Chapter Ten

 

 

Gradually, through many dreams, Noren experienced it all: the building of the City; the unloading of the starships; and the nonviolent but rather ruthless way in which the research station people were transformed into villagers who, given the minimum essential technological aid, could fend for themselves in the wilderness of an alien world. But it wasn’t easy. The First Scholar suffered intensely throughout, and as Stefred had predicted, Noren shared the agony fully.

Many of his sensations were pure nightmare. Because he was still partly himself, the impressions were often incoherent—he was experiencing mental reactions to events rather than events themselves, and though he could call on the First Scholar’s knowledge, the facts that came into his mind were hard to interpret. Even the feelings were sometimes diffuse, chaotic ones that he could not put into words.

At first, during his periods of wakefulness, he found it hard to believe that keeping the secret of the nova had really been necessary. Surely few if any villagers would have gone so far as to kill themselves! Some of the men in the dreams shared this opinion. “Human beings have instincts that enable them to survive and adapt under almost any conditions,” they insisted. “We owe these people the truth! Though some may not prove able to take it, the majority will.”

“You’re missing the point,” others replied. “Of course they could survive physically, but their morale would be destroyed; suicide’s just an extreme expression of the feeling almost everyone would share. And instinct wouldn’t help in this case. To remain human here, we’ve got to defy instinct. People’s instinct tells them that water that tastes pure is safe; it’s mere training that stops them from drinking it. The shock of knowing about the nova would strip away their protective training, at least temporarily. And if they turned to instinct—the instinct that would let them drink the water and perhaps even adapt to a diet of native plants, as we expect to adapt the embryonic animals we’ve brought for beasts of burden—their children would suffer irrevocable brain damage. They’d survive, all right, but at the expense of generations yet unborn.”

The First Scholar understood that. He knew that no evil was worse than extinction of the human race, and though dissidents reminded him that at certain points in the Six Worlds’ history similar arguments had been invalidated, he knew such an analogy was false. There’d once been a time when his ancestors had claimed that abridging people’s rights in order to prevent overpopulation of the mother world was essential to survival, but it had not been essential at all. On the contrary, voluntary reduction of the birth rate had worked very well, for if the mother world hadn’t become overpopulated to some degree, interstellar travel would never have been developed—and in that case, nobody would have escaped the nova. This was different, for this was a matter not of how future humans would handle their problems, but of the terrible possibility that the next generation would be subhuman. Such a risk couldn’t be taken. Moreover, he began to see other reasons why keeping the secret was important to the success of his plan.

He had known from the beginning that all offworld equipment would have to be preserved within the City if the colony was to last long enough for scientists to learn how to synthesize metallic elements suitable for the manufacture of machines. There were a number of reasons for this. In the first place, if that irreplaceable equipment fell into the hands of people unqualified to use and maintain it, it couldn’t be kept operative; and while the research station workers were qualified, their descendants wouldn’t be. Besides, recycling of worn metal parts, and indeed of all offworld materials, was going to be necessary over the years. If such materials were allowed outside the City, some would be lost. Some would be lost simply by being stored outside air-conditioned buildings, since the planet’s atmosphere was corrosive to the metals of which certain machines were built. And of course, once the population began to expand, there would not be enough tools and machines to go around. Then people would start fighting over them. The colony was too small and weak to withstand much fighting.

But above all, the First Scholar knew that the existing equipment could not go on working forever even if it was carefully safeguarded, nor would it serve an expanding population forever. There would come a time when more had to be manufactured if survival was to continue. The supply of metallic trace elements for initial enrichment of cropland would also run out. Synthesization of metal had to be achieved by then, and that was utterly dependent not only on the education of future scientists, but on maintenance of research facilities and on preservation of the computers containing the Six Worlds’ knowledge. Those things would be possible only within the City, and the City would need all the offworld equipment merely to function.

Depriving the people outside the City of that equipment, however, would be a terrible shock to them. The even greater shock of knowing about the nova might be too much—not simply because they had strong ties to the Six Worlds, but because if they knew, they’d be aware that there was nothing they could personally do to improve their situation. They couldn’t face such frustration without being united by some immediate aim; he had realized that when he formed the plan, and had wondered what aim he could give them. By keeping the secret he solved that problem.

To Noren’s dismay, he solved it by making them hate him.

Initially, the research station consisted of one large opaque dome in which people had been living and working, plus smaller ones containing power and water purification plants. Noren, as the First Scholar, looked down on them from the shuttlecraft in which he and some of the other Founders were descending, finding himself aware that such domes were standard equipment aboard all starships. They were easy to erect; an immense bubble was inflated, then sprayed with a substance that hardened to an impervious shell. The Outer City was to be composed of all the bubbles carried by the fleet.

