‘I am not … wholly surprised,’ Danlo said. Because he was in playful mood – playful in the fierce way of a Fravashi Old Father who inflicts upon his adversaries the angslan, the mind pain leading to the light of heightened awareness – he used his flute to point out of the window at the blue-black ocean. ‘This is a splendid view, yes? Perhaps you would hope that this view from the Holy Ivi’s palace might be yours … forever.’
Bertram’s face fell purple with fury, for a moment, and then like a snake shedding its skin inch by inch, he seemed to shrug off this dangerous emotion.
‘There’s no need to insult us, Pilot,’ he said. ‘We’ve come here tonight in faith, in the hope that we might work together toward a common purpose.’
Danlo, remembering the hell of the alam al-mithral that Bertram’s fellow conspirators had programmed for him, listened in astonishment to Bertram’s words and wondered if he might not be hallucinating again. ‘Truly?’ he asked. ‘Do you truly believe … that we share a purpose?’
Bertram smiled then, for him a wholly unnatural exertion that seemed most unsuited to his implacable face. ‘Does not the Algorithm say that all men share the purpose of moving toward the one light of Ede the God? Please, may we tell you something of our purpose, and then we shall see if we can help each other?’
Slowly Danlo nodded his head. ‘If you’d like, then.’
While Danlo rolled his flute slowly back and forth between his hands, Bertram cleared the phlegm from his throat and began to speak. ‘First, we would like to congratulate you on your triumph in the House of Eternity. We admire your courage, your ingenuity in the face of falling madness. What a mind you have, Pilot! We’ve been a Reader for thirty years, and we’ve never had the pleasure of reading out the programs of such a mind as yours. Did you know that many people are already calling you the Lightbringer? They believe your last test will be the easiest and that the program of your success is already written.’
‘You do not appear as disturbed by this possibility as you were in the Hall of the Koivuniemin.’
‘These past days, we’ve had much time to reflect upon your coming to our world,’ Bertram said. His voice was sweet now – too sweet like a blood tea overladen with honey. ‘We confess that at first, it seemed impossible that a naman could be the Lightbringer out of our holy Algorithm. But you are no common naman. The Elders whom you’ve entertained in your rooms attest to your unusual knowledge and appreciation of our eternal Church. Many are saying that you’re already an Architect in spirit. It only remains for you to make the Profession of Faith and submit to a cleansing, and you would be one of us.’
‘I … am not ready to do that,’ Danlo said.
And then, remembering his tragic involvement with the Way of Ringess on Neverness, he thought, I will never again join my life with any religion.
‘Very well,’ Bertram said, ‘but we believe it’s not impossible for you to be a great presence in our Church. As Lightbringer, of course, if that is written, but possibly as a Reader, yourself, or even someday an Elder.’
Danlo pressed his flute to his lips to hide his amusement at this bizarre suggestion, and he tried not to smile. ‘My Order,’ he said, ‘forbids any pilot or academician to hold formal position in any religion.’
‘But you were not born into your Order. And it is not necessarily written that you will die a pilot.’
‘Do you suggest that I abjure my vows, then?’
‘Others have,’ Bertram said.
‘Sivan wi Mawi Sarkissian?’ Danlo said, naming the renegade pilot who had ferried Malaclypse Redring across half the galaxy. And then, shaking his head, he said, ‘No – I would never.’
‘You can’t imagine how many Architects across Tannahill are calling for you to succeed tomorrow,’ Bertram said. ‘You can’t imagine how they hope you are the Lightbringer.’
‘I … am sorry.’
‘A man must follow the program written for him,’ Bertram said.
‘I am sorry but I must … follow my star.’
At this, Bertram’s sweaty fingers formed themselves into two tight little fists. Hatred flashed across his face, to be replaced a moment later by condescension and a glittering friendliness as false as plastic pearls. He said, ‘Only a naman would speak so poetically.’
‘But I am a naman, yes?’
‘Did you know, Pilot, that in the year 1089, when our missionaries reached Durriken, ten million namans simultaneously made the Profession of Faith and became Architects?’
‘No.’
