Beyond The Tomorrow Mountains (20 page)

The man nodded. “Yes, as soon as we’re past the mountains.” He seemed to relax a little, and Noren found that although he himself was becoming more and more tense, it was not the tenseness of despair. Rather, expectancy was rising in him. He was about to obtain answers! The computers had answers to everything except the research problems yet to be solved. He was not so naive as to suppose that the answers would be easy to comprehend; but tonight, at least, he would have facts to ponder.

Above the rolling land between mountains and City, he took over the aircar’s direction lever, which could be used from either of the two front seats, and Emet showed him how to maintain level flight. There was nothing difficult about it; Noren was almost sorry when Emet resumed control for the descent into the open top of the huge entrance dome. But his eagerness to gain access to the City’s repository of truth outweighed all other thoughts. He shivered with anticipation as he stepped onto the landing deck.

“The conference is set for an hour past noon,” Emet told him, “and I’ll meet you here afterward.” He smiled. “Until it starts, you’re free to do as you like.”

Walking down the stairs and into the main corridor, Noren realized why Emet had not inquired into his plans. He’d assumed he would look for Talyra! Yet the last thing he wanted was to encounter her at this point. Perhaps later, if what he learned proved heartening… . He went swiftly to the computer room, hoping fervently that he would not have to wait for a free console; after weeks of waiting, he did not believe he could endure even a quarter-hour more.

He needn’t have worried; the computer room was strangely deserted. Its dim light seemed somehow eerie when not a single person was in sight. Luck was with him, Noren thought thankfully. Even his privacy was assured; no one would be watching over his shoulder, wanting him to hurry. He settled himself in the booth farthest from the door and with trembling hands prepared to key in the first of his carefully planned queries.

Noren had conversed with the computer complex often enough to know better than to make the questions too general. He knew that to ask, “What is the meaning of life?” would very likely produce the same result as Brek’s initial request for a full description of the mother world’s history; the computer would offer more information than could be presented in a reasonable length of time. He had planned ahead because he’d been aware that the issue must be approached systematically, logically, if he was not to waste any of the precious moments available to him. Computers, he’d learned, gave precisely what was asked for—that much, and no more. He had found that it paid to be equally precise.

Nevertheless, his fingers were shaking so that on the very first sentence he miskeyed.
WHY DID AN UNPREVENTABLE TRAGDEY STRIKE THE HUMAN RACE?
he asked, and the computer responded,
NO REFERENT
. His heart contracted; then he saw that he had spelled it “tragdey” and tried again, telling himself that this nervousness was foolish. The question might involve deep feelings on his part, but the computer, which had none, would treat it just like any other inquiry. The answer would appear as quickly and as clearly as if he had requested a mathematical formula.

But it did not. Noren watched the screen expectantly and although the spelling of
TRAGEDY
changed,
NO REFERENT
remained there.

He scowled, wondering what error he was overlooking. Computers, once properly programmed, did not make errors; operators did. That was something he had discovered his first week in the City. No referent? Surely “tragedy” must be in the computers’ vocabulary; it was a perfectly ordinary word. He had no time to lose, however, so he would come back to it after trying another approach.

The specific matter of why the Six Worlds had been destroyed was hard to lead up to, and after devoting a good deal of thought to the problem of how to do it, Noren had decided that the direct way would be best. Although he could predict the first few responses, it would in the end be quicker than attempting to tell the computer what information he already had.
WHY WERE THE SIX WORLDS DESTROYED
?
he began; and, as expected, the answer was,
BECAUSE THEIR SUN BECAME A NOVA
.
At that point he had merely to ask
WHY?
again, so that when the astrophysical data concerning elements, temperatures and pressures started to appear, he could press
INTERRUPT
.
Then, with the computer on the right subject and waiting for clarification, it was time to ask what he really wanted to know:
WHY DID THESE CONDITIONS OCCUR IN THAT STAR AND NOT SOME OTHER OF THE SAME TYPE?

The computer did not hesitate; its internal processes were, in terms of human time-perception, instantaneous. Flatly, finally, it responded,
THAT IS NOT KNOWN
.

Noren was momentarily dismayed, but then he cursed himself for his own stupidity. Of course it was not known. If it had been, the Founders would have had more than a few weeks’ warning. He still wasn’t touching the heart of the issue.
WHY IS IT THAT INHABITED WORLDS ARE EVER DESTROYED?
he persisted.

PLEASE REPHRASE
, replied the computer.

Frowning, Noren sought another way to put it. This would be even more difficult than he’d anticipated, he saw, and he could not afford the time to fumble.
WHY DID HUMANKIND EVOLVE ONLY TO BE NEARLY WIPED OUT?
he ventured.

The computer responded tersely,
INSUFFICIENT DATA.

HAS THIS HAPPENED TO OTHER HUMAN RACES ELSEWHERE?

THAT IS NOT KNOWN.

Well, he’d again queried foolishly; the computer, after all, knew nothing more than what had been entered into it by the Founders and by Scholars since. His plan of attack was already so upset that he could not get back to it. In desperation Noren asked the thing he’d originally thought would yield too much information:
WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE?

PLEASE REPHRASE.

FOR WHAT PURPOSE DO HUMAN BEINGS LIVE?

INSUFFICIENT DATA.

Not so much as a clue to suggest what questions might be more fruitful, Noren thought irritably. That was surprising; it did not work that way with science, where inadequate phrasing usually produced a reply from which one could deduce the correct approach. With an apprehensive glance at the console clock he tried frantically,
FOR WHAT PURPOSE IS HUMANKIND IN DANGER?

