Chapter Eight

 

 

The aircar came just before sunset, dropping out of the eastern sky to hover above the plateau. Brek heard it first, and in that instant Noren—who had not really dared to hope—knew from his face that the gamble had paid off.

Raising his head from Talyra’s lap, he cried, “Run, darling! Wave, make them see you!” She’d heard it too and scrambled to her feet, racing back through the arch toward the faint but unmistakable humming sound. She did not connect the aircar’s arrival with the mysterious metal sphere, yet she showed little surprise; she had felt all along that in the end the spirit of the Mother Star would bring help.

Noren was unable to walk; the two Scholars from the rescue car had to carry him to the flat place where they’d landed. Brek, with assistance, got there on his own. He explained about the sphere while Talyra stayed beside Noren.

It was indeed alien, the Scholars agreed. They had not known what to expect, for the radiation was powerful and unlike any the computer complex had monitored before, although it was not of a hazardous sort. No one had seen how it could be coming from the lost aircar, yet because its source was in the region where the crash was presumed to have occurred, a team had been sent at once. Now, with reluctance, it was decided that the sphere must be left where it was until more could be learned about it; to take it into the City would be an unjustified risk. It could be found again, and indeed would serve to mark the pile of metal that the rescue car, which was already overloaded with passengers, could not carry. After that it would be studied at the outpost.

Hearing that, Noren was stricken with disappointment. For a few minutes he had held with wonder a thing from another solar system . . . a thing made by a human race unlike his own. He wanted to see it once more, to share in the unraveling of its mysteries. But he could not expect that he’d be allowed to leave the City again. His confinement this time would be final and complete; he had forfeited the trust of those who were guarding the secrets.

It was nearly dark when they reached the City. Looking down from the air as they approached its cluster of lights, he remembered the first time he’d seen it so, driving a trader’s sledge up the final hill and halting at the crest to gaze with unbearable longing at the stronghold of all hidden truth. How naive he’d been. Even while he lived in the City he’d not thought it a prison; he’d assumed that everything he sought was there. . . .

Talyra squeezed his hand and smiled. Wan, emaciated, clothed in the tattered remnants of a tunic cut away for bandages, she was nonetheless radiant. To Talyra it had all worked out as it was meant to work. And perhaps, Noren thought sadly, she had again glimpsed the truth more clearly than he had; she’d seen through some window that to him would be forever obscure. They would surely have died if he had not carried through the masquerade for her sake. Still, he could not do that indefinitely. He’d once feared that he might accept priesthood rather than give her up, but when it came to the point of choice, he knew he would never be as great a hypocrite as that. Those who became High Priests were not hypocrites either, yet much as he might wish to believe as they did, he could not alter what he felt.

So, having had her love, he must once again sacrifice it. Since their marriage could never be authorized, he must free her from the betrothal. It would be best if there proved to be no child, for she would be hurt less that way; still he could not regret their brief hours of happiness. Little more lay in store for him, for though he knew that insofar as he was permitted, he would devote his remaining years to the work that had come to seem worthwhile despite its hopelessness, he was aware that neither love nor work would be enough to satisfy him. He would always be searching for something that was not to be found.

He turned to Brek, who did not meet his glance. Like himself, Brek had refused the hypnotic sleep offered by the rescue team. They had assuaged their thirst and hunger and had submitted to preliminary treatment of their injuries, but they had not wished to evade what awaited them on entrance to the City. Or rather, they hadn’t been willing to admit that they wished it. They were answerable both for the loss of an irreplaceable aircar and for their unfulfilled intent to betray secrets; neither could be easily dismissed. Perhaps they would be considered relapsed heretics and denied all contact with non-Scholars, Noren realized. Perhaps he would not even see Talyra after he had confessed. To his shame, he was thankful that her presence made immediate confession impossible.

The lights loomed brighter, then vanished as the aircar dropped into the open top of the entrance dome and settled gently. A crowd of faces appeared at the door: solicitous faces, faces that showed not reproof, but relief and welcome. One, Noren saw, was Stefred’s, and he looked away, lacking words, while he was carried down from the landing platform and through the maze of corridors leading to the Inner City’s courtyard. People didn’t yet know the whole story. Curious though they must be, they did not press for details; but they stayed with him until he was laid on a couch in a small private cubicle of the infirmary.

“You must have rest,” the doctor said. “If you will not consent to hypnotic sedation, I’ll have to use drugs—”

The pride that had kept Noren adamant made him yield. Drugs were scarce; it was not fitting for any to be consumed by a Scholar. He accepted the hypnosis, slipping resignedly, almost gratefully, into oblivion.

When he awoke, he found himself physically recovered, though still quite weak, and realized that days had passed while his body was nourished intravenously. As remembrance hit him, he was overwhelmed by remorse and despair. He no longer knew what was true and what was not; but he was certain that, not knowing, he could have done nothing but harm by destroying the villagers’ belief in the Prophecy. To be sure, deceiving people was wrong and they should be given the chance to claim their entire birthright if their descendants were already doomed . . . but what if humankind was not doomed? If a chance of a scientific breakthrough did exist—a chance as remote and unlikely as his discovery of the alien sphere—his proclamation could have ruined it.

Reason, mathematics, told him that there was no such chance. He still could not feel any hope. But as Talyra had said, if one stopped living because one expected to die, one threw away one’s own life. Had he thrown away the significance of his? he wondered. Could he, untrusted, share fully in the research? He knew that he would not be punished for what he had done. Even if he was isolated as a precautionary measure, Stefred and the others would be all too compassionate. Something else Talyra had once said echoed in his mind: The Scholars don’t punish; that’s not their way—you simply have to live with the consequences of what you are.

The doctor entered and examined Noren briefly, pronouncing him fit to have visitors. “Stefred has asked to see you,” he said. “Will you receive him, Noren?”

“It’s not my place to refuse.”

