Beyond the Tomorrow Mountains

by Sylvia Engdahl

  “You’re tantalizing me,” he said, determined to take it in stride.

  “Not this time,” Stefred replied. “This time I’m doing something quite different.” He drew breath, then persisted, “How would you feel about going into space not in a dream, but in reality?”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “No. A space shuttle still exists. Some of the starships are still in orbit, though in the First Scholar’s time they were stripped of all useful equipment.”

  Yes, awaiting the Time of the Prophecy, when each hull would become the nucleus of a new city; Noren knew that. He tried to make light of the matter by stating the obvious: “I don’t know how to bring down a starship.”

  “You know as much as anyone on this planet, or at least you will after you’ve been through that dream in its complete and unedited form often enough.”

  Looking into Stefred’s face, Noren exclaimed, “You’re . . . serious!”

  Stefred nodded soberly. He detached the Dream Machine apparatus, saying, “Save your questions, Noren. I realize that’s difficult, but there is no time for them now, and at the meeting tonight they will be answered.”

  Dazed by the overwhelming implications of what he was hearing, Noren sat up. “One thing more,” Stefred cautioned. “I must ask you to say nothing of this dream, particularly not to Brek.”

  “Can’t you let him in on it, too?” protested Noren, thinking that when Brek did find out, he would be justifiably envious.

  “I intend to, and the test isn’t valid unless a person comes to it unsuspecting, as you did.” With a sigh Stefred admitted, “Quite possibly it’s not valid even then, but there’s a limit to what I can devise on three days’ notice.”

  Noren knew better than to prolong the discussion. He took leave of Stefred and headed downstairs to meet Brek, in such turmoil over the momentous happenings of the day that he found it hard to keep his composure. Only a little while remained before the meeting. There wasn’t time to go to the main refectory open to all Inner City residents, where he had hoped to see Talyra; he and Brek must again eat at the one in the Hall of Scholars.

  It was crowded, for the coming assembly was on everyone’s mind and few had wished to interrupt their speculations about what might take place, as would have been necessary in the presence of Technicians. Steering clear of that topic, Noren talked instead of Talyra. If she had arrived on any other day, he would be sharing supper with her, not with Brek, he thought ruefully. He would never have spent her first evening in the City at the Hall of Scholars, the one tower she was barred from entering unless summoned for specific duties. He was torn; he longed to be with her, yet excitement about what lay ahead outweighed everything else. If the starships were to be retrieved from orbit, that could only mean that a breakthrough in the research was much closer than anyone had guessed!

  They went to Orison. For that also, more Scholars were present than usual; even regular attendees did not come every night, since they often worked late, but this evening all work had been stopped. Besides, the room in which Orison was held was the only one large enough for a general assembly and people had already begun to gather.

  Noren did not know the liturgy well, except for the parts that were direct quotations from the Book of the Prophecy. He was aware, of course, that in ritual created by the Scholars for their own use the Mother Star was meant to be viewed neither in the villagers’ way, as a magical power in the sky, nor in the scientific way, as a sun that had become a nova. It was representative of something else. The difficulty lay in grasping what the “something else” was. “You told me that some things Scholars do can’t be explained in advance, but have to be experienced,” Brek reminded him as they went in. “Maybe this is one of them.”

  “But when I come,” Noren objected, “I don’t experience anything.”

  This time he did.

  Perhaps it was the larger group, the air of tense expectancy; perhaps, too, it was the fact that he was already thoroughly shaken by the events of the past two days. There was nothing different in the dimly lighted room itself, with its prismatic glass sunburst, larger than the one in the refectory, affixed to the ceiling’s center. Nor was there anything unique in the Six Worlds’ stirring orchestral music that no longer overwhelmed him as it had when he’d first heard it outside the Gates. There was no apparent difference in the ritual. The presiding Scholars were robed, as was customary, but all the others wore everyday clothes like his own. The words, presumably, were the same ones always used, allowing for a normal amount of daily variation.

  He was standing, staring upward at the light glinting from myriad facets of the sunburst, and had allowed his mind to drift. Talyra . . . some of the words were those Stefred had used to bless Talyra, except for being expressed in first person plural: “May the spirit of the Mother Star abide with us . . . may we gain strength from its presence, trusting in the surety of its power.” But there was no surety! That was the truth he’d hidden from. . . .

  All day it had lain at the surface of his thoughts; still he had not dared to consider its full significance. You must grapple with it alone, Stefred had said, yet he hadn’t done so. What was the matter with him? Noren wondered in dismay. He did not want to shrink from the truth! Truth had always been what he cared most about, and though he’d known it could sometimes be painful, he had not ever meant to let that deter him. He had not faltered when confrontation of the facts had required him to give up his most cherished theories and to undergo the ordeal of recanting. He would not falter now. Grimly, Noren forced himself to face the thing his recent doubts implied: it was possible that he would someday find that recanting had been a terrible mistake.