INSUFFICIENT DATA.

IS THERE ANY PURPOSE AT ALL IN THE UNIVERSE?

INSUFFICIENT DATA.

Noren fought down the panic that was growing with his frustration. It was evident that he was not going to get what he’d expected. He simply did not know how to communicate with the computer on a subject of this kind, for it must certainly have more data than it had given out. He was beaten. Yet before he left for the conference, he would make one final try.

He looked around him, seeing that the room was still empty, and he was too overwrought to think about how peculiar that was; he was conscious only of relief. The last question, the one he had scarcely dared hope he might ask, knowing that he would never do so if there were a possibility of anyone’s coming before he could clear the screen… . He drew in his breath and, rapidly, keyed:
WHAT HAPPENS TO THE MIND AFTER DEATH?

Without delay, data appeared on the screen, detailed data about the cessation of brain waves. Impatiently, Noren stabbed
INTERRUPT
again.
OMIT THE BRAIN
, he instructed.
OMIT ALL PHYSIOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS; DISCUSS THE CONSCIOUS MIND.

The screen went blank, and remained blank—except for the simple statement,
THERE IS NO NON-PHYSIOLOGICAL DATA ABOUT DEATH.

Noren stared, incredulous. This was the cause and summation of his failure to elicit answers to his other questions; the problems were all closely tied. If the computer did not know anything about death, then it could not know why the thirty billion inhabitants of the Six Worlds had died in a single instant. If it did not know what death was, it could not know what life was either; no skill in questioning could make it explain why planets full of people should exist or cease to exist. Yet with these basic issues unresolved, on what could knowledge of the universe be founded? What meaning was there to “truth” that did not encompass the whole?

That is a mystery
, his mother had said when Noren had first asked such things.
Only the Scholars know that
. But the Scholars did not know, and the shock of that left him wondering whether the search for knowledge might not be entirely futile.

Chapter Six

Leaving the computers, Noren found his way to the assembly room without conscious thought. It was not crowded, and in fact even Stefred was absent; apparently only the specialists in nuclear physics had been invited to attend. Noren was so dazed that he scarcely noticed that others also looked troubled, or that none of his acquaintances tried to talk to him. He sat in a sort of stupor, void of all feeling, waiting for the conference to begin. There are no answers, his mind kept repeating. The City does not contain all truth, and if it does not, is there any real truth to be found? How can there be sense to such a universe? How can these others live in it?

He had assumed that the older Scholars must know something he did not; now he felt that such questions as he’d framed must never have occurred to them. They had discussed the limits of their scientific knowledge often enough, and surprising though it had been to find that even apart from the problem of how to synthesize metal, the
Founders had not been omniscient about material things, he had accepted the fact. He had seen how knowledge of that kind increased gradually, through observation and experimentation. Yet never had anyone mentioned a general ignorance of other important matters—deep matters that, having once been thought about, could not possibly be ignored. If people had been perplexed, they would surely have said so! Why had he been singled out to endure this burden? Noren wondered despairingly. The rest had once seemed so much like him in their concern for truth… .

At the front of the room a Scholar was speaking quietly. “Grenald cannot be with us,” he said, “although as I’m sure you all realize, he would not stay away by choice. Two hours ago he collapsed and has been taken to the infirmary. For more than a year the doctors have warned him about overwork, yet he drove himself until there was nothing left to be done. May the Star’s spirit now restore the strength…”

As the eyes of the people turned upward toward the overhead sunburst, Noren saw that many glistened with tears, and bafflement penetrated his numbness. Grenald was greatly respected, but he was a reserved and distant man for whom few felt warm affection. “. . . that he spent on our behalf,” the speaker continued, “for while he cannot live to see the day he strove for, the darkness of this one will nevertheless diminish. We who go on would have him see that we are not vanquished.”

Several of the women were by this time crying openly, and Noren perceived that some unexpectedly serious failure had been encountered in the work. Terror spread in a cold wave through his body. He felt paralyzed, unreal, as he had on the morning after the space flight. The voice of Grenald’s chief assistant, who had taken the floor, seemed dim and far away.

“Those of you who’ve worked with Grenald during the past few weeks already know the worst,” the man declared soberly, “but to the rest it will come as a shock. I cannot soften it. You must understand that the obstacle these experiments uncovered is not in our technique, but in our basic theory. The results have been entered into the computers a thousand times in different forms; always the output is the same. The ultimate equations yield no solution. Last night Grenald and I ran them through again, and at dawn, when we left the console,
NO SOLUTION
had been before our eyes so often that it seemed not to fade. That is a portent, so to speak, of the significance of this failure. It will not fade; it will not be quickly overcome. The creation of metallic elements by nuclear fusion has been proven impossible at the theoretical level—”

Horrified, Noren focused his mind abruptly.
Proven
impossible? For all his doubts, he had not anticipated a defeat so final. “Impossible at the theoretical level” was quite different from “impossible by present methods.” The latter said merely that other methods must be sought. The former included such impossibilities as rocks falling up instead of down, direct communication between people’s minds, and the rising of the sun in the west.

“At the theoretical level,” the physicist repeated, “and you’re all aware of what that means.”

Death, thought Noren with bitterness. The death of the human race.
NO SOLUTION… NO REFERENT… INSUFFICIENT DATA
.
There were no answers… .

“It means we must find a new theory. It means we must expand our most fundamental ideas of natural law, as the science of the Six Worlds did over and over again during the course of its history. The pressure was not so great then, but with hindsight we see that the stakes were equally high. Let us not forget that. Let us not be dismayed by the years of groping we must face before further experiments can begin.”