The Doors of the Universe

by Sylvia Engdahl

  The secret dream, by Council decision, had thus far been made available only to people who’d experienced the full version of the First Scholar’s other dream recordings: a policy Noren now saw was aimed toward restricting it to those with long-standing commitments to the Scholars’ traditional goals. He had been charged by the First Scholar’s words with full authority to decide who should be given access, and he recalled that at first, Stefred had feared the power this gave him. Power, yes! Novices would emerge from that dream ready to support what they’d see as an underground movement within the still-mysterious Inner City society. There were not enough of them to affect policy decisions, but as volunteer parents they would suffice.

  During the days he pondered this, Veldry and Denrul spent much time openly in each other’s company. It reached the point where Noren wondered if she’d already explained about her genes; she’d have to, of course, if they became lovers, and in inoculating her he’d authorized her to reveal his own role as she saw fit. But when he brought up the subject, she seemed surprisingly embarrassed. “No,” she said. “He’d agree, but it shouldn’t come from me. That would be—seduction. You tell him, Noren. Tell him the truth about me, the whole truth. And then—” she blinked back tears “—then whatever he wants to do is up to him.”

  Noren sought out Denrul, and they had a long talk. “You understand,” he said at the end of it, “that I’m asking you to perjure yourself as far as the Prophecy’s concerned. That’s what the others won’t do, and you’ve recanted on that basis of believing they won’t. To become a Scholar, at the same time realizing that what you affirmed in the ceremony’s false after all, won’t be easy. Especially when you’ll, well, gain personally—”

  “Veldry? Noren, that’s not how I feel about her,” Denrul protested, shocked. “I’d never involve her in anything I had doubts over.”

  “I’ve told you frankly that you’ll be far from her first lover.”

  “I will not,” Denrul declared. “I’ll be her husband if she’ll have me at all.”

  “That’s the village way,” agreed Noren, wondering uneasily whether Denrul’s fervent words reflected true devotion to Veldry or merely his inexperience with the Inner City’s less-strict conventions.

  “It’s the only way right for her,” insisted Denrul. “Look, here’s a woman you say has had her choice of men—yet she thinks more about what’s best for her descendants than who she chooses? I say she wants more than love. I say she deserves a partner committed to more.”

  “So do I,” Noren admitted with relief. “But you see, people not in on this secret have no way of knowing what she really cares about.”

  Although Denrul had been won to the cause of genetic change without the secret dream, Noren was unwilling to alter the genes of anyone who hadn’t experienced it. It was too harrowing in some respects for anyone unready for the full version of the others; but it could be edited—Lianne was as skilled in that process as Stefred. During one long, agonizing night he went through it again, serving as monitored dreamer while she prepared a version suitable for those who’d recently completed the enlightenment dreams. This she kept in her personal possession. Denrul was told to sign up for library dream time, and on his scheduled night, she arranged to be on duty. Shortly thereafter, pale but resolute, he returned to Noren for inoculation.

  A few weeks later, Denrul and Veldry stood up at Orison and to everyone’s amazement exchanged marriage vows. Veldry wore everyday beige trousers instead of a traditional red bridal skirt, and there were no officially designated attendants—Noren, who couldn’t publicly have assumed that role without arousing comment, found himself in the less welcome one of presiding priest. It was his regular turn, Veldry having carefully checked the roster, so when the newlywed couple stood before him to receive formal benediction, it was assumed they had no special friend to perform the office. The blessing was taken for a routine one. To Noren, however, it was a turning point: his own confirmation of total responsibility for other people’s risks.

  He joined them afterward for a private feast in Veldry’s room, at which Lianne was the only other person present. She poured from a large jug she had brought, and Noren proposed the conventional toast: “To this union—may it be fruitful and bring lasting joy.”

  They drank. At the first taste Veldry seemed ebullient and Denrul perplexed. Noren, in bewilderment, burst out, “By the Star, Lianne, this stuff’s like water! Couldn’t you find any better ale?”

  “Under the circumstances I thought watered ale might be more appropriate,” she said pointedly, “considering where the water came from.”

  Denrul’s puzzled frown gave way to bravado; with shaking hands he drained his cup without pausing. Indignantly Noren protested, “Lianne, that was cruel. At a marriage feast, a time for celebration—”

  “No, Lianne’s right,” Veldry interrupted. “It’s melodramatic, maybe, but not cruel. It’s got to be like this. I mean, if we believe in what we’re doing, believe strongly enough to overthrow the old traditions, we’ve got to establish new ones. We need to dramatize! Life’s not all abstract science and ethics.”

  Lianne was brimming with exhilaration; it was as if the ale had been more potent than usual instead of less so. “I propose a second toast,” she said, “to the day when stream water will be drunk sacramentally at village weddings.”

  In high spirits they finished the contents of the jug. Denrul—who like many heretics had sampled impure water before his arrest—passed the safe limit in a single evening. Only for him was it a crucial step, since the others had consumed plenty of such water before. The symbolic significance in the act was nevertheless strong. For Noren in particular it was a poignant reminder of what he had lost, what he had yet to hazard before the gamble could pay off.