As soon as the shuttlecraft landed, the captain, by radio, called a meeting in the existing dome; and when all the research station’s people were inside, awaiting the newcomers’ appearance, its doors were locked. They stayed locked—permanently sealed, in fact—during the days it took for the remaining passengers of the fleet to land and to build the huge circle of adjoining domes that formed the City’s outer boundary.

Those imprisoned in the original dome were unharmed, but outraged and bewildered; they had no idea what was going on. They could not look out, and no one spoke to them. Then, once the City was fully enclosed, a new exit was cut in the outside of their dome, and they saw that they were at liberty to leave. Unsuspecting, they did so, taking nothing but the clothes they wore and whatever articles they had in their pockets. It never occurred to them that they’d be unable to get back in. At the moment their fighting spirit was aroused, and all they wanted was their freedom. To find themselves in the wilderness, outside a vast ring of domes that had not been there previously, was so astonishing that at first they didn’t understand the significance of what had happened. They encountered no people; they seemed to be free. And so they were. Nobody ever employed force against them again, but there was no way for them to enter the City.

The nucleus of the first village had already been prepared by the Founders: a large water cistern connected by pipe to the City, surrounded by enough cleared and treated land to support the existing population. There was also one stone building containing irradiated grain seed, the fertilized eggs of fowl with hens to incubate them, and enough concentrated rations to last until the first harvest. Inside that building were posted the rules of the game: the research station workers were to raise a larger crop than their previous experimental ones; they would receive no tools and no help except for essential medical supplies, which they could request by radiophone; purified water—for irrigating the fields as well as for drinking—would be supplied continuously, but no further food. No reason whatsoever was given for these instructions.

Though the people were stunned, they were not despairing. The only explanation they could think of was that they were the subjects of some fantastic psychological experiment, and they decided to play along, thinking that it would be an interesting challenge for which they’d eventually be well rewarded. They were all intelligent, highly-trained men and women who were ingenious enough to apply their technical knowledge to the fashioning of tools from stone. Some, in fact, began to have fun, for on their home worlds camping out had been considered a pleasure.

Meanwhile, the Founders within the City were working even harder and having considerably less fun. All of the equipment had to be brought down from orbit, meaning endless shuttlecraft trips; and after that some of the stripped starships, which were not designed to travel through the atmosphere, were dismantled and brought down piece by piece. These starships were reassembled inside the enclosure to become the City’s towers. They were built of a special material that could not be reshaped by any means available on the planet, and all material was, of course, precious. The only solution was to make them into living quarters. It was a truly awesome task. The Scholars, unused to manual labor, worked to the point of exhaustion, and their knowledge of the tragedy and of the evils to come did not help.

All this time no villager had seen or heard any of the Founders; they were figures of great mystery. The people were not afraid of them. They assumed that the Six Worlds had decided to establish a major colony, and that while it was being built, the psychological effects of close contact with the alien environment were being evaluated. They were sure the experiment would not extend past harvest day. When the day arrived, they were weary of the game; still they felt satisfaction with what they’d accomplished, and they’d developed a strong sense of community. With pride they reported their success on the radiophone. And at that point, the First Scholar faced his most heartbreaking ordeal.

He knew that the people would not be willing to continue the “experiment” indefinitely. Furthermore, it was necessary for them to create permanent things: homes to replace the simple overhead shelters they’d constructed; gristmills to grind their grain; all the necessities of an ongoing life, including primitive clothing when their durable and easily-washed synthetic garments wore out. It was necessary for them to realize that no more contraceptive drugs would be available and that they would someday have to provide for children. Most important of all, it was time for irradiation of the seed and retreatment of the soil, which required go-betweens to ensure that the equipment would remain under the City’s control. He longed to offer sympathy and encouragement, but there was none he could give. Instead, he must play the role of a dictator—he must assume the blame for their severance from home to conceal the fact that home had ceased to exist.

He spoke personally on the radiophone, the first voice that had been heard over it. He announced that he had established himself as absolute ruler of the planet, that his followers had successfully overpowered the crew of every supply ship that had arrived since, and that the Six Worlds, dismayed by the consistent and unexplained loss of ships, had written off this solar system and concentrated on exploring elsewhere. The people outside the City would be allowed to live only because they were needed to raise food. A token percentage of the harvest was to be delivered the next day to the gates; if it was not, the water supply would be cut off. By his manner as well as the words themselves, he deliberately made himself out to be insane.

