The Doors of the Universe

by Sylvia Engdahl

  Bacteria, viruses . . . he would have to learn to work with them before he could try experiments with animals in any case. He would have to prepare the vaccines. A vaccine to be used for genetic alteration did not work in the same way as one to produce immunity against disease, and it wasn’t made in the same way either. But to an observer who’d never heard of genetic engineering, one culture dish would look like another.

  Yet there was just no legitimate reason he could offer for spending weeks in that laboratory. Even Stefred might start wondering if he did; Stefred knew that despite the ordeal of the nightmare, he wouldn’t abandon all useful endeavors for what could only seem an obsession with a fascinating hobby. Realizing this, Noren evolved a quite desperate plan.

  After absorbing everything he could from the First Scholar’s records, he thought through every detail of the lab work carefully, transferring essential data to computer-generated study discs. Unobtrusively, he gathered the necessary supplies, even making one trip to an Outer City lab not visited by a Scholar within memory—a whole roomful of Technicians knelt in silence while he took what he needed, none of them questioning, and none ever likely to encounter another Scholar to whom they’d venture to mention the incident. At night, he stored everything in the cabinets of the medical research lab, which like all Inner City facilities was unlocked. Since Scholars had complete trust in each others’ integrity, by custom they made no checks either on people or on equipment. One bore full responsibility for one’s own acts.

  When ready, he went to see the doctor in charge of medical research. “I’m not getting anywhere studying physics,” he stated honestly, “and—and right now I can’t face any more of it. I’ve got to have some kind of break, yet I can’t just sit around without doing anything useful.”

  “Have you talked to Stefred?”

  “Yes, weeks ago. He says I’m not ill. Yet I haven’t been able to get back into my work routine.”

  The doctor sighed. “What you need is a vacation.”

  “A what?” Noren had never encountered the word.

  “On the Six Worlds people took time off from work, a few weeks out of every year, usually. Took trips just for a change of scene. Sometimes I think we’d be more productive in the long run if we could do that, though it wouldn’t be acceptable in our society. The outpost helps; what a pity you’ve already been there.”

  “Yes.” It was indeed a pity, for he could accomplish a great deal more at the outpost; he could even experiment on work-beasts. The thought of bringing one of the gigantic, clumsy work-beasts into the Inner City was, of course, ludicrous, so his “animal experiments” here would have to be confined to fowl. But the outpost was new, and all Scholars were eager for terms of duty outside the walls that had traditionally imprisoned them. It would be years before he got a second chance. “I need a change of scene, all right,” Noren continued. “That’s why I thought if I could be of use to you—”

  “I’m sorry,” replied the doctor, shaking his head. “I won’t tell you what you already know, that we all feel you’re most useful in physics and would be wasting your talent if you were to switch fields. You’re brilliant. I’m sure you’d make a fine medical researcher. But Noren, it takes long study. I can’t use an untrained lab assistant.”

  “Of course you can’t. That’s not what I mean. I had in mind volunteering for something more—restful.” He tried to put a brave face on it.

  “There’s a long list of volunteers. Besides, a week or so of bed rest wouldn’t—”

  “Wouldn’t solve anything for either of us,” Noren agreed. “Look, your project data’s in the computers like everyone else’s; I have the right of access to it. I know what you haven’t any volunteers for, haven’t requested any for because it would take too much time away from their own work. You’ve developed a new treatment for purple fever.”

  Frowning, the doctor observed, “You’re serious! I think maybe you should check back with Stefred.”

  “What for? So that he can tell me I’m too honest with myself to resolve my subconscious conflicts by coming down with some psychosomatic illness, one that might confine me to the infirmary for weeks without being of practical benefit to anyone?”

  “You’ve got a point, I’ll admit. And there’s no denying that purple fever’s a real problem in the villages.” He appraised Noren thoughtfully. “If you’ve read that report, you know we can’t cure it; it has to run its course. The treatment, if it works, will make it somewhat less painful and less apt to produce permanent crippling—that’s all.”

