The Magic Labyrinth (42 page)

The time came which Loga dreaded so much and hoped would not come. He had arranged for that, but he did not want to have to carry out his arrangements. It hurt him severely to do it.

“Monat decided that he would be picked up at night soon and return to the tower. At the same time, you, Burton, would be taken along for a complete scan of your time in The Valley. I think that Monat suspected that the renegade, I, had fixed it so that your memory of your questioning by the Council had not been removed. Also, the violence around him in The Valley was increasingly sickening him. He needed a vacation.”

Loga was flying to the tower, having just completed a legitimate mission, when the two hidden resurrectors were found. At the same time, the engineers had discovered more evidence of Loga’s tampering with the computer.

Monat, Thanabur, and Siggen were in The Valley then. The other Councillors sent out aircraft to pick them up and to give them the news. However, the Council had made an error in judgment. Instead of waiting until Loga arrived and then confronting him, they sent a message to him. He was told to expect arrest when he got home.

“It took me half an hour to work up my nerve to do what I’d long planned and had known that I must someday do. But I’d hoped I’d be in the tower when I had to do it.”

He’d sent out a signal which had activated the codeword in the little black balls in the brains of those in the tower and the sea around it. They had made a mistake when they used one code instead of individual codes.

“But I also made a mistake when I didn’t send the code down into The Valley. I’d thought of it, but I didn’t want to kill any more than I had to. Also, I thought that those Ethicals in The Valley would be helpless. They couldn’t get out to the tower, since I’d fixed it so that the signal also deactivated the aircraft. Those left in The Valley would have to try to get to the tower the hard way. By boat until they got to the headwaters and on foot over the mountains. Long before then, I’d have done what I had to do.”

“But what if the aircraft had fallen into The Valley?” Nur said.

“They wouldn’t. Before they hit the surface they’d have burned up.

Those parked on top of the mountains along The Valley would have burned, too. I’d arranged that.”

“How did their pilots get down the mountain and back up to the parked vehicles?” Nur said.

“The ships could be directed by remote control. They’d drop the pilots off in the foothills during a storm or hard rain and return to the mountain top. The pilot would bury the control if he was going to stay in the area or he’d carry it in his grail. It looked just like one of the cups found in all the grails.”

There was nothing to stop Loga then from flying to the tower. But he’d underestimated the wiliness of Monat.

“At least, I believe it was he who took those countermeasures. He must have put into the computer all that had happened and had gotten a list of probabilities. The computer didn’t betray me; it was inhibited. But it did all that Monat asked it to do. I think it did. Possibly Monat thought of it himself.”

Loga was silent for so long that Burton had to jog him along.

“Thought of what?”

“Of their planting a device in my personal aircraft. When I sent out that signal, everybody in the tower and the sea dropped dead, all other aircraft in flight were burned up, and the general resurrection machinery was shut down. It wouldn’t start again until I signaled it to do so.

“But my own vessel had had a device installed in it. I found that out when I could no longer control it. It was flying automatically. It headed toward the top of the mountain range no matter what I did. At the same time, a recorded voice told me to wait there until I’d be picked up.

“Monat’s voice!

“He’d had the stop-devices installed before he went into The Valley to accompany you, Burton. Of course, he must’ve had the devices put into every ship. If he’d suspected me only, he would’ve had me put under a completely exhaustive examination.

“What Monat hadn’t reckoned on, though, was that there would be no aircraft or pilots to come to my rescue. That meant that I’d be stranded on the mountain top and would starve to death unless I could trace down the device and remove it.

“Though Monat had expected an aircraft from the tower to get to the guilty person’s craft swiftly, he had also made sure that the culprit wouldn’t be able to remove the device or cut it off. A few minutes before my machine would land, a recording told me that the device would burn up the moment contact with the ground was made and so would the motor.”

Loga had cursed and raved. He briefly visualized what would happen. He’d die and so couldn’t send false messages to the Gardenplanet. In one hundred and sixty years, the Gardeners would expect the automatically operated ship with the latest report. When it hadn’t arrived after a reasonable time, the Gardeners would send people to investigate. They would arrive at the tower over three hundred and twenty years after the message-ship should have been launched.

“In one way,” Loga said, “that was good. I had wanted the project to run far past the one hundred and twenty years allotted, though I hadn’t dared say so. My colleagues said that that was more than long enough to weed out the people who would never get to the stage necessary to Go On. Now the project would run far longer than planned. And perhaps my father and mother and sisters and brothers and uncles and aunts and cousins would not be doomed.”

Burton said, “What?”

Tears flowed down Loga’s cheeks. He spoke in a strangled voice.

“It was strictly forbidden for anyone to locate any relatives resurrected in The Valley. The formulators of this policy were Monat’s people. They said that experience had shown that Ethicals who found their loved ones among the lazari were too emotionally upset if these were evidently not going to make it. They’d interfere, they’d be tempted to reveal what was happening before the time was ripe for that. In a previous project, a woman had put her parents in a special place in the underground chambers and tried to force-feed, as it were, their ethical advancement.

“I was taught that when I was a young adult on the Gardenworld. I believed in the policy then. But later I couldn’t endure not seeing my family. Nor could I endure the agonizing idea that they might not Go On. So, long before we left the Gardenworld, I had made my plans. Still, I wasn’t sure that I could carry them out. But I did track down my relatives through the computer—that took a long long time, believe me—and I visited them in The Valley. I was in disguise, of course. They had no chance of recognizing me. I’d arranged it so that they’d all be resurrected in the same place. Also, if any moved away from there or was killed, I’d know where they were.

“I have almost photographic recall. Even though I’d died on Earth shortly before I was to be five years old, I vividly remembered my parents and all my other relatives.