The man regarded him, disturbed. “You are a Scholar,” he said, “and Stefred’s equal; he would not presume to command except in matters concerning his official duties. Like your other friends, he merely wants to know whether he is welcome.”

“I—I’d rather not see anyone.” Noren asserted. It was true; he could not bear the thought of talking, not even to Talyra—and least of all to Stefred, whose trust he had betrayed. Besides, he reminded himself, Stefred had deceived him. He’d promised him access to knowledge that would help. . . .

But later, when he was released from the infirmary, it was to Stefred’s office that he went; for he owed Brek that, at least. He knew Brek would not denounce him, and would not be able to speak freely until he, Noren, had denounced himself.

*  *  *

Mustering all his poise, he stood erect before Stefred’s desk and declared forthrightly what his intentions had been at the time of the crash. Stefred remained impassive, but Noren knew him too well not to recognize that mask; he wondered whether the Chief Inquisitor was concealing contempt, pity, or a mixture of both. Very likely he would never be allowed to find out.

“Brek admitted something similar,” Stefred told him, “though he implied that he hadn’t discussed his plan with you.”

Noren, who had also tried to imply that the plan had been a private one, dropped the formality of guarding his words. “Brek isn’t to blame,” he said. “It was all my idea, and though he listened to me at first, he regretted it later. He would never have gone through with a public revelation. He—he doesn’t deserve to be barred from going back to the outpost, much less to be confined to the Hall of Scholars.”

“Do you?”

Wretchedly Noren murmured, “I’m unworthy of trust.”

“It’s unlike you to feel that way.”

“I haven’t felt like myself for a long time, Stefred.”

“Since the space flight?”

“I guess that’s obvious. But there’s more to it than you can imagine, and I—well, I’d better give you all the details.”

Stefred nodded. “There are ways I could make it easier,” he said. “Hypnosis, for instance, or a shot of the drug I used during your initial inquisition.”

Noren looked up, tempted. That would certainly be less painful. “Whether I give you such aid is up to you,” Stefred added quietly.

“I—I’ve got to tell it straight, then.”

“Do you understand why?”

“Because it’s not just what I did or how I felt; I have to make sense of it. Consciously.”

“Yes. But it will take more than confession to accomplish that, Noren.”

“I have to try.”

Pushing buttons on his desk to ensure that they’d be uninterrupted, Stefred said soberly, “We’ll try together. I’m more closely involved than you realize; still, I can’t offer any simple solution.”

“I don’t expect you to.” Sitting down in the chair near the window where so often in the past he had faced difficult things, Noren started at the beginning, at the moment of searing tenor that had paralyzed him in space. He went on to describe it all: all the fears, the doubts, the unanswerable questions that had led to his final disillusionment; all the rage that had followed; all the decisions he had reached. Stefred spared him nothing. Whenever Noren faltered, he was led on with astute, searching inquiries that left no room for equivocation. At first it was agonizing, but as the discussion proceeded, he found himself rising to the challenge and even welcoming it. He was heartened by Stefred’s very ruthlessness. To his surprise, though he was confessing to weakness, to cowardice, to failure, the Chief Inquisitor showed him no mercy; rather, he acted as if these self-accusations were untrue.

By the time he had explained the strange reversal of feelings he’d experienced in the mountains, Noren had regained much of his normal composure. How was it possible? he wondered as he spoke. How could he be talking naturally, confidently, as if life could indeed make sense, when he’d seen what a senseless place the universe was? “You can’t know what I really felt,” he concluded ruefully. “I’ve told all I can put into words, but—”

“But there were things for which no words exist. I do know about them, Noren.” Stefred met his eyes unflinchingly. “I knew beforehand; that was the information I withheld. The responsibility is as much mine as it is yours.”

Incredulously Noren burst out, “You knew what would happen to me in space?”

“I feared it. Noren, on the Six Worlds no competent psychiatrist would have let you become an astronaut; you are too introspective, too imaginative, too prone to think deeply instead of concentrating on the task at hand. But most people who become heretics are like that. The risk applied to nearly all the eligible Scholars.” He sighed, continuing, “Brek and one or two of the others were less vulnerable; I assigned pairs accordingly. And I did what I could to prepare you. I gave you so much else to worry about that I hoped you’d be distracted—by your love for Talyra, by the physical danger, and finally, in case that wasn’t enough, by anger at my admission that I was not telling you everything. I dared not warn you of your real peril because that would only have turned your mind into the wrong channel.”

Indignation rose in Noren, but he curbed it, sensing that Stefred too must have suffered during the past weeks, that the decision he’d made had been difficult and costly. “You warned me that there were hazards I wasn’t aware of,” he said, “and I chose freely. I wouldn’t have chosen to evade them even if I had known.”

“No. That was your strength, Noren. That was why I believed that if the worst happened, in the end you’d come through.”

“But I didn’t,” Noren said miserably. “I failed you, and if it hadn’t been for the crash, I’d have done even worse damage.”

There was a short silence; Stefred, on the verge of a reply, seemed to think better of it. Steeling himself to the inevitable, Noren asked, “What’s to become of me now? I can’t ever make amends—”

“For the loss of the aircar? No, all you can do is work toward a time when the building of more aircars will become possible.”

A gesture, reflected Noren—yet a more positive one than his attempted martyrdom, which would not have accomplished its purpose either. Stefred had undoubtedly realized that no act of his could endanger the system; otherwise he’d have taken steps to confine him sooner. “Will I be isolated from the Technicians?” he inquired, wondering whether the chance of their believing a renegade would be thought great enough to matter.

“Certainly not, not unless you choose now to formally retract your recantation. And I don’t think that can solve your problem.”

“Can anything?”

“It depends on how much courage you have.”

Bending his head, Noren mumbled, “Not as much as you gave me credit for; we’ve proved that, anyway.”