At first the villagers laughed. Did the experiment’s designer suppose that a season of living in the Stone Age would reduce citizens of the Six Worlds to a state where they’d swallow a ridiculous story like that? They didn’t become frightened until two days later when the water supply was indeed cut off. Even then, they held out till the last moment; they knew how much unpurified water they could safely drink. But they were young couples who expected to have families someday when they got home, and—except for a few who eventually fled to the mountains, where their offspring became mutant savages—they did not take foolish chances. Since the planet’s natural climate was dry and weather control hadn’t yet been established, there might be no rain for weeks. Realizing that they could not wait, they capitulated and delivered the grain.

Noren was puzzled because although there were as yet no Technicians in the City, none of the Founders were allowed to risk disclosure of the secret by going out to treat the land. Someone would have to do it. He soon recalled, however, that the original villagers had been born as Technicians; they themselves knew how to operate the Machines. The process whereby they obtained those Machines and were forced to return them was shrouded in mystery, and he perceived that for some reason it was not in the recordings of the First Scholar’s memories. When he asked Stefred about it during one of his conscious interludes, he was told only that the problem had been handled in a way beyond his present comprehension, a way that had made the villagers angry and afraid, but had brought harm to no one.

Lying there, waiting for the drug-induced sleep that would send him into the next dream, Noren wondered if he ought to take Stefred’s word for such a thing. Instinctively, he felt that Stefred would not lie to him; still, the Scholars were admittedly trying to win him to their side. . . . And then he realized that it did not matter whether he trusted Stefred. He trusted the First Scholar! Having shared the First Scholar’s feelings, he knew with absolute certainty that the man could not have made plans that would hurt anybody.

But the villagers hadn’t known it. To them, the First Scholar was a tyrant, a madman; as the dreams continued, their hatred of him flourished and the bonds of their community strengthened. Slowly, Noren began to see that by hating him, people were adjusting to their new way of life much better than they would have if they’d known his true motives. They still had hope of getting rid of the “dictator” and regaining the things of which they’d been deprived. To be sure, the lack of shuttlecraft traffic had become all too evident; there could be no doubt that the Six Worlds had abandoned the planet, and the towers that began to rise within the City seemed a clear indication that no starships remained in orbit. There was thus no conceivable means of communicating with home, since only starships could travel faster than light. They resigned themselves to their fate, knowing that even if they should succeed in overthrowing the “madman” and getting control of the City, they must make do with the world they had—still, hating him gave them the strength to keep struggling. In their hearts they cherished a hope of rescue. If they’d known the Six Worlds were gone, they would have had no hope at all.

As the First Scholar, Noren knew that once the struggle became easier, the hate would become dangerous. The First Scholar foresaw things he did not like to think about. Noren tried reaching for them and, without knowing why, was badly frightened; thereafter he resolved to take one step at a time.

Village life, he learned, was harder than in his own era. For instance, there were no work-beasts. The fleet had carried animal embryos, since the planet had no large native animals, but the poorly-understood process of altering their genetic makeup so that they could eat native plants wouldn’t be completed for years, and there wasn’t enough grain to feed more than were kept in the laboratory. To be sure, the original villagers lived close together and had no need to travel, but gathering stones for building wasn’t easy when sledges had to be pulled by men. They thought at first they might make devices called “wheels,” which they were used to, but soon found that since wheels made of softstone would not turn properly and wore away quickly from friction, these were less efficient than runners. That was a blow, for the wheel seemed somehow symbolic of civilization. Then too, there were no City goods at the beginning, aside from the cloth given in exchange for grain and wild fibers delivered to the gates. The Founders had brought machines to produce the City goods that would be needed, but it took time to find the right raw materials.

The villagers assumed that the Scholars were living in luxury, but that was far from the case. Actually they too were undergoing severe hardships. In the dreams Noren was almost always hungry. Before his escape from the village, he hadn’t known what it meant to be hungry, and neither, it seemed, had the Founders. But the first harvests were not large, and the Scholars bought only the barest minimum to supplement the dwindling store of concentrated foods carried aboard the fleet, leaving most of the grain for the villagers. Within the City strict rationing was practiced, not only with food but with all supplies—especially anything made of metal—and the First Scholar felt called upon to set an example by following the rules more strictly than anyone else. He and his companions considered themselves stewards, custodians; they were preserving the City’s equipment not for their own benefit but for that of future generations. They could not afford any waste.

