Cave of Stars (Macrolife Book 2)

by George Zebrowski

  “His grace is still possible for them,” Paul replied. “He can give that.”

  “Endless life…a testing without resolution? Torment without reward?”

  “They will not escape the last judgment, when the universe dies.”

  Bely sensed both irony and admiration in Paul’s voice.

  “A traveling hell has come to us,” Bely said. “Don’t mistake it for a heaven. We carry too much darkness within ourselves for a corporeal paradise to be possible for our kind.”

  “They have laws and concerns for tradition,” Paul said. “We should not judge too quickly. They may be of some help to us.”

  “I feel their Godless contempt already!”

  “Calm yourself, Holiness.”

  Endless life. Bely swam in the thought, and felt hatred. The arrogance of the idea! It fed him fears.

  “How do they live?” he demanded. “How do they hang between the stars?”

  “All worlds do,” Paul said softly.

  “Are there others like this…this mobile?”

  “Yes,” Paul said.

  They were out there in the dark, Bely thought, waiting to tempt him and his people, to cut him off from the life to come by confining him forever in the testing vessel of nature. The possibility twisted itself in his brain, and he realized that if he were unworthy to enter God’s realm, then these devil worlds could provide the means to escape the Lord’s punishment. If, as some claimed, God’s creation was eternal, then one who lived forever would never know whether he was damned or saved. Acceptance of endless life might be enough to condemn him in the Lord’s eyes. At the very least, endless life would mean endless doubt about one’s salvation. And yet, Bely told himself, here was the way to prevent his end and secure the years he needed to complete his work.

  Paul was looking at him questioningly, as if he could see his thoughts.

  “They have come to test us,” Bely said, “to try our faith. We must be both grateful and wary—grateful that the Lord has sent them, but wary of failing the trial he has put before us.” He hated the tempter coiled within himself as he faced the possibility that his faith might not be able to resist the gifts of the intruders.

  Gifts? Bely suddenly feared that there would be no gifts, and felt ashamed of his fear.

  Paul was smiling at him. “They offer us a travesty of Pascal’s Wager—the certainty of life for as long as we wish it against the risk of there being no afterlife.”

  “I do not doubt that we shall drown and be reborn,” Bely said, imagining the black minutes at life’s end, when faith might lead into nothing at all, and facing the final agony of knowing that one might have avoided it.

  His minister was silent.

  “I hate the starry outside,” Bely continued, “where the suns are purely material engines, spewing energy…How many mobile worlds do you think these Godless starfolk have built?”

  “Hundreds, perhaps thousands,” Paul said, “may have been built since the death of Earth. As I described to you earlier, their numbers depend on their social pressures to reproduce.”

  “So they are sowing the heavens,” Bely said derisively. “Now—when will this Rhazes return?”

  “In about a week,” Paul said. “What shall we be prepared to say to his requests?”

  Bely nodded. “I will consider the matter until he arrives,” he said, then sat still in the high-backed carved wooden chair and closed his eyes. “I would like you to go to his habitat, this mobile vessel, or whatever it is, and observe, if they will have you.” He opened his eyes and saw what might have been a look of contempt on his minister’s face. “Well, Paul—what ignorance have I betrayed? Speak plainly, my old friend.”

  “You cannot be faulted in this, Holiness. It is simply a matter of a little mathematics. This visitor is a world, in the full sense of the word. Given its size, and levels within levels inside the structure, its total land area probably equals or exceeds ours. It’s a matter of calculating square kilometers on the inner surfaces within a given volume. Think of an onion…”

  “I understand, I understand. Now what about a visit by you?”

  “I think that can be arranged.”

  Bely forced himself to lean forward over the table between them. “The idea of going makes you happy, doesn’t it?”

  But he saw that Paul betrayed no feeling. He was too practiced a minister to do so.

  Bely said, “I want you to assess the truthfulness of their boasts.”

  “You consider them boasts?” Paul asked. “If they can bring a world across interstellar space—“

  “I want to know about their claims of power over life and death.”

  “I think we can accept them as fact,” Paul said softly.

  Cold tightened around Bely’s heart, and he was certain that the end had come; but the pain passed, leaving only one thought in his mind. Will they share what they have? And he trembled with hope, hating his weakness, fearing that help would arrive only moments too late to save his life.

  14

  “His Holiness asks to see you alone,” Paul Anselle said at the door to the smaller papal audience chamber. Voss Rhazes noted that the minister’s face gave away nothing.

  “You will not be present?” Voss asked.

  “No,” the minister said softly as he opened the door for him and waited.

  Voss entered the small chamber, and the door was closed behind him.

