The matting of the door before him was pulled back and a motherly-looking woman exclaimed, “Lew! Lew, come here!” Noren found himself being propelled inside by a stout, brawny man who studied him briefly, then indicated a chair by the lamp. The room was thick with the dizzying odor of stewing fowl. Noren sat down. Nine or ten small children stared with interest, and he realized that his bruises as well as his presence would demand comment, though the only explanation he could think of was at best a flimsy one.
He forced the fear out of his voice. “I—I’ve been delayed,” he told them. “I was to meet my cousin in Prosperity and help him take a load to the City markets, only I left the road to rest and—well, slipped into a quarry. He’ll wait in the next village till tomorrow, and I’m sure I can catch up, but I’m awfully hungry. I can pay—”
“You don’t need to,” said the woman cordially. “I’ve fixed plenty; we’ll just set another place.”
“Thanks, I’d appreciate that.”
“Cistern’s out back, if you want to wash up,” the woman said, surveying him. She fingered her apron. “Why, you’re just a boy! The City’s a long way off—”
“Not too far for a young fellow his age,” her husband Lew interrupted. “I went to the City markets once, the year I finished school, right before we were married. It’s really a sight. And the music—you never heard anything like that music they have at the Benison.” He smiled, remembering. “Inspiring, it is.”
No doubt, thought Noren, the Scholars could arrange inspiration with the same efficiency they employed in arranging everything else. He had heard often of the Benison, a ceremony held early each morning, before the Gates, to open the markets for the day’s business; but it hadn’t occurred to him that to avoid attracting notice he would have to attend. The idea dismayed him, for the crowd would be smaller than on holidays, and he did not believe that he could bring himself to kneel, as one must in the immediate presence of Scholars.
Lew grinned at him. “You’re having a real adventure, I’ll bet. Does it come up to your hopes, being on your own?”
“I guess so.”
“We’ve got supper almost on,” the woman put in. “Dorie, you take him out to the cistern.”
One of the younger boys tagged along, and both children appraised Noren curiously as he splashed water over his bruised face and arms, then filled his stoppered carrying-jug. “I don’t think I’d like an adventure,” commented Dorie.
“I would,” retorted her little brother promptly. “The City’s where the Technicians live. Have you ever talked to a Technician, mister?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what I want to be when I grow up.”
“Silly!” cried Dorie. “People don’t grow up to be Technicians.”
“But I want to run a Machine.”
Noren looked at the small boy, who was as yet too young to know that wanting was not the same as getting, and his heart ached. This child, he sensed, was someone who would care. You could grow up to run a Machine, or even to build one, he thought, and you wouldn’t need the title of Technician, either.
Would Lew and his wife listen to reason? Would they agree that their sons and daughters had a right to the knowledge that could give them Machines, and more? Maybe he should risk telling them; it might be his only chance. Suppose he never reached the City?
In the big kitchen, the woman was ladling hot stew into brown pottery bowls. Noren closed his eyes, leaning against the stone doorway; hunger was making him giddy. For an instant he was back in his own mother’s kitchen, at home. Was he a fool to have given up everything that mattered to other people for the sake of a truth that would lead him ultimately to death?
The girl Dorie clutched at his hand. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing—nothing’s the matter.”
“Yes, there is.” With the quick intuition of childhood she announced, “You’re afraid.”
“No—”
“You shouldn’t be,” the child continued. “The Prophecy says the spirit of the Mother Star protects everybody, and as long as we believe in it nothing can hurt us.”
“Does it?”
“Don’t you know? Mother, he—”
“Yes, of course I do!” Noren said hastily. “‘It is our life’s bulwark; and so long as we believe in it, no force can destroy us, though the heavens themselves be consumed.’” So long as we believe in it. It was his misfortune, maybe, to believe in something a good deal less comforting.
They stood behind the wicker benches while the woman lit the table lamp and began the familiar words in a calm, unhurried voice: “‘Let us rejoice in the bounty of the land . . . from the Mother Star came the heritage that has blessed it. . .’” With effort, Noren kept his voice steady and clear. These people would not understand his heresy. If he were to speak out, there would be more danger of harm to them than to him, he perceived; they would be lost without their faith. Perhaps the Scholars’ greatest cruelty was in the way they deluded the good, kind people who were hoping in vain for the fulfillment of a false promise.
He tried to eat slowly, without revealing the urgency of his hunger, and to talk as a carefree traveler rather than an imperiled fugitive. “Your youngest son is a bright lad,” he remarked to the mother, wondering if the spark he’d seen in the boy had been noticed by the parents.
“He is an adopted child,” replied the woman proudly. “So is the littlest girl.”
“My congratulations,” said Noren, smiling at the youngsters. “They are fine children.” It was a strange fact, he thought, that adopted children so often seemed brighter than most, as if the circumstances of their birth had been particularly fortunate to offset whatever tragedy had resulted in their becoming Wards of the City. There were many such babies—they were practically always adopted in infancy—and it was a mark of honor to have one, for it was well known that the women Technicians who were their official guardians placed them only with worthy families who would love them and give them good care. He wondered where they all came from, since although every village’s foundlings became Wards of the City, there seemed to be more than could be accounted for in that way; it occurred suddenly to Noren that the Technicians’ own orphans might be included. No one was permitted to know the parentage of those who had become Wards when too young to remember.