Yet despite these handicaps they continued to work unceasingly, and their work wasn’t simple. Top priority, after the enlargement of the power and water purification plants, was given to the guardianship of knowledge. The starships’ computers were installed with extreme care at the heart of the City, in the first tower to be erected. Data stored in those computers encompassed all the past achievements of humankind, and was vital to the research work that in turn was vital to the ultimate survival of the colony. But the knowledge had wider significance. Like the equipment, it was held in trust; and to the Scholars, that trust was sacred.

Future villagers, however, would have to do without such knowledge—to children born and reared in a society shaped by the world’s scant resources, it would seem irrelevant, meaningless. Since that could not be prevented, it was best that the break come soon, for only thus could the colony lose its dependence on the culture of the Six Worlds. For the time being, therefore, no books were provided. It was to be a Dark Age indeed; though the First Scholar knew that after a while books could be restored, his heart ached for the people of generations to come, whose education would remain limited. From time to time, when he felt especially depressed and discouraged, he tried to think of some way to give those people an abiding hope. In the recesses of his mind an idea glimmered, but always it eluded his grasp.

Dream followed dream. The plan was working. Technological capability was being preserved where mastery of the alien environment demanded it, but people were learning to do without technology in their daily lives. They were turning to the land; despite its lacks, it was a good land, a spacious land, and it was giving them something more basic than anything shut away in the City. They were creating a culture of their own. Though that culture would be unavoidably static, their children would thrive.

He had not deprived anyone of personal freedom, Noren perceived, nor had he robbed people of the right to develop their own kind of society. The limitations were imposed by the world itself, and not by him. He’d merely withheld the material things that could not have endured had he not guarded them.

Yet he had also withheld the truth, he reflected in anguish. To violate the right to truth was evil. Not everyone cared about knowledge as he did, yet for those few who did care, he must provide an avenue.

But there’s still no avenue, thought Noren, waking. We’re still barred from knowledge! And then he realized that that wasn’t true. The avenue existed; wasn’t he experiencing the dreams?

*  *  *

There came a moment—he was not sure whether he was awake at the time—when Stefred’s eyes looked into his and Stefred’s voice repeated softly, over and over, “You must not be afraid, Noren. What you face now will be frightening, but you must not give in to fear. . . .” And the voice stayed with him until he was so much the First Scholar that he no longer had any knowledge of whose voice it had been.

He was standing at the entrance of a tower, the tall central one called the Hall of Scholars, which like the others opened into the courtyard of the Inner City. With the part of his mind that was still Noren, he realized that there had not been so many towers when last he dreamed; and looking into the First Scholar’s memories, he found that years had passed. He was older and more weary. He was also more unhappy, though indeed he could not recall anything that had ever brought the First Scholar happiness.

Except perhaps one thing. He had been happy that the colony had been saved. And now, he knew, it was once again endangered, although the danger was one he’d anticipated and had arranged to deal with.

As always, he was surrounded by people, people whose faces weren’t clear in the dreams and whose voices sounded alike. “We will not deceive you, sir,” they said. “The situation is bad. You have been burned in effigy in the village squares, and this morning there’s a mob assembling before the gates! The villagers will not accept our supremacy much longer; soon they’ll be killing the Technicians who represent us.”

Noren found he could reach no information about these Technicians’ origin; there was a gap he couldn’t fill. “But they can’t live without the Technicians!” he heard someone object. “They know that!”

“Yes, but people don’t always act reasonably, not when they’re filled with hate,” he replied. He had made the villagers hate him in order to unite them, to arouse their hopes and their will to strive; but the need for that was past. If they started killing Technicians, all that had been done would have been for nothing. The Technicians would have to fight back, some people would defend them, and the villagers would fight among themselves. Whoever won, the colony would be fatally weakened, for it was still very small. The City was impregnable to attack. Within it, equipment and knowledge could be preserved; but what good were those things if the people themselves failed to survive?

The City’s people couldn’t survive without the farmers, and the farmers couldn’t survive without the Technicians’ aid. When hate prevented them from accepting aid, the hate must be discharged; he had realized that since the very beginning, and had made plans, plans kept secret even from his closest friends. “If I were no longer dictator,” he said slowly, “their hatred would subside.”

“They would merely transfer it to your successor.”

“Suppose I had no successor, suppose Scholars stopped pretending to be tyrants and became—well, High Priests? Suppose we were viewed as figures of mystery and awe instead of as ordinary men who’ve seized power? By now enough’s been forgotten for us to achieve that, for the emigrant generation is growing old; the native-born villagers hate me without knowing why. To them, stories of the Six Worlds seem mere legends.” With sorrow, he thought of the grief this was causing the older people, who had tried hard to pass on their heritage to a generation that neither understood nor cared. Most of the native-born were truly content with village life, and for that their elders hated him most of all.

