The Doors Of The Universe (28 page)

“Lianne, you didn’t think I’d stay angry, did you?” he asked.

“I wasn’t sure,” she replied in a low voice. “I was afraid you’d hate me, but I see you already understand what I was doing—”

How could she? Noren wondered. Intuition couldn’t possibly be that specific—and for some reason he guessed she knew about Veldry, too, although he was positive that Veldry would have told no one. Perhaps this was his own wishful thinking; he found he was relieved at the idea of not having to tell Lianne.

“Anyway, that’s not why I came,” she was saying. “There are things I’ve got to tell you.”

They went upstairs and out into the starlit courtyard. Seeing the sky, Noren felt more awe of it than he’d experienced since his trip into space to retrieve the orbiting starship hull used at the outpost. But now his awe was elevating, not terrifying. Now he need not worry about the meaning of that vast universe; he was with someone who knew. Perhaps someday he might be allowed to board her people’s ship… .

“How many of those stars have you been to?” he whispered, wonder-stricken.

“Orbited? I don’t know, I’ve never kept count. This is the tenth planet I’ve landed on.”

“Counting the one where you were born?”

“I wasn’t born on a planet. Only relatively immature human species live that way. We live in orbiting cities, most of us, and keep our home planets as parks.”

“Why were the Six Worlds so crowded after the civilization matured, then?” Noren asked. “They had orbiting labs, but not cities in orbit.”

“Noren,” Lianne said levelly, “the Six Worlds’ civilization wasn’t mature, that is, your species wasn’t—isn’t. Inventing space travel’s near the
beginning
of the evolutionary timescale.” Before he could say anything she went on, “The Six Worlds were unusual in not having orbiting cities at the stage they had reached, though. It was because the solar system had so many planets similar to the mother world. In most systems, colonizing in orbit is more practical than settling neighboring planets.”

He turned to her, eager to hear more; but the sight of her eyes cut short his questions. It was as if she’d been crushed by personal tragedy—evidently something far more important than his curiosity was at issue. “Lianne, what’s the matter?” he asked. “What’s happened?”

“You don’t know what it means, my having given myself away,” she murmured. “I’m not blaming you for what you did, only—”

“Only what?” Suddenly it occurred to him that her own people might be angered. “They won’t punish you, will they?” he demanded, appalled.

“No. All the same, there will be consequences.”

“That’s what I used to tell Talyra,” he recalled sadly, “before I assumed priesthood, when she could see I was unhappy and thought the Scholars must be punishing me for my heresy. Finally she realized the consequences just followed of themselves.”

“Yes,” Lianne agreed. “But your heresy wasn’t a mistake. You had no load on your conscience. The position I’m in is more like when you crashed the aircar, except worse—possibly much worse. I may have upset the future evolution of your species, you see.”

“I don’t, quite. I guess I see that if I’d refused to keep working on genetics because I don’t understand the need, that might be your fault. But I’m not going to refuse. Even without understanding, I’m going to play the game.”

“It’s more than a game. And it’ll be harder for you, knowing about us, than it would have been otherwise. If—if that affects the course of your life, Noren, I’ll be responsible.”

“Don’t worry on my account,” Noren told her. “I’ll take full responsibility for my own fate, Lianne. And if it does turn out worse than I imagine, I still won’t be sorry, any more than I was sorry for becoming a heretic and learning the truth about the nova.”

“I realize that,” she said soberly. “One part of me grieves because you’re going to suffer, yet another part knows you’ll think it’s worth it. That’s not the thing that scares me.”

“Then what is?”

“I told you I’m bound by a commitment,” Lianne said. “It’s—well, formal, like commitment to the priesthood as for you, except it’s not just sharing accountability, it’s personal. When we’re alone or in small teams on primitive worlds, our actions can change those worlds’ histories unless we’re awfully careful. We swear to put the native people’s best interests above everything else, and their best interests normally demand that we not influence them at all. We swear specifically, for instance, to die rather than let them find out about our existence. I’d have killed myself to prevent your knowing, Noren, just as I still would to prevent the secret from going any further—not because you’ll suffer from knowing, but because of what it may do to your people’s future.”