  It was not just that he’d unwittingly affirmed a promise that might not be kept. As matters stood, the Scholars intended to keep it; they were struggling toward that end; they were not deceiving the people for any reason but to attain the end. If it was attained, there would have been no deceit. But what if at some time in the future they were to learn that the Prophecy could never be fulfilled? What if the research were to end in utter failure? There would then be no justification for secrecy, no justification for withholding either machines or knowledge from anyone. The First Scholar himself would not have justified such policies on lesser grounds than saving humankind from extinction; he wouldn’t have concealed truth from people to uphold a vain hope any more than the Six Worlds’ leaders had concealed news of the impending nova. He had assured his companions that he was not asking them to establish a false religion. But the religion he’d created had been the center of people’s lives for generations now, and somehow Noren couldn’t picture its High Priests abolishing it if it proved invalid, although the restrictions it placed on the villagers would then be unwarranted.

  The ritual words went on: “For there is no surety save in the light that sustained our for forebears; no hope but in that which lies beyond our sphere; and our future is vain except as we have faith. . . .” He had heard them before, but he hadn’t grasped them. He had thought them a reference to the necessity for preserving the knowledge of the Six Worlds. Yet they weren’t that at all! The Scholars knew such knowledge was insufficient, that research based on it might fail, and that hard work wasn’t enough to ensure that the Prophecy would come true. The words were an admission of these things. No wonder even the scientists clung to religious symbolism; it kept them from having to say in plain words that their own hope might be a delusion.

  Noren wrenched his mind away from the thought. It didn’t matter now, not now, when there had evidently been some unexpected new development, when there were plans to retrieve the starships. . . . And yet, he realized suddenly, Stefred had not acted as if he knew that a breakthrough was close. He’d been clearly aware of what was to be discussed at the meeting, but he had not been happy—he’d been troubled. Even about the starships he’d been troubled. In no way had he behaved like a man who was privy to good news.

  As the solemn ritual proceeded, Noren stood tran
sfixed, his eyes uplifted less from custom than from inability to look away. The Mother Star . . . symbol of a delusion? All at once he swayed giddily, gripped by an intangible terror unlike any he had ever encountered. If there was delusion, it concerned not merely the Prophecy, but survival itself. In theory he had known that survival could not continue unless metal became available. Yet he hadn’t followed his fears to their logical conclusion. He had never imagined the death of the human race occurring not through anyone’s lack of effort, but because synthesization of metallic elements turned out to be inherently impossible.

  There were more words, but he did not hear them. The sunburst blurred, and in its place the desolate planet, alien and inhospitable as he’d seen it in the dream, swam before his eyes. Trembling, he lowered them and slowly, deliberately, surveyed the people around him. Brek’s face was grave, reverent; that was understandable because Brek did not yet know that the nuclear physicists had no proof that their work would ever succeed. But the older Scholars surely knew, whether they were scientists themselves or mere observers. And they did not seem afraid. Some showed no emotion at all; the rest appeared at peace with the world, as if there were indeed something in which they could trust.

  “Noren?” At the touch of Brek’s hand on his arm, Noren was jolted back from the precipice. He noticed that the lights had brightened and that most of the people were now sitting down, awaiting the start of the meeting. The rite of Orison was over.

  A hush fell as the chairman of the executive council rose to speak. “I’ll come right to the point,” he said quietly. “As some of you already know, we face a crucial decision. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss whether or not we should make an immediate attempt to found a new city on the other side of the Tomorrow Mountains.”

  Chapter Four

  Afterward, whenever he recalled that meeting, Noren found it hard to believe that he could have sat through it so impassively. Yet impassive he was. Already in shock from the impact of the fear that had overpowered him during Orison, he was incapable of feeling the shock that the prospect of another city would otherwise have aroused in him—and did arouse in those of his fellow Scholars who weren’t on the committee that had engaged in advance discussion. A new city had not been thought possible prior to the success of the research. They had barely enough equipment to keep the existing one going; how could any be diverted? There was nothing most Scholars would like better than to be in on such a project, but how could it be justified?

  “As heretics, you were warned before the secrets were revealed to you that you would be confined here for life,” the council chairman reminded them. “It was repeated at your sentencing and again later, when the conditions of your confinement were explained. No release was anticipated. Never since the First Scholar’s expedition arrived has a Scholar been farther than the platform outside the Gates: at first because the risk of disclosing the Six Worlds’ destruction was too great, and then because for us to mingle with the villagers—even when we wouldn’t be recognized as former heretics—would rob us of the remoteness we need both for maintaining general respect and for recruiting people with inquiring minds. And those weren’t the only reasons.”

  The traditional sacrifice of physical freedom could not be abandoned lightly, they knew. For one thing, it prevented distraction from the desperate urgency of human dependence on timeworn machines and the vital need to solve basic technological problems. And there had been no constructive purpose in abandoning it. Technicians had been exploring beyond the Tomorrow Mountains since soon after the Founding, using as many of the precious aircars as could be spared from the top-priority task of transporting land treatment machines to the villages. Scholars might have gone along, since no contact with villagers was involved, but they had not done so, not only because of tradition but because they couldn’t take time from their own vital work in the City. It was more efficient for Technicians to survey the land, verifying the detailed orbital surveys that had been made prior to the Founding, and bringing back minerals for analysis. Never till now had there been talk of a permanent outpost.

