Chapter Six

The weeks of waiting were hard, as Noren had known they would be. And he also knew that this was just the beginning. If the water he’d drunk had damaged his genes, the obstacles to continuing the work might prove insurmountable, a prospect he refused to think about. But if it hadn’t, he would nevertheless face a long period during which his self-discipline would be severely tested. For that, he began to prepare himself.

He could do nothing active toward the goal till enough time had elapsed for the water’s effect on him to become detectable. To spend that time in pointless reanalysis of the genetic work was a temptation, yet he would only be putting off his return to physics. He realized that he had to return. Once a child was conceived, seasons must pass before the experiment’s outcome was known, and during those seasons, when no progress could be made in genetic research, he must pretend to have abandoned his interest in it. He must earn the other Scholars’ respect again, so that later, armed with proof that the genetic change worked, he would have hope of winning support. Furthermore, he must provide evidence that metal synthesization was a lost cause. He owed people that, he felt.

And he owed it to his child-to-be.

At night, alone in the dark, he worried about the child. What he’d resolved to do was wrong; he could not deny that. Though the mother would consent, the child could not. And it was wrong to experiment on any unconsenting human being!

Yet the choice was between risk to a few babies and the sure extinction of the entire human race. He was sure—as sure as it was humanly possible to be—that metal could not be synthesized in any way short of a Unified Field Theory, which, as the First Scholar had known, could not be developed and tested without large-scale equipment that was unobtainable. Wrong as it was to experiment with his child, to let humankind die when the life-support machines wore out would be a greater wrong.

If he could find a mathematical basis for a Unified Field Theory, Noren thought—show how metal had to be synthesized in principle—people might admit that their faith was misplaced. This, then would be his task. It was an impossible one; the greatest physicists of the Six Worlds had sought a Unified Field Theory for centuries, and the chances of his coming up with it within his lifetime, let alone within the next year, were therefore effectively zero. Yet he had to do something with the year! And it wasn’t an entirely unpleasant prospect, even knowing himself foredoomed to failure. It would help keep fear of a worse failure from his mind.

The day after reaching this decision, he mentioned it to Lianne. He’d been seeking her company casually, in the refectory and in other gathering places, since modifying his genes. She did not know about the vaccine; he had not yet told her how far he’d gone in genetics, or how far he planned to go. That must wait till he had checked the impure water’s effect on him. But considering what he planned to ask of her, he must strengthen their friendship. Though he would not court her as if he loved her, he could scarcely ignore her until it was time to broach the subject. And he discovered, with some surprise, that he did not want to ignore her. That troubled him; it seemed disloyal to Talyra. Having pledged himself to Talyra in mid-adolescence, he’d never paid attention to any other girl. Now to his dismay he found himself enjoying Lianne’s companionship—even, on occasion, looking forward to the time when they would share more than companionship.

Lianne knew how he still felt about Talyra. He was sure she did, for though she quite evidently welcomed his company, she was as careful as he to shy away from anything suggesting courtship. She was on guard, he felt, against displaying her feelings, and sometimes joy in her eyes turned to pain. Yet it was not his lack of ardor that was hurting her. Lianne’s pain went deeper. Whatever her secrets, they seemed to weigh heavily upon her, and Noren sensed that he could not have helped even if his heart had been free to give.

Nor did Lianne need help. She was . . . self-sufficient. He could not doubt her ability to handle problems. For some reason, however, her self-sufficiency was unlike his own—she was not a loner, as he was, and nobody thought her cold or unapproachable. Lianne radiated warmth. He felt comfortable in her presence, despite the fact that her mind was inscrutable. Her wisdom was baffling at times, but never irritating. The Unified Field Theory, for instance . . .

“It’s not a thing I can explain,” Noren told her, “not to someone who hasn’t studied physics. But matter and energy are—well, two aspects of the same thing. The power plant converts matter to energy. If we really understood the relationship, completely understood it, we might reverse the process, convert energy to matter, to metal, perhaps—”

“But you don’t have the facilities you’d need to do that,” Lianne replied promptly. “They didn’t fully understand it on the Six Worlds, even studying particles with far higher energies than we can produce here.”

Noren gaped, incredulous. To be sure, Lianne had experienced the secret dream by now, and the First Scholar had spoken of the Unified Field Theory in that dream. But had he thought specifically about subnuclear particles? Even if he had, how could a village woman—one now studying psychiatry, not physics—have drawn their significance from the recording?

“Some of the mathematical foundation might be laid,” she went on, “only I think it’s beyond you, Noren.”

“Of course it’s beyond me,” he agreed. “That’s the point! It’s beyond all of us; that’s what I’ve got to prove before I can make people accept the alternative.”

“Can you really work with math at that level, or are you going to fake it?”

“Fakery,” he replied quietly, “is something I’ve never been willing to stand for.”

“So I thought,” she murmured, troubled. She seemed about to say more, yet held back. “It’s so hot,” she burst out, “let’s find someplace cooler! I don’t see how people bear this endless heat.”

The heat was, to be sure, scorching, as it always was outside and had been every day within Noren’s memory; the cool interiors of the towers and domes had been startling to him on his initial entry to the City. Lianne had been in the City less than a year. “We’ll go indoors if you like,” he said, wondering if her white hair and extraordinarily pale skin made her sensitive to sunlight.

“I guess that’s our only choice. Don’t you wish, though, that we could walk somewhere in the shade, under trees?”

“You’ve been spending too much time with library dreams,” he told her, smiling. He knew what trees were; five of the Six Worlds had had them.

“Dreams?” Lianne, who made incredibly complex connections between abstract things, was often dense about simple ones.

“Yes—hasn’t Stefred explained about them? The pleasant ones aren’t just recreation; they’re designed to show us what this world hasn’t got, to make us feel the lacks in a way non-Scholars don’t. So that we’ll never be satisfied, always keep struggling. And maybe someday, once we have metal, we can find a better planet—” He broke off, aware with renewed anguish that this goal was among those that must be renounced.

“I didn’t mean to stir that up,” Lianne said hastily. “I’m not quite sure how I managed to.”

“What you said about trees, of course. Why not ask for an ocean?”

She turned even paler than her normal coloring, as if the casual remark had been an unpardonable slip of some kind. Noren took her arm. “Lianne—don’t be sorry! I have to learn to bear this; we all do. It’s just that when we’ve believed in the Prophecy so long, believed not only in survival but in a better future—”

“Yes,” she agreed; but she was still trembling. “Yet a—a simple thing like trees—”

“We could have them, maybe!” Noren cried excitedly. “That might be done with genetic engineering after the essential jobs are finished. There are plants with thick stems, they just aren’t strong enough to stand upright. I never thought before, but in principle I could alter them. There’s a lot I could do! Oh, I know we’re going to lose the City—the power and the computers—in time, but as long as I’m alive I can keep them going; I can keep the genetic technology long enough to make this world better for our descendants. And though we don’t have oceans, there are big lakes. Villages could be built near them once it’s safe for people to touch the water. Do you know what swimming is?”

