This Fortress World

by Gunn, James

  I leaned back again in my chair, cold and angry. "Your word means nothing?"

  "I've sacrificed more."

  "And yet you meant it when you said it. What changed your mind? What was said later?"

  The Archbishop had been looking back and forth between us. Now he raised one almost transparent hand. "Children!" he said. We fell silent and glared at each other. "She told me," he said, and smiled ruefully. "But I'm afraid she was thinking more of you than of me. This child knows me too well. Now that I am committed, I can't refuse you anything within reason."

  I frowned and glanced at Laurie. She was looking at the Archbishop. Her face was pale.

  "What is it you want, my son?"

  "Later," I said. "You said that the pebble is useless and worthless. But if you had lived with it as long as I have, you might change your mind. Because you're only half right. The pebble is useless but not worthless."

  "A subtle distinction."

  "But a valuable one. We can't use it, true. Because we don't have the power to carry out its instructions; it isn't addressed to us. But it isn't worthless because it suggests an idea which could reshape the galaxy and prepare the way for the Third Empire. It suggests two ideas, in fact."

  "I'm afraid I don't follow you, my son."

  "You will pardon me, then, if I repeat many things which may be old to you. But perhaps you haven't had the facts of the galaxy hammered home to you as I have."

  "And what facts are those?"

  "The galaxy is split up into thousands of separate worlds, each at war with the others, each a fortress which cannot be conquered except at a cost almost more than the world is worth. And the basic reason is that defense is far superior to offense."

  The old man nodded agreement.

  "And so," I went on, "we have the fortress psychology which pervades everything. It means isolation, fear of attack, hatred of the alien. It means strong, centralized governments. It means concentrations of power, wealth, and authority. It means oppressed populations, looking ignorantly, hopefully, fearfully to superiors for defense and order. It means stagnation, decay, and slow rot which will eventually destroy all semblance of human civilization as technical skill and knowledge are destroyed or forgotten and slowly the links between worlds are broken."

  "That would be true," the Archbishop said, "except for the Church. It is a storehouse of knowledge and technical skill."

  "Let me come back to that in a moment. As long as this vicious circle of defense, centralization, ignorance, and fear continues, there is no hope for the galaxy, and all the knowledge held by the Church is worthless if no one is fit to receive it."

  "Are you suggesting, then," the Archbishop said, raising one white eyebrow, "that we strengthen the powers of offense, that we give weapons to ambitious rulers and thus break the circle."

  I shook my head. "That's one solution, and it might work. But the carnage and destruction would be terrible, and if, eventually, one ruler managed to unite the galaxy by force, it's probable that he would have little left to rule. No, the answer doesn't lie in making warfare more destructive."

  Laurie frowned. "Then what is the answer?"

  "Slowly, slowly," I said. I hesitated, trying to frame my ideas in the right pattern. I had the answer, and I was sure of it, but it wasn't any good unless I could convince the Archbishop. "The basic necessity of the fortress is the ignorance of the people. An intelligent, educated people can't be kept inside a fortress. Knowledge is a physical force which would burst the walls from within. The rulers know that. The first principle of their political philosophy is to keep their subjects weak; the second is to keep them ignorant. One is physical, the other is mental; but essentially they are the same. Let the people have no weapons."

  I looked at the Archbishop, but his lined, impassive face gave no hint of understanding.

  "Go on," he said.

  "The problem," I said, "is communication."

  "But that is the answer the Citizens had," Laurie objected. "And it didn't work."

  "An idea may be valid no matter what its source," the old man said quietly. "Go on, my son."

  "They had the answer," I agreed, "but they didn't have the method. They tried to do it with books. That was understandable because books were the least censorable method of communication available to them, and the written word is still the mode and stimulus of clear thinking. But they had to give the people an incentive to learn to read. The incentive they chose was not something thoughtful, which the rulers could not and would not supply, but something emotional, which the rulers could counter with ease, which cost them nothing."

  "Perhaps," Laurie said sarcastically, "they should have offered treatises on mathematics and logic."

  "No," I said seriously, "although even those might have done better. But it wasn't good enough. The method was wrong, because the written word is censorable—when the people must be taught to read. There is only one completely uncensorable method of communication."

  "And that is?" said the Archbishop.

  I love you, Laurie.

  She flushed and then her eyes brightened. "The mind. Of course."

  "And how do you propose to communicate from mind to mind?" the Archbishop asked. "Laurie tells me that the true telepaths have not yet been reborn."

  "Telepaths?"

  "That is the word for them. I read it somewhere a long time ago."

  "Telepaths," I repeated, and looked up. "We do it every day."

  "Indeed?" The Archbishop's eyebrows were raised.

  Laurie's face was alive with interest. "We do. Of course. In the Cathedrals. The services are given mentally, by the machine. We've had it all the time and we didn't recognize it."

  I nodded. "The uncensorable method of communication."