“High Priests?” echoed his companions. “Priests of what? Surely you would not establish a false religion!”

At their tone, he wondered if perhaps they thought him senile; he was, after all, a very old man who had outlived his time for leadership. Yet they had always supported him. He had not ruled as an autocrat; once the plan was underway, the other Founders had had equal voice in the decisions; still they had honored him and followed his advice.

“No,” he assured them gravely. “Not a false religion, but a real one.” He looked back on the years he had pondered it. This part of the design, too, had been in his mind for a long, long time, though he had told no one.

Most of the new world’s people had no formal religion, for by and large neither the research station workers nor the scientists of the fleet had been strong adherents of the Six Worlds’ traditional faiths. Now, however, their children and grandchildren were developing the kind of culture where a central religion would be needed and would be bound to flourish. It would be needed to sustain people’s hope. It would be needed to make them follow rules of survival they could not fully comprehend, rules previously enforced by the elders: not using stream water or letting untreated clay come into contact with food or drink; delivering the grainseed to be irradiated; having respect for machines; all the things for which their daily lives offered no rational explanation. There were other reasons Noren couldn’t grasp. But above all, it would be needed to keep the Scholars from becoming dictators in fact rather than as a mere pretense; he, the First Scholar, was sure of that.

“If we don’t give people symbols for the truths we cannot express openly,” he explained, “in time they’ll fall prey to superstition. Their descendants may worship idols or practice barbaric rites of some sort. They won’t look toward a changing future, since the inadequate resources of this planet permit them to make no progress—so they won’t be prepared for the renaissance the completion of our research will bring. What’s more, once the elder generation dies, we alone can ensure that the taboos essential to survival are observed. If we’re not to employ any force, we can do it only by gaining the villagers’ respect.”

“That’s all very well to say,” his fellow-Scholars protested, “but not so simple to accomplish! We can’t win people’s allegiance by proclaiming ourselves High Priests; and even if we could, we wouldn’t want such a role. It would be worse than the deceit we began with. What you suggest is impossible.”

“There’ll be no more deceit,” he promised, feeling a strange elation mixed with his sadness. “Trust me in this; haven’t I achieved things that were thought impossible before?”

They spoke warmly to him, nodding. “You have, sir. Without you we’d have failed long ago; who else could have founded a system like this without terror, without bloodshed?”

“It must remain without bloodshed,” he declared grimly, “which it will not do if the villagers are in a mood to kill Technicians.”

Noren knew inwardly that he had reached a decision, but he dared not probe deeply for it; it was one of the First Scholar’s more frightening ideas. He let the words come to him without thought. “I will address the people,” he stated.

“Very well, sir. We will prepare the radiophone.”

“I will address them in person from the platform outside the gates.”

“Have you lost your senses? Those people are violent, sir! We could not protect you even if we had weapons, and we have only a few tranquilizing guns.”

“If you have any idea of abdicating, sir,” one of the men added, “it won’t work. The people will not be placated while you live.”

He did not answer, since that was something he already knew and did not wish to discuss. Instead, he walked rapidly across the courtyard and into the exit dome’s wide corridor, his companions following. “Please, sir—” they begged.

Turning to them, he said softly, “Did we do right, my friends? Was all this justified, as we believed, or were those who died aboard the starship wiser after all?”

“We did the only thing we could have done. The people are freer than they know, and someday there will be no more secrets. Someday there will be many cities, unlimited resources, education for everyone. This world will be like the mother world; someday we may even need spaceships again!”

They were the words he wanted to hear; he hoped they had not been said merely to humor an old man. Reaching the gates, he spoke solemnly to the others. “I have never asked you for unquestioning obedience,” he said. “I do so now—” There was a break in his train of thought; Noren perceived that the First Scholar had given instructions that were inaccessible to him. “I must go out alone,” he found himself concluding.

“Alone!” they cried, horror-stricken, but he ignored them. The next thing he knew the gates were open and he had stepped through; he was on a white-paved platform, and before him was the crowd. There was a roaring in his ears, and it was more than the outraged tumult of the people. It was the roar of his own fear.

