Beyond The Tomorrow Mountains (5 page)

“I’ve told you all that are pertinent,” Stefred had replied slowly. “But there are—other issues, Noren, and I don’t want you sidetracked right now. If things work out as I expect, you may soon be placed under rather more pressure than is usual for a trainee of your age. Once again I may have to gamble on your ability to withstand it.”

“Won’t I have a choice?” Noren had demanded.

“Of course. But knowing you as I do, I’m pretty sure you’ll choose involvement—and you won’t understand what you’re getting into until it’s too late.” Soberly Stefred had added, “Think that over. In a few days, once Brek is settled, we’ll talk again.”

Noren had indeed thought it over, and had been more curious than worried. He wasn’t bothered by the fact that Stefred evidently didn’t plan to explain whatever it was he’d be getting into, for he had learned that many of the things a Scholar met could not be explained. They had to be experienced. All the experiences he’d undergone so far had proved worthwhile: unpleasant at times, but on the whole exciting or at least enlightening. Training did involve pressure, but it wasn’t a sort of pressure he disliked. Just one comment of Stefred’s had made him wonder.

“The issues I’m referring to have nothing to do with your training,” Stefred had said. “They are real.”

Now, entering the familiar study which, like the conference room where he’d met Brek, was one of the few places in the City that had windows, Noren began to piece things together. He had been too absorbed in his own problems, in Brek’s, to do so before; he’d dismissed Grenald’s remark about the Prophecy’s coming true as the kind of wistful speculation sometimes heard from older Scholars who had few years left in which to see the research progress.
Maybe it will begin sooner than you think
, Grenald had said… . There could be a connection with the issues Stefred had mentioned, and with the unusual meeting to be held that night. Scholars did not meet formally except on matters of gravest importance, and even then the uncommitted—those who had not assumed the blue robe and the obligations of priesthood it symbolized, and who therefore had no vote—were rarely included. Sudden hope lifted Noren’s spirits. Perhaps a breakthrough was imminent! Perhaps there was no need to worry that he might have sanctioned an empty promise.

One look at Stefred confirmed the hints that something crucial had arisen. He was obviously troubled, more troubled than Noren had ever seen him, and he did not seem at all eager to proceed. “I must do some things I’d like to put off,” he declared without preamble. “First, there are questions I’ve got to ask you. If it were possible, I would wait till you’re further along in your training; failing that, I’d at least delay until your responsibility to Brek is finished. That’s no longer feasible. You must cope with them now. Bear with me, Noren, if this hurts; I won’t probe deeper than I have to.”

“I don’t mind questions,” said Noren, settling himself in the chair next to Stefred’s. “We’ve always been honest with each other.”

“Yes. You will be more honest with me than you’ve been with yourself lately; that’s why I would prefer not to do this yet. In time, you would confront the difficult parts spontaneously, but you’re not quite ready.” Stefred sighed. “Your tutors confirm what I already knew from the computers’ measurement of your aptitude. Grenald in particular tells me that, potentially, you have one of the most brilliant scientific minds of your generation, and that if I upset it, I’ll be accountable for any effect on your future contribution to the research. He is probably right. Yet I promised you a choice, and even if I hadn’t, it’s guaranteed to you by fundamental policy—which Grenald knows as well as I. Given such a choice, do you want me to continue?”

Confused, Noren groped for an answer. Stefred, he knew, expected more of him than simple assent; he must attempt to analyze the problem. It would not be spelled out for him. At length he ventured, “You couldn’t upset my mind except by telling me something I’m not aware of. And if you’re asking whether I’d rather not be told, well, you know the truth’s more important to me than anything else.”

“More important than the scientific work on which fulfillment of the Prophecy depends?”

“Is there a conflict?”

“For the sake of argument, assume there is.”

“Then the truth—the whole truth—is more important. A part couldn’t be more important than the whole.”