“Our future isn’t very bright,” Noren observed grimly, “unless you do help us. You could hardly make it worse.”

“Yes, I could. I may have already, unwittingly. There are scenarios you don’t know about.”

“I think it’s my right to know, Lianne.”

“No, it isn’t,” she said with sorrow, “but of course you aren’t going to take my word for that. And now, since you already know more than you should, you do have to be told enough to give you a basis for the decisions you’ll be forced to make. I—I lay awake all last night deciding to be frank with you, even though that means breaking my oath not to disclose anything.”

“I don’t expect you to give me more knowledge than I’ve earned,” Noren protested. “I’ve thought a lot, too, and I’ve figured out a good deal. You’d have refused to support your people’s policies in the first place if you believe they’re wrong! You’ve got the instincts of a heretic in spite of having only pretended to be one during your inquisition. And that means—”

“Wait a minute! What makes you think I was pretending? I was masquerading as a village woman, of course, but everything else was
real
.”

“The qualities Stefred judged you on, yes; that’s what I’m saying. But the defiance of the High Law, the risks and the enlightenment and the initiation, that couldn’t have been real in the same way as for the rest of us—you knew our secrets from the start. That bothered me till I realized that because you weren’t gaining anything personally, it couldn’t have affected Stefred’s evaluation of your motives.”

“The risk was real enough,” Lianne said. “After all, I thought I might have to kill myself. I would have, if he’d probed too deeply.”

“Maybe so,” Noren conceded. “I—I believe you really would give your life to save us from something you’re convinced would harm us. But a convicted heretic expects to die without hope of saving anyone. It’s a matter of principle, of standing out against evil. You knew at the beginning the evil was necessary.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You must have known our life support equipment’s irreplaceable.”

“I didn’t; none of us did when we landed here. We only knew something strange was going on. And what we saw, we didn’t like. We thought what you thought when you were a boy, that the Scholars were dictators. There was just one thing that didn’t fit: we couldn’t understand why the villagers had so much freedom.”

“Freedom? Freedom to live in the Stone Age, shut out of the City?”

“Noren,” Lianne said gently, “in every similar culture that we’ve observed, the outsiders would have been slaves of the City—or else equipment wouldn’t have been expended on them. We couldn’t guess why they were permitted to live, dependent on City aid, yet free to govern themselves, not exploited, not even taxed. It was the strangest setup we’d ever encountered.”

“But still a bad one.”

“Of course. Not as bad as it could have been, but bad; I was a real heretic in the sense that I believed that. I also believed the Prophecy was a myth the Scholars had invented to maintain power.”

“Didn’t the references to the Mother Star make it clear? You knew we were colonists, and you surely knew what a nova is.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “Only I didn’t know the entire Prophecy. Nobody sat down and recited the whole thing, after all. Everyone in the village assumed it was common knowledge. We’d heard just scattered passages—and we didn’t hear the High Law at all till I got caught breaking it.”

Noren stared at her, startled. “You didn’t plan your arrest?”

She shook her head. “I filled a drinking jug from a stream right before the eyes of a group of women gathering reeds to weave baskets. It never occurred to me it could be wrong. We’re trained to respect local taboos, but drinking the water isn’t taboo anywhere, unless it’s radioactive or something. We’d only been on the surface a couple of days; we hadn’t had a chance to observe the restrictions on food and drink.” With a rueful smile she added, “The village women surrounded me, taunted me about what would happen when the Scholars got hold of me. Scared? Noren, the night I spent in the village jail was the worst I’d ever been through, till then, anyway.”

“Couldn’t your people have helped you escape?”

“Yes, but I chose to see it through. We realized we’d have to get someone into the City sooner or later to learn the facts about this world.”

