by Ian Stewart
Aquifer’s ice caverns housed a monastery of equals. Certain special, selected devotees of Cosmic Unity—“monks,” to use an archaic term—spent their days there in total seclusion, dedicating their lives to coexistence with other species. As well as the monks, there were a few technicians and medics, some menials and orderlies to assist them, and a few security guards. Quite a lot of security guards, actually. Sam vaguely wondered why.
It was a harsh lifestyle, as he now knew from personal experience. Above all, the caverns were cold. Not because they were beneath the polar ice cap—the caverns could easily have been warmed without melting the ice, merely by applying the appropriate insulating materials. No, they were cold because most of the monks were gas-giant blimps, who could not survive in temperatures that humans would find comfortable without life-support equipment. Higher authority was represented by a wide variety of species, in agreement with the Quota of Love, as was only proper. Like most creatures that lived on gas giants, the blimps adhered to universal phenotypes, and so resembled the sacred Jovians who had taken part in the Prime Mission, the first diaspora of Cosmic Unity. In particular, they were balloonists. But also, again like most creatures that lived on gas giants, they differed from these fabled progenitors in countless ways. The universality of the balloonist phenotype was a consequence of convergent evolution, not identical biochemistry. Just as most sea beings of a certain weight and size had fins and a tail, their body plan was the inevitable outcome of fluid dynamics. There were only so many ways to swim.
Sam had no idea what planet he was on, or where it was, but he did manage to work out why the Monastery of the Nether Ice Dome was so cold. The religious authorities had been led to a compromise, one that was equally uncomfortable for the main species represented in the monastery. The caverns were distinctly too warm for blimps, and way too cold for several other species present, with the notable exception of the cold-blooded Gra’aan, who were at home whatever the temperature as long as their blood remained liquid. There were very few Gra’aan in Cosmic Unity. Their homeworlds had not yet converted, but like many species they had some members in the Church, often immigrants or passing visitors to worlds undergoing conversion.
In the monastery, each species was permitted to wear minimal life support—not effective enough to reproduce their own comfortable conditions, but effective enough to keep them alive. And uncomfortable. And equal, which was the point. Sam quickly understood that personal comfort was irrelevant. Indeed, it was good for one’s lifesoul to suffer for the advancement of cosmic equality. That point had featured in his very first lesson as a trainee healer.
Equality itself, of course, was a compromise. Sam wore a lightweight breathing mask to compensate for the planet’s low oxygen levels; the blimps, on the other hand, were completely enveloped in translucent sacks and carried heavy tanks of compressed gases. The planet’s atmospheric composition was much closer to Sam’s requirements than it was to a blimp’s, so here the blimp was less equal than Sam. On the other hand, the blimp’s envelope was more effective at cooling its wearer than Sam’s thin cloak was at keeping him warm, so here the blimp gained an advantage.
It all evened out, and again, that was the point.
Although most of the monks were blimps, quite a few other races were represented. So far Sam had run across some miserable-looking Thunchch, a bunch of distinctly unhealthy Hytth insectoids, a few metallomorphs hitching rides on the other monks, and one solitary Gra’aan. The Gra’aan were social creatures, and became afraid when removed from the safety of the herd; this one was clearly teetering on the edge of terror the whole time, and would eventually suffer a mental collapse. There were no other humans, and only one humanoid, a female Neanderthal child.
Most unusual. Neanderthals were without faith; they hardly ever joined the Church. But this very rarity made them valuable. He would cherish her lifesoul like any other, but he couldn’t help feeling she was special. He guessed her age to be about seven. Her face was downcast, and she seemed to take little notice of her surroundings. He had never seen her smile.
The monks all had one thing in common: Their lifesouls were very, very sick. You didn’t need to be a healer to see that. It was why they had been brought here, why they had been made monks. Their lifesouls required attention . . . correction. Healing.
