The Magic Labyrinth (41 page)

The faces of his companions reflected an agonizing struggle, though Frigate seemed the least affected. Nur, who had always been so flexible, so invulnerable to psychological shock, was suffering the worst. He could not accept the idea that
wathans,
call them souls, were synthetic. Well, not quite that. But they were formed by humanlike creatures through machines. They did not come parceled out by Allah. Nur had believed this far more deeply than some of the others who, though religious, had not had his firmness of faith.

Loga must have been aware of this.

He said, “There is no Creator unless we accept the creation, this universe, as evidence. The Firsts did, and we do. But there is no evidence whatsoever that It has any interest in Its creatures. It…”

“It?” Alice and de Marbot said.

“Yes. The Creator has no sex—as far as we know. The language of Monat’s people has a unique neuter pronoun for the Creator.”

“His people are The Firsts?” Tai-Peng said.

“No. The Firsts have Gone On long, long ago. Monat’s people are the recipients of The Firsts’ work through a line of five other peoples. These, you might say, have handed on the torch to others and then Gone On. Monat himself is just one of ten thousand of his own kind yet alive. The others have all Gone On.

“Some theologians say that the Creator has not done anything Itself to give Its sentient creatures
wathans.
Its divine plan leaves it to sentients to make their own salvation. But this isn’t logical, since it was only an accident that the
wathans
were generated, and billions died with no chance of self-awareness or immortality before this. And billions, perhaps trillions, have died and will die, perished forever, before we Ethicals will have arrived to give them the
wathans.
So it looks as if the Creator is also indifferent to our self-awareness and immortality.

“It is up to sentients, however, wherever they live, to do what the primitive religionists believed was the Creator’s prerogative.”

Burton was much shaken, though he found the story perhaps easier to take than any of the rest, Frigate excepted. He’d always been intensely interested in religion. He’d investigated many faiths, especially the Oriental. He’d converted to Roman Catholicism, not only because it fascinated him but because doing so had gotten his wife Isabel off his back. He’d been initiated into the mysteries of Moslem Sufism, had earned the red thread of a Brahmin, had been a Sikh, and a Parsi, and had tried to convince the shrewd Brigham Young that he wanted to be a Mormon. Though he’d acted like a sincere convert and sometimes had surprisingly been overcome by patterned emotion, he’d always left the door of the faith as he’d gone in, a congenital infidel.

Even when he was very young, he had refused to accept the tenets of the Anglican Church. He’d infuriated his parents, and not even the enraged bellowings of and the thrashings given by his father had changed his mind. They
had
made him tend to keep his opinions and his questions to himself until he had gotten old enough that his father didn’t dare attack him by word or fist.

Despite this, the orthodox concept of the soul and of its Donor had seeped through his being. Though he hadn’t believed it, he hadn’t thought of any other, and it hadn’t been until recently that he had heard of one.

As that exasperating fellow Frigate had told him more than once when Burton was angry with him, he was a broad but not deep thinker. Nevertheless, the logical extrapolation of the concept of the soul he’d heard when with Frigate and the others had impressed him. Indeed, they had convinced him.

Loga’s account was a shock. Not one, though, which stirred the depths of his mind. These had already been disturbed. So, next to Frigate, he was the one who could most accept this extraordinary history.

Loga continued, “It was Monat’s people who came to Earth and set up the
wathan
generators. This would be, approximately, 100,000
B.C.
”

Frigate said, moaning, “And all those who’d lived before? Beyond saving? Gone? Forever?”

“Enough thought and grief have been expended on them,” Loga said. “There is nothing you can do about them, so don’t be self-sadistic. As you Americans say, tough shit. It sounds callous, but it’s the attitude you must adopt if you don’t wish to torment yourself needlessly. Better that some may be redeemed than none at all.”

The
wathan
generators and the
wathan
catchers were buried far down, so deep that they were surrounded by a heat that would melt nickel-iron.

“Catchers?” Aphra Behn said softly.

“Yes. There is one in a big shaft in the tower. Did you see it on your way up here?”

Burton said, “We saw it.”

“That is the very grave problem, the pressing problem which I shall get to after a while.”

From that time on, the
wathans
fixed themselves to or integrated with the human zygotes. When a zygote or an embryo or any of any age died, their
wathans
were attracted to the buried machine and
caged.

“So what the Church of the Second Chance preaches is not entirely true?” Burton said.