The crowd was murderous. He raised his hand, hoping for silence in which to speak, but it had small effect. The villagers in that crowd did not want to hear anything from the hated, almost legendary “dictator;” upon recognizing his voice, they wanted only to kill him. For a few moments, stunned by his unprecedented appearance, they made no move; but their disbelief did not last long. They started up the steps, brandishing makeshift weapons—not only stones, but sharp stone knives—and though there was a newly-erected barrier at the top to keep people back, those weapons could be thrown over. Noren’s terror was more intense than any he had ever experienced. I’m dreaming, he thought in cold panic, and I’ll wake up . . . before they can touch me I’ll wake up. . . .

But he saw that he would not wake up. He was frozen in the dream. The blinding sunlight, the shouts of the faceless mob, the almost tangible hatred that assailed him—those would last until he died. His only recourse was to reach deep into the mind of the First Scholar, drawing out courage, for the First Scholar was stronger than he.

And the First Scholar had known what would happen.

He had known, Noren realized, from the time he’d first formulated his plan; and he had done this deliberately. The knife that struck him down was no surprise. It was not even unwelcome, for though he wanted to live, he knew that only his death could reconcile these people to the Scholars’ supremacy. By this means alone could he prepare them for the new kind of leadership that must follow.

He fell, yet was still conscious; and the people went on hurling things while his blood spread onto the white pavement and he writhed under the pain of the blows. The pain was worse than he had expected. He had not really anticipated pain; he’d thought he would die quickly, the target of many knives. After he fell, however, most of the weapons that came over the barrier missed their mark, and within moments his friends pulled him back through the gates. Noren could not hear what they said. He felt himself dropping into a pit of silence and darkness, aware only of how much wounds could hurt before killing.

Then, desperately, he was fighting his way to the surface. He’d forgotten something; he had acted too soon! He should not have gone out while there was one thing left undone.

Time had passed. He lay on a couch, and people bent over him. “The knives were poisoned,” they said gently. “It’s a poison native to this planet; we can do no more than ease the pain.” Someone held out a syringe.

Noren’s own memories engulfed him, more powerful than the superimposed emotions of the dream. A native contact poison . . . it was thus his mother had died . . . she had felt such pain as this while he, a helpless boy, looked on. He wanted only escape—whether to wakefulness or death did not matter—but a voice within him kept repeating, You must not give in to fear. . . . By tremendous effort he reached once more for the thoughts of the First Scholar.

“No,” he protested. “No opiates; did we not agree to save what we have for injured villagers? Besides, there is a job I have not finished.”

“Tell us,” urged the others. “We will finish it for you, just as we’ll carry out the instructions you’ve left for completing your plan. You must rest now.”

“I’m dying!” he cried in anger. “Do you think I don’t know I’m dying? What need have I of rest when I’m to get more than enough after tonight? Bring me the thought recording equipment; I have not yet recorded all I wish to.”

“You would not have us record your death!” they exclaimed.

“I would have you record what I must think out before my death, since I haven’t the strength to write it, or even to speak. It’s there in my mind, but I’ve never been able to frame it as it should be—” He fell back against the pillows, exhausted, the pain overwhelming him. “I’m a scientist, not a poet,” he whispered. “If I were a poet, I could find words.”

“He’s raving,” said the voices. “We must give him sedation.”

Noren struggled to rise. “No!” he cried again. “Do what I ask of you, but hurry—”

They obeyed, but he sensed their concern. “If he should die while he was recording, it would be dangerous; a dreamer could die, too.”

Hearing that, Noren felt renewed terror, but he was detached from it, for the First Scholar was dominant in him now. The recording equipment was attached to his head, and his mind went momentarily blank; then all at once the detachment increased. Dimly, as Noren, he realized that he had never before dreamed anything that had been recorded while it happened; all the rest—even the episode just past, which must have been spliced into sequence—had come from the First Scholar’s memories. This was different. This was real, immediate, and he knew that he was dying.

But he was no longer so afraid.

“It—is—evil, what we’ve done,” he gasped. “To—to keep knowledge . . . from the people . . . is not right—”

“We know it’s not right,” his companions assured him. “We’ve always known; but if we had not done it, the human race would have perished.”

“Yes, it was . . . necessary. But it will not be necessary forever. They hate us now—”

“They wouldn’t hate you if they were aware of what you’ve given,” a woman broke in sorrowfully. “They would honor you, as we do.” She began to cry.

A burst of strength came into him; he must make them see, or they would not know how to use this last recording. “You don’t understand,” he said, mustering his waning resources. “They should hate us! They should keep on hating us, or at least the system we’ve imposed—but they won’t. They will forget their birthright. When they forget the Six Worlds, as they must if they’re to survive, they will forget that what we hold here in the City belongs to them. Then their hatred will fade.”

