This Star Shall Abide (30 page)

Noren bent his head. It was spinning; he felt unreal and without familiar footholds. “Do you suppose I wanted to accept the very role I had always despised?” Stefred continued. “I took it on only because I knew that if I didn’t, I’d be betraying every conviction I’d upheld during my trial. And that’s what you will be doing, Noren, if you refuse the trust that has fallen to you.”

“Wait a minute. Isn’t it the other way around?”

“What were you speaking for if not fulfillment of the Prophecy? You claimed we had no intention of fulfilling it, and we proved you wrong; still the promise cannot be kept unless the people who are qualified are willing to work toward that end. There’s a lot to do, and though the time may seem long, it’s barely enough for what must be accomplished.
‘Cities shall rise beyond the Tomorrow Mountains,’
remember? Without suitable metal we can’t build those cities! We can’t even produce the machines to keep future generations alive! We’ve made progress, but we don’t yet know how to synthesize it; new techniques—techniques different from anything the Six Worlds ever attempted—must be developed. The training for such work is very long and very difficult, and it’s hardly surprising if you’re not anxious to devote yourself to it—”

“You know I don’t mind
that!”
Noren interrupted indignantly. “If being a Scholar meant only that, without—”

“Without the responsibility? Without the burden of representing a system you know is not as it should be?”

“I just don’t think it’s right for one group of people to be placed above another group,” Noren maintained stubbornly.

“Neither do I, Noren. But you see, I don’t consider myself better than the villagers; they merely think I do, just as they once thought me a coward who’d recanted to save my life. Which is more important, ensuring the survival of those people, or making sure they see me as I really am?”

There was no argument to that; the First Scholar himself, after all, had faced the same choice, and the living of it had been harder than the dying. Yet the First Scholar had been hated as an apparent villain. Even he had not been required to let people venerate him, kneel to him, under the impression that he agreed that was good!

In desperation Noren switched tactics. “But everybody should have a chance to be a Scholar,” he protested.

“Everybody does have a chance. The way is open to anyone whose motives are sincere, but there is no great surplus of heretics pounding on the gates of the City demanding to be let in. How many people did you try to enlist in your cause, Noren, before you resorted to that last desperate gambit of yours?”

Noren dropped his eyes. “Most of them either weren’t interested, or weren’t willing to risk anything. And there were a few who wanted to destroy what they couldn’t have, or else to seize power for themselves. If questioning things were encouraged, though, maybe more children would grow up caring.”

“Encouraged by whom? The village leaders? You stood trial before a village council, so you must have a fairly realistic idea of the way they think. Yet they’re elected by the people and we can’t interfere with them. We don’t tamper with democratic government in the villages; to do so would be exceeding our bounds. As High Priests we exert no influence beyond the sphere of the Prophecy and the High Law.”

“Well, by Technicians, then. Some Technicians use their minds.”

Stefred smiled. “A Technician encouraged you, didn’t he, when you were still in school? A young man who spent the night at your father’s farm?”

“I never told you that,” Noren gasped. “I never told anyone!”

“The incident wasn’t accidental,” explained Stefred. “Neither were some of the less happy ones; there’s more than one kind of encouragement, and at times we gave you cause to hate us. We’ve been watching you since you were a small child.”

“You—you set me up for this… from the beginning? I didn’t have free choice after all?”

“Oh, yes. You had free choice. We encourage every person who shows any spark of initiative, but most of them don’t follow through. And the risks you took were real; if you’d fallen into the hands of certain fanatics, we might not have been able to save you. We failed with your friend Kern, for whom we had great hopes.”

“You were watching Kern, too?”

“Of course,” said Stefred unhappily, “but we were helpless; he was rash and spoke before we anticipated, before we’d arranged protection. Can you imagine how I felt when I heard you’d eluded yours?”

“That really was why you got those Technicians to trick me into getting myself arrested!” exclaimed Noren, realizing that despite the suspicions of the young man who’d switched places with him, Stefred had told them the literal truth.

“Yes. It was necessary for your safety that the time and place be of our choosing, but the decision to respond as you did was yours alone.”