  But the Archbishop was shaking his head. "Would you have the Church preach rebellion? That isn't our way. Our duty is to preserve man's inheritance until he comes of age."

  "And what if he never comes of age?" I asked quietly. "He will never come of age if the Church does nothing. He will only sink deeper and deeper into savagery. Ignorance, like knowledge, is a cumulative thing. Knowledge is a pressure from within; ignorance is a weight, and the deeper it pulls man down the heavier it grows."

  "No. No," the Archbishop was saying. "It isn't possible."

  "The Church has a duty it isn't fulfilling. It must make mankind worthy to receive his inheritance. Now, the Church, the one great galactic force, is no better than the individual rulers. The rulers give the people bread and circuses; the Church gives them solace and miracles. One pacifies the body, the other the spirit; there is no real difference between them. Calm the people; make them contented with their lot."

  "And if we act, what will keep the Church from being destroyed?"

  "Its strength," I said.

  "It isn't strong enough to defy the rulers," the Archbishop said. "We have existed this long, and grown, because we didn't challenge the temporal power."

  "No, we complemented it, and the people lost. Everywhere the power of the Church is underestimated, its leaders fearful and weak. The rulers would think a long time before attacking the Church; it would bring on a battle which would leave that world wide open to conquest. But that isn't the only source of strength. The rulers need the Church; without it unrest would be ten times as great. Were it not for the treasure house that the Church represents, in the final analysis the galaxy would be better off without the Church. There is still a third source of strength which is always ignored—the people themselves, who would not stand by and see the Church destroyed by the rulers. Threaten the Church, and the people would rebel."

  "Perhaps," the Archbishop admitted, "but we can't gamble with the future of the Church."

  "But you can gamble with the future of humanity? Without the people, what is the Church worth? But you are imagining something that I haven't suggested. I don't advise anything as obvious as inciting the people to rebellion. That would be too risky. I suggest only that the Church pass ont
o the people some of its inheritance, not devices but knowledge—which is, in the end, more potent—the kind of knowledge they can handle. Beginning with the knowledge of how to read."

  Laurie's eyes were burning with inspiration. "A is for Alien; B is for Bondage."

  "F is for Fortress," I said. "F is for Freedom. And when they can read, you give them simple books, and when they master those, you give them more difficult books."

  "But we aren't equipped to write books or to print them in quantity," the Archbishop objected.

  "The Citizens are."

  "Are you suggesting that we join forces with them?"

  "They have good men," I said, "and clever ones. And some of their aims should coincide with some of yours. I'm suggesting that you join with the best elements of all forces that are working for freedom and a reuniting of the splintered galaxy. The Citizens and the Peddlers and the enlightened nobility, if there is any, because basically you are all seeking the same thing."

  "Intrigue and spying and secrecy," the Archbishop said with distaste.

  "You didn't hesitate to participate in them before."

  He bowed his head in admission.

  "There is another part to it," I said. "The pebble is an inheritance now, too, and the message it contains sets forth a mission. The telepathy machines can watch for the incipient telepath, whoever he may be. He can be taken aside and helped and put with others of his kind in some sort of colony, and someday the true telepaths will be reborn. Only then will a real basis for a lasting society be available, because it must be built on universal understanding which is impossible without telepathy. It will be reparation for the crime men committed against the telepaths of Earth, that the machine men used to ferret them out and destroy them should be used to reunite the scattered ability."

  "And what of The Word, what of our religion? Under the program you set forth, it would wither away and vanish."

  "What is the Church? You must face that question. Is it a religion or a vault for man's inheritance? Go back to Jude. Was the religion he founded an end in itself or a means? Was he a prophet or a wise man? I think he was one of the last of the telepaths—a scientist certainly—who saw the galaxy exploding and saw that man's only hopes of preserving his ancient knowledge was to surround it with mysticism. The miracles themselves—not religious miracles but demonstrations of little-known phenomena. Go back to The Word itself. See how generations of theologians have changed it. See how we have lost sight of Jude's purpose and raised around ourselves a wall of self-deception.

  "But I don't think our religion will wither away. The ethics are good; the principles are sound. The best and strongest in it will be alloyed with the new, and emerge stronger and finer. And that which withers, should wither. That which helps to keep the people poor and helpless, which drags them down, which doesn't lead them upward into the light, should vanish. For the Church is not a storehouse now. You can go into a storehouse and take out what you need. The Church is a fortress, too, and it keeps the people out when it should let them in. Before the other fortresses crumble, we must throw down our own walls."

  The Archbishop sighed. "But it would take so long. Centuries. Millennia."

  "I'm not saying it would be easy. There's no shortcut to peace and freedom and a united galaxy. You can't repair the damage of thousands of years with a few days' labor. But we must make a beginning, and those who come after must continue the work."