He scrutinized the little boy more closely. Could this child, who thought that ordinary people could become Technicians, possibly have been born as one? He had love in abundance; he seemed happy; yet had he somehow been deprived of his birthright? But that was nonsense, Noren realized with chagrin. It was no more unfair for him than for his foster brothers and sisters; knowledge was the birthright not only of Technicians, but of everyone.
“You must stay the night with us,” said Lew, “We’ve an extra bed in our sons’ room.”
Noren shook his head. The thought of sleeping in a bed was tempting, but he could not accept; not only would it delay him, but to shelter him might somehow put this family in danger. “That’s kind of you,” he said regretfully, “but if I’m not in the next village by sunrise I might miss my cousin again. I’d best stay at the inn there.”
The whole family walked out to the road with him after the meal. “Thanks for the supper,” he told the woman. “You’re surely a good cook.”
She smiled and squeezed his hand. “May the spirit of the Mother Star be with you,” she said.
“And with you,” Noren answered, half-wishing he could mean more by the words than a courteous response to hospitality. He turned rapidly and started up the curving road, toward the top of the hill.
* * *
Noren stopped at many farms after that, for breakfast or for supper, but rarely more than once a day. Some families were cordial, as Lew’s had been; others were less so and demanded payment. When possible he asked for work before offering money, for he knew he must save as many of Talyra’s coins as he could to use at the markets, where there would be no farms and he would have to buy food
from shopkeepers. That meant that he got little sleep, since he traveled by night, but working in someone’s fields was safer than sleeping in them. It was increasingly hard to find hiding places, for the closer he got to the City, the fewer patches of uncleared land he found.
He passed through villages only in darkness. It amazed him that he encountered no Technicians searching for him, nor even heard rumors from the farmers of such a search; and as the days went by the tension in him grew. If the Scholar Stefred wanted him caught, why wasn’t a more intensive effort being made?
At last he could endure it no longer and decided to risk a deliberate inquiry. The people he ate with that day were friendly, but did not seem particular devout; the subject, Noren felt, could safely be raised.
“I hear they’re on the lookout for an escaped heretic,” he said casually.
“Oh?” the farmer replied. “I was in to the center only yesterday, and nobody said a word about that.”
“It was a trader who told me,” Noren asserted. “Perhaps the man’s not thought to be near here; traders pick up news from all over.”
“I can’t understand why anybody would get himself convicted of heresy,” the wife declared.
“Some people just don’t believe everything in the Prophecy, I guess,” said Noren in a noncommittal tone.
“No doubt, but why do they admit it when they know what’s bound to happen? It’s all words anyway; is that worth suffering for?”
“Heretics must think so. Or else they think that the High Law’s not what it should be, and that if they could get people to agree with them things could be changed.”
“Rubbish,” said the man. “The High Law is as it is, and the best way for a man to live comfortably is to follow it and keep his mouth shut.”
“Once,” Noren said slowly, “I heard a heretic say that he cared more for truth than for comfort.”
“Goodness!” exclaimed the wife. “A nice boy like you shouldn’t be talking to heretics. You could get yourself in trouble.”
“He said it in public,” answered Noren with a straight face. “It was at his trial.”
“What happened to him?” she inquired.
“He was convicted and locked up to be turned over to the Scholars. Do you think he deserved it?”
“Frankly, I don’t,” the man admitted. “Live and let live, I say; I don’t hold with punishing a man for what he thinks. But you’d not catch me talking that way in the village.”
His eyes narrowed with sudden suspicion. “You wouldn’t repeat it, would you?”
“No,” Noren assured him, “I wouldn’t.”
It was apparent that his escape had not been publicized; perhaps Talyra had not even needed to use the story they’d concocted. If the inhabitants of villages along the road hadn’t been alerted to watch for him, Noren concluded, it could only be that the Scholars were hoping he’d feel falsely secure and would grow careless. Their strategy was more subtle than he’d anticipated, which was all the more reason for him to move with caution.
Yet he could not resist sounding out more farmers as to their opinions. The first one’s view seemed predominant; though there were some sincerely devout people, and others who took out a dislike of the Scholars’ supremacy on anybody who dared oppose it, the majority of those he met couldn’t have cared less whether the Prophecy was true or the High Law justified. Like his own father, they were interested only in practical affairs. Noren soon found that he could safely make comments bordering on heresy as long as he saw such people in the privacy of their homes, but he guessed that in a crowd they would be quick to clamor for his condemnation.
Would those he met at the City markets be any different? Noren wondered. If they weren’t, he had no chance whatsoever to arouse opposition to the High Law; he must face that fact realistically. And what action could be taken even if he did succeed in convincing people? He had never gotten that far in his plans; he’d merely felt—and still felt, despite everything—that refusing to believe lies was in itself an act of importance.