Noren frowned. “What if a Technician doesn’t like the orders he’s given?” he inquired, unable to forget the man’s anguished remorse.

“It’s a violation of the High Law to disobey. He is free to become a villager if he wishes, but otherwise he’s subject to our authority and can be convicted by the Council of Technicians if he defies it.”

But that was awful, Noren thought. And then he saw the implications of what Stefred was saying. Technicians too could be heretics, and could therefore go on to become Scholars! There must be more than one of them who opposed the system. Yet like the villagers they were reared to believe in the Prophecy and the High Law, and by the same token must believe that they could be killed for refusing to recant—which was as it should be if offering one’s life was the only way to qualify.

“The men sent on such missions are very carefully chosen,” Stefred went on. “Often the encouragement of heresy is intended to be mutual. You may have thought you weren’t convincing anyone at your trial, but I suspect you convinced the Technician whose clothes you took; it was evident afterwards that he was tormented by the thought that he’d betrayed you. Someday soon, Noren, you’ll be able to tell him that you weren’t harmed by what he did, for the next time I give him such orders, he’ll refuse them.”

Stefred had painstakingly avoided the question of what that Technician had been doing in his cell in the middle of the night, Noren noticed. No doubt he’d guessed the truth from the beginning. Probably the man had never been given any instructions to pretend, but had simply not known how else to interpret the Chief Inquisitor’s suggestion that he sympathize.

Torn, Noren struggled inwardly with the significance of what he had just heard. If Scholar status could be attained by anyone with the right sense of values, the scheme of succession was fair; and yet…

“I’m not trying to soften this,” Stefred said, “because you want and need to face all its implications. But actually you are not going to be plunged abruptly into a position where people will worship you. I have not urged you to wear the robe, for the obligations it represents can’t be imposed on anyone. The blue robe is a symbol of full commitment. It’s your right to assume it whenever you choose, provided you’re ready to make such a commitment formally. Most Scholars don’t do that until they’ve passed through the first phases of training and seen what our work is really like. A few never do it at all.”

“You mean I needn’t become a High Priest?” asked Noren, relieved and yet confused.

“That’s up to you to decide. You’ll be ineligible for certain types of work unless you commit yourself; you will not even have a vote—and we Scholars vote not only to elect leaders, but on many issues that affect fulfillment of the Prophecy. Your fitness to participate is conditional on your being willing to share the accountability.”

There was another distinction between novice Scholars and fully committed ones, Noren learned. A novice’s true status was not revealed to the Technicians. He hadn’t realized that there were Technicians who lived permanently in the Inner City. Stefred, however, explained that since they did not wear uniforms except for special duties, any more than committed Scholars wore their robes, and since everybody mingled freely outside the Hall of Scholars itself, people’s rank could not be determined by looking at them. Nor could it be determined by the kinds of jobs they did, for not all heretics who earned Scholar status had desire or aptitude either for scientific research or any other field of study—some did less skilled work than some of the Technicians, who also had opportunity for education. The difference lay in knowledge of the secrets. Technicians admitted to the Inner City had to remain because they knew Scholar rank wasn’t hereditary; yet because they didn’t know anything about the process whereby it was conferred, they too were eligible to attain it.

“You realize, don’t you,” Stefred said, “that that’s what would have happened to you if you’d recanted before learning the truth?”

“I’d have become an Inner City Technician?”

“Yes.”

“What if I’d refused to recant after I learned? Or if I’d been penitent?”

“It very rarely happens, Noren. We don’t enlighten anyone we’re not sure of. Still, we’re fallible, and your freedom of choice was real.”

“You’d have had to isolate me.”

“Unfortunately we would. The conditions wouldn’t have been harsh—you’d have had our companionship whenever possible—and you’d have retained eligibility for a second chance, as does any person who’s disqualified, for that matter.”

“I might not have wanted one if I’d known what was ahead.”

“No candidate knows. Incorruptibility can be proven only by taking all the steps without expectation of personal gain.”

