Beyond The Tomorrow Mountains (15 page)

Rooming with Brek did not help, for although Noren welcomed his friendship, shared problems couldn’t be pushed into the back of one’s mind as easily as those not constantly discussed. “This is good, what we’re doing now,” Brek declared. “To build a new city, one that will eventually be open to everybody—that’s fine, and rank won’t make much difference there. But as far as commitment to priesthood’s concerned, we’re just evading the issue. When our shift at the outpost is finished, we’ll have to come back… and probably the Transition Period can’t begin that soon.”

That it might never begin was something Noren had not mentioned to Brek; he could not bring himself to mention it to anyone, for once he did, he’d feel compelled to take some stand. He did not know what stand to take. As a result, he shared little more openness with Brek than with Talyra, and to be less than frank had always been painful for him. Day by day the pressure built up until he found himself counting the hours until the shuttlecraft’s ascent. In space, at least, he would be free!

The space crew had been divided into teams by Stefred. Noren and Brek were paired, and when the lots were cast to decide who would make the first trip, they won. The computers monitored the starship’s orbit and set the time of departure at three hours past midnight. No announcement was to be made to the Technicians before the tower was assembled, since its source couldn’t be explained; they would later assume that it had been “called down from the sky,” as the Book of the Prophecy described. So when Noren bid Talyra goodbye he told her only that he’d been chosen for special service that would prevent him from seeing her for some time. The possibility that he might not return he refused even to consider. The perils of the undertaking seemed unreal beside his desire to escape to a place where there’d be no abstract problems.

Talyra had no reason to suspect that he was leaving the Inner City, of course. “You look more cheerful than usual,” she observed. “I know I mustn’t ask about the things people do when they serve inside the Hall of Scholars, but if what you’ve been called to do makes you look this way, it must be good.” Her voice faltered briefly. “It—it must be worth another separation, even though we’ve just found each other—”

“It’s good, darling,” he agreed quickly. “‘It can’t bring anything but good.” Then, because he knew it would please her, he sought words that fit the formal religion she cherished. “The Scholar Stefred does me honor in judging me qualified,” he added. “You must think of it as—as a journey, though the service to which I go is not like any journey in the world. I shall glimpse mysteries that few ever see, Talyra.”

“Then I’ll say farewell as for a journey,” she told him, her face lighting with joy. “May the spirit of the Mother Star go with you!”

“And may its blessings be spread through my service,” he replied gravely. He took her in his arms then, and they said less solemn things. Not till he’d left her did he realize that for a few minutes he had spoken sincerely and naturally in the language a priest would use.

He’d been advised to get a few hours of sleep, but he could not imagine doing so. Instead he went on up to his lodging tower’s top level, where, in a small compartment that had been the observation deck of the starship, windows looked out on all sides. Each tower had such an area, used as a lounge and normally crowded; but at midnight he had it to himself. He sat gazing out at the stars, tingling with the thought that he would soon be seeing them from an identical compartment that floated free in space.

A quiet voice broke in on his growing exhilaration. “Since you weren’t in your room, I thought I’d find you here,” Stefred said.

Noren turned, startled. If Stefred had any last-minute instructions, why hadn’t he sent for him earlier? Often enough they’d talked informally at meals and in the recreation areas, but never before had the Chief Inquisitor sought him out in his own quarters.

Stefred’s face was worn, almost harrowed, though in the dim light of the observation lounge it couldn’t be seen clearly. “You go to hazards of which you know nothing,” he said with evident distress. “I can’t explain them; yet you trust me, and I owe you honest warning.”

“Look, you don’t need to say anything else,” protested Noren. “I’ve already been told how hazardous it is, and even if I hadn’t, the hazards are pretty obvious.”

“Not all of them.”

“I’ve risked my life before, Stefred,” Noren exclaimed impatiently. “At least I thought I was risking it, as we all did when we became heretics. Haven’t I proved that I’m not going to panic?”

