The sledge jarred, and a fowl squawked noisily; Noren twisted around. There were hens in back, in wicker crates. Did hens sense that they were on the way to the butcher? Of course hens weren’t very bright, but then, there were times when brightness was a questionable advantage. He sucked in deep breaths, trying to dispel the fogginess from his mind; it was hard to keep his eyes open. He found himself wondering how long it had been since he had left his own village.
And then a new question worked its way into his thoughts: just how did the Scholars . . . kill a person? The rumors gave no hint. All the people he’d ever heard of—aside from the few who’d been hanged or who’d been victims of accidents, rare illnesses or murder—had died of old age. How Technicians died no one knew; and as for the Scholars themselves, it was generally supposed that they didn’t, though that was probably untrue.
Throughout the long, hot day the work-beast plodded steadily forward, resting only during the pre-noon downpour. When the rain stopped, Noren took over the driving, but the dazed, lethargic feeling stayed with him. The trader was not a talkative man and for that Noren was glad, since between his drowsiness and the persistent ache in his knee it was all he could do to keep a firm grip on the reins. He ought to be more afraid, he thought. He ought to be watching with alarm for the inevitable approach of another aircar, but it all seemed too unreal to matter.
At sundown they halted again by a pond, where the work-beast was allowed to drink, and shared bread washed down with ale from a jug that had been stashed under the seat. The trader drank considerably more of this than Noren, and as a result drove only a short while after they started again; soon he was snoring in the back of the sledge, leaving Noren to keep the work-beast moving. The road was well-lighted, for all three major moons were at full phase and even Little Moon seemed to shine with extraordinary brilliance. The time when the Mother Star itself shall blaze as bright as Little Moon, he thought wistfully: if there could indeed be such a time—a time when some immutable power would bring about the downfall of the Scholars and the fulfillment of all their empty promises—how different the world would be! The ancient knowledge shall be free to all people . . . why ancient? Noren wondered. Why had the Scholars who wrote the Prophecy used that particular word? It was almost as if there’d been a source of knowledge that had preceded them.
Long before he reached it, Noren could see the lights of the City. The whole valley seemed to glimmer. There were dozens of lights, white and yellow and green, swarming around a shining beacon that made him feel that if the Scholars wished, they could place the Mother Star in the sky themselves. He had known that the City was lit by Power, but he had not dreamed that there could be so much Power in the world at one time. He drew rein, overcome by emotions he could scarcely interpret. The moment he’d been anticipating was at hand: the end of his search was in sight, for better or for worse, and he looked upon it less with terror than with eagerness.
When dawn came, the trader roused himself and clambered back onto the seat to resume driving. Noren relinquished the job thankfully; the sights before him were too wondrous to claim anything less than his full attention. He was almost there! Ahead, the scalloped walls of the City stood tall behind a conglomeration of ordinary stone and brick buildings and the long, low wattle structures of the markets. As he watched, the rising sun illuminated the immense silvery barrier and the incredible spires behind it, shooting back dazzling streaks not merely from their widely-spaced windows, but from the entire surface of each tower.
Noren stared, spellbound. There, in those soaring towers, was hidden all the knowledge he sought. Was it possible that other travelers could see them without feeling the unbearable desire they aroused in him? Surely even Talyra. who must have come days ago to the training center, could not have remained unstirred!
The trader thrust the reins back into Noren’s hands momentarily and peeled off his outer tunic. “Going to swelter again,” he remarked matter-of-factly. “Say, is this your first trip to the markets?”
“Yes.”
“Quite a sight, huh?” The man waved a casual hand toward the spectacle that in Noren had evoked near-reverence. “You know someday villages’ll be like that. Ordinary folks’ll have all the stuff the Technicians’ve got, Machines of their own and everything.”
Abruptly, Noren’s head cleared. This man might be persuaded; at any rate, it could well be his last opportunity to try. “Do you believe in the Prophecy?” he asked directly.
His companion swore. “What d’you mean, do I believe it? I’m no fool heretic.”
“I mean do you think it’s right for us to wait all that time to have what the Technicians have? To be kept from knowing all there is to know? Knowledge isn’t property; it should be free! We could have Machines right away, for instance, if—”
The man studied Noren intently. “We couldn’t understand stuff like that,” he said. “Someday folks’ll be smarter than us, and then—”
“Technicians are men like other men, and so are Scholars! They understand, and we could, too, if we weren’t afraid.”
“Say, you better be careful. They way you talk, you could get yourself into a mess.” He leaned over and spat into the street.
“Yes,” admitted Noren levelly. “But if enough of us talked about it—well, maybe we could make something happen.”
The trader turned, grabbing Noren’s wrist with tense, calloused fingers. “You mean that? You don’t like being bossed by Technicians that think they know everything; you don’t fall for a bunch of phony stories about Mother Stars and sacred Laws, maybe?”
“You know they’re not true, too!”
“Sure, I know. What’s fair about them that live inside the walls having stuff the ones outside ain’t got?”