  Later, walking back to his own lodging tower with Lianne, he mused, “I couldn’t see for myself what Veldry saw. Is that why I’m not getting anywhere, why I’m blind to the path ahead?”

  “Partly.” Lianne seemed troubled; the elation she’d shown earlier had faded. “I—I gave you a clue, Noren, in my toast. I don’t think I overstepped my role because both Veldry and Denrul got what I was driving at. You . . . for several reasons you’ll find that harder.”

  “I’ve never liked ceremony, that’s one, I suppose—though what happened in there was good. Were you doing something to us with your mind?”

  “Nothing more than people usually do with their minds under such circumstances. That’s one of the things you don’t grasp about ceremony.”

  “Well, nobody here knows about psychic undercurrents.” She could hardly be expecting him to act on the basis of knowledge she’d insisted was beyond him, Noren thought in frustration.

  “Not consciously. But they sense what’s going on, as Veldry did—and as Stefred would. He’d deny the existence of telepathy, but he could predict exactly what the effects of the symbolic action would be.”

  “Why doesn’t he, then? You say the clue’s in your suggestion about watering the ale at village weddings, but he maintains villagers wouldn’t be willing to drink unpurified water at all. And I should think a wedding would be the last occasion they’d pick to do it.”

  “There’s a gap between existing tradition and what must replace it,” she agreed. “Stefred can’t bridge that gap; he’s too bound to the conventions the Founders established. You are freer—precisely because you’ve stood off from religious symbolism, you are free to reinterpret it as the Founders reinterpreted their own.”

  “I already tried that once, trying to make gods of your people. I’ll not repeat that mistake.”

  “Have you analyzed it, though?”

  Not as well as he should have, Noren thought with chagrin. His mistake, as with his earlier errors concerning religion, had been in trying to name the ultimate. He was willing now to call it the Star and let that go. But Lianne was talking not about ultimates but about concrete things: the provisions of the High Law, for instance. The things that not only cou
ld change, but must. The Law forbade drinking impure water; she foresaw not merely the breaking of that Law but its reversal, for people would never ignore religion on a formal occasion like a wedding. He’d imagined their hoarding what little purified water was left simply to serve wedding guests. . . .

  “Oh, Lianne,” he murmured. “I’m beginning to guess where you’re leading—but if symbols can be manipulated like that, turned around and given whatever significance someone wants them to have—”

  “It is dangerous,” she admitted. “Like everything else, it’s a principle that can be put to ill use, and on most worlds both unscrupulous people and deluded ones have misused it. Here there are exceptional safeguards, which you will have to override.”

  It was true, he reflected, that the Founders had deliberately created the symbols and ritual of a new religion in the first place; what they had done could in principle be redone. Yet conditions had not been the same. “I don’t think Scholars would ever revise the basic symbols,” he declared. “That’s not as simple as creating a little ceremony to express our own feelings about defying a taboo we’ve already decided to ignore at our own risk. There’d be—well, no authority for it. People don’t just make up their minds to change what things mean. The Scholars won’t take my word for scientific facts; how can we expect that I can alter their religious views?”

  “We can’t,” Lianne acknowledged. “The kind of thing we did tonight will help form a small group of dedicated volunteers to produce genetically altered children. What I proposed in the toast was something altogether apart. It concerned not the Scholars’ religion but the villagers’.”

  “But one’s got to lead to the other.”

  “Really? Who believed in the symbols first when the Founders established them?”

  The villagers did, Noren realized, confused. The Founders gave them the Prophecy and High Law believing in the ideas behind the symbols, but it was the villagers who took them at literal face value. Only later, when village-born heretics were brought into the City, did those symbols acquire true religious significance within the walls. “We can’t alter people’s views by a proclamation from the Gates,” he protested. “How can the interpretation in the villages change before it’s changed here?”

  Lianne stopped and faced him, reaching for his hand. “You’re beginning to ask the right questions,” she said, almost with sadness. “Noren, we are coming perilously close to things I must not say to you. If that last question is answered, it must be by you and you alone—not so much because I shouldn’t intervene as for your own sake. I—I couldn’t bear to have you change the shape of your life on my word.”

  She gave his cheek a light kiss, then turned quickly and hurried across the courtyard toward the tower where she lodged. Noren was left listening to the echo of her footsteps.

  * * *

  It was not long before Veldry was pregnant again. By that time, the group of volunteers had grown by another couple and several young men—novices still in adolescence—who were willing to be genetically altered as soon as they could find brides. Once a man’s genes were altered, he would never be free to love Technician women, who could not participate in human experimentation. For this reason Noren decided to accept couples only, and their number was necessarily limited by the number of female novices who entered the City. It seemed a bit unfeeling to tell these women that if they wished to serve the cause of human survival, they must choose husbands immediately from among the eligible men on the waiting list—yet after all, in the villages most marriages were arranged by families. Few girls grew up expecting to marry for love.

  Though men and women alike were free to refuse the dream Lianne offered them, none did so, and none, having experienced the dream, refused to support the First Scholar’s secret goal. They were not yet priests and had been told by Stefred that they need never assume the robe; the conflict between endorsement of the Prophecy and advocacy of genetic change was not severe with them. More significant, Noren suspected, was the fact that in working for the latter they were continuing to oppose authority. A new Scholar’s biggest problem was generally turning from heresy to support of the established order.