“Really?” Levelly, as if control of his own feelings required effort, Stefred said, “The day you disappeared, Grenald spoke to me with more self-reproach than I have ever heard from anyone. He hadn’t known you had cause to take his accusation seriously; he thought it so preposterous that you’d recognize it for what it was: a calculated challenge to your pride.”

Astonished, Noren looked up as Stefred continued, “This may surprise you, but I think you’ve displayed a good deal of courage all the way along. I think you have enough to go on with what’s been started. It will mean confronting some things that frighten you, but you’ve never wanted to escape that.”

“Yes, I have,” protested Noren shamefacedly. “I volunteered for another space flight, but when they turned me down I was—relieved. And besides, the space work is finished. We can hardly send the shuttle out again just on my account.”

“Of course not. That isn’t what I’m talking about.”

Noren’s skin prickled as he ventured, “There is one way, isn’t there? A—a dream—” He found himself shaking, though he kept the tremor from his voice. “You could make it like that last one, without letting me share the recorder’s thoughts.”

“I could,” Stefred agreed, “but I’m not sure it would be wise.”

“You were lying, then. You don’t think I’d be equal to it.”

“I think you would be. As a matter of fact, you’d probably find it an anticlimax; you’d feel worse than ever about having once let space bother you. Controlled dreaming is a very useful technique, Noren, but it’s not a substitute for life, and in real life one can’t go back. One must come to terms with the past without reliving it.”

“You mean I’ve got to learn to trust myself . . . without proof.”

“Yourself—and other things.” Stefred smiled. “Since you’re perceptive enough to see that, you don’t need my help. Sometimes psychiatrists do use dreams as therapy, but in your case no therapy is called for. You’re not mentally ill and you never have been. You simply have a mind daring enough to explore questions many people never face up to.”

“Have you ever heard of anyone else being panicked by them?” Noren inquired grimly.

“If I say no,” Stefred observed slowly, “you’ll have the satisfaction of considering yourself a martyr to a unique concern for ultimate truth; and if I say yes, you may find comfort in the thought that you are not alone. Which way do you want it?”

“I want the facts, just as I always have,” Noren asserted, caught off balance. “Are you asking whether I’d rather have you lie?”

“I’m suggesting that you think the situation through a little more objectively, Noren. Do you really suppose you’re the only one of us to whom such questions have occurred?”

With startled chagrin, Noren read the facts from Stefred’s face. “I can’t be,” he admitted in a low voice. “You knew; you must have been tormented by them yourself! Oh, Stefred, how could I have been so weak as to be thrown by it, and then to—to feel that the martyrdom of a public relapse would absolve me?”

“Think deeper,” said Stefred relentlessly. “You couldn’t control your feelings; to reproach yourself for them now is self-abasement. That’s no solution either, and it doesn’t become you, Noren.”

After a long pause, Noren declared, “You’re telling me that panic isn’t uncommon. I was justifiably afraid, and trying to cover it up was false pride.”

Nodding, Stefred agreed, “The questions you framed are unanswerable, and to be terrified by that is a sign not of weakness but of strength. A weak person wouldn’t have opened his mind to such terror. It hit you young, and hard, under circumstances in which you had nothing to hold to—that’s the only difference between your experience and the one most Scholars eventually undergo.”

“But then why—”

“Why didn’t I enlighten you earlier? I couldn’t have, Noren. It wouldn’t have done any good; in this particular adventure one has to proceed at one’s own risk, at one’s own pace.”

A trace of uncontrollable fear brushed Noren’s mind again as he grasped what he was being asked to confront. “Questions that have no answers . . . Stefred, I don’t see how I can ever face that! Before this happened—well, it was hard not knowing all I wanted to know, but I expected to learn it all in time; at least I thought the answers existed somewhere—”

“They do,” Stefred said gently. “The fact that neither you nor any other human being can obtain all the answers doesn’t mean they don’t exist, any more than the fact that we can’t see all the stars in the universe means those stars aren’t there.”

“And someday I’ll just get used to being condemned to ignorance?” Noren demanded bitterly.

“Yes, one way or another. The easy way is to stop searching.”

“I can’t,” retorted Noren with growing anger. “I—well, I still care about truth; I always have, and I’m not going to change.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Stefred dryly. “For a while the reports I was getting from the outpost had me worried.”

Noren flushed, knowing he should have spotted the trap before falling into it. “We know more than the people of the mother world once did,” he mused, “yet if they’d just quit— Did they wonder about the sorts of things I do, too?” Even as he spoke, he realized that it was a foolish question. Of course they had. They must have, if they’d been intelligent enough to discover as much knowledge as they’d accumulated.

“The wisest had thoughts worth preserving about those things,” Stefred told him, “thoughts you can study if you query the computers properly.” Regretfully he admitted, “If I’d known that you visited the computers the day of the conference, I would not have let you go away unsatisfied. I was negligent there, Noren.”

“You had enough to worry about that day without keeping track of me,” Noren said. “Besides, the computers weren’t telling me anything.”

“That was because they are programmed to teach lessons that can’t be learned in one short session,” replied Stefred, “lessons that in your case proved more painful than was intended.” He went on to explain, “The Founders knew that young Scholars would think of the computer complex as the repository of all truth, and must sooner or later be made aware of the distinction between truth and fact. They also knew that since the beginning of time the key to advancement of human knowledge has lain not in discovering the right answers, but in discovering the right questions to ask. So in certain areas of inquiry—areas that a person doesn’t explore until he is mature enough to grasp such ideas—they deliberately refrained from programming leading responses. They didn’t expect any Scholar to leave the City, of course; and given time, you would have persisted until you caught on.”

“Is that what you meant when you said I’d have access to a kind of knowledge that would help?”

“No,” Stefred declared. “I wasn’t referring to the computers then. You won’t understand what I meant until you attain such knowledge for yourself.”