Stefred sat on the molded white seat that encircled the room, leaning against the window next to Noren; for a while neither of them spoke. This tower was not central like the Hall of Scholars, and nothing stood between it and the stars. None of the moons were up, not even Little Moon, so the silhouette of the Tomorrow Mountains wasn’t discernible. The world was empty, Noren thought suddenly… empty except for the City and the cluster of villages surrounding it. He had never pictured it that way, but from space he would see how empty it really was.

“You’ve proved your courage,” Stefred said slowly. “You’ve shown more than one kind: the courage to risk death, to face unknown horrors, to stand up for what you believe against various sorts of opposition—I could list quite a few others. You know them. But there are kinds of courage you don’t know, Noren.” He paused, groping for words that he apparently could not find. “The demands of this job may be greater than they seem at first.”

They could hardly, Noren felt, be greater than those of coping with the problems that had descended on him in the past two weeks, from which any diversion—even danger—would be a relief. “Must we keep on talking about it?” he burst out.

“No,” said Stefred, sounding oddly apologetic. “You’ve made your decision, and I’ve made mine; I shouldn’t have come. As long as I’m here, though, I’ll say one thing more.” He faced Noren, declaring decisively, “In the past I’ve tested you sometimes, taught you a good deal, and I’ve never led you into anything beyond your ability to handle; you’ve learned to rely on that. You must not rely on it now. I believe you’ll come through this all right, yet it’s possible that you’ll meet experiences you’re unready for. If the going gets rough, you will need more than courage.”

Puzzled, Noren asked, “What? Further knowledge?”

“In a sense.”

Hot anger flashed through Noren, overriding the apprehension that had begun to grow in him. “You’re deliberately withholding information that would help me? Stefred, you’ve no right—”

“I’m withholding information,” Stefred admitted. “It would not help you; at this stage it would do the reverse. The kind of knowledge that will help is one you must gain for yourself. It exists, and you will have access to it—whatever else happens, Noren, don’t let yourself forget that.”

*
 
*
 
*

They had been through it so often in dreams that it seemed they were dreaming still: donning their spacesuits, settling into the padded seats of the shuttlecraft, strapping themselves down, and then the waiting… .

It would be soundless, they knew, and they would hardly feel the motion. The shuttlecraft was not a rocket; Noren and Brek had read of the rockets used in ancient times, but the nuclear-powered shuttles that had been carried aboard starships were far more advanced. The craft would simply move out of the tower’s bay and rise vertically into the dark. The liftoff would be totally out of their control. They would be in the hands of the automatic pilot and of the City’s computers, which for countless years had held the program for this maneuver in unchanging memory. To the computers the passage of generations had no meaning; the last docking with an orbiting starship might have been yesterday.

Noren trusted the computers implicitly, for they were, after all, the repository of all knowledge, and if they were fallible in anything, the whole cause of human survival might as well be given up. Brek too was confident, although the role of passive crewman seemed less natural to him than to Noren because as a Technician he’d occasionally flown aircars. Neither of them had any real doubt as to their safety; the computers had checked the failing beacon signal and had pronounced it strong enough to home in on. In preprogrammed sequence, they had tested every circuit in the shuttlecraft and had certified its functioning. There was nothing tangible to worry about.

Nevertheless, as he waited through the automatic countdown, Noren was more terrified than ever before in his life.

He had not been seriously alarmed by Stefred’s warning. When they’d taken leave of each other, he’d been angry, and he still was; if Stefred had purposely tried to infuriate him, he could scarcely have done a better job of it, Noren thought bitterly. To be challenged was one thing, a thing he’d always enjoyed, but to be told that this was not mere challenge and then to be denied full knowledge of the facts—it wasn’t fair! He’d arrived at the shuttlecraft hot with the desire to get on with the job.