“But you’ve sacrificed your life to achieve that!”

“Yes. Hate was destroying them.” He paused; he was in no shape to explain the paradox coherently, yet he must make them see. “They must accept this system, still they shouldn’t come to like it too much; and they may, since it will never be oppressive. That’s the biggest danger in it! Benevolent controls are the most dangerous kind because the people forget what is theirs. We must not allow that to happen. Their hatred will fade, but their desire for what we hold in trust must never fade. We must tell them—”

“We can’t,” the others reminded. “Record more memories if you wish; tell all that you long to tell before you die; but you must know, sir, that nothing can be given to the people until our research succeeds.”

“Not from my memories, no; we must keep the secret as long as our stewardship is required. But we must give the villagers a promise. They must be told that our control of the City is temporary.”

“How could we tell them that without saying why? And even if we could, they would not believe us.”

“They will believe,” he declared. “If it’s done right, they . . . will . . . believe. . . .”

He could not do it right. He was too weak; there was too much pain; and besides, he was not a poet. “If I had a gift for poetry, I could do it as I’ve wanted to—”

“He speaks of poetry again,” the voices said. “His mind is going. We had better remove the recording contacts before he dies.”

“Please, please,” Noren begged, “give me the time I have left to think out what I cannot say! Someday, someone will make a book of it; the people are not quite ready yet in any case. But when all who came from the Six Worlds are gone, their descendants will need a promise—”

They conceded to his wish; he was an old man whom they loved, and he was dying. Noren had not guessed how it would feel to die. It seemed as if one ought to be afraid, but the First Scholar was not afraid. He was only weak and tired, and of course, he was in pain. If he had let them stop the pain his mind would not be clear to think, and he must think; he must not give in until this task was done.

The people must have a promise! They must not be content with a Dark Age; they must hope for something more: machines, cities, free access to knowledge—they must want them, and they must not be allowed to forget that they wanted them. Furthermore, they must not forget the spirit that had once driven explorers out from their mother world—and eventually, from their mother star itself—toward something that must one day be sought again. That spirit must stay with them if the human race was to have another chance. They must believe in it without knowing that humankind needed another chance; they must do so until such time as their foothold was strong and their own culture well established.

He must give them the promise and the belief.

The mother star . . . the sun that gave humanity life . . . it would be visible someday, but by then, no one save the Scholars would understand what it meant. Yet they must understand! They must realize that it meant something very important! And perhaps—yes, almost surely—that would be time enough. If it was not, humankind was doomed, for the equipment could scarcely last longer; so wouldn’t it be justifiable to gamble? Symbols for the truths we cannot express openly, he’d said to his friends, but though he had left them a plan formed in the dark nights of many years, the symbols themselves had eluded him. Now, in his last hour, the central one became clear. . . .

The First Scholar had the idea and the purpose, and groped for words; but Noren already knew them. “There shall come a time of great exultation, when the doors of the universe shall be thrown open and everyone shall rejoice. And at that time, when the Mother Star appears in the sky, the ancient knowledge shall be free to all people, and shall be spread forth over the whole earth. And Cities shall rise beyond the Tomorrow Mountains, and shall have Power, and Machines; and the Scholars will no longer be their guardians. For the Mother Star is our source and our destiny, the wellspring of our heritage; and the spirit of this Star shall abide forever in our hearts, and in those of our children, and our children’s children, even unto countless generations. It is our guide and protector, without which we could not survive; it is our life’s bulwark. And so long as we believe in it, no force can destroy us, though the heavens themselves be consumed! Through the time of waiting we will follow the Law; but its mysteries will be made plain when the Star appears, and the children of the Star will find their own wisdom and choose their own Law.”

For the first time he found comfort in those words. To the First Scholar, the thought behind them was a solace he had ached for during all the years of sorrow past. The tragedy had been surmounted. His work was finished; he could let go and sink into death, for the fierce, lethal explosion of the Mother Star had been made a symbol not of futility, but of hope.

*  *  *

The people crowded round, but he could not see them; he was too close to death. He was too weary, too crushed by the burden of leadership; too sick at the thought that people could survive only so long as he withheld from them that which was rightfully theirs. He’d done enough; why wouldn’t they let him die in peace?

They would not. They called him name, urgently: “Noren! Noren!” Over and over they called until he opened his eyes and found that it was Stefred who was bending over him—Stefred and other men and women, all of whom seemed genuinely concerned for his life.

“I was . . . dying,” Noren whispered. “I was really dying!”