  "When you are young," the Archbishop said softly, "it is easy to think in such terms. But when you are old, as I am, you seek goals that are more immediate. You don't foresee the difficulties that I recognize. Someday, in a year or two or three, I shall be dead"—I saw Laurie clutch his hand tightly—"and my successor will go his own way, will set the Church into new paths. How can I plan in centuries when the Bishops' Council will elect a man who may not agree with my goals?"

  "You must select your own successor," I said quietly. "You must choose someone who will carry on the work, and he must choose someone after him. If the pretense of legality is necessary, you must replace your bishops with men who will follow your plan, even if you are dead."

  Slowly, very slowly, he nodded. It was reluctant and weary. "It shall be done," he said. His gentle words would change the shape of the galaxy. He smiled. "You have fought very hard for humanity, for billions upon billions of people throughout the galaxy. Now, what do you want for yourself? As I said, Laurie has made it difficult for me to refuse you anything."

  "I want two things," I said.

  Laurie frowned. "You said only one."

  I stared at her coldly. "I've changed my mind."

  "Speak, my son," said the Archbishop.

  "First," I said, "I want to go to Earth."

  "What would you do there?"

  "I want to see it," I said. "Maybe it's only sentiment, but I'd like to live there where the old telepaths lived, and know the peace that they knew, look on their sky and walk their world, and maybe I would know myself someday as they knew themselves and do a few of the things that they were able to do. There are secrets there; I know where to find them, as Laurie does. I wouldn't disturb them, because they are for others who will come long after I am dead, but my knowing the secrets won't diminish them. I would like to build a village. The telepaths discovered by the Church should be sent to Earth, to develop there as their fathers developed."

  "And leave the battle for others?" the Archbishop asked gently.

  "If you need me," I said, "you have only to send for me."

  He nodded. "It shall be done. And what is the second thing you want."

  "I want Laurie," I said.

  I heard a gasp, and I knew without looking that Laurie's face was white. But I was watching the Archbishop, and I was unprepared for the expression of pain that crossed his face.

  He turned to look at Laurie, holding her hand. "How can I give you up?"

  "What claim do you have on her?" I demanded.

  He looked back at me. "None, really," he said softly. "Except that she is my daughter."

  "Your daughter!" I exclaimed.

  "He is the kindest, gentlest man in the galaxy," Laurie said fiercely. "If he sinned a long time ago, he has more than made up for it."

  "One can never redeem a sin," he said, still looking at Laurie. One white hand lifted to stroke her dark hair. "I loved her mother. I love Laurie. And this is a sin I have never repented, though I am damned for it."

  "Never, father!" Laurie said fiercely.

  "And you sent her down into that!" I asked indignantly.

  "He didn't send me," Laurie said violently. "I pleaded with him to let me go. And how could he refuse, when he was sending others?"

  "You let her go?" I demanded of the Archbishop again.

  "Yes," he sighed. "Yes. I let her go. And now if she wishes to go with you, I can't stop her. I wouldn't stop her. Speak, Laurie."

  I looked to Laurie now. Her eyes brimmed with tears, and I loved her more than I could ever love anybody or anything.

  "But it still makes a difference, doesn't it, Will?" she asked. Her voice quavered.

  "Yes," I said. "Yes—"

  "Then how can you ask me to go with you? How will I feel, knowing what you are thinking and feeling, knowing that you remember? Knowing, constantly, that you can't forgive?"

  "I know," I said though my lips were tight. "I know. Don't you think I've thought about it and thought about it until I don't know what to think. But with me it isn't a question of choosing. I chose a long time ago, and I can't change. Now I can't forget. Maybe someday, when I'm wiser and better, it won't matter. But it makes a difference now, and it may always make a difference, but I—I love you, Laurie, and that's so big that the other may tear me apart but it can't tear that away from me. I'm not asking you to decide now. I'll wait. I'll wait for a long time. I'll wait forever. And every moment I'm waiting will be agony."

  I was on my feet. "Forgive," I said. "Who am I to forgive?"

  And I stumbled blindly into the
corridor, and I found my way to my cubicle, and I waited.

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  Epilogue

  I walked over the rolling meadows of Earth, my eyes on the low, green, rounded hills on the horizon, for Earth is old and wise and gentle, and the mountains are weathered down. The sky was very blue overhead, and the grass was green under my feet, and peace and quiet were all around me and over me and under me, and I breathed it into my lungs and it seeped into my body.

  I had grown a little older and a little wiser along with Earth, but it gave me a pain that was almost physical to see the spaceship sitting in the meadow in a blackened circle of burnt grass.

  I walked to the base of the ship, to the foot of the long steps that had been let down from the opening high in the side, and the captain was waiting there to greet me.

  "I hate to hurry you, sir," he said respectfully, "but the Council has been waiting for many days now to install their new Archbishop."

  I sighed and held out my hand to Laurie to help her up the long, long steps that led back to the stars.…

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