Pastwatch

by Orson Scott Card

  “You’re as bad as they are,” said Tagiri, “answering anguish with analogies.”

  “Analogies are all I have,” said Diko. “Truth is all I have, and truth is never a comfort. But understanding truth, that is what you taught me to do. So here is the truth. What human life is, what it’s for, what we do, is create communities. Some of them are good, some of them are evil, or somewhere between. You taught me this, didn’t you? And there are communities of communities, groups of groups, and—”

  “And what makes them good or bad?” demanded Tagiri. “The quality of the individual lives. The ones we’re going to snuff out.”

  “No,” said Diko. “What we’re going to do is go back and revise the ultimate community of communities, the human race as a whole, history as a whole here on the planet. We’re going to create a new version of it, one that will give the new individuals who live within it a far, far better chance of happiness, of having a good life, than the old version. That’s real, and that’s good, Mother. It’s worth doing. It is.”

  “I’ve never known any groups,” said Tagiri. “Just people. Just individual people. Why should I make those people pay so this imaginary thing called ‘human history’ can be better? Better for whom?”

  “But Mother, individual people always sacrifice for the sake of the community. When it matters enough, people sometimes even die, willingly, for the good of the community that they feel themselves to be a part of. As well as a thousand sacrifices short of death. And why? Why do we give up our individual desires, leave them unfulfilled, or work hard at tasks we hate or fear because others need us to do them? Why did you go through such pain to bear me and Acho? Why did you give up all the time it took to take care of us?”

  Tagiri looked at her daughter. “I don’t know, but as I listen to you, I begin to think that perhaps it was worth it. Because you know things that I don’t know. I wanted to create someone different from myself, better than myself, and willingly gave up part of my life to do it. And here you are. And you’re saying that that’s what the people of our time will be to the people of the new history we create. That we will sacrifice to create their history, as parents sacrifice to create healthy, happy children.”

  “Yes, Mother,” said Diko. “Manjam is wrong. The people who sent that vision to Columbus did exist. They were the parents of our age; we are their children. And now we will be the parents to another age.”

  “Which just goes to show,” said Tagiri, “that one can always find language to make the most terrible things sound noble and beautiful, so you can live with doing them.”

  Diko looked at Tagiri in silence for a long moment. Then she threw the electric torch to the ground at her mother’s feet and walked away into the night.

  Isabella found herself dreading the meeting with Talavera. It would be about Cristóbal Colón, of course. It must mean that he had reached a conclusion. “It’s foolish of me, don’t you think?” Isabella said to Lady Felicia. “Yet I am as worried about his verdict as if I myself were on trial.”

  Lady Felicia murmured something noncommittal.

  “Perhaps I am on trial.”

  “What court on Earth can try a queen, Your Majesty?” asked Lady Felicia.

  “That is my point,” said Isabella. “I felt, when Cristóbal spoke that first day in court, so many years ago, that the Holy Mother was offering me something very sweet and fine, a fruit from her own garden, a berry from her own vine.”

  “He is a fascinating man, Your Majesty.”

  “Not him, though I do think him a sweet and fervent fellow.” One thing Isabella would never do was leave the impression with anyone that she looked on any man but her husband with anything approaching desire. “No, I mean that the Queen of Heaven was giving me the chance to open a vast door that had long been closed.” She sighed. “But the power even of queens is not infinite. I had no ships to spare, and the cost of saying yes on the spot would have been too great. Now Talavera has decided, and I fear that he is about to close a door whose key will only be given me that one time. Now it will pass into another hand, and I will regret it forever.”

  “Heaven cannot condemn Your Majesty for failing to do what was not within your power to do,” said Lady Felicia.

  “I’m not worried at this moment about the condemnation of heaven. That’s between me and my confessors.”

  “Oh, Your Majesty, I was not saying that you face any kind of condemnation from—”

  “No no, Lady Felicia, don’t worry, I didn’t take your remark as anything but the kindest reassurance.”