‘Did you know that one of these former namans, Vishnu Harith na vio Ede, the forty-first Holy Ivi, rose to the architetcy itself?’
‘No … I did not know that.’
‘Such miracles are always possible,’ Bertram said. ‘If a common programmer such as Vishnu Harith could rise to be our Holy Ivi, why not the man who would be Lightbringer?’
For a moment – but only a moment – Danlo sat on his cushion wondering what it would be like to be the spiritual master and ultimate religious authority for untold billions of people. Because such a fantastic dream amused him, he wanted to smile. But because Bertram Jaspari, with his sweaty little hands and dead eyes, sat waiting for an answer, he only bowed his head politely and said, ‘I am sorry.’
‘You’re sorry!’ Now the hatred (and envy) burned across Bertram’s face again, filling up his neck veins as a drill worm swells with blood. ‘Naman – you could be the High Holy Architect of the Cybernetic Universal Church!’
No, never that, Danlo thought. The Iviomils would murder me first.
‘Well?’
‘I … am only a pilot,’ Danlo said. ‘It is all I ever want to be.’
‘Namans!’
Now Danlo finally smiled. ‘Across the stars … there are so many of us, yes?’
Having failed at falsehood, Bertram decided to share with Danlo part of his real purpose. ‘Indeed, you namans are everywhere. But it’s written in the Algorithm that each naman is a seed of an Architect as a child is the beginning of a man. Give the seed the correct amount of water and sunlight, and what a worthy tree will grow! It’s written in God’s Infinite Program for the Universe that all men and women will someday be trees worthy of Ede’s infinite light. Even if you don’t believe this, Pilot, you must appreciate our Church’s mission to water these seeds and fill the stars with such forests.’
‘I would never have dreamed,’ Danlo said, smiling, ‘that a Church Elder such as yourself could speak so poetically.’
This compliment of Danlo’s seemed only to irritate Bertram, for he scowled and said, ‘I only repeat what is written in the Algorithm. This isn’t poetry – it’s just the truth, Pilot.’
‘All right, the truth, then, if you’d like.’
‘You must appreciate our problem,’ Bertram said. ‘So many Iviomils we’ve sent forth into the stars. So many who would bring God’s program to the namans. And so many Architects of the Long Pilgrimage who have been lost to our Church. All these Worthy, Pilot. They’ve either never known Tannahill or will never see it again. How are we to ensure that they remember the Program and do not inadvertently seek to alter or edit it? How do we save them from falling into negative programs? You think of us Iviomils as mindlessly rigid, but we are not. We merely return to the purity of the past and the exact remembrance of Ede’s sacred words. If we did not, the Iviomils we’ve sent to Lenci and Zoheret and all the other worlds might fall into error and bring a stained light to the namans. We can’t and won’t allow any Architect to fall into false programs.’
‘I see.’
‘Do you, Pilot? Do you also see that the Holy Ivi must someday find a way to re-establish contact with all the Iviomils we’ve sent forth into the stars?’
Danlo drummed his fingers along the holes of his flute, then asked, ‘Do you truly mean contact or … control?’
‘All Architects must make a vow of obedience,’ Bertram said.
‘I see.’
‘Will you help us?’ Bertr
am asked. ‘You know our need. You could train our ships’ programmers to pilot through the stars.’
Danlo shut his eyes, then, remembering what it was like to take a lightship through the strange and fiery spaces of the manifold.
‘It would be possible,’ Bertram said, ‘for us to send our Iviomils as far as Tarrus, and for them to return in a few years, rather than a few lifetimes.’
‘If I could train your Iviomils, it would be possible,’ Danlo said.
‘Well?’
‘I am sorry – I cannot train another to be a pilot.’
Bertram’s face tightened as if he had lockjaw, then he said, ‘Oh, you could help us, Pilot. But you will not – this is all your will, you know.’
‘No – my order does not permit solitary pilots to give away the secrets of our art.’
‘Your godless, programless order.’
‘I have made my vows,’ Danlo said. ‘But even if I were willing to break them, it is hard to make pilots.’
‘But not impossible.’
