Vectors (8 page)

The cowled figure turned to him. It was a woman in her mid-twenties, with dark, straight hair cut low across her forehead. There was not enough light for him to make out the color of her eyes in the depths of her hood. She smiled at him bitterly.

"You must be even younger than you look. Haven't you ever seen a burning before?"

He looked at the priests and the frail figure between them. His face mirrored his confusion. "No, I've never heard of such a thing. You don't mean they are going to burn the old man?"

The woman put her head back and laughed, this time with genuine amusement. "We haven't come quite to that, yet, even here. It's a book burning—see the heap there, covered in kerosene? Those are books, forbidden texts that the Church of Redman has banned. The old man's 'crime' was keeping them in his library." Her tone was scornful and reckless. "Listen to that crowd of mindless fools."

Carl only half-heard the jeers and taunts of the crowd as the priest placed a torch in the hand of the old man and led him forward, white head shaking, to ignite the soaked pile. He took the woman by the sleeve of her robe.

"What are these forbidden books about? Why are they forbidden?"

"Science. The forbidden sciences." The woman looked at Carl again, noted his intensity, and swiftly looked around her. "This is no place to talk about it, though. I've already said too much. This crowd will be full of Church observers, watching for people talking as we are." Her eyes took on a flickering, reddish-brown reflection as the flames in the square blazed higher. "Look, if you really want to talk more about this, meet me tomorrow at noon, in the Artisans' restaurant. No more talk now. Get out of here—it's not safe to be at a burning unless you are willing to mock men like Wilhelm the librarian there."

She turned quickly and pushed through the thin edge of the crowd. Carl looked after her, then turned again to the scene by the fire. The old man was being led away, tears running down his grimy face. The remaining priest turned to the crowd and seemed to be looking straight at Carl.

"Learn the lesson. Disregard the teachings of Redman at your own risk. There must be no breaking of the Divine Law, and you must cast from your minds and thoughts all ideas of the Old Religion or the forbidden sciences. Now, go to your homes."

The crowd began to disperse. Carl took a last look at the smoldering heap, then turned to continue up the hill to the Church Hostel. The priest watched him go, then whispered into the cowl of his robe as though in prayer.

"Worked exactly according to plan. I think I've won my bet, Jason. Denning shouldn't give us any trouble now—he's as easily impressed as the rest of these simpletons here. By the way, call up Headquarters and tell them we've got an unexpected prize from this burning. Pauli's 1921 review article on General Relativity—in mint condition.

"One other thing." His tone was casual. "The old librarian whose books we confiscated is having some kind of breakdown. We'll have to keep an eye on him for a few weeks. A nuisance, but it can't be helped."

The priest walked slowly to the Lukon Mission, his robe a little bulky. He arrived there just as Carl was settling into his hard bed at the Hostel, his mind busy with the events of the day. The Science Museum, with its endless arrays of exhibits—certain omissions there resonated in his mind, adding to other facts and inconsistencies that he had noticed in the past two years. Then the burning of the books, with the tantalizing references to the 'forbidden sciences', and the mysterious words of the dark-haired woman. They all spun furiously together in his head, until sleep at last removed them.

* * *

The long-awaited thaw had begun during the night. Carl had gone to sleep to the soft rustle of powdery ice flakes against the window-pane. He awoke to a leaden grey sky and a harsh sleet. In a standard issue raincoat and plastic cape he walked gingerly down the hill on the slick, melting surface of the packed snow, past the long line of evergreens, white and bowed down by their glittering burden of ice, until he came to the Artisans' restaurant.

Inside, he looked around at each table. The building was dimly-lit, with ornate examples of wood carving, stone work and metal castings—samples of the artisans' work—in every available nook and corner. He wandered about among the decorations, but although it was already noon there was no sign of the woman. He was turning to look in the street again when a hand took his elbow and a voice behind him said, "The table in the corner. Don't turn round, go to it."