“Well, of course—” She broke off. “I have experienced a dream of swimming,” she said slowly. “And boats. If there were trees, and wood, we could build some. Even Stone Age peoples have boats.”

Noren stared at her. “You’ve studied the Six Worlds more than most of us,” he observed thoughtfully. “Not only the dreams, but facts stored in the computers. It’s not just what you know, but how you think, as if—as if you came from the Six Worlds, like the Founders.”

“That’s one way to look at it,” she confessed. “I—I’m different, I’ve always told you that . . . and there’s the empathy Stefred talks about . . . and I—well, I identify in the dreams, not just the First Scholar’s, but the library dreams, too. I mix them too much with reality, perhaps. I suppose that sounds like a retreat, a coward’s course.”

“No,” Noren said. “No, it takes courage—don’t you see? Because you’re here, in the real world, and you’re not deluding yourself, not even with the Prophecy. You experience those dreams fully, think about them while you’re awake, knowing all the time you’ll never get out of this prison we’re in, not the City but our whole planet—”

“Please don’t! You’re giving me credit I don’t deserve.”

“You do deserve it. I know it hurts to talk about this—but Lianne, you choose to. Most people don’t. They enjoy the library dreams, but in the daytime they can’t bear to remember them. I’m like that myself—I push them out of my mind because awareness of our limits here is just too painful. Oh, I can take it; I force myself to think it through sometimes just to make sure I can. But you seem to live with it naturally.”

“I—I wish I were what you believe.” Lianne’s eyes glistened with tears.

“I’ll bet I can prove you are.” He had led her to a spot in the courtyard shaded by the shadow of a tower, where they could look up into the blueness of the sky. “You remember you said once you’d like me to tell you more about the alien sphere I found in the mountains?”

Abruptly Lianne pulled back, withdrawing her arm from his; she stiffened. Noren smiled. “I’m testing you; already you see that. Which is part of the test, because most people aren’t even perceptive enough to shrink. They look at the sphere and it fascinates them, and they talk endlessly about what sort of beings the Visitors must have been, and they speculate about what function the thing might have had—and their emotions aren’t involved at all.”

“But yours are?”

“What do you think about the sphere, Lianne?”

“I’d rather hear what you think,” she said levelly.

“I think there’s a good chance that the civilization that once came to this world and left the sphere still exists somewhere. That things that used to be real on the Six Worlds are still real, other places. Maybe millions of places. Has that idea ever come into your mind?”

“Yes,” she admitted, “it has.”

“Do you believe it’s true?”

“Certainly. I mean—well, of course they couldn’t all have been wiped out by novas, all the civilizations in the universe.”

“But you’ve never heard anybody else in the City mention that.”

“I guess I haven’t. It’s so obvious—”

“No, it isn’t, not to the people who don’t have what it take to face the thought that we’re cut off from them. Lianne, that sphere is physical proof of what used to be only theory. Oh, the Founders knew this planet had been mined, but that could have been a billion years ago. The sphere isn’t that old. Right after I found it, I used to try to talk to people about the implications, only they didn’t see any implications. They didn’t want to see. Somebody told me once that if I’m hoping we’ll be rescued—”

“That’s impossible!” Lianne broke in sharply. “You mustn’t have any such hope.”

“I don’t. The odds against it are fantastically high; people know that, all right. So they’d rather not think of other civilizations as really existing, existing at this very moment—because once you think of them that way, you know we’re in a worse prison here than the First Scholar imagined. We lost more than the Six Worlds; we lost our starships. And since we aren’t going to succeed in synthesizing metal, we aren’t ever going to get them back. I know I’m behind bars; I’m not brave enough to imagine what that means very often, but I do know. I also know what it means for our human race to be maybe the only one in this whole galaxy that’s never going to get in touch with the rest. And the look in your eyes right now tells me you know, too.”

Lianne didn’t answer; the emotion in her seemed beyond words, beyond even what he himself had felt whenever he’d allowed himself to ponder these things. “I’m not trying to be cruel,” he said. “I’m trying to show you how much I admire you, how much stronger you are than you think.”

She managed a smile. “Stefred’s tactics? I’m the one who’s supposed to become the expert in encouraging people.”

“You have a talent for it. Not only in what you do and say, but in what you don’t need to ask. Nobody else, not even Stefred, has been able to grasp how I feel about the sphere.” He hesitated. “There’s another thing. The Council ruled that it can never again be turned on, but the reason wasn’t publicized. It’s something I learned when I started studying genetics—there’s a chance the radiation might be what harmed Talyra’s child.”

“Oh, no, Noren.” Lianne’s face showed not shock, but certainty.

“Don’t try to spare me. If it was the cause, the fault’s mine; Talyra wouldn’t have been near it if it weren’t for me. Now that I’m sure no other pregnant women came in contact with it, I can’t say I’m sorry we found it, because if we hadn’t, Brek and I would have died, too, and Talyra would have died sooner—we’d all have died of starvation. But before I learned the radiation may have done harm, I was glad we found it. Underneath, it almost seemed like compensation for losing the aircar. Even though I know it can’t ever help us, even though it makes me feel worse than before about being stuck on this world—just knowing seemed better than not knowing. Talyra believed the Mother Star led us to it. Well, my ideas about its meaning weren’t any more realistic.” He searched Lianne’s face. “Was I a fool, do you think?”

Her hand touched his. “No. Go on being glad; knowing is better. And the radiation did not harm the baby, I—well, I can’t explain why, call it my crazy intuition, but I’m sure it didn’t.”

“There’s no way you could be sure of a thing like that.”

“I suppose not, only what could a portable radiation device be except a communicator of some kind? And they wouldn’t have used communicators that could be harmful.”

There was a strange intensity in her voice, so strong that he found himself believing her. Her argument was reasonable, yet hardly conclusive; who knew what might or might not be harmful to an alien species? Still . . . Lianne’s knowledge of things beyond her experience was often truly uncanny.

*  *  *

Twice in the past his reproductive cells had been tested for genetic damage; doctors had handled it. But there was no need to involve a doctor if one knew how to use the computer input equipment and ask the right questions about the data. At least for a man there wasn’t. Since to test a woman’s reproductive cells demanded surgery, the vaccine, if it worked on men, must be presumed to work on women without this intermediate check. The really crucial trial would be the health of the baby. But before daring to father a baby, he himself must make sure that impure water hadn’t affected him as it would have before his vaccination.

