The Abode of Life

by Lee Correy

  Chapter Five

  Orun's story was recorded word for word on Janice Rand's tricorder. The transcript was later relayed into the library computer of the Enterprise, including the comments, questions, and interjections of Kirk, Janice Rand, Scotty, and McCoy.

  Orun began, "We in the Technic now have different interpretations of the original story of the Beginning than that approved by the Guardians because we began to discover new meanings to parts of the old legends. We agree on many parts of these legends, so I'll tell you the original stories we're all told, starting when we're crawling-old, playing-old, and learning-old."

  Janice Rand interrupted with, "Is that how you determine your physical ages—by referring to the most obvious actions a person exhibits during certain periods of life?"

  "Of course. Is there any other way to do it?" Orun asked her in return.

  The yeoman made a quiet aside remark into her tricorder: "Mercans don't count physical age in terms of revolutions of Mercan around Mercaniad. Question: Is this because the irregular variable characteristics of Mercaniad also alter its gravitational constant, thereby changing the length of time required for Mercan to complete an orbit? Or is it because the lack of tilt to the poles reduces the impact of the seasons? Does this mean a lack of time awareness and time concepts? The language contains tenses, but no time references."

  Orun continued, "There was a Beginning of Energy in Disorder. From this Disordered Energy, Mercaniad formed from Energy that slowly began to be organized. It swept through the Ribbon of Night, accumulating Energy as it did so and following the evolving Spiral of Life, the vortex or helix motion that is the motion and form of all. During this long journey through the Ribbon of Night, accumulating the energy and matter it would later need to serve as the energy source for the Abode of Life, Mercaniad's energy attracted the additional matter to form the Abode of Life. And once the Abode of Life had formed, Mercaniad's helix path swept away all other matter and energy, leaving only Mercaniad and Mercan to form the basic foundation for the Abode of Life. And Life was created on the Abode, including our forebears. Once everything was available on the Abode of Life, the Great Change took place. Mercaniad and Mercan were thrust from the Ribbon of Night into the void, where we could begin our work as custodians of the Abode of Life. Mercaniad became changeable, challenging us in order to keep our wits sharp. . . ."

  "Were there always one people on the Abode?" Kirk asked. "Or were you once divided into many groups?"

  "We were divided until the Guardians organized themselves at Meslan on the north straits of Fron Midan, where they formed a group whose early history is much like that of the Technic today," Orun explained. He reached into a pouch of his baldric and brought forth a small cube. He triggered it in some manner that Kirk didn't see, and the cube began to unfold itself into a color relief map that Kirk recognized was the planet itself. Topologically, it was possible to do such a thing, but Kirk didn't understand how. However, it alerted him to the fact that the Mercans may have achieved much of their current technology, including their traveler system, from a basic foundation of topological mathematics.

  One of the continents of Mercan was wasp-waisted with an inland sea, Fron Midan, that was closed to the west by a slim peninsula and on the east by a large island forming a northern strait, dominated by a city symbol called Meslan, and on the south by an island-city symbol named Sandar. It was easy for Kirk to see how the Mercans at both Meslan and Sandar could dominate and control seagoing trade into and out of this inland sea which was, for practical purposes, the only one on the planet. Furthermore, Fron Midan straddled the equator.

  "The original Guardians discovered two things. The first of these was the secret to the Mystery of Mercaniad."

  "What's that?" Kirk wanted to know.

  "Mercaniad is changeable to challenge us and to remove from the Abode those who are not intelligent enough to seek deep shelter when it begins to enter a period of increased activity we call the Ordeal. Until the Guardians learned how to predict the coming of the Ordeal of Mercaniad, millions of us were killed during every Ordeal … all except those who managed to find deep shelter in the Abode."

  "What's the nature of this Ordeal?" Doctor McCoy spoke up. "Is it extreme heat, extreme cold, or some other change? Does it kill everything on the surface of the Abode?"

  "It's not simple, as we of the Technic have found out," Orun went on. "The Ordeal strikes down Mercans. It kills us outright very soon after it begins. The Ordeal is only partially heat; there's something else to it that we don't understand yet. But the Technic is working on it."

  "Sounds like a combination of increased activity across the entire electromagnetic spectrum," Scotty observed, "all the way from the microwaves up through infrared to the ultraviolet and perhaps to X rays as well."

  "Spock will get the answer to that one," McCoy pointed out. "But what does the Ordeal do to the rest of the life on the Abode?"

  "Our animals sometimes die, but most of them begin a Long Rest. They stop where they are and enter a state of reduced life force."

  "Hibernation caused by elevated temperatures or increased levels of electromagnetic radiation," McCoy muttered. "That's an interesting variation on the hibernation syndrome. . . ."

  "But do Mercan people go into a similar Long Rest?" Kirk wondered.

  "No," Orun replied. "And we don't know why … yet. Some of the Technic have a very tentative hypothesis that we dare not speak of outside the Technic organization. There are some who are beginning to think that the Mercan people came to the Abode after life was formed here, perhaps to act as custodians. . . ."