*  *  *

Noren went to the computer room; he sat at a console and calmly, carefully, phrased his questions: not WHAT IS LIFE’S MEANING? but WHAT HAVE PEOPLE THOUGHT ABOUT LIFE’S MEANING? . . . NOT WHY WERE THE SIX WORLDS DESTROYED? but TO WHAT CAUSE DID PEOPLE OF THE PAST ATTRIBUTE UNPREVENTABLE DESTRUCTION? He stayed there until long past the hour of Orison, and by then he realized that the study of what had been written on these subjects would absorb not mere days, but years. Yet he had seen enough to know certain things.

He knew that others had suffered as he had, and that there was no way to escape it except by giving up the search.

He knew that there were two paths one could follow if one were willing to give up: one could decide it was all too futile to bother with, or one could fool oneself into thinking that one had already found the answers. Some people had done that. Some, in fact, had felt such a great need to convince themselves of what they’d found that whenever anybody appeared whose answers were different, they’d fought over it. If they’d been powerful men with many followers, the fights had, at times, turned into wars.

But Noren also knew that there’d been some who had not given up. They had recognized mysteries that they could not resolve and had borne it; they’d gone on gathering the bits and pieces of truth available, in full knowledge that they would fail to assemble the whole pattern.

And he knew that these people had been sustained only by faith.

Their faith hadn’t always been called a religion. Sometimes it had; but many, particularly the later ones, had simply trusted that there was a pattern without using any symbols for the elements beyond their grasp. For the most part, such people had not been in a predicament as difficult as the Scholars’. Those facing adversity had tended to find symbols indispensable.

Noren thought back to the dreams in which he had become the First Scholar, remembering the painful yet triumphant time while he lay dying. For years the First Scholar had sought symbols; he had, Noren realized abruptly, sought them not only for his people’s comfort but for his own. WHAT WAS THE FIRST SCHOLAR’S PERSONAL RELIGION? he keyed in, perplexed.

THE FIRST SCHOLAR WROTE NOTHING ABOUT THAT, responded the computer. IT IS BEST UNDERSTOOD FROM HIS RECORDED MEMORIES.

But aside from the idea for the Prophecy, the recordings had contained nothing of this, at least not unless one counted the First Scholar’s sureness that a way for humankind to survive permanently would be found. Noren perceived that this surety, which had been so puzzling in the light of his scientific knowledge, must indeed be counted as faith—yet that wasn’t enough. If questions about why instead of how occurred to all wise and courageous people, they must certainly have occurred to the First Scholar. No such questions had troubled him during the dreams.

He returned to Stefred. “The dreams I had before my recantation were edited,” he declared, “to conceal the First Scholar’s plan for choosing successors. Later I experienced them in a more complete form. Was that edited, too? Is there a third version?”

“Yes,” Stefred admitted, “for those who request it; and it’s a more constructive thing to go through than another dream of space would be. But if I were you, Noren, I’d wait a while. Wait till you understand what happened to you more thoroughly, because something quite similar will happen in those dreams.”

“You mean it happened to him?” There had been a gap of many years in the dreams, Noren recalled, and he had never been told exactly what the First Scholar had undergone during the interim.

“I’ve said before that his mind was very like yours,” Stefred replied simply, “and after all, he had witnessed the destruction of the worlds he knew.”

“But he went on to create the Prophecy . . . and it—it meant more to him than a way to give people hope. It symbolized his whole attitude toward the universe! If anyone had faith in the future, he had.”

“Did you suppose he was born with it? Some people are—people like Talyra, for instance—and their faith is entirely valid. Those who are born to question must find it through experience.”

Noren swallowed. “Is there any chance, do you think, that I—” He broke off, embarrassed by the strange, compassionate look Stefred gave him. There isn’t, he thought, and he doesn’t want to hurt me. “Only you can be the judge of that,” Stefred answered, and Noren left without asking whether one could live without faith indefinitely.

He found Brek waiting for him in their old room, and it was apparent that he wanted to talk. “I—I messed things up pretty thoroughly,” Noren said after an awkward silence, knowing that any attempt at specific apology would be too weak. “I don’t expect you to understand—”

“It’s not that,” Brek said quickly. “We’ve both done things we’re sorry for, and they’re past. Only there’s something else.” He paced nervously from one side of the compartment to the other. “I wish we could go back to sharing the same ideas, but—well, there’s something I’ve got to tell you, something you won’t understand, and that you’ll probably despise me for. I can’t help it. In this I’ve got to make my own decision.”

Puzzled, Noren stood patiently while Brek paused with his back turned and then, with quiet determination, announced straightforwardly. “I’m assuming the robe tomorrow.”

Noren’s initial amazement gave way to surprise at his obtuseness. Of course. Brek had not been born to question; though he’d defied injustice and had balked at accepting the seemingly privileged status of a Scholar, once those obstacles proved unreal, there was no barrier to his becoming a priest. He would be a good one. “I don’t despise you,” Noren declared. “I—I think I envy you, Brek.”

“Envy me—you?” Brek burst out. “But Noren, that’s crazy! If you no longer feel that commitment’s wrong, why don’t you wear the robe yourself?”

Why didn’t he? Because there was more to it than right or wrong, Noren thought unhappily. Priesthood was not merely a matter of committing oneself to certain ethics and certain actions. A priest must know more than science could teach him. Brek could represent that other knowledge—the kind one must attain for oneself—without hypocrisy; he himself could not.

“I’m unfit,” he said in a low voice, “and anyway, as a relapsed heretic, I’ve forfeited the right.”

“Did Stefred tell you that?”

“He didn’t have to.”

“It’s not true,” Brek contended. “Commitment concerns only the future, and you’re no more a relapsed heretic now than I am.” He spoke with cool assurance, and for the first time, except during that one exchange made in anger, he’d contradicted Noren directly. Their roles had been reversed, Noren realized. Brek did not need his guidance any more.