There had been a sizable group gathered to see them off—the other space teams, their tutors and closest acquaintances, Scholars with whom they’d be working at the outpost—and at first Noren had felt a sense of belonging that he’d never had occasion to experience. Having been a loner throughout boyhood, he hadn’t formed many relationships in the City, despite people’s friendliness. He found the warmth of their send-off surprisingly moving. But then had come a bad moment: a small incident, unimportant, yet somehow of sufficient impact to change his enthusiasm to dread.

The council chairman had been present, clad, strangely, in his blue robe, which seemed inappropriate since it was the middle of the night and not a ceremonial occasion. At least Noren hadn’t anticipated any ceremony. But just before he and Brek entered the space shuttle, the group had fallen silent. People had stood, eyes lifted, and the chairman—a down-to-earth man who a short while before had been talking casually to Noren about the aircar expedition that had previously been dispatched to pinpoint the landing site—had suddenly become all priest. “We embark this night on a mission of utmost gravity,” he’d said. “May the Star’s spirit abide with us, and in committing ourselves to its guidance, may we be mindful that only in trusting have we any hope of success. We have made all preparations that are within our power to make. We have calculated the risks and herewith incur them, though there has been honest division among us as to whether they are justified. It is possible that only our descendants can judge. We can do no more than act in the light of such knowledge as is accessible to us… .”

They were frightening words, yet Noren sensed that in some way they were meant to comfort. If so, it was cold comfort, certainly. The robed priest continued into ritual:
“. . . There is no surety save in the light that sustained our forefathers… our future is vain except as we have faith… .”
followed by some of the Prophecy. The memory of that last Orison engulfed Noren, and he recalled with vivid clarity the dream-image that had shaken him so. In the training dreams he’d concentrated on the ship, not the view of the desolate planet, and he had shared enough of the original astronaut’s thoughts to be unaffected by the sight of it. Confronting that sight in reality would be less easy.

“. . . May the spirit of the Mother Star safeguard you,” the High Priest had concluded, clasping Noren’s hands and then Brek’s. Now, strapped down inside the sealed cabin, Noren was kept from panic only by determined pride. This was the most thrilling opportunity he would ever have, he told himself. Space… zero gravity… the stars… all the things he’d been looking forward to with such eagerness—was he losing his sanity? How could he be chilled, shaking, unmanned not by fear of death but by some nameless foreboding he could not even define?

Unable to endure the silence, he said the first thing that came to mind, hoping that his voice revealed no tremor. “Did Stefred talk to you tonight, Brek? Alone, I mean?”

“Yes,” Brek said. “He came by our room; he wanted to see us both. I’m sure he was sorry to miss you, though the ceremony just now was much the same as what he said.”

That was an odd comparison, Noren reflected, for the ceremony had been mostly ritual, and he’d never known Stefred to use ritual terms in private conversation. “How do you mean?” he questioned.

“Why, he wished me the Mother Star’s protection—that sort of thing.”

“Stefred spoke to you privately… as a priest?” Noren asked incredulously.

“Not exactly; it was more like any two people saying a formal goodbye.”

“But he used the symbolic phrasing.”

“Of course. Didn’t you and Talyra use it?”

“Talyra doesn’t know any other kind,” Noren pointed out.

“Noren, there isn’t any other kind, not for this. Would you have expected him to say just ‘good luck, and I hope the shuttle works’? To invoke nothing greater than his personal friendship for me?”

He’d have expected Stefred to be honest, Noren thought in bafflement; one couldn’t conceive of his being anything else. The protection of the Mother Star… well, that could be translated as the protection of the Founders’ knowledge in building the shuttlecraft and programming the computers, or perhaps as the protection of their own knowledge passed down from the Six Worlds. But Brek hadn’t interpreted it that way; like Talyra, Brek had read in some sort of magic. And Stefred knew Brek’s mind too well not to have foreseen that he would do so.

A vibration, noiseless but powerful enough to penetrate their bones, spread through the craft, passing into their firmly restrained bodies. “We’re moving,” Brek whispered. They looked at each other, and Noren’s terror receded, replaced by excitement.