Beyond the Tomorrow Mountains

by Sylvia Engdahl

  “Those of you who’ve worked with Grenald during the past few weeks already know the worst,” the man declared soberly, “but to the rest it will come as a shock. I cannot soften it. You must understand that the obstacle these experiments uncovered is not in our technique, but in our basic theory. The results have been entered into the computers a thousand times in different forms; always the output is the same. The ultimate equations yield no solution. Last night Grenald and I ran them through again, and at dawn, when we left the console, NO SOLUTION had been before our eyes so often that it seemed not to fade. That is a portent, so to speak, of the significance of this failure. It will not fade; it will not be quickly overcome. The creation of metallic elements by nuclear fusion has been proven impossible at the theoretical level—”

  Horrified, Noren focused his mind abruptly. Proven impossible? For all his doubts, he had not anticipated a defeat so final. “Impossible at the theoretical level” was quite different from “impossible by present methods.” The latter said merely that other methods must be sought. The former included such impossibilities as rocks falling up instead of down, direct communication between people’s minds, and the rising of the sun in the west.

  “At the theoretical level,” the physicist repeated, “and you’re all aware of what that means.”

  Death, thought Noren with bitterness. The death of the human race. NO SOLUTION . . . NO REFERENT . . . INSUFFICIENT DATA. There were no answers. . . .

  “It means we must find a new theory. It means we must expand our most fundamental ideas of natural law, as the science of the Six Worlds did over and over again during the course of its history. The pressure was not so great then, but with hindsight we see that the stakes were equally high. Let us not forget that. Let us not be dismayed by the years of groping we must face before further experiments can begin.”

  “A new theory?” someone protested. “We have no grounds for discarding the present one, or even for modifying it! It has not been invalidated; on the contrary, every aspect of it checks out. The fact that it tells us we cannot do what we would like to do is not the theory’s fault. It would be nice if men could fly without the aid of machines, but the law of gravitation tells us they can’t—and synthesization of metal has now been placed in the same category.”

  “We must have faith that this theory is merely a special case of some larger, more comprehensive principle,” Grenald’s assistant said gravely. “There was a time when the law of gravitation told men that they could not fly by any means.”

  Yes, but there nevertheless remained things that were beyond the realm of possibility, Noren thought; and there was no good reason for supposing that transmutation of elements wasn’t one of them. Confidence that a verified theory would be overridden was unfounded. Cold logic told him that it was no less an illusion than the villagers’ trust that “the spirit of the Mother Star” could protect them from danger. Words Stefred had once said suddenly came back to him: People have always looked toward something above and beyond them; they always will. They’ve called it by different names. You, I think, would call it Truth. Sick at heart, he realized that this too must have been a warning. Everybody clung to illusions, even himself. He’d perceived that the whole universe might be illusory, yet he had not really given up hope until the computers had drained all vestiges of it from him. Now he saw the hopelessness of his lifelong search. That which he had named Truth did not exist.

  He sat motionless, benumbed, as the scientists went over the results of their work, analyzed the inexorable equations, shown that the research was in vain. He was split in two. With half his mind he grasped what was being said clearly, while with the other he reflected that details no longer mattered. The mathematics proved conclusively that success could never be achieved. Despite his preoccupation Noren followed the math without effort; one did not need to be an advanced physicist to understand what had already been formulated, not if one’s mathematical aptitude was high. To Noren, math was far more telling than words. Certain parameters yielded by the experimentation, when inserted into the equations, made those equations insoluble. One could no more get around that than one could deny that two and two would never equal five.

  The physicists did not try to deny it; yet astonishingly few seemed willing to accept its full import. “Tonight there will be a general meeting,” the conference chairman said. “Our fellow Scholars will ask what this discovery means in terms of the Prophecy’s fulfillment, and as scientists we must say that there now appears to be no chance. We can mitigate that statement only by pointing out that the apparent certainties of past eras often proved to be naive misconceptions—”

  “But there is no time to wait for a new era!” one of the men interrupted. “We have ample cause for certainty that ours will be the last, that the Star will be the herald not of renaissance, but of extinction. In the meantime, we cannot in good conscience continue to affirm the Prophecy, nor can we maintain a caste system that has lost its justification.”

  “We must maintain it. To do otherwise would destroy all hope of a future breakthrough by our successors.”

  “How could it destroy what does not exist? You yourself just admitted that as scientists, we see no reasonable hope of breakthrough.”

  Slowly the chairman replied, “Though we are scientists, we are also priests. And as priests we see that human beings cannot rely solely on reason. Reason deals with data we already possess, whereas a breakthrough involves concepts we don’t possess and have no way of predicting.”

  “I can no longer serve as High Priest, knowing what I now know of the odds,” persisted the objector. “I’ll declare myself a relapsed heretic before I’ll say again to the people that their descendants will have what we’re withholding from this generation.”

  Noren flushed; the room was so hot, suddenly, that he could not breathe. Trembling, he got to his feet and somehow reached the door. He dared not stay. He lacked strength to face the test he sensed was coming. If someone made formal declaration of relapse . . .