“Noren,” Brek went on slowly, “there’s another thing I think you ought to know. It’s none of my business what’s passed between you and Stefred—”

“No,” declared Noren firmly. “It isn’t.”

“But he risked a lot for you, and since he’s not likely to mention it, I’ve got to. The man I heard it from must have had that in mind when he didn’t pledge me to silence.”

“Risked?” Noren inquired in bafflement. “How?”

“By not ordering you recalled from the outpost.”

It was true, Noren thought, that except for the promise not to force him, such a move would have been natural; Stefred had known what was troubling him and must have had a fairly good idea of how he would react. “I suppose so,” he admitted despondently. “I might not have gotten people to fight the system, but if I’d been killed trying, the scientific talent everyone’s had such fine hopes for would have been lost.”

“Don’t belittle it. It’s important to others if not to you, and he took a big gamble. But more than that, he staked his own career; the issue was raised in the executive council, and he told them that if they reversed his decision, he’d resign as department head.”

“But why?” Noren gasped.

“That was his only recourse; he could see he was about to be outvoted.”

“I mean why should he go to such lengths to keep his word? I’d have released him; I’d have come back voluntarily if I’d known.” With chagrin, he remembered how Emet, just after an executive council meeting, had asked him to remain in the City for his friends’ sake.

“I’m in no position to judge,” Brek said, “but I think there was more to it than the fact that he’d promised. The others all wanted to help you, but Stefred felt you should be let alone. And he thought you were better off outside—that if you stayed, you’d redeem yourself.”

Then he miscalculated, Noren reflected, and such a great miscalculation was scarcely to be believed of Stefred. Yet it was either that . . . or Stefred still knew more than he was telling.

*  *  *

He did not want to see Talyra, for he knew that when he did he must break their betrothal. He would not do so publicly until the child was born, if there was to be a child; but he could no longer let her think there was hope of their marrying. Nor could they go on as they had begun in the mountains. The joy of it could not last. His burdens had been set aside then; now they were back, and in time those burdens would crush their love, for he could not keep up a convincing pretense of happiness. Talyra had put up with his dark moods too long already, and she deserved better. He would not have her stay with him out of sympathy.

All the next day he avoided her by remaining inside the Hall of Scholars, but he had to attend Vespers since Brek was to preside, as it was customary for the newly committed to do. There was little ceremony attached to commitment; one simply signed the official roll book and then, the same evening, donned the blue robe and appeared to Technicians as a priest. The service was no different than it was when conducted by a Scholar who had been doing it regularly for years. No special notice was taken except by one’s friends.

Noren purposely delayed his arrival until the last moment, so that when he approached Talyra the hymn had started and she had no chance to speak. He did not intend to touch her, but as Brek mounted the platform he found himself reaching for her hand. She would be astonished, of course, and perhaps flustered; he must not add to her bewilderment by failing to greet her with affection, though his throat ached so that he could not sing.

The others’ voices resounded through the courtyard; then, in the hush that followed, Brek began the invocation. “. . . The Mother Star is our source and our destiny, the wellspring of our heritage. . . .” Talyra’s eyes were raised devoutly, so she had not noticed yet; but at the familiar voice she turned to look, lips parted in awe. Noren pressed her fingers. “. . . it is our life’s bulwark. . . .” Brek spoke with utmost sincerity, and he was not talking about the Six Worlds’ sun alone. He had seen life in a way that he himself could not, Noren thought wistfully. It would be nice to go on believing that he could not take that view because he was too honest to accept false comfort, but real honesty told him that doing so would be a greater self-delusion. What Brek had attained was the result not of blindness, but of vision.

“I’m so glad for him,” Talyra said when the service was over and they walked hand in hand across the dusky courtyard under three orange moons. “I sometimes wondered if he was a candidate—I mean, his having been a Technician outside and all. You must have suspected, too. Oh, I know we mustn’t speak of people’s backgrounds,” she added hastily at Noren’s frown. “But aren’t you curious about how they chose him?”

Talyra did not know that Brek had been a heretic, of course; though everyone in the Inner City was aware that some of the Scholars were former heretics, the Technicians had no reason to suspect that they all were. Past lives were not mentioned, and she wouldn’t even have known that he was a Technician by birth if she hadn’t seen him at Noren’s trial. Nor would she ever learn that he’d been a Scholar before he assumed the robe. “The choice does not lie with the Scholars alone,” Noren told her. “The role of High Priest must be earned, but it must also be chosen by the candidate himself; that much is no secret.”

“Did you know when we were in the mountains that he wanted it?”

“No,” Noren declared, “I didn’t.”

They sat on a low stone bench in the shadowy triangle between three towers, and Talyra caressed his face fondly, expectantly. Noren kissed her, but he dared not do so with passion, and he knew that she was baffled. With sorrow he began, “Darling, I have to tell you . . . I’ve learned that permission for me to marry can’t be granted. There was . . . well, the aircar, you see—”

“But that was an accident! Surely they wouldn’t punish you for it!”

“No . . . but I shouldn’t have been in that aircar at all, you know. It’s not a matter of punishment, but of—consequences. There’s more to it that I can’t explain—”

“You needn’t,” Talyra said reassuringly. “In time they’ll absolve you, and meanwhile, we’ll just go on being betrothed.”

He should have known that it would not work, Noren thought. He must be cruel to spare her the greater hurt of seeing their love wither from his failure to find contentment. “Talyra,” he said painfully, “we shouldn’t have done what we did . . . those nights. Now that we have, you see, there’s no stopping, no going back to the way we were before—”

She shrank away, wounded. “Do you want to stop?”

“Of course I don’t, but you—well, you should, because you’d be better off with someone like Brek than with me.”

“I’m not in love with Brek!” she exclaimed, shocked.