  Like anything involving a major policy change, the idea must be put to a vote among all the fully committed. Even relatively small matters, like whether a particular tool should be melted down and its elements allocated to research, were so decided; for such things were of far-reaching significance. The disposition of one kilo of metal might conceivably determine whether future generations lived or died. The disposition of enough materials to set up an outpost could very easily determine it. Yet no one could be sure, Noren thought in horror. How could they dare to vote on an issue when they were not sure? It was fortunate that he, as an uncommitted novice, had neither the right nor the responsibility to do so.

  “Normally, so great a decision as this would demand many weeks of deliberation,” the chairman said. “For reasons I’ll explain presently, we must hold the vote tonight—”

  An astonished gasp from the assembled Scholars made him pause. Then, calmly, he continued, “But before I go into that, I think we should consider the less urgent factors, those related to the status of our work.”

  Noren had not yet acquired the technical background to follow the discussion fully. The emphasis of his study had been on understanding the fundamental basis of the research, for details, when needed, could be quickly memorized under hypnosis. He’d been told that to be creative, one must have a thorough comprehension of a task’s nature—and that had to be gained slowly.

  At first he had been impatient with the slowness of the way the work had progressed over the years. He hadn’t been able to see why the current experimentation was designed not to produce metal, but simply to verify certain aspects of the theory that seemed most promising. Wasn’t there some shortcut? he’d demanded. Wouldn’t it be quicker to try out the theory by actually attempting fusion of heavy elements?

  It would not, Grenald had explained. If they proceeded that way and failed, no one would be able to tell what had gone wrong. The various ideas involved must be tested separately. Moreover, having no materials to waste, they could not build the equipment for a full-scale experiment until they were sure that the theory was sound. Everything done so far showed that it was, for it had been developed gradually as, one by one, the conflicting theories had been eliminated. All the same, no matter how many things pointed to a theory’s accuracy, a single demonstrated fact that didn’t fit would be enough to disprove it.

  Although Noren did not have a full grasp of the theory itself, he was familiar with the mathematics involved in it; he always absorbed rapidly any math he encountered. And he was well aware of what was at stake in the experimentation in progress. If it verified everything it had been planned to verify, an attempt to achieve fusion might conceivably be made soon. Experiments rarely worked out that well, however. It was likely that more would be needed. To progress directly to the synthesization of usable metal would require a true breakthrough: an outcome even better than could be foreseen, one that revealed facts nobody had guessed. And if by any chance some facet of the theory proved to be not merely unverified, but definitely wrong, then the theory would have to be modified. That could take years of work. No one talked about that.

  At least they hadn’t talked about it until the meeting.

  As he listened to the discussion, Noren soon saw that the Scholars were divided into three factions: one that favored sticking to the Founders’ original plan; one that felt a breakthrough might be close enough to justify getting a head start on another city; and one that feared a setback would occur, a setback too serious to be dealt with except by drastic measures. It was this last group that had first proposed that preparation for the establishment of a distant outpost should begin. “We must be ready,” its spokesmen declared, “because if our current theory proves inadequate, there is only one way we can turn—toward techniques that will eventually entail experimentation too risky to be tried in an inhabited area.”

  That nuclear fusion was potential
ly dangerous was something that had astonished Noren when, soon after beginning his studies, he had been shown a film of something called a “thermonuclear bomb.” It had been quite horrifying, especially when the purpose of the bomb—for which nothing in his own world had prepared him—had become clear. He’d been thankful that he had not been introduced to it through a dream. There were no such dreams, since thermonuclear bombs had not existed in the time of the Founders and had in fact been abolished long before thought recording had been invented. But the film had been preserved, for there were lessons in it, and among them one of particular importance to potential experimenters: extreme care must be taken lest in the effort to achieve controlled nuclear reactions they produce an uncontrolled one.

  The danger had not been great so far. Long ago the scientists of the Six Worlds had learned to control nuclear fusion and had harnessed it for the generation of power. The City’s main power plant was a fusion reactor, as those of the mother world had been after its supply of organic fuel was exhausted. Fusion power was clean and safe; it did not even create radioactive wastes. But nuclear fusion of heavy elements was far more difficult and complex than the type of fusion employed in a power plant. If it could be achieved at all, it would be achieved only through methods unlike the proven ones, and the approaches as yet untried were not without peril.

  To men of the Six Worlds, it would have seemed obvious that all nuclear experimentation ought to be done far away from the City. It wasn’t that simple, however. The facilities necessary for such experimentation did not exist anywhere but in the City, and they couldn’t be moved without dangerous depletion of its reserves. The villagers were dependent upon the City for weather control, purified water to supplement rain catchment, and the periodic soil treatment and seed irradiation—without those things they would perish. The hazards of splitting the City’s resources had until now been greater than the chances of a serious accident. Yet if new failures were to affect those odds. . . .