Vris’ sudden swing from playful banter to, well, to whatever this revelation about her childhood was, shocked me. I wanted to understand her, to empathize too, but I didn’t know what to say. My folks were Reformed Jews. I, too, had drifted from synagogue since college, but my family did not come from Eastern Europe, and had only a common religious connection to those that suffered the Holocaust. I had even dated a couple of Catholic girls in high school and college without raising my parent’s ire.
I led Vris over to a couple of seat-sized rocks in the lava field, and gently guided her onto one, while I sat across from her on another. The sun broke over the horizon and began to warm our sides through our jackets.
“Help me to understand, Vris. What has the Woman told you in your dreams, and how is it like the things your mom said?”
She wiped her tears. “Ben, I’m not always sure what she means, only that she is kind—incredibly kind—and deeply hurt. Her emotional pain reminds me of my mother’s, I guess. She tells me her children cannot understand what has happened to them, or even remember, but that someday their descendants will. She says the answers are not where we think. I worked hard as a girl to win scholarships to the best universities. My mother always supported me in my desire for education, but she also warned that life’s most important questions are not answered at university.”
“My mother always seemed to tell me the opposite. Somehow I think yours is closer to the truth.”
Vris smiled. “If they let us live, I intend to tell her just that.”
My heart froze. “What do you mean, ‘if they let us live?’ Now who’s being the drama queen? They can’t kill us. We’re too well-known in our fields. They could never get away with it!”
“Maybe I am being melodramatic, but I didn’t surrender my only cell phone when they put me on the plane. The one I kept is a GPS satellite phone that takes photos. I’ve been getting shots of the Device and vidies of the Woman for over a week now. Norby helped me get the videos.”
“Why’d you do it?”
“I have to travel a lot, so I brought the GPS cell in case my mother had an emergency, and needed to reach me. I know I can’t use it to call out without being overheard. But if she needed to call in, I could always explain that. I load the pictures onto a flash drive every night, and then delete them from both the phone and my laptop.”
“Vris, didn’t you see the cameras inside the clean-room? What if Stavenger catches you with your flash drive, and looks at your pictures?”
She sniffed and then laughed. “You are so the drama queen, Ben—and I mean that only in the manliest sense of the term!” I started laughing, too. She said, “Of course, I saw the cameras. That’s why I always stand with my back to them, and keep the cell phone palmed under my silk clean-room gloves.”
“Stavenger’s not a fool! He might accept the thing about your mother, but the photo card? He could take you while pictures are still on it!”
She looked at me with cool eyes. “Then I go the way of my father. The truth must be told! The human race has had amnesia long enough. Our view of our origins shapes what we do with our future. The Woman says something to us that we cannot ignore.”
“What’s that?”
“That it is not insanity that creates human evil, Ben, but the other way around. I don’t mean brain impairment from birth or injury; I mean that an unwillingness to face moral reality will eventually turn into an inability to do so. Individuals destroy the tools for facing it inside their own hearts, and eventually whole civilizations do the same thing, on an institutional scale. They effectively burn their own bridges back to moral sanity.”
What she said brought a new term to my mind, for something I thought I had sensed all around me for some time, but which until now, had eluded coherent definition, much less expression.
I said, “Epistemological breakdown.”
“What?”
“The thing you described, when you spoke of destroying tools and burning bridges. Epistemology is the study of the process of knowing—the mechanics of how we know stuff. Epistemological breakdown is when people, either as individuals or as entire civilizations, lose the ability to connect the dots, and can’t associate causes with effects any longer.”
“I’m talking about values, Ben, not intellectualizing!”
“Reason and ethics are inseparably intertwined,” I said. “There is moral cause-and-effect; we see it all the time, as in the story of the boy who cried ‘wolf’ once too often, then found that nobody believed him, even when the wolf was real. What are you talking about, Vris, if not that? You speak in the very language of cause-and-effect when you say that insanity does not create evil, but the other way around.”