He wanted to speak with them and comfort them, but of course he was not yet ready for such sensitive contact. Conversation was permitted only when duties demanded it. In his case, that meant he could talk to other duplicator staff when—and only when—he was duplicating, and to his clients when he was playing the role of healer. During his training he would be permitted to talk to his clients, but only when a fully qualified healer was observing. Only after he had successfully completed his training would he be free to choose when, and to whom, he spoke. And then not in excess.
The physical and mental state of the monks disturbed him. The cavern complex of the Nether Ice Dome may have been a monastery of equals, but spiritually uplifting it was not. Suffering for one’s faith was one thing, Sam thought, but this kind of suffering was unnecessary and upsetting. There was no nobility in it. It was . . . squalid.
Even to think such thoughts made Sam feel ashamed. The ecclesiarchs were the spiritual leaders of a religious movement founded on respect and tolerance, love and universal brotherhood. They were by definition wise and kind. They would never permit such apparent squalor without having a very good reason. The hierocrats would never accept leaders who acted otherwise.
So, Sam reasoned, the discomfort and unhealthy conditions must serve some significant spiritual purpose. The only problem was, he was finding it very difficult to work out what that purpose might be.
Sam spent part of every day running a duplicator, and at those times he was happy. He was happy when he copied sections of metal rod, with screw threads at one end and matching sockets at the other; he was happy when he made smaller batches of pointy things with screw threads, and blunt, rounded things with sockets. He was happy making funny little equilateral triangles in batches of a few thousand. He was happy making coils of wire, nuts and bolts, edged blades, springy semicircles of metallic strip, spikes, metal rings, gas cylinders, brackets, buckets, pots, hammerheads, handles, boxes, irregular lumps of solid steel, plastic badges, ropes, chains, tubes, spouts, switches, funnels, trays, shelves, life-support machinery, floater components, and delicate assemblies of glass and gossamer.
It passed through his mind that many of these items were intended to be assembled in some manner and that they had been designed to be small enough for routine duplication, but he did not attempt to work out how the assembly procedure worked or what its end result would be.
Healer training, by contrast, was a struggle. He found it hard to wrap his head round the convoluted thinking. He had no trouble understanding that the Unity of the Cosmos must transcend the fate or wishes of any individual—that was in accordance with the Great Memes. But the fine points of interpretation were so much more difficult. His mind was in turmoil. He had been trained since birth never to question the motives of his religious superiors. They were wiser and cleverer than he, and there were many things that one as lowly as he was not entitled to know. There were heresies, forbidden questions, and secret doctrines reserved for the eyes and ears of the initiated. On his homeworld, as on Disseminator 714, anything not mandatory had been forbidden. Now, though, he had to learn to think for himself.
That was hard.
He was racked by doubts. He was only the latest in a lineage of humble duplicator operators, not a healer! Healers could penetrate people’s innermost secrets and passions. They could see through the layers of pretense as if they were the clearest glass. They could lay bare a being’s very lifesoul, with all its flaws. And by theological arguments and subtle persuasions, they could correct those flaws and restore the afflicted lifesoul to full spiritual health. How could he, XIV Samuel, hope to attain such intellectual powers, when thirteen previous generations h
ad not improved their standing in the Church? He’d overreached himself. He didn’t want the responsibility. He didn’t want the spiritual fate of thousands to rest on his unaided shoulders.
He tried to tell himself that his crisis of confidence was just a silly panic attack. He would start to feel better when his instructors moved on to the practical aspects of guardianship. Then he would begin to make more meaningful contact with his fellow monks. It would be good to talk to the Neanderthal girl, for instance. Maybe he would be able to cheer her up.
She looked so sad.
Sam was getting used to the cold now. It was astonishing how adaptable the human body could be. He still felt distinctly uncomfortable, but it was becoming easier to concentrate on his assignments. He was beginning to see how a monastery of equals worked, and why it was set up as such a stark environment. Already it had taught him three important things: obedience, patience, and humility.