He did the test at night, as he’d done the blood tests, when the computer room was deserted. Handling the apparatus, entering preliminary analysis commands, he worked steadily and impassively without permitting his mind to stray. Only when he keyed the final query did his fingers fumble and his eyes drop from the screen. Cursing himself for his cowardice, he forced himself to look. The report read, FERTILITY UNIMPAIRED. NO INDICATION OF GENETIC DAMAGE. NO KNOWN CAUSE TO EXPECT DEFECTIVE PROGENY.

Noren’s clenched hands let go, and he felt weak, reeling with the release of pent-up tension. To his astonishment he found that he was weeping. He had not let himself know how terrified he’d been.

As he emerged from the Hall of Scholars into the brightening dawn, Noren knew elation for the first time since Talyra’s death. That was behind him now. The memory would always hurt; he could never feel for anyone what he’d felt for Talyra. But the children he’d have had with Talyra would not have helped humanity to survive. His future children would! They would be the first of a new race, the first born able to live without aid in the only world now accessible to them. What is needful to life will not be denied us . . . that was true! If the genetic code of life could be changed, surely the problem of getting people to do it could be overcome also. By the Star, Noren vowed, he’d make a good world for his children!

His and Lianne’s. He was not sure why it had become so important that they be Lianne’s—perhaps, he thought, because she, above all women he’d known, would understand the meaning. She saw nothing unnatural in using knowledge to alter life. With eagerness, he turned back into the tower.

He found her in the dream room; she still worked there some nights, and her shift was just ending. “Let’s go for a walk,” he said. “Now, while it’s cool out in the courtyard.”

She looked so openly pleased that he was ashamed. His impatience to make plans, more than consideration for her comfort, had prompted this suggestion—and he realized that he cared how she felt about trivial things as well as serious ones. Maybe sunlight really was hard on her. He’d learned Talyra’s feelings, all of them, but never anyone else’s. Had he tried? Could he become close in that way to Lianne?

“We haven’t talked about the secret dream,” he said as they crossed the deserted courtyard, their footsteps loud in the hush of daybreak.

“You never seemed to want to.” This was true; he’d carefully stayed clear of the topic while unready to pursue it fully. “I understand how it must have been for you, Noren,” Lianne went on. “Personal, too personal to speak of. I monitored you, of course—”

“What did that show?” he asked, wondering.

“Only that it affected you deeply . . . in lots of ways. Later, when you asked me what I thought about genetic change, I guessed the dream was involved. And then when I went through it myself and learned how the First Scholar’s experience fits in, I knew you must feel—chosen.”

“Stefred thinks that makes me dangerous. I’m not quite sure why. I see his point about how hard it’ll be to get people to abandon the High Law willingly, but if he’s right that it’s too late, I couldn’t cause any harm by myself. Any implementation is far in the future anyway. So why does he oppose even the research?”

“You don’t know?” Lianne asked, surprised. “Noren, of course you couldn’t do anything alone that would threaten village culture—and you wouldn’t; Stefred’s aware of that. But think what it would do to us, to the priesthood, if we stopped believing the Prophecy.”

“I stopped a long time ago,” Noren confessed bitterly. “And it hurts. Stefred isn’t a man who’d back away from that.”

“Not from the despair,” she agreed. “Suppose, though, that you were to win official support for genetic alteration, Council support—and we gave up metal synthesization as hopeless. Gave up the plan to fulfill the Prophecy’s promises. No priest, least of all Stefred, could ever again speak those words about knowledge and cities and machines with a clear conscience. Starting now, in our generation, not in our grandchildren’s! We’d reinterpret the symbolism among ourselves, but nobody would be able to preside at public ceremonies.”

Noren drew breath, horrified by his own blindness. “It would become a real fraud after all, just as I thought when I was a heretic—”

“Yes, that’s another thing. Recantation depends on a heretic’s being honestly convinced that the whole Prophecy is true, doesn’t it? If we revised the official plans, Stefred couldn’t recruit any more Scholars. The system would turn into a sham that would no longer work.”

Appalled, Noren mumbled, “You don’t know how ironic it is, my not seeing it like that in the first place. After the way I took off in that aircar, ready to throw away my life and Brek’s proclaiming that the Prophecy is a false hope—” He broke off. “Lianne, I wondered then why all the others didn’t feel as Brek and I did. Now . . . they would, wouldn’t they, if they accepted the alternative to hoping.”

“Of course. And if they did, we couldn’t last even till the genetic change could be put into effect. Stefred has to oppose you! He has to keep you from gaining wide support, no matter whether you’re right or wrong. That’s the only way the priesthood can remain genuine.”

“But if I’m right, I’ve got to have support. It’s a paradox.”

“Yes. One you’ll someday have to resolve. Meanwhile, you and Stefred both have vital parts to play.”

“And you, Lianne?”

“I—I can only be an observer,” she said sadly.

“More than that, I hope.” Noren put his arm around her shoulders, feeling less shy than he’d expected he would. “In the dream—what the First Scholar did, what she did—do you believe it was ethical?”

“Not in itself; they knew it wasn’t, because the child had no choice and suffered harm. But it was the lesser of the evils they had to choose between.”

“Would you make the same decision?”

“In her place, yes, I would.”

“I don’t mean that—I mean in yours.”

“The situation’s not going to arise.”

“Because of Stefred’s opposition? You didn’t think I was going to let that hold me up.”

“No—no, of course I knew better,” Lianne said. “But to prepare a live-virus vaccine—”

“I’ve already passed that stage. I bent a few policies by using the Technicians’ lab, but there just wasn’t any other way. And—” He faced her. “It works. I’ve tested it.”

“Altered your own genotype?” She smiled. “I guess if I’d stopped to think, I’d have realized you had kept on working. I suppose you’re going to say you’re ready to risk drinking from the waterfall, and I—well, I can’t argue. We’re walking in that direction. I won’t stop you, Noren; I’ll stand by and wish you the Star’s blessing.”

They were indeed approaching the waterfall, though he hadn’t planned it. The ring of domes stood dark against a yellow sky; the sun hadn’t yet risen above them, but overhead the towers shone with its reflected rays. Noren didn’t speak until they reached the garden. Then, barely audible over the splash of the water, he said, “I drank weeks ago. There’s been no damage. I thought you might want to do more than stand by.”

She drew back, to his surprise suddenly wary. “Noren, I—I don’t think I want to hear what you’re about to say.”

“I won’t lie to you. I won’t tell you I’m in love with you the way I was with Talyra.”

“I know that,” she said, hiding her face from him.

“I’ll just say I admire you more than any woman I’ve ever known,” Noren went on, realizing this was true. “The research has to go forward; you understand why. But I don’t want just that. I want a child, the first child who really belongs to this world—and I care about that child’s mother being someone to be proud of. I don’t suppose you’d want to marry me, not after turning down a proposal from Stefred; you told me you don’t plan to marry at all. If you’d like us to be married, though, we can be. I’ll be honored. And if you’d rather we were together for only a while, I’ll understand.”