“I don’t mean him specifically. He’s not in love with you, either; do you think I’d give you up for his sake? What I’m trying to say is . . . he has the same outlook you do, and there are plenty of others who have. I’m not one of them. You’ve told me that yourself. I—I can’t make you happy, Talyra.”

“Can I make you happy?”

“If you can’t, no girl ever can. But it’s just the same now as when we said goodbye in the village. ‘You are what you are,’ you said, ‘and our loving each other wouldn’t make any difference.’”

She was silent; then, turning back to him and taking his hands between hers, she murmured, “I also said that someday you’d find the spirit of the Mother Star had been with you.”

“Someday may be a long way off, Talyra.”

“It’s already here! Do you think I could watch you week after week, loving you, and not notice when it came?” At his confusion, she shook her head, laughing softly. “Darling, you’re blind. You’re still off in the sky somewhere, dreaming; you haven’t looked at the world since it happened!”

“Since what happened?”

“Do you really not know that during those days in the mountains you stopped being afraid?”

“I resigned myself to dying, that’s all.”

“No,” she told him. “Not to dying—to living! You were never afraid of death, and I think that when we crashed, you . . . you almost wanted to die. I won’t ask why. That doesn’t matter any more, because all of a sudden you were aware of the Mother Star’s protection. You knew that however things turned out, it wouldn’t fail us, and then, when you stopped worrying, you were at peace with the world. You were whole and free.”

“I wish that were true,” he said sincerely. “It’s not, though. I didn’t have any hope of our being saved, the way you and Brek did.”

“But Noren,” she protested, “you did, underneath. All along you did. Why else wouldn’t you have drunk more water?”

He stared at her, his mind reeling. He’d asked himself why he should abstain and had obtained no answer. Nevertheless, he had refrained from exceeding the safe limit; could he have done so without any underlying purpose? The water would not have harmed him; it would have been damaging only to any children he might subsequently father. If he had been totally without hope—if he’d been sure that Talyra would not live long enough to bear a child, nor he to love again—he would have had no reason to suffer thirst. He would have had no more qualms about drinking than in the days when he had believed the High Law was groundless.

Yet he had known positively that there was no logical chance of survival. He had climbed the cliff where the sphere lay only to please Talyra; he’d not thought it could possibly be of any use. That it might lead to rescue had not occurred to any of them. If underneath he’d had knowledge not born of logic, knowledge that had driven him to struggle against such odds, wasn’t it conceivable that the wish to continue his work rose from the same source? And wasn’t it valid to hope that the research might also succeed against all logic?

Through experience, Stefred had said. Those who are born to question can attain faith only through experience.

Talyra sat looking at him, waiting; and all at once Noren knew that the gulf between them no longer existed. Perhaps it had never been as unbridgeable as he’d believed. “You saw what I lacked before I did,” he whispered, “and you saw what I’d gained before I did, too.” He took her in his arms and there was no need for either of them to say anything more.

*  *  *

“I’m still awfully confused,” he admitted to Stefred the next morning, not yet able to acknowledge, even in his own mind, the reason he’d sought him out. “How could she have known something I didn’t know about myself, when so much has been kept secret from her?”

“You’ve no doubt that she was right?”

“None.”

“Then be thankful that she had the wit and the spirit to tell you what you would not have accepted from me.” With warmth, Stefred went on, “I could have given you the key when we talked two days ago. You were so bewildered, so torn by problems you weren’t able to resolve, that it was hard to remain silent. But a lecture wouldn’t have helped. You needed to fit the pieces together—which you can do now, if you try.”

There was a long pause; then Noren said thoughtfully, “All that time . . . when I held back from declaring myself a relapsed heretic . . . was it not cowardice after all? Was it that I still believed the Prophecy without knowing I did? How could I—”

“Noren,” Stefred interrupted, “have you ever wondered why you and Talyra love each other?”

“Why—why we just do! A thing like that isn’t something to be analyzed, Stefred.”

“Certain feelings can’t be,” Stefred observed dryly. “A scientist’s ability to analyze is a priceless gift, Noren, but it sometimes gets in the way. However, in this case my question wasn’t meant as an object lesson.”

Smiling, he continued, “You and Talyra share something deeper than a casual love affair. Why? Back in the village you were little more than children, and you didn’t know each other any better than villagers usually do at the time of betrothal; it wasn’t surprising that you were in love then. But when you parted, you considered yourselves unalterably opposed on an issue very basic to your view of life. You expected to be separated permanently, and you both had opportunity to meet others whose beliefs were more compatible. Isn’t it rather strange that your love endured’?”

“You mean how could she go on caring for someone who scorned what she values most? I—I don’t know, Stefred.”

“I’d have thought you’d be asking how you could go on caring for someone who valued what you scorned.”

Noren contemplated it. “There’s just one answer,” he said wonderingly. “I didn’t scorn it as much as I thought I did, and—and she sensed that. Perhaps I sensed it, too, underneath; perhaps I wanted it all along.”

“You had it all along.”

“Yet I was so sure I valued only the truth,” Noren declared ruefully.

“And you were right. Not all truth can be expressed in scientific terms, Noren, not even by us; and from the beginning you valued the whole truth, including the parts unavailable to you. At your trial and inquisition you said so specifically.”

“I assumed you could make it available if you chose,” Noren reflected, “and then when you gave me access to your own sources of knowledge—” He broke off, realizing with chagrin that although as a boy he had questioned what he’d been taught about the Scholars’ supernatural supremacy, he’d never doubted that they possessed the answers to all mysteries. To find that they did not—and could not—had shaken him in a way he hadn’t thoroughly understood, for despite himself, he had clung to a naive picture in which they and their City symbolized the knowledge he craved. When the City’s computers failed him, he had held all the harder to the one thing left that was sure: mathematics. He’d been afraid to believe the Prophecy after mathematics discredited it! That would have meant admitting that math itself was not absolute. . . .