  Felicia, still flustered, got up to answer the soft knock on the door. It was Father Talavera.

  “Would you wait by the door, Lady Felicia?” asked Isabella.

  Talavera bowed over her hand. “Your Majesty, I am about to ask Father Maldonado to write the verdict.”

  The worst possible outcome. She heard the door of heaven clang shut against her. “Why today of all days?” she asked him. “You’ve taken all these years over this Colón fellow, and today it’s suddenly an emergency that must be decided at once?”

  “I think it is,” he said.

  “And why is that?”

  “Because victory in Granada is near.”

  “Oh, has God spoken to you about this?”

  “You feel it too. Not God, of course, but His Majesty the King. There is new energy in him. He is making the final push, and he knows that it will succeed. This next summer. By the end of 1491, all of Spain will be free of the Moor.”

  “And this means that you must press the issue of Colón’s voyage now?”

  “It means,” said Talavera, “that one who wishes to do something so audacious must sometimes proceed very warily. Imagine, if you will, what would happen if our verdict were positive. Go ahead, Your Majesty, we say. This voyage is worthy of success. What then? At once Maldonado and his friends will seek His Majesty’s ear, criticizing this voyage. And they will speak to many others, so that the voyage will soon be known as a folly. In particular, Isabella’s folly.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “I say only what will surely be said by those with malicious hearts. Now imagine if this verdict is reached when the war is over, and His Majesty can devote his full attention to the matter. The issue of this voyage could easily become quite a stumbling block in the relations between the two kingdoms.”

  “I see that in your view, supporting Colón will be disastrous,” she said.

  “Now imagine, Your Majesty, that the verdict is negative. In fact, that Maldonado himself writes it. From that point on, Maldonado has nothing to gossip about. There will be no whispers.”

  “There will be no voyage.”

  “Won’t there?” asked Talavera. “I imagine a day when a queen might say to her husband, ‘Father Talavera came to me, and we agreed that Father Maldonado should write the verdict.’ ”

  “But I don’t agree.”

  “I imagine this queen saying to her husband, ‘We agreed that Maldonado should write the verdict because we know that the war with Granada is the most vital concern of our kingdom. We want nothing to distract you or anyone else from this holy Crusade against the Moor. Most certainly we don’t want to give King John of Portugal reason to think we are planning any kind of voyage through waters he thinks of as his own. We need this unflagging friendship during this final struggle with Granada. So even though in my heart I want nothing more than to take the chance and send this Colón west, to carry the cross to the great kingdoms of the East, I have set aside this dream.’ ”

  “What an eloquent queen you have imagined,” said Isabella.

  “All controversy dies. The king sees the queen as a statesman of great wisdom. He also sees the sacrifice she has made for their kingdoms and the cause of Christ. Now imagine that time passes. The war is won. In the glow of victory, the queen comes to the king and says, ‘Now let’s see if this Colón still wants to sail west.’ ”

  “And he will say, ‘I thought that business was f
inished. I thought Talavera’s examiners put a stop to all that nonsense.’ ”

  “Oh, does he say that?” asked Talavera. “Fortunately, the queen is quite deft, and she says, ‘Oh, but you know that Talavera and I agreed to have Maldonado write the verdict. For the good of the war effort. The matter was never really settled. Many of the examiners thought Colón’s project was a worthy one with a decent chance of success. Who can know, anyway? We’ll find out by sending this Colón. If he comes back successful, we’ll know he was right and we’ll send great expeditions at once to follow through. If he comes back empty-handed, then we’ll put him in prison for defrauding the Crown. And if he never comes back, we’ll waste no more effort on such projects.’ ”

  “The queen you imagine is so dry,” said Isabella. “She talks like a cleric.”

  “It’s a shortcoming of mine,” said Talavera. “I haven’t heard enough great ladies in private conversation with their husbands.”