Lianne raised her eyes, and they were filled with tears. “You don’t understand! Noren, I admire you, too, and I’m flattered that you’d choose me—please don’t think I’m not. But you’re asking for something I can’t give. The first child who really belongs to this world—oh, that’s ironic—”

Noren watched helplessly, puzzled by this lapse in Lianne’s usual composure. It wasn’t like her to give way to emotion. If she did not want him as a lover, she could simply refuse, as she’d refused Stefred and many other suitors. Yet . . . surely he hadn’t been mistaken about her feeling toward him, her effort to suppress it had been too plain.

It must be, then, a matter of some past commitment. She might well have been married outside the City, but conviction of heresy meant automatic annulment; under the High Law her wedding vows were no longer binding. Still, she might feel that to break them would be a betrayal of the man from whom she’d been parted.

“Talyra wanted me to have children,” he said gently. “If there’s someone back in your village you’ll never see again, wouldn’t he feel the same? He wouldn’t want you to remain childless just to be faithful to a memory. We both cherish our memories—and if we’re both in the same situation, we won’t risk hurting each other.”

“Oh, Noren,” Lianne whispered, “I never want to hurt you—”

“You won’t. You don’t have to promise me anything. You’ll be better off if you don’t—if there was some problem with the vaccine my tests didn’t show, I won’t be able to have more children after the first, and you’ve got to be free to have babies with someone else. I accept that.”

The words seemed cold. Lianne didn’t respond, and Noren moved to take her in his arms, realizing suddenly that she might fear that because he wasn’t in love with her, he would offer her no tenderness. “I can’t make promises either, I haven’t the right,” he went on. “But don’t you know that while we’re together, it’ll be real for me? I mean, not like an experiment or anything—”

She wrenched away, almost on the verge of hysteria. “Tell me the truth,” Noren pleaded. “Is it the experiment itself? You’re not a geneticist like the woman in the dream; you didn’t do the lab work personally. I won’t be hurt if you believe I’m not competent to have done it safely—”

“No! No, it’s not that, I trust your genetic work—you’ve got to test or there’s no hope for this world’s future!” Lianne burst out. She struggled to choke back sobs, then resolutely continued, “I can’t let you think I don’t have confidence in you. Too much depends on this. I’d have your child if I could help that way, only—only I can’t, Noren. I—I can’t bear you a child. I mean . . . that is, I wouldn’t get pregnant.”

He stared at her, overcome with appalled sympathy. This was the answer to many of her secrets; no wonder she’d declared she would never marry. “Are you sure?” he asked gravely.

Lianne nodded, still weeping.

But she couldn’t be, Noren thought. In the villages women always got the blame for childlessness, but genetics had taught him that it could be the man’s fault. Lianne wasn’t the sort who’d have had enough experience to be sure.

Then too, some types of female infertility were curable. “More’s known in the City than in the villages,” he reminded her. “It may be that a doctor could help you.”

“A doctor—oh, no!” Her eyes widened with genuine dismay. “That’s out of the question, Noren.”

How odd, he thought—Lianne wasn’t easily embarrassed, and besides, she was a medical student. “Haven’t you thought of consulting a doctor now that you’re a Scholar?” he inquired.

“There’s no need—I am already absolutely sure.” Her composure restored, she was again speaking with the intensity of total conviction. “Please, let’s forget it, shall we? I haven’t told anyone else here—I shouldn’t have told you, even, only I had to convince you to ask some other woman. You aren’t in love with me, after all. It wouldn’t have been fair to let you waste time hoping I could have your baby.”

That was true, of course. Noren wondered why he was so disappointed.

*  *  *

She had told him to forget it, but he could not. He was distressed for Lianne’s sake. I never wanted a baby, she had said once long ago—poor Lianne, she had convinced herself she did not even want what she could not have. It wasn’t fair that someone so deserving of happiness should be deprived of one of the few joys not prohibited by life in the alien world. And perhaps it was unnecessary! If only she were willing to get a medical opinion . . . strange, how that suggestion had seemed to horrify her even more than the belief that she was infertile.

To be sure, doctors could not always help. There were, he knew, techniques for conceiving babies mentioned only in the secret genetics file, techniques banned as “obscene” under the Six Worlds’ rigid taboo against medically-assisted conception. In theory, it was possible to conceive a baby by laboratory methods and then implant it in its mother’s womb. Though it had shocked Noren to learn this, by now he had become objective. Yet for him it was not a valid scientific option. Even if people would tolerate the idea, even if he convinced some doctor to support his goal, the surgical and lab procedures were untried; there would be too many variables. If a child conceived by such means wasn’t normal, there’d be no knowing whether the genes or the medical techniques were to blame. He was already taking enough risks without departing from the time-proven way of fathering children.

So he must choose someone else. Some woman who wouldn’t be hurt—more than ever, after seeing Lianne’s emotions, he was resolved upon that. Who, then—Veldry? She was the only one he could think of, and she was unattached at present; her last lover had moved out of her room some weeks back. Inner City rumors being what they were, he’d have heard if anybody else had moved in, as would everyone. For that reason he could hardly move in himself. People knew him too well not to guess his motive; certainly Stefred did. But Veldry would realize that and would be discreet. She wasn’t one to let anyone’s secrets reach the Council.

Veldry had experienced the dream; he should at least get in touch with her to find out how she felt about it. Yet somehow he put off doing so. He could not get Lianne out of his mind.

What if Lianne was not infertile, what if it had been her husband’s problem all along? Even analysis of her genotype would tell something . . . and he could test that himself. All he’d need would be a blood sample—which, of course, he could not get without upsetting her terribly again. Village-reared women were like that; they felt worthless if they were barren. As if that would matter to a man who truly loved a woman! To Stefred, for instance . . .

All of a sudden Noren guessed what kept on troubling him. Lianne evidently hadn’t told Stefred; she’d said she had told no one but himself—yet it was probably why she’d refused Stefred’s proposal. She had felt unworthy! And that was tragic, for though a village man might consider her so, Stefred would not. Surely he, Noren, would be justified in clearing up the misunderstanding. He had not promised Lianne to keep what she’d said confidential.

“Look,” he said, confronting Stefred in his study, “I know this is none of my business, but I can’t stand by and see two people I care about kept apart when it may be needless. Has Lianne given you any idea why she won’t marry you?”

“Not in words,” Stefred replied painfully.

“You’re not one to give up easily without understanding the reason,” Noren observed, probing with the hope that Stefred might already suspect, that it might not be necessary to mention his own discussion with her.

“I know when it’s best not to pry,” Stefred said. “She has rejected all of her suitors. She—she seems to feel she couldn’t make anyone happy, which is of course untrue; but it’s something she believes, something from deep in her past, behind the mind barrier I found during her inquisition. I had no warrant to breach that barrier then. I’ve even less right now.”