Stefred, with evident reluctance, fixed his gaze directly on Noren and in one skillful thrust stripped away the armor built up through many weeks past. “Is that consistent with the fact that you’ve devoted practically every waking moment to technical studies since the day after your recantation?” he inquired softly.

Noren gasped, overcome by the extent of his own self-deceit. How had Stefred known? He had never hinted to Stefred that doubt about the work’s ultimate outcome had entered his thoughts; not until he was watching Brek recant, in fact, had he admitted to himself that there might be truths from which he had hidden. Yet underneath he’d been aware that they existed. They’d emerged gradually from his increasing knowledge of science, and only concentration on its technical aspects had kept them back. The worries they’d raised could hardly be unfounded… .

“Forgive me,” Stefred said. “That was brutally abrupt, but it told me something I had to be sure of: you don’t wish to use science as a shield. If you did, I couldn’t have opened your eyes so quickly. Some Scholars take years to recognize what you just grasped.” There was no reassurance in his tone, though the usual warmth came through; Stefred’s honesty was what inspired people’s confidence in him.

Straightforwardly he continued, “We have no time to go into this problem right now; you must grapple with it alone. And it’s only the beginning, Noren. I’m leading up to more upsetting things.”

“I—I hope you’re not going to ask how I feel about wearing the robe,” Noren faltered, sensing the direction events seemed to be taking. He was to be offered some challenging new task, one for which full commitment was undoubtedly a prerequisite… and much as he might want to accept, he could not yet become a High Priest—not when deeper reservations were mingling with his original ones.

“I must, Noren. You need give me no decision—you will never be pressed for that—but if you have strong leanings one way or the other, I’ve got to know.”

“I honestly don’t know myself, Stefred. If that’s what you meant when you said I’d choose involvement—”

“It is not what I meant. I wouldn’t presume to influence you in regard to commitment; it isn’t a step to be taken lightly.” As relief spread through Noren. Stefred went on, “Don’t answer this next question if you don’t want to; I have valid reasons for asking it, but not ones that entitle me to invade your privacy. Do you attend Orison, Noren?”

Turning away, Noren felt his face redden. “Not often.”

“You’ve no need to look so guilty. Attendance isn’t required of you, and surely you know that none of us think less of you for not going, as villagers and Technicians would. There are committed Scholars who serve as High Priests before the people but take no part in our private religious rituals.”

“I don’t feel guilty,” said Noren. “I never felt any guilt for not having faith in religion, and I don’t now.” He paused, deciding what had caused the flush of shame; with Stefred there was no alternative to complete candor. “I’m embarrassed, I guess,” he continued slowly, “because the private rituals like Orison are the one thing I’ve encountered here that makes no sense to me. I just don’t see what they accomplish. The symbolism of religion was designed by the Founders to give hope to those who couldn’t be told our secrets, to express truths that couldn’t be stated in plain language. Yet as Scholars, we’ve learned the truth; our hope is in science. To the people we must speak of the Mother Star in symbolic words, but we who know the facts about it—what use have we for such symbols?”

“That’s a perfectly legitimate question, and not one to be ashamed of.”

“But look—I’m supposed to be so intelligent; I should be able to figure it out! There’s got to be something I’m missing.
You
go to Orison. Every time I’ve been, I’ve seen you there, and I—I’ve seen you enter while I stayed outside.”

“Have you lost any respect for me because I do go?”

“Of course not. Why should I?”

Stefred smiled. “You might, if you were staying away merely to assert your independence.”

Startled, Noren confessed, “It was that way in the beginning…
though I don’t think I knew it. But not any more.” He had found that among Scholars, the right to independence was so plainly acknowledged that one had no need to assert it, and his boyhood antagonism toward religion had given way to genuine puzzlement. Though he’d been too busy to devote much thought to the problem, it was apparent not only that the villagers and Technicians expected more of the Mother Star than fulfillment of the Prophecy’s promises, but that the High Priests endorsed this view. Were it not so incredible, he might even have concluded that they shared it.