“That still doesn’t make accepting a Scholar’s role
right
,” Noren insisted.

“The question’s not whether it’s right for a special group of people to control the knowledge and equipment brought from the Six Worlds,” Stefred said. “We’re agreed that it isn’t. Yet you conceded, when you decided to recant, that for the time being that’s how it’s got to be. You did so only because you’d been convinced that the Founders didn’t want the job, and that those of us who are like them would prefer to be rid of it. Would you throw the whole burden on us—on me? Is it to be condoned only as long as you yourself can wash your hands of any involvement?”

Wretchedly Noren admitted, “If I refuse an active part. I’m condemning you all; I’m right back where I started. What’s wrong with me, Stefred? Why do I feel this way, when only this morning I was willing to do anything that might be required of me?”

“If you don’t know, you’ve less honesty than I’ve been giving you credit for.”

Noren pondered it. “Some of the people hated me this morning,” he said slowly, “because they thought I’d sold out. I could face that because I knew it wasn’t true… but now I’m afraid it
is
true.”

Stefred nodded, understanding. “You don’t have to be,” he said. “Why do you suppose we waited until after the ceremony to tell you, if not to spare you that fear? We were already sure of you; our final decision had been made; you were, in fact, a Scholar when you were exposed alone to the crowd, for we don’t allow disqualified candidates to become targets of abuse. The final tests were not for our benefit but for yours, Noren! Would we have let you suffer them without good cause?”

“I thought maybe you wanted to see how much I could take before rewarding me with honor.”

“This is not a reward. We kept you unaware because we knew you could accept nothing from us that was offered as payment.”

“Sometimes I think you read my mind,” Noren confessed ruefully.

“You forget that we’ve all traveled the same route. Every one of us, having refused to back down under pressure, has recanted for the sake of the future we’re working toward—and that experience is just the beginning, for when we reenact the dream, we assume all the responsibility it implies. I took part in this morning’s pageant, too, after all. I stood there and let the villagers kneel to me, pay me homage, while they despised and reviled you; and I well knew that the one was no more deserved than the other. Did you think I was enjoying myself?” Stefred’s voice was sorrowful as he continued, “Noren, I watched you and looked back on my own recantation almost with nostalgia, thinking how simple life was for me then. Yes, we were judging you. No one who was secretly longing for my role could have borne yours as you did. But we never stop judging our own motives.”

He rose and walked to the window, looking out across the shining towers of the City. “Before I revealed the secret of the Prophecy to you, I asked if you would accept the consequences without protest; and when you declared you would, I predicted that a day would come when you’d go back on those words. I warned you that in the end the consequences would seem so terrible that you’d be willing to give up all the things you cared most for in order to escape them—that you would stand here in this room and tell me so. You laughed. Even this morning you’d have laughed; you felt that by your voluntary participation in that ceremony you were proving me wrong. But you can’t laugh now, Noren, for you have just fulfilled my prediction. If I’d made a bet with you, you would have to pay off.”

“You meant—these consequences? All along?”

“Yes,” Stefred said gently, “all along. They are the consequences not merely of your acts, Noren, but of everything you are.”

“I—I can’t escape, can I?” Noren said resignedly. It was more a discovery than a question, and Stefred did not reply; no reply was needed. Both of them already knew the answer.

*
 
*
 
*

For a while it was as though he were still in the dreams: he was himself no longer, but a Scholar; and he would be a Scholar forever. The idea was overwhelming, yet not entirely unwelcome. Looking around Stefred’s familiar study, with its shelves of books and its many still-incomprehensible Machines, Noren felt a tremendous surge of excitement. All the mysteries were to be revealed to him! Whether or not he ever chose to wear the robe, he had both the right and the duty to understand them and someday to pass them on.

The training would be more challenging than anything he could imagine, Stefred warned. It would not be like the village school; there would indeed be discipline, rigorous discipline, for he would be given tasks that would tax his mind to the utmost. “There will be problems beyond any you’ve yet conceived,” the Scholar concluded, “but though our life’s far from easy, I think you’ll find that it suits you.”