‘The finest genius of my order is plied toward making people into pilots,’ Danlo said. ‘So many … are called. But so few are chosen. And fewer of these become journeymen, much less full pilots.’
Journeymen die, Danlo remembered. In the manifold, it is so easy to die.
‘But you’ve said your order would train the Narain children to become pilots.’
‘Yes.’
‘The Narain heretics!’
‘We would also train Architects from Tannahill. But you would have to send your children to the Academy the Order is building on Thiells.’
‘That will never happen,’ Bertram snapped. ‘Do you think we would place our children in the hands of namans? Our children? No, no – never.’
Danlo blinked his eyes at the hatred he saw pouring out of Bertram like gouts of sweat. He said, ‘Isn’t that for the Holy Ivi to decide?’
‘Exactly,’ Bertram said, and his eyes fell as dead as stones dropping out of the sky. ‘The Holy Ivi.’
‘The Holy Ivi, Harrah Ivi en li Ede,’ Danlo said, staring at Bertram.
Bertram nodded his pointed head. ‘A very dangerous woman. We’ve said this before. We believe that she might attempt to redefine the Program of Totality. And the Program of Increase.’
Danlo sat very still as he looked into the dead grey ice of Bertram’s eyes. He touched his lips to his flute, but he said nothing.
‘We believe that she might be ready to receive a new Program. And to install this Program as a final monument to her architetcy.’
Danlo felt a rare burst of hatred blazing through his own eyes, and he stared at Bertram until the older man looked away.
‘As yet,’ Bertram said, somewhat nervously, ‘we believe that she lacks enough support with the Koivuniemin to dare receive a New Program. But she seeks only a sign, Pilot. Your success tomorrow as the Lightbringer would enable her to ruin the Church with this new Program.’
For the count of five heartbeats, Danlo did not move. And then he asked, ‘Why did you come here tonight?’
Bertram suddenly turned his head and looked at the blue and red parrotock bird perched in its steel cage. He looked at the room’s plastic door and at the flowers hanging down the wall; he looked at the altar where the hologram of Nikolos Daru Ede floated above the devotionary computer like some disembodied angel of God watching him, waiting for him to say something. lastly, as the sweat leaked from the pores of his face, he braved looking at Danlo once more.
‘You have the power to save our Church,’ Bertram said. ‘You. Pilot.’
‘Please, go on.’
‘If you were to fail your test tomorrow, you could say that you were still ill from your Walk with the Dead. You wouldn’t be permitted to undergo a new test, of course, but you would still have your pride.’
Danlo closed his eyes for a moment as he slowly shook his head. He did not want to believe what Bertram was asking of him; so great was his bewilderment at these words that it seemed Bertram might have been speaking an alien language.
‘You wish me deliberately to … dishonour myself?’
‘Not dishonour, Pilot. Only the pride of doing what you must. The pride of a worthy man who would submit to God’s Infinite Program.’
This is his true purpose in coming here tonight, Danlo thought. All his other proposals were only as an illusionist’s sleight of hand.
‘Will you help us, Pilot?’
Danlo shook his head as he brought his flute to his lips. He played a long, lonely note which filled the room like the cry of the snowy owl.
‘We would like so much to help you,’ Bertram said. ‘Perhaps we could help each other.’
Danlo stared at Bertram, and then he put down his flute. In a soft voice that was almost a whisper, he said, ‘Yes, I would like your help.’
For the second time that evening, Bertram smiled. ‘It’s the duty of all Elders to help their children toward the truth.’
‘I would like you to help me to be alone,’ Danlo said. He bowed his head toward the door. ‘Please go.’
Instantly, Bertram’s face fell back into its cyanine scowl. Although he tried his best to force a smile, other programs inside him were doing their work. ‘You misunderstand me!’ he said, outraged at Danlo’s request.
‘No – it is just the opposite.’
‘Listen to me, Pilot!’
‘No – I am sorry.’
‘We’ve asked for your help in great matters,’ Bertram said. He rubbed his sweaty hands together like a Trian merchant about to propose an exchange of goods. ‘And so, in return, it would be only fair for me to offer you a gift.’