Her forehead creased, as if I were suddenly speaking some foreign language to her. The morning sun began to warm the dark lava rocks we sat on. “B-but it’s not the same as it is in something like physics; it can’t be.”
I pressed the point home. “Sure it can; ever wonder what happened to the Mayans? They weren’t taken by UFOs, or wiped out by a plague, you know. All the evidence seems to suggest that they simply abandoned their cities, and their society, over a period of a few generations. One by one, family by family, they quietly slipped away from their comfortable, advanced cities, into the jungle, to subsist as hunter-gatherers. Their religion required human sacrifices. The more unsustainable their society became because of fewer people, the more the priestly caste panicked, increasing the demand for human sacrifices. Why couldn’t they see the self-perpetuating connection?”
“It was just their culture, Ben. They had a spiritual crisis that their religion had no answers for…”
“Their religion was the spiritual crisis, Vris. We get the word culture from the Latin cult, which describes religion. The cult is that which defines reality for a civilization, even when that cult does not express itself in what we consider ‘traditional religious’ terms. For example, ideologies like Marxism and Atheism function as religious dogmas on the level of how the mind processes information and belief—the foundational level of idea mechanics—of epistemology. All belief systems require faith at the bottom line, and then look for evidence to support that faith. Moral sanity had broken down for the Mayans many generations before they abandoned their cities, and their ‘cult’ had embraced this breakdown, and somehow mainstreamed it into the culture.”
“Insanity does not spread like a viral contagion, Ben.”
I was on a roll, frightening even myself, as it all came together for me for the first time, and I spoke it to her aloud. “No, but worldviews do. We absorb them without thinking about them. What if some of them are as toxic to the psyche as a virus is to the body? Civilizations that practice things like human sacrifice on a large scale have one thing in common—they all have a brief shelf life. Oh, the practice passes on to other peoples, but usually only in tiny secret sects that the mainstream society abhors. Once the mainstream society accepts things so contrary to a healthy human condition, though, fear turns into stress, and then into barely concealed terror. People can’t live like that for long.”
Vris said, “I think I see what you’re saying, but it’s not just about fear, it’s about truth. Moral truth must objectively fit the human condition, not be tortured into suiting the whims of whoever has the power to impose their will. Those Mayan priests ruled by fear, and by arbitrary omens that existed only to reinforce their power. They became the center of the universe, living off the momentum of generations of genius, sweat, and self-discipline that first gave them their position of comfort and control!”
I said, “Exactly! They lost interest in truth, and when that happened, they lost motivation for further discovery—after all, if there’s no objective truth; then there’s nothing really out there worth discovering, and no reason to expend the effort, beyond maintaining present comforts. But a kind of ‘social entropy’ ensured that those comforts became costlier to maintain each year. In time, the Mayans no longer saw a relationship between the
ir priest’s religious demands, and the compulsion to flee, which those demands put on real farmers and artisans. Once the priestly caste died off—inbred, degenerate, and riddled with madness—the deserted cities became a habitation of ghosts and demons to the jungle folk, whose grandparents were smart enough, ethically speaking, to get out while they still could.”
Vris looked up at me, eyes filled with a horror I had never seen before on so intelligent and beautiful a face. “Ben, there are no jungles left for a global civilization to vanish into. Your country was the world’s last human hope.”
I said, “Vris; don’t be afraid. Stavenger has the recordings of our conversations about the dreams. He won’t kill us. He’ll simply use those to discredit us if he thinks we become troublesome.”
She raised an eyebrow at me. “To do that, Ben, he would need to admit to the existence of the Device. I don’t see that happening, do you?”