“I couldn’t give up my symbol any more than Talyra could give up hers,” he concluded. “I needed one.”

“So do we all,” Stefred replied.

Startled, Noren stared at him, then turned slowly to survey the room, the tower’s view, the far-off outline of the Tomorrow Mountains where for a time he had abandoned despair and fear. Countless things meshed into a previously invisible pattern, a pattern that made unexpected sense of them. “I—I think I see now,” he said at last. “The Mother Star is a symbol of . . . the unknowable. Not just to villagers and Technicians who can’t know our secret, but to us, too, because there’s so much we can’t know.”

Stefred nodded. “There is no magical virtue in that particular symbol, and some Scholars prefer to adopt their own, or one of those used on the Six Worlds. But symbolism is most powerful when it is shared, and on the whole, those of us who have inherited that of the Prophecy find it more meaningful than anything else we could employ.”

“And priesthood is more than receiving people’s homage—”

“A High Priest does not receive. He gives. He gives hope and faith to people who might otherwise have neither.”

“But in order to do that,” Noren mused, “he has to find those things himself. I never thought I would, but now . . . oh, Stefred, if it weren’t that I set out to destroy them—”

“You wouldn’t have destroyed anyone’s faith, Noren.”

“I suppose nobody would have listened, but if it hadn’t been for the crash I’d have tried. At any rate, I’d have destroyed the prospect of my accomplishing something important in the research. Why should a chance accident like that determine the course of a person’s life—perhaps even of . . . a world’s history?”

“Look at it the other way around,” Stefred suggested, “and ask yourself why the accident occurred.”

Noren frowned. If anything was unanswerable, that was, yet he had been at the controls. . . . “You mean—I didn’t really want to do what I was planning to?”

“That’s one possibility. There are others, none of which depend upon chance. Neither of us will ever know what forces were operative, Noren. This much is certain, though: when brought to the test, you would not have chosen the destruction of hope over a gamble on the truth that lies beyond your vision.”

“How can you be sure?”

“You had the power to destroy Talyra’s,” Stefred pointed out, “and you didn’t use it.”

Stunned once again, Noren sat motionless while the implications grew clear in his mind. He’d known he owed Talyra honesty, known she did not want false comfort, yet he hadn’t been able to speak truth as he saw it. This too had been the result of inward knowledge! This too had been not a betrayal of truth, but an expression of his real belief.

He had not seen the analogy. He had not stopped to think that it was all or nothing: the affirmation of life, of survival, for the world of the future as well as for Talyra and himself—or the denial of his deepest feelings. Had his view of “truth” been so narrow as to permit him to repudiate the Prophecy publicly, it would have crushed his buried hope for their lives and for that of their child.

“You were sure beforehand,” he said in wonder.

“Of course. During your inquisition I studied your subconscious feelings; could I have done that without seeing your underlying faith? Would I have exposed you to emotional peril if I had not seen it? For that matter, I wouldn’t have judged you a potentially gifted scientist if I hadn’t believed that in due time you would plunge beyond our knowledge, just as you plunged beyond the villagers’—and to take such a plunge, one must sense that there’s something ahead.”

“You—you had faith in me. And you knew that sooner or later, as long as I was outside the City, some kind of test would arise; that’s why you insisted on letting me stay.”

“It was the only way for you to regain your self-trust,” Stefred agreed. “Once you’d begun to doubt, the thing had to be carried through to the end.”

All or nothing. . . . Very softly Noren declared, “Commitment’s not something you decide on . . . you just find you’re already committed. And when you put on the robe you’re merely offering to share what you’ve found.”

“Are you ready to offer that, Noren?”

“Yes,” Noren replied, overcome by emotions for which no speech seemed adequate. “Yes, I guess I am.”

*  *  *

Alone, he stood in the dim assembly room under the glittering sunburst, looking up with reverence he had not felt before; and the once-frightening words echoed in his mind as words of comfort. “. . . There is no surety save in the light that sustained our forebears; no hope but in that which lies beyond our sphere; and our future is vain except as we have faith. Yet we are strong in the faith that as those of the past were sustained, so shall we be also. What must be sought shall be found; what was lost shall be regained; what is needful to life will not be denied us. And though our peril be great even unto the last generation of our endurance, in the end humankind shall prevail; and the doors of the universe shall once again be thrown open. . . .”

Noren’s eyes blurred with tears. He had never been so moved. There had been excitement and sometimes pleasure in things he had done during his first term in the City, but never this particular kind of happiness. Lately he had felt that for him no happiness was possible. How incredible, he thought, that in the space of a few hours he could be so changed.

The new peace of mind was not permanent, he knew. There would still be bad times. Yet there would be satisfactions, too—in his studies; his work; his growing comprehension of all he must absorb if he was to contribute significantly to the research upon his return to the outpost beyond the mountains; in the love he shared with Talyra; in the children they would give to a world that would someday be transformed. Wasn’t that how it had always been, for everyone?

Humankind will survive, he thought, because people do survive: not all of them, under all conditions, but some at least to carry forward the heritage that is ours. In our natural environment instinct ensures that—the instinct that enabled us to evolve from mere animals into human beings with the mind and spirit to advance—and in an alien world where evolution can’t progress normally, our instinct guides us in different ways. We do what we must. Hating it, knowing it involves evil and injustice that ought not to exist, the human race lives on in the only way it can; but we who recognize the evils go on working to abolish them, just as our forebears did. It is all part of the same pattern.