“Yet you feared she might get involved in a genetic experiment.”

“It’s natural, in our culture anyway, for a woman to want a baby. If Lianne could have one without facing whatever buried emotions keep her from believing she’s desirable for her own sake—”

“Only she can’t,” declared Noren, aware that Stefred’s happiness—and Lianne’s—mattered more to him than the risk he was taking by revealing that genetic research still interested him. “Stefred, I—I talked to her about such experiments; I need to know people’s views. I asked her how she’d feel personally. She didn’t want to discourage me, she favors genetic change—so she was frank. She said she can’t have babies at all.”

Stefred’s eyes lit. “That explains a lot.”

“So I thought. She was emotionally upset, extremely so.”

“By the Star,” Stefred burst out, “I try to make allowances. I know village culture couldn’t have been kept from reverting in all ways when it had to regress technologically. I see heretics abused, sometimes murdered, and I resign myself to it—observing that kind of intolerance is part of my job. But the other kinds, like sexism—” With bitterness he continued, “Girls are treated like outcasts if they’re childless; I suppose Lianne’s family was fanatic about it. Her husband may have divorced her for sterility. No wonder she wouldn’t talk about her background.”

“And the whole thing could be a mistake,” Noren said unhappily. “I told her she could be tested, but she refused to consider it. Which is strange, when she’s studying medicine herself.”

“Not necessarily. It’s a painful topic to stir up—if she weren’t emotionally scarred, it would have come out naturally when I did the initial psychiatric exam.” Sighing, Stefred said, “Now that I know, I can convince her in time that I think no less of her for it. Yet as you say, it could be a mistaken idea; it’s too bad that she can’t be checked without raising her hopes.”

“I could find out from a blood sample if she’s genetically sterile,” Noren told him. “And if she’s not, either there’s no problem or it’s one that might be correctable.”

“She may not consent even to a blood test,” Stefred said, frowning.

“Need she? What possible violation of privacy would a simple blood test be now that she’s disclosed the only secret we could uncover by it?”

Thoughtfully, Stefred asked, “You can handle this test alone?”

“The computers do the analysis; it’s routine. I’ve already studied my own genotype a lot. I’d have gone ahead with hers, but I’ve no way to get a blood sample without her knowledge.”

“It would be easy enough for me to get it while she’s under hypnotic sedation,” admitted Stefred. “Tonight, even.”

“Is she still undergoing dreams in deep trance?” Noren asked, surprised. “I thought only the First Scholar’s recordings require that.”

“There are some specialized ones I’m using in her training—a psychiatrist has to understand the dark side of human nature, and in our circumstances here, dreams are the only means of learning. They’re rather nightmarish, but she wants to learn, and she can handle it.” Vehemently Stefred added, “Not one Scholar in a hundred could handle the stress at the rate she’s accepting it—yet she feels deficient because she’s never gotten pregnant! I can’t endure that, Noren—I can stand losing her to someone else if I must, but not seeing her underrate herself.”

“That bothers me, too,” Noren admitted. “I think a lot of Lianne.”

Late that night he got the sample of Lianne’s blood from Stefred and took it to the computer room. Carefully he put the test tube into position and, at the adjacent console, ordered a general genetic breakdown while framing in his mind the specific queries he would enter. The entire genotype would be analyzed in short-term memory, but there would be time to get output only on portions directly relevant to his concerns. INPUT ACCEPTED—HUMAN MALE, he was accustomed to seeing as the signal to begin questioning. He expected, this time, to see HUMAN FEMALE.

The delay seemed unusually long. He turned to check the input equipment; it seemed to be functioning. Glancing back at the screen, he saw INPUT UNIDENTIFIED. PLEASE ENTER SPECIES SO THAT GENE MAP CAN BE OBTAINED FROM AUXILIARY FILES.

Noren frowned. There were only three animal species on this planet: humans, fowl and work-beasts—these, plus common plants and microorganisms, could be identified and dealt with by the files already obtained. Auxiliary files stored information only on extinct species of the Six Worlds. In any case, the blood was human and should have been recognized as such. The computer system, programmed generations ago by the Founders, was infallible; if it were not, all science would have long since come to a standstill. But could the input device be out of order?

He had divided the blood sample into two tubes, having learned early in his work that tubes were all too easily dropped, especially when brought in concealed under his clothes. He had also learned that it was wise to carry a syringe and extra tubes when working with his own blood; from habit he had brought these with him. He put the contents of short-term memory into temporary storage, drew blood from an often-punctured vein, and proceeded to verify the input operation.

With his blood it worked perfectly, just as it always had.

He cleared short-term memory again and started over with the second sample of Lianne’s blood. INPUT UNIDENTIFIED, the screen announced. PLEASE ENTER SPECIES. . . .

HUMAN, Noren keyed impatiently.

THE INPUT GENOME IS NOT HUMAN, the program responded promptly.

This was ridiculous; he had watched Stefred take the sample from Lianne’s arm. HOW MUCH DOES IT DIFFER? he asked, scowling in perplexity.

APPROXIMATE SIZE AND COMPLEXITY OF GENOME IS COMPARABLE, BUT BANDING PATTERN OF CHROMOSOMES IS DISSIMILAR. MORE EXTRA CHROMOSOMES ARE PRESENT THAN CAN BE ACCOUNTED FOR BY ANY KNOWN DISORDER.

HOW MUCH DIFFERENCE AT THE MOLECULAR LEVEL?

THAT CANNOT BE COMPUTED WITHOUT A GENE MAP FOR THE INPUT SPECIES. THERE IS NO INDICATION OF COMMON ANCESTRY; DIRECT MOLECULAR COMPARISON YIELDS NO GREATER SIMILARITY THAN WOULD RESULT FROM CHANCE.

Then somehow the data had been randomly garbled. CAN SEX BE DETERMINED? Noren inquired, groping.

ON THE BASIS OF MATCHING CHROMOSOME PAIRS, SEX IS FEMALE.

What kind of garbling would leave the pairs intact? It just wasn’t reasonable, even if one assumed that the computer program could garble input data, which it never had in any other field of science.

Noren, nonplused, recalled the original data from temporary storage and ran a comparison. The two samples were identical; whatever the problem, it wasn’t sporadic. He asked specific questions about physical characteristics, most of which were answered with the comment iNSUFFICIENT DATA—and this, had the sample really not been human, would be logical, since lacking a map for the species being analyzed, the program would be unable to locate the particular genes involved. There was just no characteristic he could pinpoint.

Or was there? He had used the blood sample only for genetic data, but short-term memory still contained other data about the blood itself. Personally, he knew little about blood proteins, but he realized that the program could analyze them in much the same way that it could analyze the genes that coded for them. And it could compare them against norms. Slowly he entered appropriate commands.