  “There’s no significant danger of crippling, is there?”

  “Not if you don’t overexert yourself. Villagers often do.”

  “I won’t set foot out of this lab,” Noren declared fervently.

  The next few days were worse than he’d anticipated. He had been warned that he’d be given no hypnotic anesthesia, which after all would defeat the purpose of the experiment; villagers couldn’t be kept under hypnosis during long-term illnesses since doctors couldn’t be in constant attendance away from the City. There was a hospital to which injured patients could be taken by aircar, but purple fever victims couldn’t be moved. Painkilling drugs were unavailable, but now a specific drug had been developed that might partially alleviate the symptoms. To test it, however, the subject must be in a position to describe his symptoms. Noren found them indescribable.

  At the onset he had merely a fierce headache and shooting pains throughout his body, which he decided he could tolerate. Not till he tried to sit up on waking did it occur to him to be frightened—he felt sure his spine had fractured. The next thing he knew, he was lying flat, immobile, and the room seemed darker. He realized that he must have passed out.

  “How’s the headache?” the doctor asked.

  “Worse.” The point was to provide data, not to display stoicism. With effort, Noren managed to whisper, “I don’t think your drug works very well.”

  “It hasn’t had a chance; it’s designed to treat the disease, not ward it off. I’ll give you the first injection now. By tomorrow night you should start feeling some improvement.” Encouragingly, he added, “If you’re wondering whether this experiment’s worth doing, remember that an untreated villager feels no improvement for at least a week.”

  He could not move his head without pain so intense he feared he’d cry out with it. He couldn’t move his limbs or torso either, and in fact was cautioned that to do so would be “overexertion” at this stage. He lay motionless, dreading every muscular twitch, for three full days. After that, he was asked to try lifting his head slightly, or an arm or leg, to judge whether it was getting easier. “Easier” wasn’t exactly the word, but it became possible. “The real benefits are in the convalescent phase,” the doctor told him. “Without treatment a victim of purple fever is bedridden for six weeks or more and may never regain full use of the muscles if they’re taxed too soon. But you’re recovering nicely. Before long you’ll be moving around the lab.” Noren wasn’t in shape to believe this confirmation of what he’d counted on.

  The fifth morning, Lianne appeared instead of the doctor. “I’m glad to see you haven’t turned purple, anyway,” she said. From her smile he could not quite tell if she was joking.

  “Didn’t you ever hear about purple fever in your village?” he asked her. “It’s the plant that’s purple, the plant with the spores that cause it.”

  “My mother must have forgotten to warn me.”

  “I guess she didn’t warn you that it’s contagious, either. I thought they weren’t going to let anyone in here.”

  “I’m a medical student, remember? Stefred won’t require me to be a full-fledged physician as Six Worlds psychiatrists were; he isn’t one himself, because his work’s with healthy people instead of mental patients. But we do have to know the basics.” She stood calmly at the edge of the cot, looking down at him with emotion he couldn’t define. “You can sit up now, but don’t make any rapid movements. I’ll help.”

&
nbsp; “Seriously, Lianne, you could catch this—”

  “If I do, there’s a proven treatment—but I’m not going to. Lift yourself slowly and don’t turn your head. The motion’s going to hurt, but you need to begin getting used to it.”

  He started to speak, but as he raised his back the pain knocked the breath out of him. Lianne laid her hand lightly on his shoulder. Gradually his fear ebbed, leaving a purely physical agony that didn’t seem to bother him as much as its severity warranted. Noren’s spirits rose. Maybe the plan was going to work after all. For a while, he’d wondered whether he might have overestimated his own stamina.

  “In a couple of days you’ll be ready to sit at the lab bench,” Lianne said. “I’ll be around a good deal if you need anything.”

  “You mean you’ve been assigned to work in here?” he burst out, dismayed. No other experiments were in progress, and he’d assumed the chance of contagion would ensure his privacy.

