This Star Shall Abide (4 page)

To Noren it did not seem reasonable that people could have discovered the best way to do everything all at once, whether at some mythical moment called “the Founding” or at any other time; yet he’d been taught in school that this was so, and he had found no evidence to the contrary. People did comparatively few things, after all, and no one had ever heard of their being done differently. Farmers planted, hoed, harvested and threshed; he’d learned from hard experience that the ancestral methods of performing these tasks could not be improved upon. Neither could the equally onerous ones of skinning dead work-beasts, preserving the hides and bones, rendering the tallow, and burying the remains in unquickened ground. Nor was there any imaginable way to make building less laborious: stones must be gathered and joined with mortar; the lightweight, porous softstone used for sledge runners and tables, among other things, must be slowly cut with sharper stone tools; wattles, thatch and wicker were as they were, and one could hardly handle them in a more efficient fashion. The village mill and brewery had existed unchanged since time out of mind, and so had the potter’s shop. Even women’s work remained the same from generation to generation. He had watched his mother, and later Talyra’s, cut trousers, tunics and skirts from City-made cloth with stone knives, stitching the pieces together with needles of polished bone, and he had been sure that there must be a quicker way. But he could think of no such way—except one.

Metal! If knives, needles and other tools could be made of metal, that would obviously solve a great many problems. It was wrong that there should be no metal for anyone but Technicians!

He had wondered where the metal came from. It certainly did not come from the wilderness; the wilderness contained only dust, sand and stone, covered by mosses and other plants that didn’t grow in quickened soil—some gray-green like the fodder patch, some purple-green, but none the bright, clear green of young grain shoots. He knew traders who’d gone far afield to collect the dry moss used for fuel, and they had not seen any metal either. The Book of the Prophecy said that all metal had come into the world during the Founding. Whispered legends suggested that some might be found in rock, but that couldn’t be true; Noren had examined every kind of rock there was, and not a speck of it was in the least metallic. The Technicians, he’d concluded, must obtain their metal on the other side of the world.

A very few people did have metal articles, people whose ancestors had been specially favored at the time of the Founding, or who’d bought them from such blessed ones at great cost. Talyra herself owned a narrow silver wristband that had been bequeathed to her by her great-aunt, who, although in every way a pious and deserving person, had borne not a single child, leaving her husband no choice but to petition the council for divorce. Over the years many had said that a barren woman was unworthy to have custody of anything so holy as a metal wristband, but Talyra had felt more sympathy than scorn for the old lady, so in the end the treasure had come to her. She had shown it to him, and she’d promised to wear it at their wedding, along with the blue glass beads that symbolized devotion to the Mother Star and the red necklace, also City-made, that he’d bought for her with the savings of past Founding Day gifts—red, the color of love tokens… .

Determinedly Noren wrenched himself back to the present. He must decide where to go. He knew of no open jobs or apprenticeships, but that was just as well, for there was too much restlessness in him to remain nearby; and besides, he could not bear to see Talyra if she was unwilling to marry him.

It was a temptation to leave at once, without seeing anyone, for there was bound to be an argument; yet Noren could not bring himself to do so. There was little love between himself and his father; still the old man had never treated him unkindly. He owed him a farewell. Resignedly, he finished washing, filled the pottery cook-jug, and went in to prepare breakfast.

Since their mother’s death, the boys, having no sisters, had taken turns with the kitchen chores. This morning they were Noren’s; his five brothers were already in the fields, and would be back soon, ravenously hungry and eager to joke with him about his impending marriage. They were expecting him to bring Talyra home, he knew, for the farm had been too long without a woman and he had not confided his plan to claim new land. It hadn’t occurred to them that he would not ask his wife to be a drudge for the whole family, though their own willingness to do so might well account for the fact that the older ones had as yet found no wives for themselves. So they’d have been furious in any case, but he dreaded their derision now that she had turned him down. His being the first pledged to marry had given him a status among them that he, always the different one, had never before attained.