Today his instructor had welcome news. “You have been diligent, Fourteen Samuel, and the time has come for your diligence to be put to the service of the One.” No mention of diligence being rewarded, for in the Church of Cosmic Unity diligence was its own reward. Sam remembered a wry remark from his childhood teacher, in a different context: “The carrot is, we won’t use the stick.” Yes, that was Cosmic Unity, all right.
But it was a reward nonetheless, even if nobody called it that. His heart had leaped when the querist went on: “It is time for you to begin practical work. You will be assigned a client, a lifesoul in need of healing.”
Praise be to the Lifesoul-Cherisher!
“You will be briefed before each session, to set the boundaries of what you may say and do. For the foreseeable future, Fourteen Samuel, you will not be left alone with your client. Always there will be a querist, or several, observing—perhaps from concealment, perhaps physically present. And after every session with your client, a querist will review your performance and correct your mistakes.
“If you progress sufficiently, you may in time be permitted a degree of independence. Of course, all healing sessions will be recorded and the records placed in the archives. You understand?”
“I do, master.”
“And you understand why?”
His instructor was always asking tricky questions like that. Veenseffer-co-Fropts had a penchant for logical traps. Sam tried to decide what answer the querist wanted. It was so easy to say something stupid, or to reveal an unacceptably tentative grasp of doctrine. “Uh . . . because I am but a novice in such matters, master. And”—he glanced at the querist’s face to get a hint of how well he was answering, but the face was impassive—“And I will benefit from correction by my betters.” No, his instructor wanted more; those were too obvious. “And . . . I must accept responsibility for the consequences of my actions, however far in the future they arise.”
The querist gave him a penetrating stare. “Almost. You will be made to accept responsibility for the consequences of your actions. So those actions must be available for consideration at any time.”
That was really what Sam had meant when he said he must accept responsibility. But it was not his place to argue with his instructor. He nodded. “I stand corrected, master.”
The instructor rose from his stool and began to slide across the chamber. He looked distracted. Then he slithered in a sharp U-turn and raised his foreparts so that his olfactory organ dangled inches from Sam’s face. He had come to some kind of decision.
“There are two lifesouls, among the many that concern me, that are suitable for your limited knowledge of the art of the healer, Fourteen Samuel.”
Sam waited.
“One is a Hytth, who has suffered an amputation and has not yet succeeded in coming to terms with her consequent inability to secure a mate. How would you approach such a client, Fourteen Samuel?”
There was a consensual answer to such soulsickness, and Sam had been reviewing the doctrine only a few days before. “There are comforting words in the Reevaluation of Saint Joan the Profane,” he said. “An extensive passage on the virtues of enforced celibacy, linked to the inspiring tale of Saint Joan and the seventy virgins.”
“That is one way. Obvious, easy, but none the worse for that. The other potential client is more difficult. It is a Neanderthal child. What is the difficulty with Neanderthals?”
“They—well, master, characteristically they lack a sense of the spiritual.”
“Go on.”
“Before the Neanderthal Exodus, when they were Beastmasters, their empathy with animals rendered them insensitive to the signs of the Lifesoul-Cherisher. Even though those signs are everywhere. To a Neanderthal, a sunset is just a star being occulted by the horizon of a spinning planet. They see no beauty in it, and experience no sense of awe. Their empathic sense seems to have subverted their sense of the spiritual, perhaps by taking over the part of their brain that would otherwise attune them to the marvels of the Lifesoul-Cherisher.”
The querist seemed pleased by this comprehensive answer. “Which has what consequence, Fourteen Samuel?”
“Most Neanderthals are deaf to the gospel of the United Cosmos, master. It is notoriously difficult to overcome their skepticism. They seem immune to the usual arguments and evidences. And they can be extraordinarily stubborn.”
“Even at the age of seven years?”
“Especially then.”
“So you would prefer to teach a suffering Hytth the story of Saint Joan and the seventy virgins rather than attempt the taxing task of bringing Dry Leaves Fall Slowly to the truth?”
