This Star Shall Abide (5 page)

A thrill spread through him, rousing him from the dazed state in which he had left the farm. The City! The City had more than beauty; it was where knowledge was. The Prophecy even said so:
Knowledge shall be kept safe within the City; it shall be held in trust until the day when the Mother Star becomes visible to us.
And that, at least the first half of it, was very likely one of the few statements in the whole thing that was accurate. The Scholars were keeping their knowledge safe within the City, all right, and though looking at the place from the outside wasn’t going to get him any of that knowledge, there was a certain excitement in the idea of being so close.

But to reach the City, he must be hired by a trader, for it was a journey of many days, and were he to set out alone, he would starve along the way if he failed to find work at the farms he passed. He must therefore wait in the village until a trader came through who would take him on. Since it might be a long wait, he would have to have a means of paying for food, water and lodging while he was there. If he was lucky, the innkeeper, whose kitchen-maid was expecting a child soon, might have a place for him; he knew old Arnil for a kindly man, unlike the keeper of the brewery’s tavern who’d denounced Kern.

Noren straightened and began to walk faster. As he did so, he was struck by the thought that he might never again pass over this road. Having walked it three days a week to school, except during the long season of harvest and replanting, he seldom noticed its landmarks; but if he was having his last view of them, he ought to. There were none he expected to miss, yet there was a pleasantness in the panorama of purple-clad knolls seen from the rise just before the softstone quarry. Then too, the pond where the work-beasts were watered, with its dense edging of rushes, held memories from his early childhood. Purple knolls; rush-lined ponds, springs, streams; spongy mossland; gray-green fodder plants and wicker plants and others with webbed stems; white rock, yellowish rock… on and on forever… . Was the whole world like this? In school he’d learned that the world was round and that it was all wilderness except for the circle of villages and farms spreading outward from the City—but did one piece of wilderness look like another?

The Technicians knew, he thought with rancor. The Technicians looked down on it from the air. No doubt they had already traveled beyond the Tomorrow Mountains, where the Prophecy claimed that more Cities would someday arise. The Scholars almost certainly had, for although it was rumored that they never left the City, it was ridiculous to suppose that they, who could do as they pleased in all respects, would not take advantage of the opportunity.

At the Gates of the City, Noren reflected, he might see Scholars. Robed in brilliant blue, the color reserved for them, they would appear as High Priests: not merely to conduct devotions as their representatives the Technicians did, but to receive the homage of the people. And the people would give it with gladness! On holidays like Founding Day, the periodic Blessing of the Seed, and the Day of the Prophecy—which celebrated the Mother Star’s appearance in advance—hundreds walked to the City just to participate; and in the presence of Scholars those people knelt. Noren knew he could not look upon a Scholar without hating him.

And perhaps he might see more than just Scholars. Perhaps, he recalled in dismay, he’d witness some other heretic’s recantation… .

Resolutely he set the thought aside. Ahead, over the next rise, he glimpsed the thatched roof of Talyra’s house. A sudden, foolish hope came to him: might not Talyra have had second thoughts? Mightn’t she too have spent a sleepless night, deciding in the end to marry him in spite of his heresy? Much as he feared the answer, he could not leave without finding out. When it came right down to it, Noren realized, he could not leave without seeing her once more.

He crossed the farmyard and stood by the familiar door. At his call, Talyra’s mother drew back the matting. “Oh, Noren,” she said, obviously flustered, “Talyra can’t come out. She—she isn’t feeling well today.”

“She’s not ill!” he exclaimed, panic-stricken.

“No—no, not really. Only she won’t see anybody.”

Noren dropped his eyes dejectedly. “Look,” he persisted, “I’m on my way to the City. I don’t know when I’ll be back. I’ve
got
to see her.”

The woman frowned. “Well,” she said slowly, “I’ll do what I can.”

He sat at the scrubbed softstone table drinking the tea she gave him, hearing the low murmur of women’s voices and, to his anguish, occasional muffled sobs. In the corner of the room was the wicker couch, its frame stuffed with moss and covered with softened hides, where he and Talyra had sat not many weeks ago to plan their marriage; now red fabric lay there, her unfinished wedding dress. Skirts of red, the color of love, were worn only by brides.