  “I think this queen should say to her husband, ‘If he sails and never returns, then we have lost a handful of caravels. Pirates take more than that every year. But if he sails and succeeds, then with three caravels we will have accomplished more than Portugal has achieved in a century of expensive, dangerous voyages along the African coast.’ ”

  “Oh, you’re right, that’s much better. This king that you’re imagining, he has a keen sense of competition.”

  “Portugal is a thorn in his side,” said Isabelle.

  “So you agree with me that Maldonado should write the verdict?”

  “You’re forgetting one thing,” said Isabella.

  “And that is?”

  “Colón. When the verdict comes, he will leave us and head for France or England. Or Portugal.”

  “There are two reasons why he will not, Your Majesty.”

  “And those are?”

  “First, Portugal has Dias and the African route to the Indies, while I happen to know that Colón’s first approaches to Paris and London, through intermediaries, did not meet with any encouragement.”

  “He has already turned to other kings?”

  “After the first four years,” said Talavera dryly, “his patience began to flag a little.”

  “And the second reason that Colón will not leave Spain between the verdict and the end of the war with Granada?”

  “He will be informed of the verdict of the examiners in a letter. And that letter, while it will contain no promises, will nevertheless give him leave to understand that when the war ends, the matter can be reopened.”

  “The verdict closes the door, but the letter opens the window?”

  “Just a little. But if I know Colón at all, that slight crack in the window will be enough. He is a man of great hopes and great tenacity.”

  “Do I take it, Father Talavera, that your own personal verdict is in favor of the voyage?”

  “Not at all,” said Talavera. “If I had to guess which view of the world is the more correct, I think I would favor Ptolemy and Maldonado. But I would be guessing, because no one knows and no one can know with the information we now have.”

  “Then why did you come here today with all these—suggestions?”

  “I think of them as imaginings, Your Majesty. I would not presume to suggest anything.” He smiled. “While the others have been trying to determine what is correct, I have been thinking more along the lines of what is good and right. I have been thinking of St. Peter stepping from the boat and walking on the water.”

  “Until he doubted.”

  “And then he was lifted up by the hand of the Savior.”

  Tears came to Isabella’s eyes. “Do you think Colón may be filled with the Spirit of God?”

  “The Maid of Orleans was either a saint or a madwoman.”

  “Or a witch. They burned her as a witch.”

  “My point exactly. Who could know, for certain, whether God was in her? And yet by putting their trust in her as God’s servant, the soldiers of France drove the English from field after field. What if she had been mad? What then? They would have lost one more battle. What difference would that have made? They had already lost so many.”

  “So if Colón is a madman, we will only lose a few caravels, a little money, a wasted voyage.”

  “Besides, if I know His Majesty at all, I suspect he’ll find a way to get the boats for very little money.”

  “They say that if you pinch the coins with his face on them, they screech.”

  Talavera’s eyes went wide. “Someone told Your Majesty that little jest?”

  She lowered her voice. They were already talking so low that Lady Felicia could not possibly hear them; still, he leaned toward the Queen so he could hear her faint whisper. “Father Talavera, just between you and me, when the little jest was first told, I was present. In fact, when that little jest was first told, I was speaking.”

  “I will treat that,” said Father Talavera, “with all the secrecy of a confession.”

  “You are such a good priest, Father Talavera. Bring me Father Maldonado’s verdict. Tell him not to make it too cruel.”

  “Your Majesty, I will tell him to be kind. But Father Maldonado’s kindness can leave scars.”

  Diko came home to find Father and Mother both still awake, dressed, sitting up in the front room, as if they were waiting to go somewhere. Which turned out to be the case. “Manjam has asked to see us.”

  “At this hour?” asked Diko. “Go then.”

  “Us,” said Father, “including you.”