She was wearing the same hooded robe. When she sat across the table from Carl, smiled at him and threw back the cowl, he could get a good look at her for the first time. Her black hair was cut short all round, and her eyes, shielded from view last night, were a clear, dark grey. Her nose was straight and a bit too big, giving her face a decisive, determined look.

"I waited to make sure you were alone." She held out her hand. "I'm Sarah Henderson."

Carl took her hand uncertainly. The school gave no training in the social graces. "I'm Carl Denning. I'm from Briarsford, south of here, and I'm just visiting Lukon for a few days."

She nodded. "I knew you were a stranger to the city. Do you have a food voucher? Let me have it for a minute."

She took out her own meal book, left her coat on the wooden bench and slipped away. A few minutes later she was back, carrying two large earthenware bowls of pea soup and a stack of sandwiches.

"Somebody's looking after you well. They gave you an unlimited food voucher. I took advantage of it to get us a bit more than the usual lunch here."

She was very easy to talk to. As they ate Carl found himself explaining how he came to be in Lukon, about his science training, about his feelings that there were some vital facts being withheld. He began to explain until she stopped him with a shake of her dark head.

"You're wasting your time, Carl. I don't know much about science. They decided years ago that I was best suited to be a language specialist, and that's been my job since then. I'm not teaching now, because they closed the schools until the weather improves. I teach language, and I specialize in poetry and literature."

"But you seemed to know all about the science books that were burned last night. That's what I wanted to talk to you about."

"I know about books, because a lot of my friends work in libraries. Wilhelm last night is one of them. He doesn't know anything about science, either, but he loves books, and he can't stand the idea of destroying any. I feel the same way."

"But so do I, Sarah. We use books about science all the time, and none of us would think of destroying them. Why do you do it here in Lukon?"

Sarah hesitated, biting her lower lip. "It's not just here, Carl," she said at last. "It's everywhere. You just haven't met it yet. You will. Books about science, from a certain period of time, are banned."

"Only about science?"

"That's all I know about. From about 1880 until the rise of the Church of Redman, in 2030, a lot of books were written that are on the forbidden list. They must be surrendered to the Church."

"What happened in 1880? All the basic laws of science that we are taught were known then, anyway."

"I can't tell you that, Carl. You're the science expert." Her voice dropped. "I was given a copy of a book that's on the Forbidden Index, two years ago. I kept it because it's a rarity—very old, printed on woodpulp paper, and with text set by hand instead of computer. It was written a hundred and fifty years ago, but it's in good condition. Would you like to see it?"

Carl nodded and half-rose from his chair. Sarah held out a restraining hand. "Steady now—I don't have it here with me. It's at my house, a mile north of here. Finish your food and then we'll go. Try not to attract more attention—there are people in Lukon who disapprove of my opinions already. I don't want to add to that."

Outside, the sleet was turning to a relentless, hissing rain, driving down hard. The sky was so dark that evening seemed well-advanced, although it was still early afternoon. They trudged, heads down, through the slippery, empty streets. Carl thought again that Lukon was a town without colors, all washed-out greys and somber browns. The rain was so heavy that it seemed to get in everywhere. Their clothing could not keep it out and they were both soaked to the skin before they had walked half a mile. Carl felt an icy trickle working its way inside his collar and down his left shoulder. He shivered, and tried to pull his cape more tightly about him.

They reached Sarah's house with great relief, squelching up the sodden driveway, with its darkening cover of pitted snow, and Sarah unlocked the front door of the low, two-roomed stone house. She went across to the big fireplace and opened the dampers as far as they would go. Water dripped from her clothes, sizzling on the hearth and staining the big fur rug in front of the fire with dark spots.

"Here, we've got to get some dry things on, Carl," she said. "We'll begin to steam in a few minutes and I've had enough colds already this winter. I don't have anything long enough in the arms and legs for you, but I can at least get you a dry robe if you don't mind looking a bit strange."

She went into the bedroom, and rummaged in a big, carved chest there, while Carl squelched backwards and forwards in front of the fire, looking about him with interest. The house was built of heavy limestone, thick-walled and solid. The mixture of old, hand-made furniture with official Church equipment was strange to him, used to the strict modern style of the Briarsford school.