During his none-too-frequent intervals of sleep he dreamed a lot. There were the old recurring nightmares of the City, now immediate and concrete: he would find himself bound hand and foot, facing the Scholar Stefred, who towered over him in a dark cavern filled with terrifying Machines; and he would wake trembling, telling himself that he could elude capture forever, yet knowing better. But there were also other dreams in which he was not afraid, but instead was on the verge of meeting secret, inexpressible things that he approached with joy—things concerning the ultimate, forbidden knowledge that was hidden behind the City’s walls. Always, to his frustration, he woke just as he was about to learn the answers. On those occasions he could scarcely wait for dusk before starting off, and he drove himself to walk faster and faster through the night, knowing that it was foolish, yet seeing no real reason to resist his growing compulsion. The City and its mysteries had become a goal both feared and longed for; but the longing outweighed the fear.
It became harder and harder to locate spots where he could rest. Farms were small and crowded close together near the City, while villages were comparatively large; almost all the wild plants had been cut. Then too, there were no streams. Long, straight conduits stretched off into the distance from sandy beds that were thereafter dry, and the work-beasts were watered in unnaturally-shallow ponds. At first that puzzled Noren, but before long he figured it out: the water was being channeled into the City itself, purified, and then sent out through the clay aqueducts that paralleled the main roads, from which pipes branched off to fill the huge village cisterns where people drew what they needed to supplement what was collected from rain. Fortunately he had the carrying-jug; he’d been replenishing it at farms in any case, since he might have aroused suspicion had he stopped for a meal without requesting water.
The day came when at first light Noren could see nothing around him but flat fields—newly-planted grainfields, the season zone being the same as Prosperity’s—without a tinge of purple anywhere, nor yet of gray-green apart from fodder. There were a good many houses, but he’d had plenty to eat the previous evening and he never stopped for breakfast unless his shelter was already chosen, for he felt it was dangerous to walk far after sunrise. This time he had no choice; he must keep going.
The sky to his left was yellow. One of the moons, it was hard to tell which, traced a thin white curve above a silhouetted barn. Overhead a few fading stars displayed a faint, determined sparkle. Where was the Mother Star supposed to appear, anyway: in one of the constellations, or in some unnatural place like the zenith? Noren couldn’t recall that the Prophecy told, and since whoever had written it had gone to so much trouble to manufacture details like the exact date, they might at least have mentioned where to look. Not that that wasn’t a silly question to waste thought on when there were so many true enigmas, like what stars were, for instance—real stars! Having walked for countless hours under them, Noren had often stared upward in bafflement, wondering whether even the Scholars possessed knowledge of that sort.
The sun bulged over the horizon, blinding Noren momentarily, and in the same instant he heard an ominous sound. An aircar was floating toward him above the field! With the new-risen sun behind it, it was hard to see; but a long, dark shadow preceded it, and it was headed directly for him.
Noren did not have time to consider the situation; he reacted instinctively. Without stopping to think that if by any chance the men in the aircar weren’t hunting for him, it would be unwise to attract their attention by an attempt to evade them, he threw himself headlong into the ditch beside the road. As he fell, a sharp rock stabbed into his knee, dazing him with pain, and he lay helpless while the aircar hovered and dropped lower.
Incredibly, it did not land. The Technicians saw him; Noren was sure of that, for as he turned onto his back their faces were clear, but to his astonishment the aircar rose abruptly and drifted off in the direction of the City. Bewildered, he tried to climb out of the ditch—only
to find that the injured knee would not support his weight.
Chapter Six
For some time Noren remained in the ditch, at a loss to know what to do. He could go no farther alone. Once the worst of the pain subsided, he realized that he would be able to walk with the aid of a strong bandage; but the fabric of his tunic was too coarse to tear, and in any case, he could not climb. Moreover, the Technicians would undoubtedly be back for him. Though those particular ones apparently hadn’t known that he was an escaped heretic, they would surely report what they had seen, for it was not normal for a villager to run from Technicians—and they would then be told that a fugitive was being sought.
As the sun rose higher, he propped himself against the stony bank and prepared to hail the first passer-by. As close to the City as he was, the road would be heavily traveled. He had no choice but to trust to luck in being found by someone who would help him without asking too many questions.
Luck was with him: a trader’s sledge appeared before anybody else came by, and the trader was bound for the markets. He was a lean, brisk man who answered Noren’s shout with cheerful alacrity. “I fell, and I can’t walk till my knee’s bandaged, I guess,” Noren told him ruefully, “but I can drive. I’ll spell you if you’ll take me.” Something in the man’s manner warned him that it would be best not to mention his coins unless he had to.
“I’ll do that,” the trader declared. “I’d like to drive straight through tonight so’s to get there by mid-morning.” He boosted Noren to the seat and, yanking the reins, cursed casually at the work-beast.
After so many days and nights of effort, it was a relief to sit back and let himself be carried along. Also, he was less conspicuous, for on this road sledges and strings of work-beasts outnumbered people on foot. That would compensate, Noren hoped, for the peril of going through village centers in broad daylight. It was his first good look at the region’s centers, which, like the local farms, had quite a few buildings of sun-dried brick instead of stone; clay must be more plentiful than at home, where all that could be found was purified by Machine for the making of pipe and pottery.
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