Finally Talyra’s mother returned. “I’m sorry, Noren,” she reported unhappily. “Though she’s refused to tell me why, she says that—that you must not come back for her sake.”

Mumbling something, he got up and strode to the door. “The spirit of the Mother Star go with you, Noren,” Talyra’s mother added with feeling.

The words, though customary, were an unfortunate choice. Once again Noren departed without a backward look, torn between distaste for the naive sincerity with which they’d been spoken and an irrational sense of hurt because his own father, in pronouncing him free to go, had not thought to say them.

*
 
*
 
*

The village center was a cluster of unadorned stone buildings, facing upon a sanded street graced by neither shrubs nor moss. It was a gray place, enlivened by color only on festival days when people wore brilliant clothes instead of their ordinary brown ones: green for holidays, yellow and orange for parties, red-trimmed white for weddings and births. On this particular day there was no festival, and the village, deserted by everyone who had harvesting to begin, looked empty as well as drab.

Noren reached it just ahead of the scheduled rain. The first four mornings of each week, except during the final week of harvest season, it rained for exactly one hour, stopping at noon. In school he’d been taught that the Scholars arranged this; but lately he had wondered, for if there were no rain, would not all wild plants have perished before there were any Scholars?

Rain did not bother him; it was a pleasant contrast to the parching air. He walked down the street as the first drops spattered the sand, entering the inn less for cover than to talk to Arnil, the innkeeper.

“A trader?” Arnil said when Noren explained his purpose. “That’s too bad, Noren. There was one here only last night looking for an extra driver. He planned to ask again in Prosperity.”

Noren cursed inwardly; the village was not on the main route and there might not be another for days. “Could I catch up, do you think?” he inquired.

“Perhaps,” Arnil told him. “He got a late start this morning and his two sledges were hitched together. Besides, the road’s past due for sanding.”

“I’ll try, I guess,” Noren said. Work-beasts did not walk much faster than men, certainly not when hitched as a team—which they stubbornly resisted—and pulling laden sledges over a road that hadn’t enough sand to make the runners slide smoothly. If he pushed himself, he could reach the next village, Prosperity, before the trader had time to find anyone there.

“If you miss him, come back,” said Arnil. “You can work in the kitchen until my regular girl’s child arrives; I can’t afford to pay you, but I’ll give you bed and board.”

“Thanks,” Noren said, “but I hope I won’t have to.”

He went on through the center, passing a row of craftsworker’s shops: the potter’s, the wickermonger’s, the shoemaker’s and the stonecutter’s. Beyond was the shop that sold common City goods—fabric, thread, paper, matches; the powder one used to keep cistern water clear; utensils of glass and of the opaque material that resembled polished bone—as well as rarer products like colored glass necklaces and books. Books… Noren could never go by that shop without wishing that he had the money for just one book of his own. Maybe he’d been foolish not to have worked on the farm for wages at least until the harvest was finished; that should have given him plenty, though books, aside from the Book of the Prophecy, were even higher priced than the love-beads he’d bought Talyra. It was because so few people cared about them, the shopkeeper had told him. Books were heavy, and when there wasn’t much demand, a trader wouldn’t bring them all the way from the City unless he could be sure that they’d sell for enough to make the trouble worthwhile. Most families did little reading; they sent their children to school only because it was considered a religious duty. Why was it? Noren wondered suddenly. Why did the High Law
encourage
learning, and then withhold knowledge from people who did care? No book, at any price, would tell the things
he
wanted to know… .

Chagrined, he turned away from the shop and headed quickly for the outbound road. He’d been daydreaming again; there was, he realized, some truth to his brothers’ accusations. On the farm it might not matter, but if he wanted to catch up with that trader he must hurry!

He did not catch up. Some three hours later, thoroughly exhausted from a grueling trip during which he’d alternately walked and jogged without pausing, he arrived in Prosperity only to find that the trader had just left, having hired a driver without difficulty. Harvest season was already over in Prosperity; the main radial on which that village was located happened to be a seasonal boundary line. Long ago, Noren had heard, all villages had planted grain at the same time, but there were now so many that the Technicians could not take soil-quickening Machines everywhere at once, and the crop cycle was therefore staggered. Though he’d known that in theory, it was startling to find that in Prosperity it was Seed-Offering Day.