By the time they came in, he had the food ready: porridge, eggs, and large slabs of cold bread to be washed down with tea. Tea was expensive, since the herb from which it was brewed wasn’t grown near the village and had to be bought from the traders, but Noren’s father was not so poor as to give his sons unflavored water with their meals. Meals were monotonous enough as it was; it had sometimes occurred to Noren that it would be nice if there were some source of food besides grain and fowl.

From long habit the boys stood motionless behind their benches and raised their eyes upward while the words of the Prophecy were said: “
‘Let us rejoice in the bounty of the land, for the land is good, and from the Mother Star came the heritage that has blessed it; the land has given us life… And it shall remain fruitful, and the people shall multiply across the face of the earth, and at no time shall the spirit of the Mother Star die in the hearts of its children.’”
Noren repeated them mechanically with the others. They meant nothing to him, yet in a way they recalled the presence of his mother, who had said them with warmth. He found himself thinking of the ceremony held for the sending of her body to the City, when he’d cried not because he was moved by the presiding Technician’s intonation of the ritual phrases, but because she had believed them; it had seemed horrible for her to die believing something that wasn’t grounded in truth.

The blessing complete, everybody sat down and turned noisily to eating. Noren had little appetite, but he knew he must take advantage of the meal, for it might be a long time before he could get another so plentiful. He had no money of his own. If he’d claimed land, he would have been paid in advance by the Technicians to cultivate it, in return for his promise to sell them most of the first year’s harvest. Now, he realized, he would have to earn his keep day by day until he could find some sort of steady employment.

“Have you set the day for your wedding, son?” asked his father.

“No,” replied Noren shortly, “I haven’t.” Everyone’s eyes were on him, and he knew that there was nothing to be gained by delaying the inevitable. “There’s not going to be a wedding,” he continued resolutely.

“Oh, so you’ve lost your nerve?” remarked his eldest brother, and there were good-natured guffaws. No one had taken the declaration seriously. Every man, after all, had occasional fights with his girl; but a betrothal registered with the village council was seldom broken.

“Perhaps he hasn’t lost his nerve,” suggested another brother. “Perhaps Talyra lost hers; maybe she decided she could do better for herself than to marry a lazy dreamer who sits and thinks when he might be working.”

Noren clenched his fists beneath the table and did not answer. He was well practiced in controlling his feelings; he had learned from Kern’s recklessness that one must not reveal one’s inner rage at things, at least not if one expected to accomplish anything of value. So many more vital issues angered him that he was used to hiding fury, and taunts from his brothers were nothing new.

There was an awkward silence. “I’m leaving today,” Noren announced abruptly. “I’ll be seeking work in another village, I think.”

“Work? You?” sneered one of them. “Who will hire a boy who has neither stamina nor skill?”

There was no use in pointing out that if he hadn’t applied stamina to farm work, it was not from any lack but because he had never chosen to. “I can keep accounts,” said Noren in a level voice. “Or—or perhaps I’ll hire on with some trader who’s delivering a load to the markets outside the City.” This last was pure improvisation, but as he spoke he wondered why he had not thought of it before.

His father stared at him. “You can’t do that. You’re needed here. The harvest is just starting.”

“I’m of age, Father. I finished school yesterday and that makes me a free citizen.” As free as anybody could be in a world where people were barred from all that was reserved for Technicians and Scholars, he added inwardly.

“Two of your brothers came of age, and stayed.”

“They chose to work for wages on the farm, which was their right. It’s mine to leave it.”

“Let him go, Father,” the eldest brother said. “He never pulled his weight in any case; he wouldn’t be worth a man’s wage.”

“He’s my son, and however addlebrained he may be at times, I’ll not have him ruin his life. The only sign of responsibility he’s ever shown is his betrothal to Talyra; I’ll not see him break it.”

“There’s little either of us can do about that,” Noren admitted bitterly. “It’s already been broken, and not by me.” He did not say that his own honesty had precipitated the break.

