Beyond The Tomorrow Mountains (7 page)

“She’ll accept your reassurance,” he said, “but as for the rest, it may be hard to get across. The very idea of becoming a Technician may—well, shock her. Talyra’s awed by Technicians; she won’t admit to herself that she’s as smart as they are.”

“She will admit it to me,” Stefred said. “I’ve dealt with many candidates, Noren, and I know how to find out what they really want.” He paused. “I’ll have to frighten her a little in order to be sure of her true feelings; and to make her aware of them herself, I’ll need to be a bit cruel. You must be silent and let me handle it; you must not offer any encouragement, for if you do, her choice will not be wholly free.”

Nodding, Noren strove to master his turbulent thoughts. Not since their parting had he dared to envision Talyra deliberately: her face; her long dark curls; her slim figure clad in a tunic and underskirt of the light green worn for holidays and other religious affairs, adorned by blue glass beads of spiritual devotion and today, perhaps, by the red love-beads he’d once given her… .

The door opened; she stood there between two uniformed Technicians, pale but with her head held high. At the sight of him her face was illumined with a brief, astonished joy that turned quickly to anguish. She thought him a prisoner, Noren realized miserably; she would feel terror for him as well as for herself. He longed to go to her, comfort her, but he knew he must not. Talyra must have a fair chance to withdraw.

Stefred dismissed the Technicians, motioning Talyra forward, and she knelt at his feet. “That is not necessary,” he said brusquely. “It is done only on formal occasions. Sit beside me, Talyra.”

“Yes, Reverend Sir,” she replied, using the form of address employed in public ritual. She rose and took the chair offered her.

“‘Sir’ alone is sufficient.” Glancing at Noren, Stefred added reflectively, “It would be well, Talyra, for you to become somewhat less worshipful in regard to Scholars.”

Noren gulped. If Talyra were ever to address him as ‘Reverend Sir,’ he would be too embarrassed to speak.

“You have requested audience with us,” Stefred went on, “ostensibly to plead clemency for someone you love. Yet we think perhaps you may also seek our pardon on your own behalf. Surely you know what has come to our attention in our review of your past.”

“I—I think so, sir.” Though her voice wavered, she appeared less dismayed than Noren himself by the directness of Stefred’s approach and his use of the cold, ceremonious
we
.

“We must accuse you of having once helped this man, a self-proclaimed heretic, to escape. You cannot be required to confess to us; it is your right to demand a civil trial. If you waive that right, however, you must swear to answer my questions truthfully and to accept my judgment.”

“I do waive it, sir. I have no wish to deny the charge.”

“Swear, then.”

“I swear by the Mother Star that I will tell you the truth.” Talyra drew a breath and added hastily, “But I wouldn’t sir, if it were not that Noren is already condemned! I’d never tell anything that would hurt him; I only hope I can make you see that he doesn’t deserve such a terrible punishment as—as was announced.”

“You must pledge also to accept my judgment, Talyra.”

“I so swear, as far as my own case is concerned—but not for Noren’s!”

Stefred leaned forward across the desk, fixing his gaze on her. “You must care deeply for him to feel yourself a better judge of his heresy than I. Or are you too an unbeliever? Do you perhaps consider denial of the Prophecy no crime at all?”

Talyra looked horrified. “Sir, I believe the Prophecy! I have never questioned it! Upon my oath—”

“Your oath by the Mother Star is worthless as a defense,” the Scholar said dryly, “since if you were indeed an unbeliever, it would have no meaning for you.” He frowned. “Talyra, heresy is a very grave charge. You say you do not think Noren deserves life imprisonment, yet have you ever heard of any heretic who was seen again after his recantation? And not all heretics recant. Some are not even charged publicly, for if they waive civil trial, as you have just done, their cases are not made known in the villages.”

Talyra met his eyes. “I did not waive a heresy trial,” she declared firmly. “I am not a heretic, and no court would convict me. You told me merely that I am accused of helping Noren, and that is the only crime I’ve admitted.”

“That’s quite true,” Stefred agreed. “I wasn’t trying to trap you, Talyra, but I had to assure myself that you have the wit not to incriminate yourself falsely. If you didn’t have, it would be improper for me to continue this interview without appointing someone to defend you, for though you are not yet formally charged with heresy, it’s possible that I will find grounds for such a charge in your responses.”

“What reason could you have for even suspecting me?” cried Talyra indignantly. “I helped Noren because I love him, but I never agreed with what he said—he’ll tell you so himself!”

The Scholar eyed her intently. “What would you say if I were to tell you that he has said the exact opposite: that he has not only reported your part in his escape, but has claimed that you shared and encouraged the false beliefs that he has now abjured?”

By great effort, Noren avoided her incredulous stare. One look from him, and she would know what to say; he must not give her any clue. Stefred, he realized, was testing them both by these tactics, for if he feared her answer enough to influence it, it would be proof that he was unwilling to accept a decision based on Talyra’s feelings alone.

In a cold dull voice Talyra declared, “I would say that you were lying. I didn’t think Scholars could lie, but if you tell me that, I’ll have to believe they can. You are setting a trap for me after all, sir. To accuse a Scholar of lying would indeed be heresy.”

“You have nothing to fear from me as long as you are honest,” Stefred assured her. “The point at issue here is your motive for helping Noren. To have helped him simply because you love him is one thing, but to have done it because you held heretical beliefs yourself would be something else. So you see I must determine whether you really do love him. If you do, it would be impossible for you ever to believe that he’d done what I suggested. He hasn’t, of course. I did not say he had; I merely said
if
.”