“It was very hard on me to keep concealing my identity. But I had to. I did become good friends with them and even pretended to be learning their language. All this while engaged on an authorized project, you understand.

“I dearly loved my foster mother on the Gardenworld. But I loved my own mother even more, though she was not as spiritually developed as my foster mother, far from it.

“During several of my visits, in later years, I made sure that my relatives were introduced to the beliefs of the Church of the Second Chance. They all converted to it, but it wasn’t enough. They were a long way from attaining that stage in which I could have hope that they’d advance even further.

“But I believed, and still believe, that if they’re given enough time, they will do so.”

Burton said gently, “You were just about to land on top of the mountain.”

“Yes. But what I’ve told you about my relatives is highly important. You must also realize that I wasn’t just distressed about my own family. I’ve agonized over all the others, the billions who are doomed. I couldn’t even mention this once to my fellows, though. Except Tringu, of course, and I didn’t bring up the subject until I was absolutely sure of him. If I’d said anything about it to the others, I’d have been suspected at once if it became known that there was a renegade.”

Though he might be committing suicide, Loga did the one thing that would prevent his vessel from alighting on the designated place. He cut off the power.

“If Monat had thought that anyone’d do that, he’d have arranged it so that it couldn’t be done. But he hadn’t expected any such action. Why should he? The culprit would know that even if he killed himself, he’d be raised in the tower.”

The craft had fallen at once and struck the side of the mountain just below the top. It was going slow, and Loga was in a buffer suit. Moreover, since the vessel was made of the most indestructible gray metal, it was not even scratched by the impact.

“Even so, I would’ve been killed during the fall. But I turned on the power when it had hurtled for a hundred feet, and the craft started back up toward the top. I cut the power again, and I turned it on when I’d gone fifty feet. The craft started up again for its original destination. I cut the power once more.”

By bone-jarring increments, Loga worked the vessel down to near ground level. Before this, he’d opened a port. When he thought that he was close enough, he leaped out of the port, clutching the handle of his grail. He fell through the rain and the thunder and lightning, struck something, and was knocked unconscious.

When he awoke he was draped belly-down across a branch of an irontree. It was daylight, and he could see his grail a hundred feet below at the base of the tree. Though he was severely scratched and bruised and had some internal injuries and a broken leg, he managed to get to the ground.

“The rest I’ve told you or you’ve correctly inferred.”

Burton said, “Not all. We don’t have the slightest inkling what this terrible thing is which you mentioned. What you were saving for the last.”

“Or what Going On really means,” Nur said.

“Going On? When the body of a person who’s highly advanced ethically dies, the
wathan
disappears. Our instruments can find no trace of it. If another duplicate body is made, its
wathan
doesn’t return to it.”

“What do you do with a
wathan
less body?”

“Only one experiment was made, and the
wathan
less was allowed to live out her natural span. That’s never been done with human beings. The people who came before Monat’s did that.

“The theory is that, though the Creator may appear to be indifferent to Its creatures, It does welcome and take care of the
wathans
that disappear. What other explanation is there for that?”

“It could be,” Frigate said, “that there’s something about the extraphysical universe that attracts a
wathan
when it reaches a certain stage of development. I don’t know why this would have anything to do with the extraphysical. But there could be some sort of magnetic pull caused by this, I suppose.”

“That theory’s been put forth. We prefer to believe that the Creator does it. Though It may do it through purely physical-extraphysical means and not by a supernatural act.”

“In effect,” Burton said, “you aren’t relying on science but on faith to explain the disappearances.”

“Yes, but when you get to the basics, infinity and finity, eternity and time, the First Cause, you must rely on faith.”

“Which has led so many billions astray and caused such immense suffering,” Frigate said.

“You can’t say that about this situation.”

Tai-Peng said, fiercely, “Let’s get on with what’s happening in this world.”

“I recruited the lazari because there was a very slight probability that what has happened might happen. I put all the situations I could think of into the computer and told it to estimate their probability. Unfortunately, the computer cannot detect what sentient beings will think, what final choices they’ll make, unless it has
all
the data and that’s impossible. Well, not even if it had every item could it predict one hundred percent. Thus, Monat and the others did what I couldn’t expect. Just as I did what he couldn’t anticipate. Just as you did what I couldn’t predict. The human, the sentient, mind is still a deep mystery.”

“May it always be so,” Burton said.

“It is, it is! That is why you can’t predict the stage of development of any
wathan
. One may be rather advanced, yet go no further. Another may be in a low stage and, suddenly, almost overnight as it were, leap to a far higher state than the previously much further advanced. It’s a quantum ethical leap. Also, people regress.”

“Are you an example of regression?” Burton said.

“No! That’s what Siggen accused me of being when we were living in that hut in Parolando. The truth is, I am more highly advanced than anyone else in the project. Isn’t it much more ethical to give everyone all the time they might need to develop? Isn’t it? Yes, it is! That can’t be denied!”

Alice murmured, “He’s crazy.”

Burton wasn’t so sure. What Loga had said seemed reasonable. But his ideas for insuring his plans didn’t seem so. Yet, if he continued to send false messages, then the Gardenworlders wouldn’t come to investigate. Loga might gain a thousand years. Surely, in that time, anybody would attain the stage desired.

His deep pessimism told him that it might not be so.

What was his own progress?

Or did he want to get to a stage where the essential part of him just disappeared?

Why not? It would be an adventure even greater than this one, the greatest in his life.

“Very well,” he said. “I think we understand all that’s happened. But you’ve hinted that you may not be able to carry out your plans even if you have no one to stop you.

“What terrible thing has happened?”

“It’s my fault, mine only!” Loga cried. He rose from the chair and, despite his limp, paced back and forth, his face twisted and sweating.

“Because of what I did, billions may be doomed forever! In fact, almost everybody! Perhaps, everybody! Forever!”