The Doors Of The Universe (23 page)

“Do you believe it’s true?”

“Certainly. I mean—well, of course they couldn’t all have been wiped out by novas, all the civilizations in the universe.”

“But you’ve never heard anybody else in the City mention that.”

“I guess I haven’t. It’s so obvious—”

“No, it isn’t, not to the people who don’t have what it take to face the thought that we’re cut off from them. Lianne, that sphere is physical proof of what used to be only theory. Oh, the Founders knew this planet had been mined, but that could have been a billion years ago. The sphere isn’t that old. Right after I found it, I used to try to talk to people about the implications, only they didn’t see any implications. They didn’t want to see. Somebody told me once that if I’m hoping we’ll be rescued—”

“That’s impossible!” Lianne broke in sharply. “You mustn’t have any such hope.”

“I don’t. The odds against it are fantastically high; people know that, all right. So they’d rather not think of other civilizations as really existing, existing at this very moment—because once you think of them that way, you know we’re in a worse prison here than the First Scholar imagined. We lost more than the Six Worlds; we lost our starships. And since we aren’t going to succeed in synthesizing metal, we aren’t ever going to get them back. I know
I’m
behind bars; I’m not brave enough to imagine what that means very often, but I do know. I also know what it means for our human race to be maybe the only one in this whole galaxy that’s never going to get in touch with the rest. And the look in your eyes right now tells me you know, too.”

Lianne didn’t answer; the emotion in her seemed beyond words, beyond even what he himself had felt whenever he’d allowed himself to ponder these things. “I’m not trying to be cruel,” he said. “I’m trying to show you how much I admire you, how much stronger you are than you think.”

She managed a smile. “Stefred’s tactics? I’m the one who’s supposed to become the expert in encouraging people.”

“You have a talent for it. Not only in what you do and say, but in what you don’t need to ask. Nobody else, not even Stefred, has been able to grasp how I feel about the sphere.” He hesitated. “There’s another thing. The Council ruled that it can never again be turned on, but the reason wasn’t publicized. It’s something I learned when I started studying genetics—there’s a chance the radiation might be what harmed Talyra’s child.”

“Oh, no, Noren.” Lianne’s face showed not shock, but certainty.

“Don’t try to spare me. If it was the cause, the fault’s mine; Talyra wouldn’t have been near it if it weren’t for me. Now that I’m sure no other pregnant women came in contact with it, I can’t say I’m sorry we found it, because if we hadn’t, Brek and I would have died, too, and Talyra would have died sooner—we’d all have died of starvation. But before I learned the radiation may have done harm, I was
glad
we found it. Underneath, it almost seemed like compensation for losing the aircar. Even though I know it can’t ever help us, even though it makes me feel worse than before about being stuck on this world—just knowing seemed better than not knowing. Talyra believed the Mother Star led us to it. Well, my ideas about its meaning weren’t any more realistic.” He searched Lianne’s face. “Was I a fool, do you think?”

Her hand touched his. “No. Go on being glad; knowing
is
better. And the radiation did not harm the baby, I—well, I can’t explain why, call it my crazy intuition, but I’m sure it didn’t.”

“There’s no way you could be sure of a thing like that.”

“I suppose not, only what could a portable radiation device be except a communicator of some kind? And they wouldn’t have used communicators that could be harmful.”

There was a strange intensity in her voice, so strong that he found himself believing her. Her argument was reasonable, yet hardly conclusive; who knew what might or might not be harmful to an alien species? Still… Lianne’s knowledge of things beyond her experience was often truly uncanny.

*
 
*
 
*

Twice in the past his reproductive cells had been tested for genetic damage; doctors had handled it. But there was no need to involve a doctor if one knew how to use the computer input equipment and ask the right questions about the data. At least for a man there wasn’t. Since to test a woman’s reproductive cells demanded surgery, the vaccine, if it worked on men, must be presumed to work on women without this intermediate check. The really crucial trial would be the health of the baby. But before daring to father a baby, he himself must make sure that impure water hadn’t affected him as it would have before his vaccination.