  “Let’s just say I’ve chosen this week to start my student lab projects,” she said evenly. “That way, no one will touch what’s on the bench; you don’t want somebody else to barge in here and mess up your test tubes, do you? It would be an awful waste of heroic fortitude.”

  And so, for the next six weeks, the work proceeded more smoothly than he’d imagined it would. He did not even have to invent a story about needing a pastime to keep his mind off the continuous ache of his muscles, for the doctor assumed all the paraphernalia was Lianne’s. Actually, she did very little on her own. When present she watched him gravely, quietly; sometimes he got the feeling that she knew more about what he was doing than her comments revealed. She had guessed his purpose through uncanny intuition combined with her knowledge of his ultimate aim—but how could she possibly know that he’d progressed to the point of splicing genes?

  His physical weakness, the pain of motion and the persistent headache, failed to handicap him greatly. He was not sure just why. Though to concentrate on his task took effort and to steady his hands throughout the hours of intricate lab work was a bigger challenge than he’d foreseen, he found that he was enjoying it. He was truly accomplishing something, after so many seasons of futile study—that must be the reason. Yet he felt something more was involved. Confidence, perhaps, confidence not only in his mind but in his control over his body? As a village boy he’d considered himself too awkward even to make a good craftsman. Now, though, things seemed to be happening to him that extended beyond the ability to cope with the effects of the disease. Lianne taught him to allocate his strength, to relax totally except when his movements demanded tension; then later, when the doctor pronounced it safe, she taught him exercises to recondition his muscles. Evidently her medical training was including physical therapy techniques. Or, he reflected, perhaps she’d been a village witch after all. People did go to witch-women with ailments such as purple fever, for which the Technicians could provide no help; the fact that she hadn’t been charged with witchcraft didn’t mean she’d never practiced any of the healing methods associated with it.

  He found himself wishing that he could confide more fully in Lianne, perhaps even let her experience the dream—but that would be too unfair to Stefred. It would be, even if it weren’t for Stefred’s personal interest in her; and in view of that factor, the mere prospect of a close friendship made him uncomfortable. There were times when he saw something in her face that made him turn away. Only the recency of Talyra’s death allowed him to accept Lianne’s companionship, Noren realized. He was doing enough behind Stefred’s back without creating a false impression that he was a rival for the one woman whose love Stefred wanted.

  After some weeks in the lab, Lianne brought him fertilized fowl’s eggs, and he proceeded from gene splicing in bacteria to the manipulation of genes of higher organisms. Some of the eggs hatched, and he went further. Finally she managed to smuggle in a grown hen, which he successfully injected with a gene-altering vaccine. She took a sample of the hen’s blood to the computers and brought back a disc proving that its genotype had indeed been modified. Thereafter, the hen laid more eggs, the analysis of which proved that the modification had affected reproductive cells. Lianne took the hen away and returned, in due time, with chicks. Analysis of their blood was unnecessary; they had blue tailfeathers. “Did you know what you were doing,” she inquired, “or did it just happen?”

  “I knew.” He frowned and added, “But I didn’t know they were going to hatch early.”

  “I hope not. I have enough trouble hiding a poultry coop on the aircar deck without having to explain blue-tailed fowl! I was going to bring them in here before they hatched. And I’m going to have to get rid of the rooster pretty soon; you have no idea what a noise it makes.”

  What an odd thing to say, Noren thought. He’d grown up on a farm and so, presumably, had she—or at least she’d lived near one; no village dwelling was beyond the noise of cockcrow. “It’s not only the idea of someone seeing them that worries me,” he said. “I was working with a regulatory gene, one that affects timing of development. They wouldn’t normally have tailfeathers at all so soon after hatching; I used the blue coloring just for a marker. Well, I speeded up the appearance of tailfeathers all right, but evidently I speeded up hatching, too. Either the computer’s gene mapping for fowl isn’t accurate or else I fumbled.”