“Yes,” Stefred admitted. “The last dream is dangerous, and the more closely a person has shared the feelings of the First Scholar, the more dangerous it is. You would have died when he did if we hadn’t been here to rouse you.”

Why had they bothered? Noren wondered. They were going to kill him anyway. And yet of course they couldn’t let him die while they were still hoping he’d recant.

“You would have died in spite of us,” Stefred went on, “if you had not been brave enough to live. I knew that beforehand; I had to make the decision to let the last dream begin. I knew during our first interview that someday the decision would be mine. Do you envy me my job, Noren?”

That was when Noren looked into Stefred’s face and knew, with chagrin, astonishment, and a kind of awe, that they were not going to kill him. There had never been any intention of killing him. Whether he recanted or not had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

The other Scholars had silently left the room. “Stefred,” Noren said haltingly, “The rumors were false. I—I don’t believe you’ve ever killed anyone. I don’t believe you could.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Stefred declared. “I knew, of course, what you’ve been assuming, but I hoped I could win your trust without bringing it up.”

“You weren’t trying to scare me into recanting?”

“At the beginning, yes. If you’d been susceptible, the truth would not have been shared with you.”

“I—I guess I see,” Noren said slowly. “You don’t like the system any better than I do, but it’s—necessary. You have to make people respect it. If somebody cares enough to give up his life, though, he earns the right to know why.”

“It’s something like that. As you know, the Founders didn’t want to keep knowledge from people; they made provision for it to be given to anyone who values it highly enough.”

“More knowledge than was in the dreams?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve never lied to me,” Noren mused. “When you said that if I recanted voluntarily I’d be given access to more than I could absorb in a lifetime, you meant it, didn’t you?”

The Scholar was silent. It didn’t add up, Noren realized. He’d been right to refuse the bribe; he was sure he had been, and even at the time it had been evident that Stefred was pleased by his refusal. “They just wouldn’t have arranged it like that,” he reflected aloud.

“How would they, then?”

“There are different sorts of knowledge,” Noren said thoughtfully. “If I’d accepted the offer, I might have been told things Technicians know, but not the secret—not what’s in the dreams. And now, well, now I can go on learning whatever else happens. Recantation isn’t a condition.”

“That’s right. Still, you have problems ahead of you; there’ll be difficult ones even if you do recant.”

Noren shivered, knowing Stefred’s warning that the consequences of truth would seem terrible must also have been sincere; but he was too overwhelmed to worry about it. He lay back, still weak and shaken by the death he had so nearly shared. “Why,” he asked softly, “weren’t people ever told that the First Scholar wrote the Prophecy? They look up to Scholars now; they would honor him even without understanding what he really did.”

“They’d go beyond that,” replied Stefred, “and it was his wish that the facts about him never be revealed. To be worshipped was the last thing he wanted; it’s not what any of us want, though it happens. We try to remain as anonymous as we can.”

That was true, thought Noren in surprise. They had never demanded obeisance; they had never claimed to be innately superior; they had never declared that to speak against them was blasphemy. All those ideas—the ones that weren’t mentioned in the Prophecy—had been originated not by the Scholars, but by the villagers themselves. The First Scholar deserved every honor short of worship, but people wouldn’t have stopped there. He had been a martyr; when their hatred faded, they’d have built statues of him and pronounced it heresy not to bow down.

Unjust though it seemed, it was better that he was remembered only in legend: the distorted legend about the evil magician who’d tried to rule by force and who had been vanquished by the proclamation of the High Law. He would be glad that forced rule was still thought evil.

“There’s something I must explain,” Stefred went on. “The First Scholar did not write the Prophecy, at least not the words. The idea was his, but the Book of the Prophecy itself was written later by a man who experienced that last dream many times.”

“But the words were in the dream,” protested Noren.

“No,” Stefred said. “They are not in the recording, Noren; you supplied them yourself.”

“If I did, if I put the idea and the words together, then—” Noren drew breath, suddenly taking in the implications of what he was about to say. “Then inside I must have known that they—fit.”

“That the symbols are an accurate expression of the idea, yes. All words are symbols. These, being familiar to you, came naturally into your mind. They are figurative words, poetic words, and as such have more power than the scientific ones the First Scholar knew weren’t suited to his purpose.”

“I could say them and not be lying,” Noren declared wonderingly. “The Prophecy is true!”

“You could; you passed that hurdle without even making an effort. The real question is whether you should.” Stefred looked down at Noren, his eyes filled with compassion and warmth, adding, “Remember that long ago you conceded that you would accept the Prophecy if I could prove it, and you were well aware that recanting means far more.”