“She changed her mind?” demanded his brother. “I must say, I’m less surprised than when she accepted you in the first place. But I’m disappointed.”

“I don’t wonder,” retorted Noren, “since I won’t be bringing you the housemaid you expected. Let me tell you that if I’d gotten married, I’d have taken my wife to a place of our own. Nothing’s changed as far as you’re concerned.”

“
You
cultivate your own land, you who’ve spent most of your life with your head in the clouds?” the eldest burst out. “You’re unfit for any work, least of all that. Talyra’s well out of it.”

“No doubt we’re all well out of it,” added the next-eldest. “I’ve doubted all along that she was the sort we should bring into the family. No girl could think this brother of ours a good provider, so it’s clear she chose him for love, and she can find plenty of that without doing a farmwife’s work. Once she tired of him, she’d have left to seek it elsewhere.”

Noren’s rigid control gave way; before he knew it he was out of his seat and his fist was swinging into his brother’s face. All the pent-up rage of the past years went into the blow, and the older boy had no time to be surprised. As he slumped to the floor, the others grabbed Noren’s arms. They would not have interfered with a fight, but the blind fury in his eyes told them that he was scarcely aware that his opponent was already unconscious.

“I–I’m sorry, son,” his father said helplessly. “That was ill-said; Talyra is a fine girl and would have borne you many fine children. I would have been proud to have her here.” The other boys stood back, staring at Noren, realizing that they did not really know this brother who had always seemed such a weakling to them.

Noren hardly knew himself. He was numb, dazed; yet he was also free in a way he had not been before. His anger vented, he was sorry for all of them, sorry because they truly did not understand the thing they were lacking. They could not see that there was more to life than working, eating, and making love. “I’ll go now,” he said dully.

“I won’t hold you, if that’s what you want; but this will always be your home.”

“You couldn’t hold me. I don’t need your consent, and as for a home, I don’t have one. I never will.” He turned and walked through the door, not looking back at them, not even stopping to think that he was taking none of his few belongings. He knew that what he had said was true; wherever he went he would be a stranger, for there was no home in the world for such as he.

*
 
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He took the road toward the village center, not because he wanted to go there, but because it was the only road there was. To travel cross-country was dangerous, for the wilderness was full of forbidden things. Wild plants held peril; as he’d grown older, Noren had learned that the herb that had killed his mother had not been tasted, but had been a contact poison that attacked her through the scratches on her arms. Ordinarily Technicians with Machines destroyed any such herbs that could be reached from roads or fields, but that rare one had evidently been missed.

The farm was some distance from the village, more than an hour’s walk, and the road was one of many spokes radiating out from that center. Whenever anybody started a new farm, the Technicians brought their Machines to extend some spoke road a little farther—his own land, if he’d claimed it, would have been several hours out, bordering the wilderness on two sides instead of one. There were also continuous roads that connected the various villages; a large map of them had hung between the schoolroom windows. Farmland on one of these connecting roads was not open to claim. It was already cleared and very expensive, particularly if it lay on a main radial, which was a direct route to the City.

Noren had spoken of traveling to the City on impulse, but once the words were out, he’d known that was what he would try. Traders did go there—not inside, of course, but to the great markets outside the walls—and one of them might well hire a man to drive a string of work-beasts or an extra sledge. Work-beasts were exasperating creatures, so slow and stupid that it was odd the Scholars were credited with having created them; one would think people would expect guardians of all wisdom to have done a better job of it. But he could put up with a driver’s work if the City was his destination.

The City was beautiful. There had been a painting of it in the schoolroom next to the map. It had high lustrous walls, a ring of scallops, within which stood towers that were much, much higher, so high that the Technicians who lived in them must fly from top to bottom; and those towers had windows: not mere openings like ordinary windows, but sheets of what almost appeared to be glass. The towers of the City were made not of stone or even of metal, but of some sparkling silvery substance that Noren judged to be akin to the surface of the aircar he had once touched. He had always wanted to see them for himself, and there was no reason why he should not make such a journey.