At first, they led a somewhat wretched existence and lived without rule after the manner of beasts. But, in the first year appeared an animal endowed with human reason, named Oannes, who rose from out of the Erythian Sea, at the point where it borders Babylonia. He had the whole body of a fish, but above his fish’s head, he had another head, which was that of a man, and human feet emerged from beneath his fish’s tail. He had a human voice, and an image of him is preserved unto this day. He passed the day in the midst of men without taking food; he taught them the use of letters, sciences, and arts of all kinds. He taught them to construct cities, to found temples, to compile laws, and explained to them the principles of geometrical knowledge. He made them distinguish the seeds of the earth, and showed them how to collect the fruits; in short he instructed them in everything which could tend to soften human manners and humanize their laws. From that time, nothing material has been added by way of improvement to his instructions. And when the sun set, this being Oannes, retired again into the sea, for he was amphibious. After this, there appeared other animals like Oannes.
—Berossus
(A Babylonian priest of the 3rd century BC)
15
Uannu
66
U’Sumi thumped the water-screw revolution gauge inside the tiny wheelhouse of the Sun Ship Amirdu II, and told his helmsman to decrease his revolutions to one-third speed. Then he nodded to his signalman to flag the Ursunabi to do the same. The other sun ship’s oracle broke nearly two years ago, and Amirdu’s set was down to its last spare transmitter.
Sun shone over calm seas, outside the polished glass domes serving as windows on the forward three sides of the ship’s wheelhouse. Air vents on either side of the bubbles, and on the aft bulkhead with its open hatch, kept the compartment from getting uncomfortably hot. Ugly tarred patchwork around corroded fittings told the Captain that they had all been at sea for far too long.
Hardly a day passed that did not find some way of reminding U’Sumi how tremendously they had underestimated the size and scope of their mission to map the new world, in obedience to Iyared’s Charge to U’Sumi’s father. Whether sent by sea monsters, storms, irreplaceable broken equipment, or the need to stop and farm some remote shore for a year to replenish their provisions or to mine for metals hard enough to machine into replacement drive shafts, the message was always the same.
The worst reminders were the mutinies. Seven years ago, U’Sumi had marooned six men on an island for trying to instigate the rest of the crew into seizing the Amirdu—six men who would never marry or see families again—who would have no children in an underpopulated world where people were rarer than gold. Several vessels failed to make their rendezvous points, and those that had, carried similar news of why the others had not.
Crews were breaking.
At least one captain had died at the hands of his men. Of the others, only Haviri, captain of the Ursunabi, had reported no mutiny incident of some sort. Two ships had not been in contact since the ten vessels had separated, on their first year out.
U’Sumi’s father had taken Iyared’s Oath at the ancient Archon’s deathbed, in another world, the better part of a millennium ago. At the time, it would have been impossible for anyone to predict the present rigors. This reinforced U’Sumi’s well-developed conviction that most oaths were stupid ones. It would have been wiser simply to trust E’Yahavah to land the Boat of a Million Years near enough to the center of landmass distribution to make trivial any distinction in future population spread distances.
U’Sumi grimaced as he remembered—not for the first time since leaving Uruk Haven—a conversation with his most loyal and able student. The leadership crisis among the Sun Ships always brought back this memory, not just for the conversation topic, but because of how much he wished he had more men of his student’s character commanding in the mapping fleet.
Nimurta’s leadership integrity had set him apart not only from Khumi’s other descendants, but from most of U’Sumi’s as well. If not for Nimurta’s zeal for E’Yahavah, and his negotiation skills, Clan Khumi would have broken away into a hostile power a century ago. Only Nimurta could be trusted to lead Uruk, first because of his quality, and second because of his influence within Clan Khumi, the spreading tribes of which surrounded the first seaport of the Second World.
The Sun Ships were still under construction in Uruk Haven’s boatyards, when U’Sumi and Nimurta had spoken together by an evening fire, over bowls of wine after a long day’s work.
Nimurta had said, “It’s not my place to call anything into question, but I am curious.”
“About what?”
“When Archon Iyared gave his charge to the Zhui’Sudra, why didn’t he trust E’Yahavah to suitably land you? Even if the Earth’s geographic center of landmass is elsewhere, the center of distribution for the future spread of humanity is here. Iyared’s concern that a central monument be set equally distant to the edges of population expansion would be met anyway.”