  The risk to the children was no longer a great worry, with Veldry’s baby thriving well. The worst part of the whole business, for Noren and Lianne, was the extent to which they were deceiving Stefred. He had always been close to each Scholar he’d brought through candidacy; now all the new ones, within days of recantation, were being sworn to stop confiding in him. Noren feared some might break this oath, but Lianne seemed to see no danger. “It’s not as if he’s going to suffer any harm,” she pointed out. “Oh, he’ll feel hurt if he finds out about the conspiracy, but they don’t realize that. He’s still Chief Inquisitor to them. Though they trust his integrity, they don’t know he’s vulnerable to personal feelings.”

  “You and I know.” Noren bit his tongue; he was sorry that had slipped out, for Lianne was in a far worse situation than he was. She worked with Stefred, saw him daily and discussed the progress of these same novices with him. Furthermore, Stefred was still in love with her, though he’d long ago given up hope of her returning that love, and there was now small chance of his finding happiness with anyone else. Were he to be attracted to some newcomer, that woman would be committed to genetic experimentation before he was free to speak.

  Denrul had chosen medical and surgical training, realizing that a physician who knew of the experimentation was desperately needed. On the side, he completed the computer training program in genetics, and Noren began tutoring him privately in the details of his own more advanced work. He himself must have a successor, in case . . . in case of emergency, he told himself firmly. The Service was not going to take him away aboard the starship, not ever. But the work was too vital to depend on a single person’s presence. And besides, Denrul, who was to specialize in medical research, had more access to lab facilities than Lianne. There was even the possibility that after he was no longer being supervised, they could produce the genetic vaccine in the Inner City instead of having to make clandestine excursions to the officially off-limits domes.

  Noren rarely saw Brek any more except at large gatherings, but when he did, Brek’s troubled look was haunting. It was not only that Brek now thought the worst of him. Nuclear physics, for Brek, was finally producing the disillusionment Noren’s greater talent had found there earlier. Even his happiness with Beris seemed affected. One evening, when she wasn’t present, he approached Noren and said miserably, “You were . . . right. It’s hopeless. I want you to know that I—I understand, better, why you gave it up. I think I even forgive hypocrisy now. I can’t seem to renounce priesthood myself, and you—you never felt as I did about the Star in the first place. You at least believe we have some way of surviving.”

  “Are you sure my way’s wrong?” Noren asked slowly.

  “Maybe not. Maybe I’m simply a coward—only Beris . . . I couldn’t let Beris—”

  “Even if there were healthy babies before hers?” Telling Brek would do no harm now. He would never betray anyone, and though he might be shocked, sickened, by the now-available dream of the First Scholar’s involvement, it would lend weight to what he’d viewed as an indefensible position. Things were not the same as before the birth of Veldry’s son.

  “That’s a hypothetical question,” Brek declared, “to which there’s no honorable answer. I couldn’t ask others to do the dirty part.”

  “Nor could I,” agreed Noren; “but the issue’s not hypothetical any more.” He went ahead with the whole story, omitting only the truth about Lianne.

  “There’s no excuse for me, for the way I doubted you,” Brek said when he’d heard it all. “I’ve known you too long and too well. I’m not saying I could have done what you did—I’ve never been as strong as you—but I should have known things weren’t as they seemed. I’ll talk to Beris. I’ll go through this dream; I owe you that much. Only . . . about the Prophecy . . . I’m not sure. Even if we keep wor
king at the outpost, we’ll know that cause is lost—”

  “We know now,” said Noren sadly.

  Hypocrisy about it wasn’t a solution—not for him, not for Brek, not for anyone. Yet neither was abandonment of the symbols. They must be reinterpreted, not abandoned; he’d known that since the night of Veldry’s wedding . . . but how? How?

  “I’ve been going at it backwards,” he said to Lianne. “Destruction of symbols doesn’t work, I know that! I tried it in the village when I was condemned for heresy, and then later I crashed the aircar on the way to trying it again. Stefred permitted it both times because he knew there was no danger of my succeeding. Yet I’ve still been thinking in those terms, and so has he. We can’t ever get people to break the High Law by destroying their belief in it—”

  “No more than the First Scholar could have overcome people’s attachment to the Six Worlds by revealing those worlds were gone,” she agreed.

  “He gave them something constructive,” reflected Noren, “turned a symbol of tragedy into one of hope.”

  “That wasn’t unprecedented,” Lianne said. “Successful religions of many worlds have been centered on symbols with transformed significance.”

  “Then what we do with watered ale at wedding feasts is more than dramatization of our defiance?”

  “Well, it represents defiance, but not just of the Law. We defy our fear of destruction, Noren, and our confinement within the limits this world’s environment imposes. It’s a small thing, of course, not the equivalent of the Star and not nearly so powerful. Yet many religions do incorporate rites that involve food or drink with symbolic meaning—that’s a missing element in what you’ve got here, where there are only negative taboos. It would fit naturally.”