The blood was nearly human. There were, he was told, abnormalities, but none so great as to make the program insist it had come from some nonhuman species. Yet the genetic content of the same blood was undecipherable! It was as if the hundreds of thousands of genes that made up Lianne’s genotype had been shuffled; not even those that coded for proteins found in the sample could be located on their chromosomes.

COULD THE INPUT BE FROM A MUTANT HUMAN? Noren asked doubtfully.

NO MUTATION OF SUCH MAGNITUDE COULD PRODUCE A VIABLE ORGANISM. THE EVOLUTION OF THIS GENOME WOULD REQUIRE MILLIONS OF YEARS.

Transfixed, Noren stared at the words while a stunning thought surged into his mind. On impulse be keyed, WHAT WOULD BE THE RESULT OF CROSSBREEDING BETWEEN THIS FEMALE AND A HUMAN MALE?

CROSSBREEDING WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE, the screen declared. CONCEPTION COULD NOT OCCUR.

She had not said, “I can’t bear a child,” he remembered suddenly. She’d said, “I can’t bear you a child.”

And she had told him from the beginning that she was different.

This different? A different species? But there weren’t any other human species, not here, not anywhere the Six Worlds’ starships had traveled. The only proof alien civilizations existed was the sphere left on this planet by the Visitors who’d come and gone long before the arrival of his own people’s first exploratory team.

The alien sphere . . . a communicator, Lianne had guessed—she’d been sure it hadn’t harmed Talyra’s baby. Might she not have been guessing at all? Could Lianne herself be alien, an emissary of some off-world civilization brought here by the sphere’s activation?

Incredible as that was, it would explain a lot.

She had been arrested in a village where no one knew her. There’d been a barrier in her mind Stefred could not get through; she’d admitted frankly that she was keeping secrets from him. The City had not awed her, and she had understood the dreams fully from the very first, suffered as if she’d grasped what destruction of populated worlds would be like.

She knew techniques Stefred hadn’t taught her. She had incredible insight into things, and into people’s feelings. . . .

But she’d been surprised by the crowing of a rooster. She found hot sunlight hard to bear and had spoken wistfully of trees as if she had seen real ones.

Over and over again she’d shown she did not think as village women did . . . or, for that matter, as anyone else did.

Noren’s heartbeat quickened as the implications bit him. Lianne—not of his species, born into an alien civilization? But she’d come here on a starship, then! He wouldn’t have thought the radiation from the sphere able to cross interstellar space, but there might have been emanations the computer system couldn’t detect. There must have been. If the sphere was a communicator, it must be a faster-than-light communicator; he’d turned it on less than a year before her entry to the City, and there were no other solar systems less than a light-year away.

The Six Worlds hadn’t had such communicators. Only their ships had traveled faster than light; that was why no news of the nova had reached this world except through the Founders. But there might be a civilization with faster-than-light communication capability, a more advanced civilization. It might respond to unexpected signals.

Such a civilization would have metal . . . it could help!

Why Lianne alone and not a whole team of aliens? Why the secrecy? Why hadn’t the help yet been offered, and why, when Lianne understood how he felt about isolation from the universe, had she not let him know that he would not be cut off forever?

There must be answers. He could not bear to wait till she revealed the truth in her own time. He was, Noren told himself, quite possibly hallucinating in any case; it was too fantastic, too good—literally too good—to be true. Yet everything fit! The more he thought, the more pieces he found that did fit. He would have to confront her with the evidence.

Methodically, suppressing excitement he feared would consume him, he set about transferring the evidence from computer memory to a disc.

*  *  *

To sleep the rest of the night was impossible, though Noren knew he should get some sleep. Stefred had told him that when Lianne woke from the training dream, they would spend all morning discussing it, might even have their noon meal brought to Stefred’s study. He’d been warned not to appear with the results of the blood test until later in the day. Now, he didn’t want to take the results to Stefred in any case, not till he’d seen Lianne alone. The delay he must endure before seeing her stretched endlessly ahead.

He sat in his room, going over the evidence on his study screen, and watched sand dribble slowly through his time-glass. Surely, he thought, more hours had gone by than it indicated—perhaps it had gotten stuck. Yet as always when tense, he craved solitude, so he could go nowhere to check the time. Aside from the courtyard’s stone sundials there were only a few clocks in the entire City. Time-glasses must serve to measure passage of hours in personal quarters, for small though the traces of metal in electronic or mechanical timepieces would be, the world did not have even small traces to spare. Or rather, it had not . . . now, all at once, there was going to be metal! Each random thought heightened the thrill of it. Noren clenched icy hands and willed the sand to run faster. He could not see people, make casual conversation, with a secret like this on his mind. He could not act as if nothing had happened, as if the world were not about to be transformed.

It was as if the Mother Star itself had indeed sent supernatural aid. There was nothing supernatural about an alien communicator, of course. And yet the fact that he’d crashed at just the right place in the mountains, that Talyra had spotted the sphere and that he’d climbed the cliff to retrieve it simply as a gesture for her sake. . . .

Had she died to summon help for the world?

To be sure, the sphere’s radiation evidently hadn’t harmed her. Still, the mountain water might have caused teratogenic damage—if not, what had been accomplished by the deaths? He had thought he’d found an answer. Those deaths had led him to study genetics. But genetic change wouldn’t be necessary now! Not if an alien civilization, a civilization with metal, had come.

Strange . . . Lianne had encouraged his genetic work. Why, when she’d known all along that it was needless? The acquisition of knowledge was never a waste, he supposed; since for some mysterious reason she must postpone the revelation of her identity, she’d undoubtedly thought genetics a more constructive occupation for him than futile worry about synthesizing metal that could be supplied in its natural form.

But why had she wanted him to risk having a child with altered genes? She’d given herself away over that, admitted a physical abnormality, when she could simply have said she didn’t believe human experimentation was justified. Under the circumstances, it wasn’t! Her urging him to go ahead didn’t make sense, unless . . . could it be that there was no real risk involved? A person from an advanced civilization probably knew enough about genetics to gain access to the secret file. She must have studied not only its original content, but what he himself had stored in it—she must know his work was accurate and would be successful.

Was there anything Lianne’s people didn’t know?

All his life he’d sought knowledge. As a boy he’d been taught that the Scholars knew everything; he’d assumed, on becoming one of them, that he could learn. And he’d indeed learned, Noren thought ruefully—he had learned that too much was unknowable. Though he’d faced this limit when necessary, he had often repressed the thought of it, living day by day without stopping to envy peoples elsewhere in the universe who really did possess the knowledge his own civilization lacked. Could he have gone on that way for a lifetime?

No, he thought as he lay back on the bed, shaking with the release of feelings he’d kept below the surface. He could never have borne it. In time it would have destroyed him, just as living in the village, shut out of the City, would have destroyed him. How could anyone aware of the universe live with closed doors?