  “No complex experiment works perfectly the first time it’s tried,” Lianne said, sounding as if she’d been a Scholar for decades.

  “Lianne,” Noren declared grimly, “the big one has got to.”

  “From your standpoint, yes. But if it should fail, if you can have no more children, you’ll still have a chance to—”

  “I’ll have no chance, and you know it! People won’t accept the idea even now; what chance would they give me after a failure?”

  “I can’t answer that,” she admitted in a low voice. “One step at a time, I guess. What comes next?”

  “I find out what went wrong here and try a few other alterations. Till that’s done, I’m afraid you’ll have to hang onto the rooster.” He wondered where he’d be now under his original plan, which hadn’t included steps demanding outside aid. As she turned to go he went on, “Lianne? What are they saying about me? In the refectory, I mean, not officially.”

  “They’re upset,” she told him frankly. “Oh, they admire courage, Noren—but any Scholar would have been willing to undergo purple fever if there’d been a request for volunteers; I talked to one young man whose father was crippled by it, and he thinks you usurped his rightful role. The rest see the dark half of your motive. They interpret your being here as a retreat from working toward metal synthesization. And they know that you wouldn’t retreat if you didn’t feel hopeless, so they’re depressed.”

  “Then maybe they’ll be readier to consider an alternative, knowing they can’t rely on me the way they’ve been doing.”

  “Don’t count on it. The goal was set by the First Scholar, not by you—and if they decide they can’t rely on you, they’ll blame you rather than the goal itself.” Gently she added, “Retreat from hope isn’t appropriate conduct for a priest.”

  “You say that as if you were quoting it.”

  “Not the words. But it’s what all the older people are thinking.”

  Slowly, he observed, “You also say it as if you agree with it, even now that you know human survival and the other hopes aren’t necessarily tied together. Yet you’ve not accepted priesthood yourself—and you’ve helped me get away with neglecting ‘appropriate conduct.’ Could it be that you’re slipping back into heresy, Lianne?”

  “If you mean am I questioning the validity of the official religion,” she told him, “then no, I’m not. My reasons for not becoming a priest are . . . personal. I support the aims of the priesthood and share the underlying faith. So do you, Noren.”

  “For a while I was convinced I did. But it’s tangled up with so many things that aren’t true, won’t be true if humanity does survive.”

  Faith
was a way of dealing with unanswerable questions. Yet now, Noren thought miserably, some of those questions could be answered—and the answer was no. Cities and machines for everyone. Knowledge free to everyone, all human knowledge, past and future, being expanded “even unto infinite and unending time,” as the poet had expressed it. Knowledge shall be kept safe within the City; it shall be held in trust until the Mother Star itself becomes visible to us. The Mother Star, symbol of the unknowable . . . until the unknowable becomes clear, then? He had believed that. He’d been sure there would still be priests, as searchers for truth though not as a social caste, after the Prophecy was fulfilled. He’d believed they would explore the universe. There shall come a time of great exultation, when the doors of the universe shall be thrown open and everyone shall rejoice. . . . What was priesthood without that goal? What was faith without it? Faith in survival wasn’t enough.

  “Of course it’s tangled,” Lianne declared. “Religions usually are. Were, I mean, on the Six Worlds,” she added hastily. “But Noren, you aren’t going to get very far with people just by proving chicks can be given blue tailfeathers. So maybe you’ll have to try to untangle it.”

  * * *

  By the time he was fully recovered and discharged from the medical lab, Noren had taken the experimentation as far as he could with fowl and had even started work with human blood serum. His results with the latter had been confirmed by computer analysis but were not, of course, ready for actual testing. He’d spliced human genes in test tubes, but to prepare a live-virus vaccine for human use would have been far too dangerous without the Outer City’s facilities, even if he’d had the time. And he had no more time. He considered faking a relapse, but that would have negated the success of the purple fever treatment, which had been declared ready for village use. Or else, if the doctor had caught on, his malingering would have put an end to what little sympathy his fellow Scholars still had for him.