  "We keep running into something like this all through this portion of the Galaxy," Kirk remarked. "The basic humanoid group is everywhere, with differences only in minor characteristics. Orun, there maybe more truth to your Technic hypothesis than you realize. We've seen it ourselves, and we still haven't pieced together what originally caused the Galaxy to be populated by humanoid forms, all related to one another in various ways. But please go on. And please pardon our interruptions of your tale with these asides and observations."

  "It's no offense," the Mercan replied. "I'm learning as much as you are. Some of it's difficult to accept, but … I suppose that sooner or later we must all put away our dreams and fantasies of our playing-old lives … and perhaps we'll have to do it all our lives from now on."

  "You're beginning to understand something all of us have had to learn the hard way," McCoy observed.

  "You said that the Guardians discovered the Mystery of Mercaniad," Kirk put in. "How did this give them their Abode-wide political power?"

  "At first, they simply chose those they would permit into their original Keep. But they couldn't maintain a secret like that forever because of the other very powerful group from Sandar, here on the island dominating the southern straits into Fron Midan." Orun indicated his map. "The history is long and complex. I can tell you briefly that those original Guardians from Meslan who knew the Mystery of Mercaniad made an agreement with those people from Sandar who become the Proctorate. And together they were able to unify the whole of the Abode because the Guardians developed the traveler many, many generations ago from the knowledge they had uncovered as a result of their studies of the Great Change that flung Mercaniad and the Abode out of the Ribbon of Night."

  Scotty was shaking his head. "How did they manage to start from nothing and develop a transporter?"

  "Are you so certain that they started from nothing, Mister Scott?" Janice Rand observed.

  "What are ye getting at?"

  "How much technology has Homo sapiens on Earth developed and then forgotten as we've progressed? For example, I can't dress a deerskin to make a coat. And I doubt that you can chip a flint spearpoint. . . ."

  "You're right, lass."

  "Federation teams can dig into that aspect later," Kirk pointed out. Then he said to Orun, "So the Guardians developed the traveler and made an agreement with those who become the Proctors … and toget
her they unified the Abode?"

  Orun didn't nod; he simply raised his head quickly in the Mercan manner of signifying agreement. "You understand very well and very quickly."

  "We know similar stories on other abodes, Orun," the star-ship captain told him.

  "It's a long story and not a very happy one," Orun went on. "There were many who died because they were denied access to the Keeps by the Proctors."

  "About these Keeps. . . . What are they and where are they located?" Kirk wanted to know.

  "They were built a very long time ago by the Guardians, and they're located deep under the oceans—Sel Anthol, Sel Ethan, and Sel Mican. There are no actual entrances. Only the Guardians and the Proctors know the traveler coordinates so that people can go there during the Ordeal."

  "A very neat system of keeping people under control," Scotty remarked.

  "Look at it another way," McCoy suggested. "It's their way of maintaining social order. . . ."

  "Or the status quo," Scotty added.

  "Is there much of a difference?" McCoy wanted to know.

  "There is," Orun broke in. "I understand what you mean. But you must understand that much of the social order on the Abode is maintained by people themselves through the Code of the Abode, which requires we maintain proper respect for each other as the basis of our very lives. . . ." And he patted his sidearm hanging from its loose holster on his baldric.

  "That doesn't make sense to me, Orun," Janice Rand said. "How can you revere, respect, and maintain life when you're permitted and even encouraged to take each other's lives?"

  "How do you do it in your abode?" Orun wanted to know.

  "Well, we have laws and judges and trials and …"

  Orun patted his sidearm again. "So do we. Our sidearms are used only in personal affairs. However, if I'd managed to kill Othol during the engagement that was in progress when you traveled to us, I would've had to answer to the Proctorate for the correctness of my action, with the possibility of final appeal and review by the Guardians. And the Proctorate also serves to maintain social order where large groups of people are involved. . . ."

  "And that's the reason why Lenos was after you as part of the Technic?" Kirk knew this question-and-answer session was giving him only superficial answers … but it was telling him enough about the strange culture of the Abode that he could begin to think about options available to him. "Did the Technic split with the Guardians over matters of interpretation of the Code of the Abode, Orun?"

  "No, the Technic grew from our everyday work supplying each other with food, water, shelter, health, and the rest of the elements that make up our commerce with one another. That portion of our lives is of no concern to the Guardians or the Proctorate."

  "Well, I'll be …" McCoy started to say, then brought himself up short. "Free enterprise operating in what seems to be a scientific-religious police regime."

  "We've seen stranger arrangements," Yeoman Rand reminded him.

  "Which all goes to prove that almost any social system will work … except that some seem to work better than others," Kirk observed. "Orun, if the Technic grew from what all of you learned in the marketplace, what is the Technic group and why are the Guardians apparently upset about it?"

