, to bequeath as he sees fit; I’d need to see what he told you in words to know for whom he recorded them. I know only this: the situation has changed since he did so, and if you use them as he intended, may the Star help us all. We will lose everything that’s been achieved on this world, and in the end our descendants will die.”
“Oh, no, Stefred. The genetic change is feasible—do you think I won’t test enough to be sure? I know I can do it, do it safely.”
Grimly, Stefred conceded, “No doubt you can. That’s precisely what worries me.”
“Then when you say we’ll lose everything—”
“We don’t live in the world the First Scholar knew. We have a culture built on the Prophecy.”
“Do you suppose I haven’t thought about that? I know there’ll be a fight in the Council over it. To some of the older priests, the Prophecy is more than it was ever designed to be—more important than survival, even, because they’re not realists. Well, you know how I feel about the City, about the preservation of knowledge! About fulfilling the promise to give machines and knowledge to everyone. About . . . reopening the universe. You can’t possibly believe I’d find it easy to give up those things, or that I haven’t been through every aspect of what we’ll be sacrificing, over and over—” Noren’s eyes stung; it was incredible that Stefred, of all people, would fail to understand.
Stefred sighed. “Sit down, Noren. I’ve been harsh, I’m afraid. You have lived for many weeks with the conviction that you can save future generations by working toward the end of all that you most value; it’s cruel to crush your hopes. Yet I must. The whole issue’s vastly more complicated than it seems on the surface.”
“The surface?” Noren protested, declining to sit.
“Of course you have gone deeper in many ways: into all the emotions the First Scholar felt, and worse, because you’ve seen what came after—the mutants, the—the descendants, perhaps, of his own child.”
“I may have killed one of those in the direct line,” Noren mumbled.
“And so for you, the horror is even greater than what he intended you to bear—yet you are bearing it. He chose his successor well. The tragedy is that you were born too late.”
“A priest,” said Noren dryly, “is not supposed to say it’s too late for hope.”
“Or to tolerate unnecessary evils?” Stefred took his arm, drew him toward the window. They looked down between the towers to the outer circle of domes. Though they could not see the Gates or the broad platform beyond, that place was vivid in every Scholar’s memory. “You have been there only once, outside of the dream in which you faced death there as the First Scholar,” Stefred said. “You took abuse at your recantation feeling very much a hero. But I have appeared on that platform countless times as presiding priest—at Benison; at the blessing of seed after harvest; at more recantations than I like to recall; even, one year, as chief celebrant on the Day of the Prophecy. On all those occasions I have stood impassive while crowds knelt to me and paid me homage, which is something neither you nor he ever had to endure. The evil of the caste system, to me and to the others old e
nough for ceremonial responsibility, is hardly an abstract one. Do you think for one minute that in a choice between life without this system and the City’s preservation, I’d hesitate to sacrifice the City?”
“I didn’t,” Noren said. “Yet now you’re hesitating.”
“No, there is nothing hesitant about what I’m doing. I am telling you there is no such choice. For the First Scholar, there was, and I imagine you’ve made yours as he did—but he could not foresee what changes would occur after his time. If he had envisioned a society like ours, he’d have warned you. I think, Noren, he must have hoped for the secret to be found within a generation or two. And in any case, remember, he hadn’t gotten the idea for the Prophecy when he made the hidden recording. That inspiration came to him only as he lay dying.”
“What would he have warned me about?” Noren questioned, inwardly aware that the First Scholar had indeed said he could not know how the world’s culture would change, and had mentioned that difficult judgments would be necessary.
“That the physical ability to survive might not be enough to keep humanity from perishing.”
“I see why that was true when he made the decision to keep the destruction of the Six Worlds secret—people would have been so hopeless that they wouldn’t have defied their instincts enough to avoid unpurified water. You’re going to say, I suppose, that they’ll be hopeless again without the Prophecy, that they rely on it as their ancestors relied on being part of the Six Worlds’ civilization. It will be different now, though. They won’t have to defy instinct; they can live off the land.”
“Noren,” Stefred said sadly, “after all these generations, there’s no such instinct left. The land is alien. Life, now, comes from the City, and the City alone. The instinct to live is embodied in the High Law. Can you imagine people breaking it willingly?”
The Doors of the Universe Page 15