Talyra’s tense face relaxed into a faint smile. “You’re very wise, sir. I just can’t think you’ll really lock Noren up for the rest of his life! He—he was always honest, too; doesn’t that count for something? He was wrong, and he’s admitted it—but he believed what he said. Would you have wanted him to lie? Would you have wanted him to repent not having lied?”

“Certain things have inescapable consequences,” Stefred said quietly. “Noren is to be confined within the City permanently and nothing can change that; it is the consequence of heresy. But you don’t really know much about the City, after all. Has it occurred to you that life inside may not be so terrible? The Technicians live here; I live here myself.”

“But not as a prisoner, sir!”

“No? Have you ever seen a Scholar outside the City?”

She shook her head, confused. “Yet you could go outside if you wanted to. You could do anything you wanted to.”

“Why is it,” said Stefred, sighing, “that people so often think that those above them can do anything they want? It works the other way, Talyra. I have a good deal less choice than you do. If Scholars did whatever they liked, Noren’s suspicion would have been all too accurate; they would be unworthy guardians.”

To Noren’s relief, Talyra’s expression showed that she was thinking, and the new thoughts didn’t seem unduly disturbing. His concern had been groundless, maybe; he’d feared that the process would be more painful.

There was a short silence; then Stefred began an innocuous line of questioning quite evidently designed to lead directly to the decision. “Is there anyone outside the City for whom you care more than for Noren?”

“No, sir.”

“Not even anyone in your family?”

“I love my family, but I was planning to marry Noren. Now I’ll never marry anyone.”

“What are you going to do, then? Do you really want to be a nurse-midwife?”

“Yes, I like the work at the training center.”

“Yet you turned down the appointment when it was first offered.”

“That was because it meant delaying our marriage.”

“Why was getting married right away so important? Were you eager to have children?”

Noren held his breath. He and Talyra had never discussed that, for it had been assumed as a matter of course; in the villages a woman who bore few babies was scorned. The rearing of large families was considered a religious virtue. He did not know whether a family was important to her for its own sake, but if it was, she should not enter the Inner City, and Stefred would undoubtedly send her away.

“You don’t understand,” Talyra said. “Noren and I were in
love
.”

Slowly Stefred continued, “I do understand. Suppose, Talyra, that you had to choose again whether or not to help him; would you do the same thing?”

“Yes.”

“What if it meant that you would suffer the consequences of heresy even though you yourself had not incurred them? What if it meant that your family and friends might never learn what had become of you?”

Talyra met his eyes bravely. “I’d do it.”

“Then you’re as unrepentant as he is? You still love him, and you won’t ever be sorry?”

“That’s right, sir.”

It was going to work out, thought Noren joyously. In a moment Stefred would tell her, and the ordeal would be over… .

And then he saw that the true ordeal had not yet even begun.

*
 
*
 
*

With Stefred’s next words, Noren knew what the Chief Inquisitor was going to do; and he was appalled. Talyra’s wits were sharp, but she would be defenseless against an expert assault on her misconception of herself. He wished heartily that he had never agreed to let her be questioned.

“When a person loves someone that much,” Stefred was saying, “it’s only natural for her to be influenced by his opinions. Surely you did not disagree with all of Noren’s ideas.”

“Of course not, only with the heretical ones,” Talyra said confidently, too naive to sense her peril.

“He must often have told you that the things here in the City should be available to everyone, and not just to Technicians and Scholars. Did you agree with that?”

“It is not in accordance with the High Law.”

“I know the High Law, Talyra. I am asking whether you agreed with that particular idea of Noren’s, and you are bound to answer truthfully.”

She dropped her eyes. “I—I agreed that it would be good for everyone to have things,” she admitted in a low voice. “But they will have them after the Mother Star appears.”

Oh, Talyra
, thought Noren hopelessly,
the orthodox answer won’t do for Stefred! For the village council that would be a clever reply, but Stefred will hang you with it
.

“Yet what if when it appears,” the Scholar went on, “the Technicians decide to keep everything for themselves?”

Shocked, Talyra protested, “That couldn’t happen.”

“How do you know it couldn’t? Have you never met a person who might want to?”

“Yes, but such people aren’t Technicians.”

“Noren believed otherwise. He believed that Technicians were ordinary men and women like the villagers. Suppose, for instance, that you yourself were a Technician—”

“Don’t mock me, sir,” she pleaded.

“I am not mocking you. Suppose you woke up one day to find yourself a Technician. Would you feel glad to have things that other people don’t, or would you wish that the Mother Star would appear sooner so that you could share them?”

Talyra was almost in tears. “How can I answer? I’d want to share, of course, yet if I picture myself in that position, I’m committing blasphemy by thinking of myself as Noren used to.”

Ruthlessly Stefred drove the point home. “Come now, Talyra—do you really, deep inside, believe that you’d be unable to do the work of a Technician, or that you would not enjoy it?”

She buried her face in her hands. Noren’s grip tightened on the arms of his chair and he half-rose, but Stefred shook his head, going himself to Talyra and laying a firm hand on her shoulder. “You have sworn by the Mother Star that you’ll tell me the truth,” he said impassively. “To break such an oath is a worse offense than the other.”

“I am guilty, then,” she sobbed. “I didn’t even know it before, but you were right about me!”

“You acknowledge these ideas? Think, Talyra! Your answer may determine the whole course of your future.”

“I can’t deny them. My guilt’s greater than Noren’s, for he at least was not a hypocrite.”

Her despair was more than Noren could bear. He would never forgive himself, he thought; he should have known that Stefred’s relentless approach to truth, so exhilarating to himself, would destroy Talyra. She’d been happy with her illusions; why had he let himself he convinced that she could remain happy after those illusions were gone?

“No!” he burst out. “I’ll not let you do this to her!”

“Be silent! If she’s to face what’s ahead, she must see herself for what she really is.”