So that was her name. Sam didn’t hesitate.
“Master, I prefer to accept the challenge, if you deem me worthy. I will attempt to heal the lifesoul of the Neanderthal child.”
“. . . and so the third ornithopt was able to succeed where the others had failed,” said Sam. The Neanderthal girl’s large golden eyes gazed past his face, over his shoulder, at a patch of wall. She seemed unimpressed by the story he was telling her, one of his own childhood favorites. A cultural difference? Or was it a peculiarity of the child herself?
He struggled manfully on. “So, Fall, what does the story tell us?”
The girl stared at her feet. “I miss my mother. You have an ugly, flat face. Your nose is too thin. And you must call me ‘Leaves,’ not ‘Fall.’”
Well, that’s me put in my place, Sam thought. Her second name. Not formal enough to mean that I have any importance to her; not informal enough to accept me as a friend.
“The story tells us that we can learn from the failures of others and avoid repeating their mistakes. Uh . . . I’m sure you will be able to return to your mother once we’ve finished talking about what the story really means,” said Sam.
The child’s eyes lifted and met his. “My mother is dead.”
Sam’s heart sank into his boots. Worse, a querist would be watching this, and it would be recorded and go into the permanent archives. . . . He should have guessed. He should have dug out the information from the archives. Dry Leaves Fall Slowly was the only Neanderthal he had seen in the Nether Ice Dome. He had assumed that her parents were somewhere around, too—just not happening to cross his path. It was a reasonable assumption; he had little freedom of movement in the monastery, and he was sure that he had encountered only a tiny fraction of its denizens.
He felt a complete fool.
“Leaves, I’m terribly sorry,” Sam said. “I didn’t know.”
The child seemed more puzzled than upset. “But you are a priest. Priests know everything. Why did you not know?”
“No, I’m—” Sam stopped. He was one of the priesthood now. He was a novice lifesoul-healer. It was taking some getting used to, and the girl’s calm poise floored him. His face reddened with embarrassment; he felt like bringing an end to the session. But the querist was watching, and he had to continue. Anyway, it was his role as a servant to get through this poor child’s mental barriers and heal the trapped, damaged lifesoul. A lifesoul deprived all too ea
rly of a mother’s love, and thus in mortal danger.
“What about your father?” he asked gently, dreading the answer.
“He is dead, too.”
Somehow, this information was not a surprise. If her father had been alive, the girl would have said so when she first mentioned her mother’s death. This time, though, Sam did not apologize. “Sometimes,” his instructor had told him, “it is necessary to wait in silence. Do not feel a need to fill in gaps in the conversation. Any hiatus should be met with equanimity. It will put pressure on the client to continue talking, and there is a chance that they will reveal something that would otherwise have stayed hidden.”
He waited. So did the child.
If Fall—Leaves—was feeling the pressure, she showed no sign. Feeling increasingly foolish, he stuck to what he had been taught, and remained silent.
An awkward pause, which went on too long. Then: “They killed my grenvil, too.”
He wanted to ask who had killed the small, scaly creature that had clearly been the child’s favorite pet. Instead, obeying his training, he waited, hoping the silence would draw her out. It worked.
“I miss my grenvil. They hurt it. I felt its pain. And I saw what they did. It was horrible. I hate them.” A tear rolled down one cheek—eureka! Finally, a response! “I hate you, too; you are one of them, one of the priests!”
She was shouting now. Spittle ran from her full-lipped mouth. Sam tried to take her hand—touching a client was permitted, provided it was nonthreatening. She jerked it away as if his own were red hot.
What has this child witnessed? He could not believe that a servant of Unity would harm a pet. He wondered whether the animal had perhaps been sick and she had misunderstood an attempt to heal it. Not knowing exactly what had happened, he had to avoid putting his foot in it again.
“It is a bad act to harm an innocent animal,” he finally ventured. “When I was your age, I had a skirrel. I loved it dearly and would never have allowed anyone to hurt it.”