  They met in one of the smaller rooms at Pastwatch, but one designed for the optimum viewing of the holographic display of the TruSite II. It did not occur to Diko, however, that Manjam chose the room for anything but privacy. What would he need with the TruSite II? He was not of Pastwatch. He was a noted mathematician, but that was supposed to mean he had no use for the real world. His tool was a computer for number manipulation. And, of course, his own mind. After Hassan, Tagiri, and Diko arrived, Manjam had them wait just a moment more for Hunahpu and Kemal. Then they all sat.

  “I must begin with an apology,” said Manjam. “I realize in retrospect that my explanation of temporal effects was inept in the extreme.”

  “On the contrary,” said Tagiri, “it couldn’t have been clearer.”

  “I don’t apologize for a lack of clarity. I apologize for a lack of empathy. It isn’t one of the things mathematicians get much practice at. I actually thought that telling you that our own time would cease to be real would be a comfort to you. It would be to me, you see. But then, I don’t spend my life looking at history. I didn’t understand the great . . . compassion that fills your lives here. Tagiri, you especially. I know now what I should have said. That the end will be painless. There will be no cataclysm. There will be no sense of loss. There will be no regret. Instead, there will be a new Earth. A new future. And in this new future, because of the wise plans that Diko and Hunahpu have devised, there will be far more chance of happiness and fulfillment than in our own time. There will still be unhappiness, but it will not be so pervasive. That’s what I should have said. That you will indeed succeed in erasing much misery, while you will create no new sources of misery.”

  “Yes,” said Tagiri, “you should have said that.”

  “I’m not used to speaking in terms of misery and happiness. There is no mathematics of misery, you see. It doesn’t come up in my professional life. And yet I do care about it,” Manjam sighed. “More than you know.”

  Something that he said struck a wrong note in Diko’s mind. She blurted out the question as soon as she realized what it was. “Hunahpu and I have not finalized any plans.”

  “Haven’t you?” said Manjam. He reached out his hands to the TruSite II, and to Diko’s astonishment he manipulated the controls like an expert. In fact, he almost immediately called up a control screen that Diko had never seen before, and entered a double password. Moments later the holographic display came alive.

  In the display, to Diko’s ast
onishment, she saw herself and Hunahpu.

  “It isn’t enough to stop Cristforo,” Diko was saying in the display. “We have to help him and his crew on Hispaniola to develop a new culture in combination with the Taino. A new Christianity that adapts to the Indies the way that it adapted to the Greeks in the second century. But that also isn’t enough.”

  “I hoped you would see it that way,” said Hunahpu in the display. “Because I intend to go to Mexico.”

  “What do you mean, Mexico?”

  “That wasn’t your plan?”

  “I was going to say that we need to develop technology rapidly, to the point where the new hybrid culture can be a match for Europe.”

  “Yes, that’s what I thought you were going to say. But of course that can’t be done on the island of Haiti. Oh, the Spaniards will try, but the Tainos are simply not ready to receive that level of technology. It will remain Spanish, and that means a permanent class division between the white keepers of the machines and the brown laboring class. Not healthy.”

  Manjam paused the display. The images of Diko and Hunahpu froze.

  Diko looked around at the others and saw that the fear and anger in their eyes was a match for what she felt.

  “Those machines,” said Hassan, “they aren’t supposed to be able to see anything more recent than a hundred years ago.”

  “Normally they can’t,” said Manjam.

  “Why does a mathematician know how to use the TruSite?” asked Hunahpu. “Pastwatch already duplicated all the lost private notes of the great mathematicians of history.”

  “This is an unspeakable violation of privacy,” said Kemal icily.

  Diko agreed, but she had already leaped to the most important question. “Who are you really, Manjam?”

  “Oh, I’m really Manjam,” he said. “But no, don’t protest, I understand your real question.” He regarded them all calmly for a moment. “We don’t talk about what we do, because people would misunderstand. They would think we are some kind of secret cabal that rules the world behind closed doors, and nothing could be farther from the truth.”