He did the test at night, as he’d done the blood tests, when the computer room was deserted. Handling the apparatus, entering preliminary analysis commands, he worked steadily and impassively without permitting his mind to stray. Only when he keyed the final query did his fingers fumble and his eyes drop from the screen. Cursing himself for his cowardice, he forced himself to look. The report read,
FERTILITY UNIMPAIRED. NO INDICATION OF GENETIC DAMAGE. NO KNOWN CAUSE TO EXPECT DEFECTIVE PROGENY.

Noren’s clenched hands let go, and he felt weak, reeling with the release of pent-up tension. To his astonishment he found that he was weeping. He had not let himself know how terrified he’d been.

As he emerged from the Hall of Scholars into the brightening dawn, Noren knew elation for the first time since Talyra’s death. That was behind him now. The memory would always hurt; he could never feel for anyone what he’d felt for Talyra. But the children he’d have had with Talyra would not have helped humanity to survive. His future children would! They would be the first of a new race, the first born able to live without aid in the only world now accessible to them.
What is needful to life will not be denied us
. . . that was true! If the genetic code of life could be changed, surely the problem of getting people to do it could be overcome also. By the Star, Noren vowed, he’d make a
good
world for his children!

His and Lianne’s. He was not sure why it had become so important that they be Lianne’s—perhaps, he thought, because she, above all women he’d known, would understand the meaning. She saw nothing unnatural in using knowledge to alter life. With eagerness, he turned back into the tower.

He found her in the dream room; she still worked there some nights, and her shift was just ending. “Let’s go for a walk,” he said. “Now, while it’s cool out in the courtyard.”

She looked so openly pleased that he was ashamed. His impatience to make plans, more than consideration for her comfort, had prompted this suggestion—and he realized that he cared how she felt about trivial things as well as serious ones. Maybe sunlight really was hard on her. He’d learned Talyra’s feelings, all of them, but never anyone else’s. Had he tried? Could he become close in that way to Lianne?

“We haven’t talked about the secret dream,” he said as they crossed the deserted courtyard, their footsteps loud in the hush of daybreak.

“You never seemed to want to.” This was true; he’d carefully stayed clear of the topic while unready to pursue it fully. “I understand how it must have been for you, Noren,” Lianne went on. “Personal, too personal to speak of. I monitored you, of course—”

“What did that show?” he asked, wondering.

“Only that it affected you deeply… in lots of ways. Later, when you asked me what I thought about genetic change, I guessed the dream was involved. And then when I went through it myself and learned how the First Scholar’s experience fits in, I knew you must feel—chosen.”

“Stefred thinks that makes me dangerous. I’m not quite sure why. I see his point about how hard it’ll be to get people to abandon the High Law willingly, but if he’s right that it’s too late, I couldn’t cause any harm by myself. Any implementation is far in the future anyway. So why does he oppose even the research?”

“You don’t know?” Lianne asked, surprised. “Noren, of course you couldn’t do anything alone that would threaten village culture—and you wouldn’t; Stefred’s aware of that. But think what it would do to
us
, to the priesthood, if we stopped believing the Prophecy.”

“I stopped a long time ago,” Noren confessed bitterly. “And it hurts. Stefred isn’t a man who’d back away from that.”

“Not from the despair,” she agreed. “Suppose, though, that you were to win official support for genetic alteration, Council support—and we gave up metal synthesization as hopeless. Gave up the plan to fulfill the Prophecy’s promises. No priest, least of all Stefred, could ever again speak those words about knowledge and cities and machines with a clear conscience. Starting now, in our generation, not in our grandchildren’s! We’d reinterpret the symbolism among ourselves, but nobody would be able to preside at public ceremonies.”

Noren drew breath, horrified by his own blindness. “It would become a real fraud after all, just as I thought when I was a heretic—”

“Yes, that’s another thing. Recantation depends on a heretic’s being honestly convinced that the whole Prophecy is true, doesn’t it? If we revised the official plans, Stefred couldn’t recruit any more Scholars. The system would turn into a sham that would no longer work.”