“The villagers must have told you that no one’s ever been released from the Inner City,” reflected Noren, puzzled. “You couldn’t have known then that you’ll be free to simply walk out when your job’s finished, not if you didn’t suspect the truth about the Scholars. So you were risking possible death and almost certain imprisonment—for
information
? Information that not only wouldn’t benefit your own people, but that you probably couldn’t ever pass on to them?”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” she admitted slowly.

“I’m sure it is,” Noren said. “What you’ve just told me makes me surer than ever. We don’t rate your help automatically—all right, I won’t argue with that. We have to prove ourselves, pass some kind of test. And maybe for me, because I’ve found out too soon, the testing will be harder than it was meant to be. I’ll—cooperate, Lianne. I don’t want you to bypass anything for my sake. Whatever I have to go through to earn us a place in your interstellar society, I’m willing to take on.”

She sighed. “You have no idea of what you’re saying. And I’m tempted to let it pass; you’ve phrased it so that I could do that without lying.”

“If my statement of it is true, we can let it pass for now,” Noren declared resolutely. “You came to judge us. I don’t fear your judgment.”

“Did you fear Stefred’s?”

“When I was first brought into the City, you mean? That was different; I had misconceptions about what I’d be judged on.”

“So do you now,” Lianne said. “That’s why I have to warn you.”

“What I said
is
true, isn’t it?”

“In a sense. It’s true as far as it goes, just as the Prophecy’s words are true. I’m here to evaluate circumstances, and they’re such that you, personally, will have to take on a great deal. Ultimately, if you succeed, your people will attain their rightful place. But it will not happen as you envision, any more than cities will rise out of the ground on the day the Star appears.”

“I’m not naive,” Noren assured her. “I know I can’t imagine exactly what will happen. Later, when I’ve done whatever’s expected of me—”

“That will be the bad time for you, Noren,” Lianne said, squeezing his hand. “As if the City had shut you out for your heresy instead of in. It might be kinder of me not to tell you this, but cruel, I think, in the long run. I can’t let you build false hopes.”

“You’ve acknowledged we can earn a place among you.”

“Yes, in time—your species can—but… it’s a
long
time… long after the Star’s light has reached this world.”

“Not—in my lifetime?” Noren went cold, beginning to see where she was leading. “Lianne, I can’t accept that!”

“Perhaps not. It’s asking far too much of you; I never wanted you to bear so great a burden.” She was once more close to tears, though her voice was well controlled. And again, he could sense more than she’d said, as if he had become as intuitive as she. Very, very quietly her words continued… .

Noren blinked his eyes, finding himself giddy; his mind was reeling. This wasn’t just his own emotion, or even his perception of hers—there were concepts he could not integrate with the words Lianne was saying… or was she still speaking at all? Abruptly he became aware of silence. Had she said he must accept the burden for his people’s sake, that nothing but his voluntary acquiescence could save them? That didn’t make sense!
Lianne
, he thought despairingly,
you don’t know! You can’t, no one who’s been to ten planets could know what it is to be confined forever to this one
.

Lianne’s hand tightened on his. “Let’s sit down,” she whispered.

The paving stones of the courtyard were still warm from the day’s heat. Noren leaned back, gazing up at the stars.
It’s not wrong to want the whole universe!
he persisted.
It’s not wrong to keep searching for the truth, no more so to demand it of your people than it was to demand it of the Scholars when I was a heretic. I’m willing to earn access to knowledge, but not to renounce it
.

Lianne pressed close to him, not in a sensual way but in a gesture of complete and genuine sympathy. In her eyes was understanding as well as sadness. Somehow she did know. Could this be part of the test? Noren wondered. Was he expected to defy her people’s edict, as Scholar candidates were required to defy the teaching that it was wrong to aspire to the High Priests’ secrets?
Yes
, he thought dizzily,
she admires strength of will. She no more wants passive acceptance than Stefred wants heretics to recant!