Crossing the room to the small closed alcove he’d never before entered, he knelt at the low shelf where, beneath a miniature sunburst, a thick, well-worn book rested: the roll book of the committed. Noren leafed through it with awe, for on the first page, under the faded legend, “We the undersigned do hereby hold ourselves answerable for the preservation of human life on this alien planet and for the restoration of our people’s birthright,” was inscribed the seldom-pronounced name of the First Scholar himself. And below it were other strange names with even stranger dates: birthdates in four figures—Six Worlds’ reckoning—with the Year One listed as date of commitment. That had been before the Prophecy was conceived; further on was written a formal pledge to work toward the keeping of its promises and to fulfill the solemn obligations of priesthood. And then came page after page of two- and three-digit dates opposite the names of those who had upheld the trust through all the years since the Founding.

At the last, on a still half-empty sheet, Brek’s signature stood out, clear and fresh and decisive, showing no trace of hesitancy. Noren signed below it with a firm hand, wondering how many others would do so before the need for such commitment was past.

There would never be an end, he realized as he rose and left the alcove. The book would be filled and a new one begun; the Time of the Prophecy would come and go; but there would always be priests because no matter how much future Scholars might learn, some things would remain unknowable. It would not be the same once the Prophecy was brought to fulfillment. Scholar status would carry neither rank nor privilege, and heresy would cease to be regarded as a crime; people who wished to offer themselves would apply voluntarily for acceptance. They would no longer be the only ones engaged in scientific investigation. Yet the search for truth—all truth—being the proper function of a priest, such work would naturally remain one of their prime concerns. They would begin to look ahead to the time when interstellar travel must be resumed, for the world would never have rich resources, and once people learned what their forebears of the Six Worlds had possessed, they would look to their religion for a new promise. And would not the Scholars give them one, one less specific than the Prophecy, yet just as sure in the sense that if it was not fulfilled, humankind would someday die? No race could endure forever confined to a single world—knowing that, the Scholars would be committed to the discovery and mastery of still another alien environment. Someday they themselves might crew the exploratory starships. Someday, perhaps, they might meet face to face the Visitors who’d made the mysterious sphere. . . .

That evening, as the hour of Vespers approached, Noren drew the blue robe from the storage compartment beneath his bunk and unfolded it, remembering the day it had been given to him, the day of his recantation; and he was suddenly conscious of the distance he’d come since then. He would stand before people now not as a despised rebel, a hero in his own eyes if not in theirs, but as an avowed representative of their most cherished traditions. It was odd, Noren thought, that he no longer seemed to mind.

Carrying the robe with him, he went back to the Hall of Scholars, for though he had neither time nor desire to eat anything, he hoped he might speak to Brek. He encountered him coming out of the refectory; they gripped hands wordlessly, and both were aware that the temporary rift between them need never be mentioned. “I’ll find Talyra,” Brek said, “and tell her you want to see her before the service.”

Noren nodded gratefully. He was barred from disclosing his status before he appeared robed, which by tradition he must not do until Vespers, and the sight of him so attired would stun Talyra; it would be best if they could exchange a few private words as he emerged from the Hall of Scholars. Returning to the tower’s vestibule, he stood just inside its door till he saw her approaching. Then he flung the robe over his shoulders and, feeling its full weight for the first time, he walked forward to meet her.

She inclined her head in the automatic gesture of respect, not yet recognizing him; then as he drew near, she froze in startled disbelief. Noren waited, stricken by fear that this revelation would turn her love to deference. But the face she raised to him was radiant, and when he opened his arms she came unhesitatingly.

“Talyra,” he said, “I’m free now! The waiting’s over—” His heart lifted at the thought that soon, perhaps within a few days, she would come to him in the festive red skirts of a bride.

Nestling close to him, enveloped by the blue folds of the robe, she whispered, “It was this all the time? Not the heresy, but—this?”

“It was both,” he admitted, saying all he would ever be able to say. “They were—well, mixed up.”

“And the things you suffered, the ones you couldn’t tell me about, were . . . preparation?”

“You might put it that way.”

“I should have guessed,” Talyra murmured. “I should have guessed when I first heard that villagers could become Scholars. You wanted so much to learn everything they knew, I should have known that once they saw what kind of person you are, they’d let you.”

“You had no cause, since I wasn’t permitted to reveal any of it. There will always be secrets I can’t reveal. That’s why our wedding had to be postponed; it wouldn’t be fair for a wife to suddenly find herself married to someone who is bound by such great secrecy.”

“Did you think I’d object, darling?”

“Not really. But it was your right to be warned before choosing.”

“As if I’d choose to leave you! But that you’ve chosen me . . . I’m honored. After the way I doubted your faith—”

“I doubted it, too,” he told her. “If it weren’t for you, Talyra, I’d still be doubting. They taught me secrets; they are teaching me to do a Scholar’s work; to that I was sealed long ago. But I wasn’t ready for priesthood until you opened my eyes.”

They embraced quickly; then she walked by his side to the semicircular platform around which Technicians and Scholars were gathering. The dusk was clear, and the stars that sparkled overhead seemed uncommonly bright. He could gaze at them undismayed, Noren realized with gladness. Their image would not haunt him any more.

Around him, the assembled people had begun the vesper hymn. Just before he released her hand Talyra asked softly, “Will you bless me, Noren?”

“The blessing is our heritage from the Mother Star,” he replied gravely, “and is not mine to bestow. It falls upon all of us; I merely proclaim what I’ve found to be true.”

Mounting the steps, Noren looked out at familiar upturned faces: Brek’s, Stefred’s, those of many whom he could always count as friends. To his surprise he felt no nervousness; and though he held the Book of the Prophecy, he had no need to consult it, for the words came readily to his lips. “. . . So long as we believe in it, no force can destroy us, though the heavens themselves be consumed. . . .” He glanced up at the surrounding towers, envisioning the starships that would someday be rebuilt, as he extended his hands to pronounce the sacerdotal blessing: “May the spirit of the Mother Star abide with you. . . .” And with me, he thought reverently. May I hold fast to that upon which we all must draw. Talyra smiled at him, glowing with love and pride; and Noren knew joy that his faith was no less genuine than hers.

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