“No. It was I who came to Jacques Gillot, La Viro, and told him what we thought he should know. I didn’t reveal more than half the truth, and I lied about some things. It was justifiable because you Valleydwellers were not ready for the full truth.”

“That’s debatable,” Burton said.

“Yes. What isn’t? But I did tell Gillot that the salvation of the
wathan
depended upon its attaining a certain ethical stage. That was no lie.”

Monat’s ancestors came from a planet of a star which was neither Tau Ceti nor Arcturus. They had found a planet which had no sentients as yet, and they had made it into the Gardenworld.

“After about ten thousand years, they began resurrecting the dead children of Earth.”

“Including the miscarriages and abortions, et cetera?” Burton said.

“Yes. These were developed into full-term infants. I should say, were and are being. When I left the Garden, all those who’d died under the age of five before approximately
A.D.
1925 had been resurrected.”

The Gardenworld project had started during the tenth century
B.C.
The Riverworld project had begun in the late twenty-second century
A.D.

Frigate said, “What century is it now in Terrestrial chronology?”

“When I left the Garden for here it was, let’s see, umh, to be precise
A.D.
2009. It took me one hundred and sixty Terran years to arrive here. It took fifty years to reform this planet. The wholesale resurrection day took place twenty-seven years after that. That would be,
A.D.
2246. It is now, I’m not sure about this,
A.D.
2307.”

“My God!” Alice said. “How old are you?”

“This is really irrelevant now,” Loga said. “But I was born sometime during the twelfth century
B.C.
In that city which you call Troy. I was a grandson of the king Homer called Priamos. I wasn’t quite five years old when the invading Akhaiwoi and Danawoi took the city, sacked and burned it, and slaughtered most of its people. I would’ve become a slave, I suppose, but I defended my mother. I stuck a spear into the leg of a warrior, annoying him so much that he killed me with his bronze sword.”

Loga shuddered.

“At least, I didn’t have to see her and my sisters raped and my father and brothers butchered.”

Monat and his people raised several generations of Terrestrial children. After this, many of Monat’s people left for other planets. Monat and some others stayed to supervise the human adults who’d grown up in the Garden and were now taking their turn in raising new generations. Monat had left the Garden, however, to accompany the human beings to the Riverworld.

“We sometimes referred to him as the Operator because he was head of the project and chief engineer of the biocomputer.”

“The computer which Spruce mentioned?” Burton said. “The giant protein computer?”

“Yes.”

“Spruce lied to us in other things, though,” Burton said. “He said he was born in the fifty-second century
A.D.
and that a sort of chronoscope was used to record the bodies of those who’d died.”

“We all had the same false stories if we should somehow get caught and were forced to talk. Of course, we could kill ourselves, but, if there was a chance of escaping, we’d stay alive. Anyway, when you questioned Spruce, Monat was present, and he led Spruce along, fed him the questions which had prepared answers.”

“We’ve figured that out,” Burton said.

“How do you record the dead?” Nur said.

“The
wathans
contain everything that the body contains. That is, the records of the body, including the brain, of course, and this recording is the basis for duplication of the body.”

“But…but,” Frigate said. “Then the duplicates, the resurrected, wouldn’t be the
same
as the dead model! They’d just be duplicates!”

“No. The
wathan
is the source and the seat of self-awareness. That is not a copy. The
wathan
leaves the dead body, takes its self-awareness with it. But it is unconscious, most of the time, anyway. There are some indications that, under certain conditions and for a brief time, the
wathan
may be conscious after leaving the body. But we don’t have enough evidence to state definitely that this can occur. This newly enfleshed
wathan
may be hallucinating.

“Anyway, the
wathan
furnishes all the data we need to make a new body, and then it attaches itself to the duplicate.”

Burton wondered how many times this information would have to be repeated to some of the group before it was finally accepted.

“Why did you decide to carry out your own project?” Nur said.

Loga grimaced.

“I’ll talk about that later.

“The planet was reformed into a Rivervalley many millions of miles long. The tower and the underground chambers were constructed at the same time. The
wathans
were fed into the duplicate bodies made in the underground places. The physical defects of the bodies were rectified. Any metabolic disturbances were corrected. Dwarfs and midgets were given a normal height, but pygmies retained their original height. The
wathans
were attached to the bodies during this process, but the bodies had no self-awareness since the brains of the duplicates were kept unconscious. Nevertheless, the
wathans
were recording changes. Then, the duplicates were destroyed and, on general resurrection day, the bodies were duplicated again but along the banks of The River.”