Appalled, Noren mumbled, “You don’t know how ironic it is, my not seeing it like that in the first place. After the way I took off in that aircar, ready to throw away my life and Brek’s proclaiming that the Prophecy is a false hope—” He broke off. “Lianne, I wondered then why all the others didn’t feel as Brek and I did. Now… they would, wouldn’t they, if they accepted the alternative to hoping.”

“Of course. And if they did, we couldn’t last even till the genetic change could be put into effect. Stefred has to oppose you! He has to keep you from gaining wide support, no matter whether you’re right or wrong. That’s the only way the priesthood can remain genuine.”

“But if I’m right, I’ve got to have support. It’s a paradox.”

“Yes. One you’ll someday have to resolve. Meanwhile, you and Stefred both have vital parts to play.”

“And you, Lianne?”

“I—I can only be an observer,” she said sadly.

“More than that, I hope.” Noren put his arm around her shoulders, feeling less shy than he’d expected he would. “In the dream—what the First Scholar did, what
she
did—do you believe it was ethical?”

“Not in itself; they knew it wasn’t, because the child had no choice and suffered harm. But it was the lesser of the evils they had to choose between.”

“Would you make the same decision?”

“In her place, yes, I would.”

“I don’t mean that—I mean in yours.”

“The situation’s not going to arise.”

“Because of Stefred’s opposition? You didn’t think I was going to let that hold me up.”

“No—no, of course I knew better,” Lianne said. “But to prepare a live-virus vaccine—”

“I’ve already passed that stage. I bent a few policies by using the Technicians’ lab, but there just wasn’t any other way. And—” He faced her. “It works. I’ve tested it.”

“Altered your own genotype?” She smiled. “I guess if I’d stopped to think, I’d have realized you had kept on working. I suppose you’re going to say you’re ready to risk drinking from the waterfall, and I—well, I can’t argue. We’re walking in that direction. I won’t stop you, Noren; I’ll stand by and wish you the Star’s blessing.”

They were indeed approaching the waterfall, though he hadn’t planned it. The ring of domes stood dark against a yellow sky; the sun hadn’t yet risen above them, but overhead the towers shone with its reflected rays. Noren didn’t speak until they reached the garden. Then, barely audible over the splash of the water, he said, “I drank weeks ago. There’s been no damage. I thought you might want to do more than stand by.”

She drew back, to his surprise suddenly wary. “Noren, I—I don’t think I want to hear what you’re about to say.”

“I won’t lie to you. I won’t tell you I’m in love with you the way I was with Talyra.”

“I know that,” she said, hiding her face from him.

“I’ll just say I admire you more than any woman I’ve ever known,” Noren went on, realizing this was true. “The research has to go forward; you understand why. But I don’t want just that. I want a child, the first child who really belongs to this world—and I care about that child’s mother being someone to be proud of. I don’t suppose you’d want to marry me, not after turning down a proposal from Stefred; you told me you don’t plan to marry at all. If you’d like us to be married, though, we can be. I’ll be honored. And if you’d rather we were together for only a while, I’ll understand.”

Lianne raised her eyes, and they were filled with tears. “You don’t understand! Noren, I admire you, too, and I’m flattered that you’d choose me—please don’t think I’m not. But you’re asking for something I can’t give. The first child who really belongs to this world—oh, that’s ironic—”

Noren watched helplessly, puzzled by this lapse in Lianne’s usual composure. It wasn’t like her to give way to emotion. If she did not want him as a lover, she could simply refuse, as she’d refused Stefred and many other suitors. Yet… surely he hadn’t been mistaken about her feeling toward him, her effort to suppress it had been too plain.

It must be, then, a matter of some past commitment. She might well have been married outside the City, but conviction of heresy meant automatic annulment; under the High Law her wedding vows were no longer binding. Still, she might feel that to break them would be a betrayal of the man from whom she’d been parted.