“That’s exactly what I mean! If there were only some way we could—”
Speculatively, the man asked, “Ever hear what happens to people that think your way once the Scholars get hold of ’em?”
Noren nodded slowly. The trader said nothing more, but took the reins and continued on in silence. Before long they drew to a halt in front of a wattle-and-daub shed. “This is where I unload,” he announced. “Stick with me, and I’ll introduce you to some pals of mine.” He tied the work-beast and went around to the back of the sledge, lifting out one of the crates of cackling fowl and disappearing with it into the building.
Excitement exploded in Noren. At last, someone who shared his beliefs! And it had been implied that he would meet others who shared them! There was, of course, a possibility that the trader would betray him, perhaps even try to claim a reward for doing so; but since the Technicians must already have a good idea of his whereabouts, the risk seemed worth taking. Anyway, he had no choice but to wait, for he could go nowhere without something to bandage his knee.
When the unloading was finished, the man drove on to another section of the markets. Noren surveyed the long rows of open stalls with interest. Here the traders from many villages met to bring produce from the farms, which the Technicians paid well for, and to purchase fine craftwork as well as the less common herbs, yeast, and the many commodities—glass, cloth, paper, writing styluses and the like—that came from the City alone, where they were made by Machines. Strangely enough, however, the place seemed nearly deserted. “There aren’t a lot of people around,” he observed, puzzled. “Is it always like this?”
“Most everyone’s in the plaza,” the trader said shortly. “A heretic’s going to recant this morning, and they’ll all be there to see the show. We will, too, soon’s we can get you a bandage.”
The sledge lurched ahead, its runners grating on sand already marred by countless tracks. Near the stable where they left it was a fabric stall, and Noren, in producing the money for a stout strip of cut cloth, could not avoid displaying his entire kerchief full of smooth white coins. The trader eyed them, but made no comment; he simply went ahead and wrapped Noren’s leg tightly until it was stiffened by many layers of bandaging. When it was finished,
Noren stood clumsily, his knee hurting fiercely as he shifted his weight, and hobbled along without objection. The last thing he wanted was to watch some other heretic being forced to go through the degrading ceremony to which he himself had sworn never to submit, but his companion seemed insistent, and the man was his only link to people who might prove kindred spirits.
They reached the plaza late, for the stabling of the work-beast had taken time and Noren was unable to walk fast; the ceremony was already in progress. Little of it could be heard, since they stood at the outer fringes of a vast, muttering crowd, so far back that to Noren’s relief he was not made conspicuous by his failure to kneel. Though the majority of the spectators had done so, others like themselves had abandoned propriety for the sake of getting a good view.
The plaza faced a stretch of unobstructed City wall, in the center of which were the tall, majestic Gates. In front of them a white-paved platform surmounted a wide flight of steps. The backdrop of glittering towers, rising so high above the walls that Noren had to tip his head to glimpse their tops, was awesome, but he could devote little thought to it; his attention was focused on the occupants of the platform. They were Scholars. He knew they were because of the brilliant blue robes they wore, robes he’d seen in the paintings that adorned the village hall and schoolhouse: longer than women’s skirts, but less full, with flowing sleeves that in the case of the center Priest were trimmed with bands of white. A number of Technicians were also present, and between them knelt the prisoner.
He faced the Scholars, his profile to the assembled people, with his hands bound behind him. His gray penitent’s garments looked filthy; if his captors had any decency at all, he could at least have been given new ones! But there was no reason to suppose that they were that humane, Noren thought in sick despair. How could anyone who’d opposed them be so contemptible as to buy his life with obeisance?
This man had been convicted of heresy, which meant that he once had believed at least some things contrary to the Prophecy or the High Law. Yet he knelt there, unabashedly declaring that he acknowledged the Book of the Prophecy to be “true in its entirety” and retracting “all criticisms” that he might ever have made of anything! Either he was the lowest sort of coward or . . . or they had done something awful to him, something past any stretch of the imagination. Though no signs of injury were apparent, Scholars might well have more subtle means of inflicting pain.
Shuddering, Noren watched with growing contempt both for the High Priests and for their victim. He was not close enough to see faces, but the man’s bearing was shameless. He spoke with seeming conviction rather than with reluctance. The Scholars were silent, impassive, accepting this submission as if it were no more than their just due. What had they done to change someone who’d once defied them into a consenting tool of their authority?
They will never change me, Noren promised himself grimly. No matter what they do or what they threaten, I will not deny the truth; I will not become like that man; I will not recant!
There was an atmosphere in the crowd that he did not like; it was akin to the temper of the people in the village who’d taunted him at the time of his own arrest. Only the presence of the Scholars, he guessed, prevented it from erupting into something uglier. The animosity was directed not toward them, but toward the heretic. And Noren could not help sharing it. He could not help feeling more scorn than pity: not, as with the majority, because of the prisoner’s heresy, but because he had sold out.
“We missed the best part,” the trader remarked cryptically during a pause in the ceremony. He had, Noren noticed, been talking to a friend who’d approached him some time back. “All that’s left now is the sentencing, and that’s always the same. Come on.”