  It was an extreme step, although not without precedent. Unlike the Inner City Technicians who had once been heretics and who had recanted under pressure, Scholars could not be charged with relapse by anyone but themselves. An unenlightened person who regretted submission was treated like others “guilty” of heresy; candidacy for Scholar rank was restored. The trials of steadfastness were more stringent, but the basic issue remained the same. Relapse on the part of a Scholar was a very different matter. In effect, it was an announcement that he or she could not be trusted to keep the secrets, and that person was thereafter isolated from all contact with non-Scholars—confined not merely to the Inner City, but to the Hall of Scholars itself. Since the time of the Founding only a very few people had chosen that course, and while their right to do so was respected, on the whole they were considered rather eccentric. Most Scholars felt that relapse was an unforgivable evasion of responsibility.

  Would the attitude change now? Noren asked himself, as he walked blindly toward the dome where he was to meet Emet. Would many agree that it was wrong to keep things from the villagers when there was no real expectation of saving the human race by it? No . . . it was inconceivable that those who thought like the conference chairman would disclaim the Prophecy, and the majority did think that way. Having recanted in honesty, they had become trapped in fraud. That was one circumstance for which the First Scholar’s wisdom had not provided.

  Emet was waiting by the aircar. “Noren,” he said awkwardly, “we had no idea—we knew nothing about the conference beyond what I told you, and though I came today for an emergency meeting of the executive council as well as for supplies, there was no advance notice of the subject.”

  “You wouldn’t have brought me along if you’d known?”

  “Of course not. Do you think us heartless?”

  “Do you think I’m not strong enough to hear bad news?” Noren retorted.

  “I didn’t mean that. For the Star’s sake, Noren, can’t
you see—” Emet broke off, sighing. “We’ll all need our strength; let’s not waste it fighting each other. I know you don’t want help. Things would be easier if you could accept friendship, though.”

  Noren did not trust himself to speak. After studying him intently for a moment, Emet continued, “You have more friends than you realize, friends who—well, who’ll go to great lengths on your behalf. If I asked you, as a favor to your friends, to find Stefred right now and tell him that you prefer not to return to the outpost—”

  “I can’t, Emet.”

  They got into the aircar and took it up in silence. As they rose above the City’s shining towers, Noren bit down hard on his tongue to keep the pain inside him from exploding. Those towers would never again look the same. As far back as he could remember, they had been the focus of all he valued, but there was no beauty left in them. The patchwork of farmland, villages, and unquickened wilderness blurred beneath him; he blinked his eyes and stared straight ahead at the barren mountains.

  “Noren,” Emet began when they cleared the last range and plunged swiftly toward the stark new spire of the outpost, “I won’t say that you shouldn’t be discouraged. We’re all discouraged. The significance of what’s happened can’t be minimized. But just remember that some things in life aren’t expressible in terms of mathematics. You’re a gifted mathematician, and so far you’ve studied little else—but there is more.”

  With difficulty, Noren restrained a mad impulse to laugh. Emet did not know how much more he’d expected to find that morning.

  “You’re young,” Emet reflected. “For you there is a chance. The Transition Period may yet come in your lifetime. From what I’ve heard of you, it’s possible that you’ll lead the way. Don’t let yourself be daunted by the gloom we feel, we who’ve learned today that we will not live to see it.”

  At the camp, to which word had preceded them by radiophone, Noren’s stricken appearance was attributed to the despair shared by everybody. He did not mention that there was anything else involved. He scarcely spoke at all. Brek asked for details of the failure, and Noren rebuffed him irritably; after that he was left alone. But he found himself obliged to go to Orison, for he knew he would be conspicuous if he did not. Although normally the ritual wasn’t attended by everyone, on this night all gathered as if drawn by some invisible force.

  It was very informal in camp, held as it was outdoors, around a fire; usually not even the presiding Scholars wore robes. Few had robes with them, since nothing extra had been transported, and when no villagers or Technicians were present, the symbol of priesthood was indispensable only at services for the dead. We are all dead, Noren mused, as he saw that the available robes were in evidence, but for a while we live on, knowing.

  Yet those conducting the service did not speak of death. And stunned though people were by the unanticipated blow, their spirits seemed somehow lifted as the liturgy progressed. “. . . We are strong in the faith that as those of the past were sustained, so shall we be also . . . and though our peril be great even unto the last generation of our endurance, in the end humankind shall prevail. . . .”

  That was hypocrisy! thought Noren in dismay. How could anyone who knew the facts say those things and mean them? He certainly could not. He was indeed a relapsed heretic, despite having fled from the conference to avoid declaring himself. He was not sure why he had fled; he was puzzled as well as mortified to learn that he’d lost the courage of his convictions. By the Star, he must regain it soon, he told himself grimly—for he could no longer accept a Scholar’s role in the system he’d condoned only for the sake of human survival.

  * * *

  As time passed, however, Noren found that he played the role, went through the motions, just as he had kept going after the space flight. He did what he’d been accustomed to doing simply because there was no way to stop.