U’Sumi had nodded. “You may be right. But that’s not how the oath was worded. Also, even though we’re at the center of population expansion, if we are not equally close to the Earth’s geographic center, then eventually the population will expand further on one end than it can on the others. Archon Iyared wanted as close to equal access as possible to our Monument of Roots for future clans who dwell beyond the places chosen by lot.”
Nimurta had accepted this with the same agreeable grace as he had all of U’Sumi’s words. Since the discovery of so many distant continents separated by vast oceans, however, the M’El-Ki saw that Nimurta had most likely been right. Iyared had lived in a world comprised of one vast super-continent, accessible mostly by foot, with only narrow straits separating its landmasses. The old Archon could not have imagined or predicted today’s world, short of Divine word. Which raised a question Nimurta had never raised, but which had haunted U’Sumi for much of his time at sea.
His only consolation was something his father had once called a “Gray Zone,” between the infallibility of direct Divine authority and fallible, yet sincere, human authority exercised in the Divine Name. While the personal oaths of dying Archons bore legal force, even the sons of Q’Enukki had often debated if they carried the weight of Divine writ. The deathbed policies of Archons after Seti had often conflicted with each other. It seemed now a cold comfort.
U’Sumi watched the late morning sun shimmer across the calm ocean. Ursunabi’s crescent-shaped silhouette lay some thousand cubits off Amirdu’s port bow, according to the precision markings in the window-bubble’s magnification scale. The sister ship’s sun-sails were taut on their spars, automatically leveled at the orb’s zenith, but by halyard tension, not wind. Both vessels were becalmed, and operating fully on screw propulsion. Wind would have been faster.
He asked his deck officer, “Is it almost time?”
“Aye, Sire.”
U’Sumi exited the wheelhouse, and laid up to the oracle shack, which sat less than twenty cubits aft, across the open passage connecting the ship’s beam decks, then up a small ladder, int
o a narrow companionway inside the modest aft superstructure.
The oracle operator, Malaq, was already on the set. “All ships, all ships, this is Amirdu; is there anybody out there?”
A scratchy voice replied over the crystal voice-receiver. “Sun Ship, Paru’Ainu…location at… This is Captain Psydon. We barely receive you over the air-spirits’ roar.” The distant captain spoke of the scratchy noises that, likewise, almost drowned out his voice to the listeners aboard Amirdu.
U’Sumi took the sender piece from Malaq. “This is the M’El-Ki, our course is null-one-seven, speed at one third by water screw. Ursunabi is still alongside. Our last navigational fix shows that we will cross the Equator some time tonight, at approximately sixteen degrees longitude, Uruk Haven Mean. What is your position?”
The oracle set gave only the air-spirits buzzing as a reply.
U’Sumi had grown quite used to that noise after twenty-five plus years at sea, or laid up for repairs at some remote temporary harbor. The oracle sets came from a time when the Earth’s internal lodestone was much more powerful than now. Their design reflected ether-wave sensitivities compatible with back when the First Heaven’s surface had been a good deal thicker, and more protective, against sun-flares than since the Great Deluge.
The Sun Ship Fleet had only discovered how badly this would affect their ability to communicate and coordinate their mapping expeditions after they had separated toward their assigned global zones, a week after they had first lost contact with Arrata. They had known of the problem before that, just not the degree to which it would hamper their work. They had correctly expected to lose communication with Arrata, obstructed as it was by so many mountain ranges. They had incorrectly expected better oracle performance over flat, uninterrupted oceans.
Before contact with the other ships was lost altogether, rather than forsake Iyared’s Oath, U’Sumi had assigned a schedule of planned meets with each of the vessels at different coordinates and times. This necessity had caused the entire expedition to take much longer than was originally anticipated. During the last ten years, only a little over half the ships had met him at their assigned points, and only one momentary contact had reached the oracle set at Arrata from Amirdu.
Gate of the Gods: Book 5 of The Windows of Heaven Page 23