“You’ve come further than you realize,” Stefred commented. “Last year you wouldn’t have believed that there were any mysteries you couldn’t comprehend.” Then, with a penetrating look that warned of disquieting words to come, he once more broached a painful topic. “Do you think it possible, Noren, that if you don’t wholly understand my attitude toward the Mother Star, you also missed something in Talyra’s?”

At the sound of the name Noren winced. First Brek and now Stefred, when for so long he’d repressed all thought of her! “There’s no comparison,” he asserted.

“If you see none, I won’t pursue it. But there are other things you don’t understand about Talyra, and in fairness to you I can’t let them pass.”

“What use is there in discussing them?” Noren burst out, a bit too sharply.

Quietly Stefred declared, “I called you here this morning to find out if you still love her. Your face tells me that you do.”

Astonished, Noren abandoned all defenses. “I’ll always love her,” he agreed miserably.

“Enough to take on the burden of a relationship that would never be truly open—that would require you to conceal much of your inner life, respecting her beliefs without explaining yours?”

“It doesn’t matter, really. You know I’ll never see Talyra again; she’d have to take the initiative—”

“Which you’ve been sure she would not do. But she has.”

“Talyra… requested audience?” Noren whispered, suddenly cold. “When?”

“Shortly after you recanted. I did not grant it then; I had to be sure that your feelings for each other would not be changed by separation. She was told merely that I would see her before she left the training center to return to her village as a nurse-midwife. However, something’s developed that makes it necessary for me to act at once.”

“And you—you want me to decide whether she’s to stay here as a Technician? It’s too soon, Stefred! I can’t say whether we’d ever be able to marry.” Such a marriage would not be permitted unless he revealed his true status by assuming the robe, for no Scholar could take a wife who was unaware of his obligation to keep major secrets from her. Yet not all the secrets could be kept. Once admitted to the Inner City, Talyra would know too much to leave; Technicians who entered were, like the Scholars themselves, subject to lifelong confinement. And they too had to give up their children for adoption by village families, since a child who grew up knowing that Scholar rank wasn’t hereditary would have been doomed to a confinement not of his own choosing. These sacrifices were made gladly by those who considered Inner City work a high honor—but to let Talyra make them for the sake of a love that might remain hopeless…

“The final decision will be mine, based on her wishes as well as yours,” Stefred told him, “but I cannot admit her without your consent. The problems are difficult and complicated. With Talyra there’s a special complication, since she was present at your recantation and therefore knows that you were not only a heretic, but impenitent. That knowledge will make her ineligible for Scholar status once she learns you have attained it, even if she becomes a heretic herself.”

“Talyra would never do that!” Noren exclaimed.

“No, probably not. Though she is braver than you realize, I don’t think she has that particular sort of mind. Nevertheless, the opportunity is every citizen’s birthright, and it would be unjust to bar her prematurely from it. Your marriage must therefore be postponed. You must promise to delay any revelation of your rank until we’re sure that adjustment to City life won’t cause her to develop heretical views.”

“I see that,” Noren concurred, “though in her case it’s just a formality.” Inner City Technicians did not witness recantations and naturally assumed that any heretic who was made a Scholar had been penitent. The few who’d accidentally learned otherwise before entering the Inner City were necessarily excluded from candidacy because they alone, of all non-Scholars, were aware that unrepented defiance of the system could result in personal gain; the tests of incorruptibility were for them not valid. It was right that care should be taken to ensure that no potential heretic gained such awareness. But as far as Talyra was concerned, he was more worried about another injustice. “There’ll be no difficulty about postponement,” he continued, “because if I do decide to assume the robe, it won’t be soon. That’s the trouble; it’s so unfair to her—”

“She has no expectation of marrying you, Noren, and if she loves you and has continued to grieve for you, she’ll be happier here than outside, believing you a prisoner. She can serve as a nurse-midwife as well here as in the village, after all. She might even study to become a doctor.”