  He had work, for one thing—not only Scholar’s work, but the farm work he’d done as a boy. It would soon be harvest season. Before the tower was finished, land-clearing and soil-treatment equipment had been brought in, for the raising of a crop had high priority. Relatively few people had been needed to clear the ring of fields that was to enclose the living area, to “quicken” it by inactivating the soil’s poisons, and to perform the initial enrichment with metallic trace elements from the dwindling store brought long ago by the starfleet. These were mechanized functions, the basic ones for which preservation of off-world equipment was essential. But when it came to planting, refertilizing and cultivating, everybody pitched in for a few hours each day. It was backbreaking work, since there were neither metal tools nor even handles for the stone ones.

  Planting season had been determined solely by the availability of the land-treatment machines; the unchanging climate had no more to do with it than with the various villages’ seasons, which, though by now traditional, had been scheduled for most efficient rotation of equipment. On most of the Six Worlds, Noren knew, seasons had had a physical basis—people had planted in mild weather, harvested in the heat, and then, during a long period of inconceivable cold, had actually allowed the land to lie dormant. “They let quickened land go to waste?” Brek protested unbelievingly. “No wonder they started to run out of food.”

  “All their land was quickened,” Noren pointed out. “It stayed that way naturally. Besides, the seed wouldn’t sprout when it was too cold.”

  “What made it colder at some times than at others?”

  Noren explained how the axis of a planet was frequently tilted to the plane of its orbit, a mathematical concept that was far clearer to him than the thought of weather being so cold that people could not go outdoors without heavy clothing. Science had taught him that water solidified and formed crystals at low temperatures, just as it had taught him countless other facts about the behavior of chemical elements; but though he’d been exposed to intense cold in a laboratory once, it was hard to imagine such a state prevailing throughout large areas.

  Harvest time ended the outpost’s dependence on grain brought by aircar, but with harvest came not larger rations but more people. There had been a vote to decide whether the founding of another city should continue and the project had been approved by a large majority. Its advocates included not only Scholars who believed that any future experimentation was more likely than ever to be hazardous, but those who felt that an optimistic defiance of fate was more fitting under the circumstances than a perhaps-futile attempt to husband the City’s reserves. So expansion proceeded, and the policy of scant meals remained in effect. Hunger was less noticeable than at first; the original group had become inured to it. Moreover, enough fowl had been raised to provide eggs for eating as well as hatching. Before, there had been nothing but bread and water.

  Water, of course, had been—and still was—the most difficult problem. At first it had all been imported from the City. Even to wash one’s hands in impure water was an unwarranted risk, since the element causing chromosome damage would, over a period of time, be absorbed through the skin. Not one drop of the precious cistern supply could be spilled. What rainfall there was increased it, but only twice had there been rain. Both storms had been in the evening, and everyone had marveled to see water come from the sky at any hour but the pre-noon one, when it fell four days out of six in the region of controlled weather. It had been exciting, for the unpredicted deluge seemed a gift from above; men had stripped off most of their clothes to revel in it. But not enough free water could be counted on to provide for crops, and before planting had begun it had been necessary to complete both a purification plant and the power plant on which it depended, as well as the purified clay pipes of the irrigation system.

  The water-processing and power plants were much smaller than their City counterparts, and had been put together from barely adequate materials obtained by sacrificing reserves. The job had been tricky. At the time Noren had been working on the tower’s upper levels and had not participated; but now, besides his shift of farm labor, he was on duty alt
ernate nights at the fusion reactor, which was located in its original compartment within the former starship. Although not yet knowledgeable enough to deal with any emergency, he could call the head engineer in case of problems, and it was vital that a continuous vigil be kept. Maintenance of nuclear power was the Scholars’ most critical duty, for without that power none of the other essentials could function. Once Noren would have considered his a post of honor, yet he found the long watch hours dark; they left all too much time for thinking.

  Brek’s non-farm job was the one he’d held as a Technician: the servicing of radiophone and other electronic equipment. In their spare time, he and Noren continued to study together. This had become a torment for Noren, since it seemed wholly futile, and in his private studies he ignored nuclear physics to concentrate on pure mathematics; still he could not turn Brek’s questions aside. Wearily, he explained the vast difference between the kind of nuclear fusion that occurred in the power plant and the kind that would be needed to synthesize metal. Power generation involved fusion of hydrogen isotopes, the lightest atoms in existence. Because the repulsive force between elements was proportional to the product of their atomic numbers, the fusing of heavier elements would demand great amounts of energy—so great that in nature, such elements were created only in the interiors of stars, where there were temperatures and pressures beyond imagination. Metal-rich stars and planets formed in regions of space where other stars had previously exploded. . . .

  As he said this to Brek, Noren faltered and broke off, overwhelmed suddenly by the implications of a thing he’d originally learned by rote. An exploding star was a nova. Were some types of novas necessary to the evolution of habitable planets? Brek, looking at him, grasped the point and quickly switched the subject. That was the difference between other Scholars and himself, Noren thought ruefully. The others could turn from such enigmas; he could not . . . but neither could he solve them.