The doors of the universe shall once again be thrown open. . . . Not till now could he fully acknowledge how much he cared. He had said it mattered only for future generations’ sake. For one’s own sake it was adolescent to care, or so he’d told himself. Growing up was learning not to let oneself long for the unattainable. At least it was called “growing up,” but wasn’t that merely an excuse for hiding from the pain of longing?

The open universe . . . he’d waited years, hopelessly. Now he did not see how he could wait through another half-day.

At noon he went to the refectory on the chance she would appear, but she didn’t, though he waited till no more food was being served. She might, he supposed, have eaten in the commons open to Technicians, though that wasn’t her habit. Or she might be still with Stefred. What could she discuss with Stefred during all those hours of “training”—Lianne, who knew far more, probably, than Stefred himself? To be sure, her own culture’s psychology might be very different from this one’s. Perhaps that was why she’d chosen psychiatric training; perhaps her people felt they must understand his thoroughly before any open contact could be made. In any case, she’d been right when she’d remarked that Stefred would give anything to know her secrets. How stunned Stefred was going to be.

Noren looked for her in the computer room, where he now suspected she must spend most of her free time. There was no sign of her. He resisted the temptation to try Stefred’s study, for if she was there he could say nothing, and if she wasn’t, Stefred would ask about the blood test. Instead he tried the medical lab; he tried the gym and other recreation centers; finally, in desperation, he went to Lianne’s own room, discourteous as it was to visit someone’s quarters uninvited. He knocked, but there was no response.

All afternoon, as he combed the Inner City, his tension grew. By suppertime it had become intolerable. He returned to the refectory early, to be sure not to miss her, and ate less from hunger than for a reason to linger inconspicuously. When he was finished with his food, he got back into line and refilled his mug with ale. It took the edge off his nervousness. There was nothing else to do while waiting—more than ever he shrank from the idea of talking to anyone, particularly to Brek and Beris, who, fortunately, were on the far side of the room and had not noticed him. He took pains, after refilling his mug the second time, to sit in a corner where they would not.

When at last he gave up expecting Lianne to come, it was past time for Orison, which she rarely missed. That was the only place left to look. Entering the room late with the service already in progress, Noren stood in the back. He felt giddy, partly with extra ale but partly, too, because Orison still stirred him uncomfortably in a way he could not fathom. He wondered why Lianne, who hadn’t been reared by people who believed in its symbols, found it meaningful.

His heart jumped; she was standing only a few rows ahead of him. Her face, raised reverently toward the symbolic sunburst, was more than solemn; he saw to his astonishment that there was worry in it, almost sadness. That made no sense at all. Lianne, above all others present, knew the Prophecy was to be fulfilled. He could understand if she were unmoved by the ritual phrasing. He could also understand joy, the joy believers felt, enlightened ones as well as the unenlightened—yet when he stopped to think about it, he could not recall ever having seen that kind of elation in Lianne. He had supposed she was simply too mature to start out with illusions, that she must sense what the experienced Scholars knew about the odds against survival. How could she not feel joy if survival was certain?

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 heart . . . . 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.” No more waiting, Noren thought. No more mysteries. We will not have to find our own wisdom.

The ritual dragged to a close. Noren pushed his way forward to Lianne’s side; at the sight of him, the shadow of sorrow in her eyes gave way to brightness. “There’s something I want to show you,” he said, keeping his voice as level as possible.

On the way to his room they said little, for he could think of no way to express it. How did one tell somebody that one had found out she’d come from another world? He couldn’t possibly be mistaken, yet she seemed so—so normal. Her spirits were rising; it occurred to him she might have feared she’d lost his friendship by her refusal to have his child. He couldn’t guess how she’d react to his discovery. Would she look on it as a betrayal? With the confrontation at hand, Noren became aware that it mattered to him—how she felt mattered. He couldn’t think of her as alien.

Wordlessly he pointed to the study desk, where the first screen of the disc he’d prepared was already displayed. Lianne sat down and began to read.

Gradually, she whitened; her pale skin turned nearly colorless. Though she was obviously stunned, she didn’t seem angry and certainly was not bewildered—the data she was scanning surprised her only by being in his possession. She read through to the end without speaking, her very silence confirming his interpretation of her origin. Suddenly the silence terrified him. He’d hoped, underneath, that she would be glad she need no longer keep up the pretense. But the face she finally turned to him was a mask of pain and despair.

“How did you get the blood sample?” she asked in a low voice.

Noren told her. “We weren’t trying to pry,” he added. “We meant it for your good, Lianne. We never guessed we’d learn anything except whether you could be cured of barrenness.”

“I know. The fault’s not yours, it’s mine. I said the wrong thing. I got—emotional. If I’d remembered how people in your world feel about sterility, I wouldn’t have blundered. I’d have told you I drank too much impure water as a village girl; you’d never have questioned that.” As she rose from the study desk Noren saw to his dismay that she was crying, not hysterically this time but silently, as if she were facing some profound and private grief.

Puzzled, he guided her to the bunk and sat on its edge beside her, putting his arm around her trembling shoulders. “I know you must have some reason for not wanting to tell us yet,” he said, “but is it really so terrible that we’ve found out?”

“We?” she inquired anxiously. “You haven’t told Stefred, I was with him almost all day—”

“No. I wanted to talk to you first. I guess I felt I needed verification of anything so—tremendous. Lianne, you surely don’t believe I think less of you for it, do you? That I think of you as inhuman or something? Why do you mind so much having me know?”

“Because it’s you who will suffer for my mistake,” she whispered.

“Suffer? Oh, no, Lianne! I suppose you mean you need to keep the secret awhile longer. If that’s important I’ll go along, and you’re right that it’ll be hard for me—but I’d still rather know than not know. Even just the knowledge that we’re to be saved—” He broke off, perplexed. “Why did you say before that rescue’s impossible, that I mustn’t hope?”

Lianne met his eyes. “I told you how things are.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There is a great deal you’re not going to understand. And you will be hurt by that, as well as in other ways you can’t imagine so far. I’d have done anything to prevent it, Noren, because I—I care about you. I wanted your love, I wished I could have your child—that’s why I wasn’t thinking clearly. I betrayed my responsibilities, and I betrayed you, too, without meaning to. Now it’s too late; nothing can undo the damage.”

“But Lianne, just because I know a little ahead of time—”

“You weren’t ever meant to know.”

“That you’re alien? But why not?”

“You weren’t ever to know aliens came.” She drew away from him, pausing as if she needed time to collect herself; when she faced him again she was very calm, composed not just as she usually was, but in a way that made her seem indeed the daughter of a different world.