“My premature awakening in the chambers?” Burton said. “Was that an accident?”

“Not at all,” Loga said. “I was responsible for that. You were one of those I’d picked to help me in my plan—if it ever became necessary that I’d need your help. I caused you to be awakened so that at least one of the group would have some inkling of what was being done to you people. It would also fire your determination. You have a vast curiosity; you would never be satisfied until you got to the bottom of this mystery.”

“Yes, but when you visited us, you lied to us,” Nur said. “You told us you’d picked only twelve. As it’s turned out, you must have chosen many more than that.”

“In the first place, I wasn’t the only one who visited you. Sometimes, Tringu did. He was completely with me in my objections to some features of this project. He was the only one I could trust. I couldn’t even tell Siggen what I was doing.

“In the second place, I couldn’t limit the group to twelve. Chance alone was against that few ever getting to the tower, if I needed them for what I had in mind. So, I actually chose one hundred and twenty-four. I lied to you about the number because, if you were ever caught by my people, you’d not be revealing the full truth.

“That is also why I didn’t reveal everything to you and why I lied about some things. If you’d been caught and your memories were read, you’d not be able to give them the complete plan. And you’d have contradictory stories.

“That is why, posing as Odysseus, I told Clemens that the renegade who’d visited me had claimed to be a woman.”

Loga had awakened only one of his chosen group because that could be read by the Ethicals as an accident. More than one would arouse suspicion. But he’d made a mistake in arousing even one. Monat had investigated Burton’s case, and, while he couldn’t prove that someone had tampered with the resurrection machinery, he was on the lookout for more “accidents.”

Loga had become very anxious when Monat said that he meant to be resurrected near Burton and to accompany him for a while. Monat also wished to study the lazari closely, and to do this he had to make up an acceptable story to account for his presence. Why not do both at the same time?

Loga hadn’t warned Burton about this. He was afraid that Burton, knowing Monat’s real story, might be self-conscious and act peculiarly. Or, even worse, try to take matters in his own hands.

“I would’ve,” Burton said.

“I thought so.”

“I don’t like to interrupt,” Nur said. “But do you know what happened to the Japanese, Piscator?”

Loga grimaced again, and he pointed to the wrecked equipment along the wall and the skeleton near it.

“That’s what’s left of Piscator.”

He swallowed, and he said, “I didn’t think that any Valleydweller would ever get to the top of this tower. The odds against it made it very improbable, though not absolutely impossible. I knew that the Parolanders might build an airship, but even so, how would they get into the tower? Only a highly advanced ethical person could enter. That wasn’t likely, but it was possible. As it happened, one man from the
Parseval
did get in.

“So, just to make sure, or try to make sure that if someone like Piscator did enter, I put bombs in the cabinets along the wall and also in the cabinets in the revolving platform. Not just in this room. There are more in another control room past the apartments in the opposite direction. The bombs were explosives which were formed into instrument panels. Whichever direction the intruder took, he’d see a control room and go in. His curiosity would drive him to do so. He’d see screens still operating and the skeletons of those who’d been working in it.

“The sensors in the bombs would allow the bombs to go off only if the intruder’s brain didn’t contain the little black ball, the suicide mechanism.”

“Piscator wasn’t one of your recruits, was he?” Nur said.

“No.”

“If I’d been on the airship and had gotten in, I’d have been killed.”

Burton wondered briefly why Loga hadn’t planted bombs in the secret room at the base. Then he realized that if Loga had done so and he’d been with the expedition, as he had, he, too, would’ve been killed.

“Did you deactivate the bombs when you came here?” Burton said. He was thinking of the control room with the open door they’d passed before arriving at the apartments.

“I did in this room.”

Loga continued his narrative. He had made a
wathan
distorter to enter the tower and also to deceive the scanner satellites. And he had fixed the computer so that it couldn’t notify the Council when Burton died and a duplicate body was being made for him.

“That’s why you were able to kill yourself so many times and still elude the Council. But Monat sent word via an agent to inspect the place where your preresurrection duplicate would be made so that your fatal wounds could be repaired. The circuits were traced back to the inhibit I’d installed. That’s why, the last time you committed suicide, you were caught.”

In the frantic search to find out the identity of the renegade, the Council had agreed to submit themselves to the memory scanner. Loga had anticipated this, and he had fixed the computer so that it would show a false memory track.

“You understand that I couldn’t do this for my entire track by any means. Only those memory sections for the times when we had to account for our absences were scanned. Even that took much time and hard work, but I did it.”