  "The Technic didn't concern the Guardians when we started only a few generations ago," Orun told Kirk. "But the Technic has grown. It's now larger than the Guardian organization. But, more important, the accumulating findings of the Technic are leading us to ask questions about the age-old teachings of the Guardians. Pallar fears us because of what we're learning and because we're starting to question some of the accepted portions of the Code of the Abode."

  "And what are you learning, Orun? What is the Technic heresy that I've heard both Pallar and Lenos speak about?" Kirk asked.

  "We've developed new materials that are different from the metals we dig from the Abode, things that are made from living materials and other things that are made from basic nonliving chemicals. We have entirely new health-maintenance and disease-control materials. And we can do things with life that the Guardians don't understand. We've discovered the laws of genetics and we've delved into cell chemistry. A lot of this came from our efforts to develop better grain and fruit crops for the steppes of Lacan, Canol, Badan, Eronde, and particularly Sinant. We now have food crops that can't be damaged by the Ordeal. And we've discovered that the story about the Spiral of Life is correct: the basic chemicals of life are formed in a double spiral—"

  "The DNA and RNA molecules," McCoy put in.

  "So we think that the old story of the Beginning is perhaps more correct and actual than allegorical," Orun explained. "We did come from the Ribbon of Night, but we don't know why the story also calls it the Spiral of Life. . . . If we came from there, is the Ribbon really only like the glowing vitaliar rocks of Lessan, Partan, and Othan? If we came from there as life already, is there perhaps other life out there in the Ribbon, too? That's our current thinking and some of the questions we have in the Technic."

  Kirk thought for a long moment before he finally said, "What do you think about our story, Orun?"

  "I believe what you say."

  "Does it bother you?"

  "No. As far as I am concerned, it doesn't contradict any of our basic beliefs at all … and it certainly doesn't conflict with the Code of the Abode. None of you have violated the Code, even though you go about unarmed. . . ."

  "We're not unarmed," Kirk admitted. "We carry weapons, but none of you recognized them as weapons … so we'll just leave it at that. You have my word that we'll not use our weapons except to protect ourselves. We can also do a lot of other things that you don't know about, but we aren't here on the Abode to change things or to show off our powers. We're here because of an accident to our traveling device very much like the ancient event that threw Mercaniad and Mercan out of the Ribbon of Night. We could travel from Celerbitan and back to our traveling device at any time we wished, but that wouldn't do us any good right now. We need to find out more about you and the Abode because we badly need your help. In return, if it works out properly, we may be able to offer the people of the Abode a great number of very good things by rejoining you with the other life abodes that exist in the Ribbon of Night."

  "In other words, Orun, you are not alone in the Universe," Dr. McCoy added.

  Orun thought about this, too. "I can't speak for the rest of the Technic … and certainly not for the Guardians. We'll have to see, Pallar is extremely suspicious of the four of you and sees you as a new threat from the Technic."

  "I don't understand why the Guardians fear the Technic and want to hold your group down," Janice Rand said. "You could learn so much from one another."

  "The Guardians fear that the Technic will certainly discover the Mystery of Mercaniad if we keep on learning and growing. And once the Technic does that, the Guardians have only the Proctorate left … and who knows in which direction the Proctorate will go when that happens?"

  "But certainly the Guardians must keep up with the technical progress you're making in the Technic. The Guardians could solve the problem very simply by admitting the Technic into the fold."

  "I don't believe that idea has ever occurred to the Guardians. I'm fairly certain that such an idea has not been considered by the Technic, because we're afraid the Guardians would try to stop us from learning new things and from trying to find out where we really came from," Orun observed with some surprise. "I think it would be very difficult for the Guardians to do that. They appear to be linked too closely with the existing Code of the Abode because they are the Guardians of that. They forecast the Coming of the Ordeal of Mercaniad and they are the final court of appeal in our society."

  "In other words, your Guardians have become high priests of a semireligion," McCoy growled.

  The Translator had great difficulty interpreting and rendering McCoy's statement in the Mercan language. McCoy's unit stuttered, stammered, and finally went silent without completing the translation. Orun didn't
get the meaning of the doctor's statement at all, but the rest of the Enterprise landing party did. . . .

  Kirk sighed and looked at the others. "Well, it certainly looks like we've stepped right into the middle of a rather delicate social triangle … and at just the wrong moment. Pallar's already looking at us as part of the Technic and a threat to his group."

  "The Guardians may not be able to help us anyway, Captain," Scotty pointed out. "If they don't involve themselves with the technology of this world, the best they can do is get in our way. I think we're going to have to deal with the Technic if we want help. Certainly no high priest is going to get that damaged warp drive repaired by chanting some arcane words over it. If that could be done, I'd carry some experienced witches as part of my Engineering Department … which might not be a bad idea for the future, by the way, because I recall watching witches work in the far-off days of my youth—"

  "Don't go mystic on me, Scotty," Kirk snapped, knowing full well that his Engineering Officer wouldn't. The Captain of the Enterprise bit his lip and thought for a moment. "We're in rather bad shape if we want to request help from the Technic … because the Guardians seem to have us under house arrest. How are we going to get to the Technic under these circumstances?"