"Can't you see what worries me, Sarah?" he called through the open bedroom door. "Look, even here in your own house. Look at that." He pointed at her television set. "How does it work?"

"The on-off switch is on the left," said Sarah. "Volume is on the right."

"I don't mean that!" Carl was exasperated. "I mean, how
can
it work, with the science we are taught. Where do the signals come from, and how do they make a picture? Most people don't seem to care, but I want to understand
how
."

Sarah came back into the living-room. "Well, you're asking the wrong person." She had changed into a soft green woolen sweater and knee-length fawn skirt, her legs bare except for soft leather slippers. Carl looked at her pale knees and smooth, shapely calves, still holding the faint ghost of a summer tan, then turned his eyes away in confusion. She handed him a great armful of assorted clothing.

"Here, go into the bedroom and try your luck with these. I don't have any shoes for you, but here's a pair of oversocks that should keep you warm enough." She threw more logs on the fire. "I don't know how to answer your questions. Have you looked in the library at the school for your answers?"

Carl's grunt of disgust sounded from the bedroom. "I've been through the whole library, and I've asked all the teachers. They're useless. Even on basic things. Look, even in your arts courses you must have covered evolution. How long did they tell you it took to go from mud to man?"

"I don't know. Billions of years, I think they said."

"All right. That means the sun must have been shining, more or less the way it is now, for all that time. Where does it get the energy? I've calculated how much heat it must give out in a year, and there's no way it could keep that up for a billion years with anything we've been taught. Burning won't do it, gravitational contraction won't do it, nothing can do it."

She was startled by the conviction in his voice. He came back into the living-room, a gawky stork-like figure in a robe ten sizes too small for him. Sarah suppressed a smile.

"Mechanics and physics sound all right, Sarah," he went on, oblivious of his appearance. "A perfect logical structure—until you take a close look, and try and synthesize. Look at electricity. We have it, but where does it come from?"

She hesitated. "From the dam and turbines at the head of the valley, doesn't it? The water turns the wheels and the wheels drive the generators."

"That's what we're told. But if my estimates are right, all those generators produce less than a hundredth of what we use. Where do we get the rest of it? There must be a tremendous energy-producing plant near here, but you never hear a word about it."

"Don't harangue me. It's not my doing, Carl. Anyway, does it matter? The important thing is that we have the energy we need."

"No, it's not. I thought you would understand. We are given simple, pat pictures of the world. They may be enough for somebody who has trouble mastering the multiplication tables, but they aren't the full story."

She nodded thoughtfully. "I can't say I really understand you, but I do believe you." She walked about the living-room, setting their wet clothes out to dry. "If you think there may be answers in the forbidden books, I'll get mine for you. I keep it hidden in the attic."

The book she produced was well-preserved and entitled simply 'The Feynman Lectures on Physics.' The language was archaic, more wordy yet less formal than the modern axiomatic instruction texts. Carl settled down in front of the window, with Sarah reading over his shoulder. After ten minutes or so she left him and began to prepare a meal. He was gone, off in a rapt concentration of his own. "Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end," thought Sarah, and smiled to herself as she prepared meat, herbs and vegetables and set them on the stove.

The smell of cooking finally got through to Carl where words could not. He had sat like a statue for four hours, moving only to turn pages. Sarah moved quietly about the house, cleaning and cooking, and from time to time stopping to read a page over his shoulder. At last he lifted his head, sniffed, stretched, and shivered all over like an animal. He looked about him as though he had just entered the room. Sarah came to his side and felt his hand.

"I thought so. You're frozen. You should have moved about, instead of sitting all that time in one position. Come on, move over here and let's get some hot food into you."

They moved closer to the fire. Sarah dimmed the light and put barley bread, beer, plates and a big beef casserole onto a low table between them. She watched in silence through Carl's first two helpings, then looked at him and raised her eyebrows.