“Where?” questioned Noren.
“A bunch of us are getting together to eat,” the man answered in his brusque, decisive way. “I’m taking you along; but by the Mother Star, you’ll be sorry if you’ve lied to me.”
* * *
The place to which the trader’s friend took them was a ramshackle shed behind one of the market buildings. It was dark and dingy and smelled like a stable; in fact it probably had been a stable at one time. “Sometimes we sleep here when we haven’t the price of a room at an inn,” the trader said. “You can stay if you like, only don’t repeat what you hear.”
“I won’t,” promised Noren, with mounting excitement at this clear indication of the men’s sentiments. It amazed him that heresy could be spoken aloud at any sort of gathering. But, he reflected, the Technicians weren’t empowered to arrest anyone who hadn’t been convicted in a civil trial, and though the people who lived permanently at the markets had a village government of sorts, they probably did not go out of their way to watch travelers.
The earlier arrivals had brought food and ale, which they proceeded to share informally. There were five or six of them, an ill-assorted lot, most of them men Noren would never have suspected of caring for the things that mattered; he had to remind himself that if they disbelieved the Prophecy and risked open criticism of the High Law, they must care. And it was evident that they did take such risks, for though the trader vouched for him, he himself was eyed with hostile suspicion.
A big, rough man clutched Noren’s shoulders in a viselike grip. “What did you think of that weakling?” he demanded, in obvious reference to the heretic whose recantation they had all observed.
“He sold out,” Noren declared.
“And you wouldn’t?”
“No!”
The man released him. “You sound as if you mean it,” he conceded. “They all do before they’re caught, of course; but you’ve as much backbone as any. He did, too, once—used to be a friend of ours.” He grinned unpleasantly. “Well, he got what he had coming, and don’t think we didn’t give him our share.”
“Are you trying to scare me?” said Noren, covering his confusion with a laugh.
“Just making sure you know what you’ve gotten into,” the big man said. “Lots of farm boys don’t.”
“I know, all right,” Noren assured him. He wondered what these men would think if they knew he had already been tried and convicted; for some reason he couldn’t explain, he felt that it would be unwise to tell them yet.
He sat silent, eating food he scarcely tasted and listening to the discussion of the others with elation that was tinged, somehow, by an uneasiness he did not understand. He didn’t need to convince this group, for its members were saying just what he’d despaired of ever getting across to anyone! They hated the Scholars; they considered the Prophecy a fraud; and above all, they resented the exclusive rights of the Technicians. There was a great deal of talk, much of it lewd, on all these topics; and not until it had gone on for some time did Noren see what disturbed him about it.
There was nothing these men did believe in. They spoke of Power and Machines, but never of knowledge; and not once had anyone mentioned truth. Nor had they any plan for improving matters. To be sure, Noren had no plan himself; but he had always supposed that if this many heretics ever got together, their first move would be to form one. “Mightn’t there be some way we could change things?” he ventured during a lull in the conversation.
One of the men gave a bitter laugh. “Change things, he says! Why, there’s nothing we or anybody else can do against Scholars.”
“All you traders ever do is talk,” protested a younger man. “We should rebel openly, that’s what we should do.”
“And get arrested for it? What would that buy us?”
“I’ve told you before, the Scholars will have to deal with us in public. There’ll be none of this nonsense about civil trials then! They’ll show their hand, and people will begin to see them for what they really are.”
“I haven’t noticed you doing any rebelling.”
“It won’t work unless a lot of us take action at the same time.”
“It won’t work anyway.”
“It might!” Noren argued. “If enough people would oppose the
High Law—”
“Aw, people won’t listen,” said the trader. “Guys that quote the Prophecy at you every time you start to talk to ’em—they don’t deserve no Machines anyhow. It’s men like us should be getting that stuff.”
“Knowledge and Machines should be for everyone!”
“Even the ones too dumb to care? What for? You and me, now— Well, no use talking about it. There aren’t enough smart guys in the world. I heard once the Scholars have a way to blow the whole City up into clouds. Burn every last thing, all at once, see, so’s the Technicians’d have nothing left better’n what the villagers got. If we could grab hold of that—”
“Destroy the City?” Noren was shocked. “That wouldn’t be right; it wouldn’t do any good at all. What we want is to have more Cities, Cities for everybody.”
“We can’t,” said the young man with frightening intensity. “The Scholars and Technicians will be too powerful as long as anything of theirs remains. We can’t have the kind of world we want without destroying this one; it’s corrupt, evil.”
“The High Law is,” agreed Noren. “But that’s no reason to smash the good along with the bad. If we did that, some knowledge might be lost.”
“We want no part of the Scholars’ knowledge!”
“Knowledge—truth—is the most important thing there is,” Noren maintained. “The only trouble is that the Scholars are keeping it all to themselves when we should have it, too.”
“You’re right,” put in another trader. “Why destroy what we could use? If we once got inside the City, we could take it over, maybe, and get rid of the Scholars. People would kneel to us for a change.”
This Star Shall Abide Page 11