‘I … desire no gifts.’
‘Really?’
‘I want only to be alone. It is all that I ask.’
‘But it was not all you asked on the day that you addressed the Koivuniemin.’
A sudden pain blossomed inside Danlo’s head with all the brilliance of a fireflower opening to the sun. ‘What … do you mean?’ he said. But as Danlo sat remembering his words to the Koivuniemin on that terrible day of eye-tlolts and death, he suddenly knew very well what Bertram would say next.
‘You came to our world seeking favours for your order,’ Bertram said. ‘But you also sought something for yourself.’
‘Yes,’ Danlo said. Now the pain behind his eyes swelled huge and red like a star falling nova; his throat ached with the hard knot of hope.
‘You sought a cure for the Great Plague. You said that this disease was killing the tribes of Alaloi people who had adopted you.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you hoped that we Architects might know of a cure.’
‘But there is no cure. Harrah herself believed that it wasn’t the Architects of the Old Church who had engineered the Plague virus. She … knows of no cure.’
‘Our Holy Ivi doesn’t know everything,’ Bertram said.
For what seemed a long time, Danlo held his breath. There was a huge knot in his throat that no amount of swallowing could dislodge. It felt as if his heart itself were stuck there, throbbing in pain. ‘If you will,’ he finally said, ‘please tell me what the Holy Ivi does not know.’
Quickly, because Bertram still had need of great hurry, he told Danlo of a quest that he himself had completed. As an Elder, he said, he was permitted entrance to certain Church archives forbidden to mere Readers or any of the Worthy Architects. And in one of these ancient information pools, he had discovered many records from the War of the Faces. Of particular interest was the testament of Radomil Ivi Illanes, one of the Holy Ivis who had led the Old Church through the final phases of the War. Although this testament was incomplete, its information having been lost or expurgated over the last thousand years, a few of his words drew Bertram’s attention as a new star captures the eyes of all who behold her: ‘We have done a terrible thing. It was a great error for my predecessors to ally the Church with the Warrior-Poets. And it was madness for them to accede in the making of the virus. It has
slain our enemies in their billions as the engineers foretold, but now this virus has mutated. It afflicts even the Worthy, they who remain faithful to the Program and to our eternal Church. Our engineers have made a cure, but it already may be too late to save many of my children from a terrible death.’
Bertram sighed as he fingered the dobra covering his head, and he finished telling his story. ‘Ivi Radomil ordered his engineers to build an anti-virus. He saved the Church. But so many of our Architects did indeed die that we were forced to flee into the darkest part of the galaxy. Here, on Tannahill, we live on, Pilot. And here, in our holy archives, lives the information that you seek. It seems that the anti-virus is complex and hard to assemble, but I’ve already spoken to several engineers who are certain they could synthesize a cure.’
‘Truly?’ Danlo asked. Because his eyes burned with the water of his terrible hope, he covered them and stared out the window. Then, after a while, he turned to see Bertram staring at him. The Elder’s face was tight with impatience and guile. ‘I … do not believe you,’ Danlo said.
‘To lie deliberately is a hakr,’ Bertram smugly said. ‘We Elders have been cleansed of such programs. We don’t lie.’
And that itself is a lie, Danlo thought. And then, Could it be that he tells the truth? Ahira, Ahira – what should I believe?
‘You’ve come so far, Pilot. You’ve waited so long. And now the cure that you seek is almost in your hands.’
Danlo squeezed his flute so tightly that he feared it might break. He said, ‘Out of compassion for the fate of my people, then, you have come here tonight to offer me this cure?’
‘We are an Elder of the Church,’ Bertram said. ‘And so we must have compassion for many people. All our Architects, here on Tannahill, and those lost among the stars. All namans who would be Architects.’
‘I see.’
‘You desire to save your people. And we desire to save ours.’
‘I see.’
‘Will you help us, Pilot? Will you let our engineers synthesize a cure?’
‘No – I do not believe you know of a cure. I do not want … to believe you.’
‘Pilot!’
After taking in a deep breath and feeling his heart beat five times, Danlo said, ‘Yes?’
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