The village was jammed with people. Leaving the inn where he’d inquired for the trader, Noren walked toward the center, which in Prosperity took the form of a square. Nearly everyone in sight wore festive green. A woman with a basket approached him, smiling. “Will you have a Festival Bun, neighbor?” she asked. Noren accepted gratefully; he’d eaten nothing since breakfast, and Festival Buns, baked in fancy shapes and decorated with seeds, were always free.

In the square an aircar rested while a procession of farmers passed by, depositing clearly-labeled seed bags before the presiding Technicians. That seed would be taken to the City, where it would be blessed in an impressive ritual before the Gates and then returned. The Scholars would not keep any. The portion of the harvest charged for soil-quickening, along with whatever extra the Technicians had bought, was always claimed immediately after threshing, for in the City there were gristmills run by Power. Seed-Offering was different. The High Law declared that all seed must be offered for blessing, since unblessed seed would not sprout into healthy grain.

Noren scowled. The Scholars had power over even that, he thought—even food, the one thing villagers could produce better than City-dwellers! To be sure, it could not be produced without the Machines that quickened the land… but did it really matter whether the seed was blessed or not?

Amid the light green of the crowd’s clothing and the darker green of the Technicians’ uniforms, flashes of color caught his eye. A group clad in red-trimmed white was approaching the aircar, led by a girl and boy, and from the girl’s solid red skirt and headscarf he knew they were bride and groom. They, too, sought to be blessed. That, the High Law did not demand; weddings were performed by village councilmen, not Technicians; yet people always wanted a Technician’s blessing on a marriage. Talyra would have wanted it, too! It would never have worked out, Noren thought in misery. He could never have brought himself to follow such a tradition.

The couple, surrounded by family and friends, stepped back, obviously happy with whatever the Technicians had said. Then, slowly, the aircar lifted; and as it rose, the crowd began to sing. Noren did not join in, though he knew the words well enough:

For blessing, now, we offer joyfully

The seed of our abundant harvesttide

To those who guard the heritage of the Star,

That in our hearts its spirit may abide.

He turned disconsolately away from the square, wondering what to do. The people would celebrate all evening; soon the flutes would start playing, and everyone would dance. Noren did not feel like dancing. Besides, there’d be no work available here, and he had too much pride to beg a night’s lodging for which he could not pay. There was nothing to do but return to Arnil’s.

Back on the road, he walked blindly, not noticing his surroundings until he came to the stone arch that bridged a stream. The heat of the day was still at its peak; he was terribly thirsty, especially after the dry Festival Bun, and the water below the bridge looked cool and fresh. Not for the first time, he wondered why it should be wrong to drink such water.

And then, suddenly skeptical, he stopped. A new and daring thought came to him:
was
it wrong? Could Kern’s fantastic boast have been true after all?

People did not drink from streams. Animals did; the work-beasts were often watered in them. But people, like the caged fowl whose eggs and flesh were eaten, were not allowed to touch impure water. From earliest childhood Noren had been told that any person whose lips it passed would be turned into an idiot like the savages of the mountains. The most sacred precepts of the High Law decreed that one must not drink. But why? It wasn’t reasonable to think that drinking what animals drank could turn a man into an idiot! That the Scholars fostered such a belief to keep people dependent on supplementing rainfall with water from the City was far more likely, for as long as no one could live without that water, their power was assured.

He stared at the stream, excitement rising in his throat. Did he believe in his own ideas or didn’t he? Logic told him that to taste it would be harmless. To be sure, the world abounded in poisons, but if poisons were in the water, there would be no need for a taboo against it; illness and death would be threat enough. Furthermore, escaped fowl never died of poisoning—they were slaughtered and the meat was destroyed, as the High Law commanded. Noren scanned the deserted road. The thought of becoming an idiot was more repugnant to him than any physical danger, yet what good was a mind he dared not trust? If he, a grown man, let himself be ruled by nursery tales, his convictions were not worth the sacrifice he had made for them.