“We would have to know eventually,” he pointed out, “I mean, when it comes to replenishing our world’s metal—”

“Noren,” Lianne interrupted, “I’ve got to set you straight, and it’s best if I don’t put it off. You want the truth, I think, even if it’s not pleasant to hear.”

“I’ve always wanted the truth.”

“And today—all the hours you couldn’t find me—you’ve been building your hopes on the idea that you’re about to receive it, all of it, from my people. That we’re here to give you metal, restore the Six Worlds’ lost civilization and more.” He had the odd feeling that she was drawing this directly from his mind, though she knew him well enough, he supposed, to have guessed that he personally expected more than the Prophecy’s fulfillment, that it was her people’s knowledge that excited him most.

“Those hopes won’t be satisfied,” Lianne continued steadily. “We are here to observe—that’s all. Nothing in your world will change because of us. It’s necessary for you to realize that from the beginning.”

Horrified, Noren protested, “You’re saying you’d stand by and observe evils you could put an end to? Lianne, I don’t believe it!” And yet something in her look frightened him; it was almost as if her words were true.

“You must believe it. I don’t expect you to comprehend it yet. In time, if you have courage enough, you’ll begin to perceive what’s involved. But meanwhile you must take my word—if you refuse, if you cling to the illusion that we will save your people, you’ll lose your own chance to do it. And then nothing can save them.”

“Your civilization wouldn’t let us die.”

“That’s a complicated issue. There’s more to it than survival—after all, your descendants could survive as subhuman mutants. You want more than life for them, Noren. You want them to regain their rightful heritage. It may be in your power to ensure that. It is not in mine.

“It is, it must be if you’ve got starships,” he began; but then a new thought came to him. He had assumed Lianne represented her people—yet it was strange that she was here alone, that she’d been arrested and convicted of heresy, brought into the City without any means of communicating with the others. Could they possibly have abandoned her? Was she herself in fact powerless?

“What are they, your people?” he asked slowly. “Why did they come?”

“We are anthropologists. We have more knowledge than you can envision, Noren, but at the same time less; we visit young civilizations to learn. We aren’t the ones who left the sphere on this world, but we did pick up its signals. They were—incongruous. We came to investigate. Not to interfere, only to watch.”

“To watch us struggle against hopeless odds?” Noren exclaimed bitterly.

“If you want to put it bluntly, yes.”

“You’re—inhuman, then, after all, at least your people are.”

“From your standpoint, now, perhaps so. There are sides to it you can’t see.”

“And are you on our side, Lianne,” Noren demanded, “or on your cold-blooded observation team’s?”

She hesitated. “I’m on both. I wish I could explain more, but I’m bound by a commitment; there’s nothing I can do to help you.”

Anger rose in Noren; he seized her by the shoulders, pulling her toward him. “Nothing you can do, or nothing you will?” he questioned. “You’re not insensitive, Lianne. You’ve been playing a role all this time, yes, but you do care what happens to us. You couldn’t have gotten past Stefred if our people’s future didn’t matter to you; no Scholar candidate can. And there’ve been other things you couldn’t have faked.”

“You’re right,” she confessed, “I couldn’t fake how I felt about you. I couldn’t even hide it—you knew when you spoke of the child that it wasn’t just that I supported your experiments. Only I couldn’t stand in the way of those experiments; they’re too important! They’re the one chance you have of saving your people, and if they succeed—”

“If? Lianne, you must know the work I’m doing’s going to succeed. You wouldn’t let me risk harming a baby.”

“There’s risk in all scientific progress. You’re aware of that.”

“But you’ve got advanced knowledge of genetics, surely—”

“I’m an anthropologist, not a geneticist. I know what you’re doing is feasible, but I’m in no position to judge the details.”

“Not personally, perhaps, but your people . . . I can’t keep working by trial and error, knowing there are people around who’ve already passed this stage!”

“That’s one reason you weren’t supposed to know,” Lianne admitted miserably. “It’s going to make what you have to do much harder.”

“I can’t take risks that are unnecessary. There’s got to be another way.”

“There is no other way! What can I do to convince you?” She drew a resolute breath, then continued with deliberate coldness, “My civilization’s further above the Six Worlds than you can conceive, and we don’t share our knowledge with primitives.”

Before Noren could reply she dropped her head; the next thing he knew she was leaning against him. He was dazed—with the ale he’d drunk, with ups and downs of emotion, with the conviction that Lianne could not be as coldhearted as she seemed; instinctively he embraced her. She was warm, not cold at all. . . .

“You’re so alone,” she murmured. “I can’t spare you what you’ll suffer from knowing about us. But I might—comfort you sometimes, offer the only thing I’m free to offer—” Though she said no more, abruptly her thought blazed clear in his mind, and outraged, he thrust her away.

“Sex?” he burst out in fury. “Am I on no higher level than that in your view—a primitive who’d be satisfied with sex when you could give me the stars?”

Lianne sprawled motionless on the bunk where she had fallen, her face set with anguish and resignation. She did not answer.

“I don’t need anything from you,” Noren said. “Or from your people, either. If they’re hoping to observe a so-called primitive civilization’s reaction to foreknowledge of certain doom, they’ll be disappointed—because we’re not going under. I’m going to have children, and I’m going to see to it that others do, too, children who can live on this world without the metal you see fit to deny us.”

For a moment a light flared in Lianne’s eyes; then, as he went on speaking, their brilliant blue darkened. “That’s not all,” Noren told her. “We respect each other here, and we respect privacy—but since you don’t rank us on your level, you’ve forfeited all right to be treated as human by our standards. Stefred could have had all your secrets during your inquisition if he’d chosen to take them without consent; he will take them now. Whatever knowledge we can get from your mind, we’ll get. It may be you know the key to metal synthesization after all, maybe even to the Unified Field Theory—”

“You aren’t going to tell Stefred or anyone else who I am, Noren,” Lianne declared with clear assurance. “Not ever.”

“What’s to stop me? I’ve got proof you can’t deny.”

“No one will believe the disc; it will only discredit your genetic work.”

“They’ll believe the computers if the blood test is repeated by experts.”

“There will be no opportunity to repeat it. If you tell, I will kill myself, as I would have if Stefred had pursued the inquisition too far in the first place—there’s no way he can forestall that. Did you think I came unprepared?”

Noren stared at her in astonishment, sensing beyond doubt that this was no empty threat. She meant it. “Why?” he asked, baffled. “Why is secrecy worth giving your life for?”

“Think about it sometime,” she replied quietly. “You won’t like the answer, but you’re capable of figuring it out, part of it, anyway.”

He was too aroused by rage and frustration to think anything out at the moment. He wanted no more of Lianne, not now, not ever except as an information source—yet she remained unmoving, showing no sign that she intended to leave his room. Turning his back on her, Noren strode out the door, realizing only dimly that he’d been left no choice, that he was on his way to find Veldry.