  “Please sit down,” said a gaunt man from the dais, gesturing with a bony finger to one of the high-backed, carved chairs in the center of the floor.

  Voss sat down, noting the man’s unhealthy appearance. The eyes were sunken in a mask of wrinkles. His hair was white and wiry, combed back in a wavy mass. Even the most extensive rejuvenation regimen would be slow to help this body remember, Voss thought as he looked into the ruin of a face and sensed the rigid mind behind the eyes.

  Peter III, the man once known as Josephus Bely, peered at him as if from a cave, and for a moment Voss was startled by this sight of a man’s deterioration and the distant horror that it evoked. He had not known such a feeling since childhood, when he had first learned that he could die. The joy he had felt upon learning the first tenet of mental health—freedom from the fear of death—had been a great relief. This tenet was based upon some very early knowledge gained back on Old Earth, namely that when the sense of future time was expanded, removing all fear of death, a great sense of peace and happiness would come upon the subject. One did not have to go that far to achieve the equanimity known in his world—to live in complete ignorance of time’s passing was not rational or practical—but the fundamental principle was the same: living with the certain knowledge of death produced lifelong anxiety and clouded the intellect. Only the strong-willed resisted, by denying death the victory of suffering in advance, living as if it did not exist, and making their contributions before dying bravely. The heroic example was the best that could be done in times past.

  “Why are you here?” the Pope’s voice rasped.

  “I explained our aims to your minister,” Voss said.

  The man nodded slowly. “Yes, yes, but is that all?” The eyes that squinted at Voss held no evidence of happiness or equanimity; they showed a mind in a maze.

  “I assure you, Holiness,” Voss said as he had been instructed to address the papal power, “that I have stated the sum of our requests.”

  “In that case,” the frail figure said after a silence, “I welcome you and hope that those of your people who wish to come among us will find happiness in our world. They will be welcome in any of our communities, and need not settle apart.”

  Voss said, “Some may wish to settle in a new area. Do you object?”

  Again the Pope was silent, then said, “We shall see, after I confer with others. Please come closer. I wish to see what kind of man you are.”

  Voss stood up and approached the dais. He stopped before the old man’s robed knees, looked up into the aged face, and felt a twinge of revulsion at the
man’s physical condition. It seemed suddenly impossible that any human intelligence would accept such decay and retain possession of itself.

  The Pontiff opened his eyes wide, then leaned forward and gazed at him. Voss picked up the foul odor of the man’s breath as he looked into the wet, unblinking eyes; and for the first time in his life he felt something like the discomfort of fear. He sensed the man’s personal authority, his determination to decide the matters of his world without outside influence, according to ancient dogmas and theological speculations. Human advisors existed, but no artificial intelligences. The judgment of instinct and ritual ruled here, applying itself according to precedent. Voss knew that he was being measured by irrational assumptions.

  Peter III leaned back tiredly and looked past him, and Voss felt that the old man had wished to ask him something, but was holding back. Finally, the bony hand raised itself again and gestured feebly, as if in disappointment.

  “We’ll speak again, young man,” the Pope said.

  The old man’s head went back and rested against the red-cushioned chair backing. He seemed weary and unable to continue. Voss retreated slowly, then turned and went to the door. It was already slightly ajar, as if someone had been listening. He pushed it open and found Paul Anselle waiting for him.

  By comparison with the sick old man inside, the minister’s tall, bulky frame, hidden in black pants and a loosely buttoned jacket, seemed healthy. His thick black hair, combed back with streaks of gray, contrasted with his pale, relatively unlined complexion. Voss could not help but think that the Pontiff’s ill-health was making him a poorer leader, and that the minister was this culture’s actual ruler. For the moment it seemed to Voss that Paul Anselle was trying to see into him, to determine whether they now shared the same pitying view of the man who had been Josephus Bely.

  “May I wander through your city?” Voss asked as they started down the hallway toward the terrace.

  “Of course. I’ll recruit a guide for you.”

  “I’d rather go on my own.”

  “You might get lost, or attract unwelcome attention.”

  “It’s impossible for me not to find my way back,” Voss said. “I will not mind any unwelcome attention.”

  “As you wish. How was your talk with His Holiness?”

  “He seemed very tired,” Voss said.

  Paul Anselle stopped and looked at him. “He’s suspicious after last year’s arrests of rebels.” He paused, then said, “I’ll be very direct with you. His Holiness imagines that you might save his life.”

  “Why didn’t he ask?”

  Paul Anselle shrugged. “It would be begging—and a denial of his faith in the afterlife. He would prefer to make it seem that he was giving you something in return—the right of your people to settle on this world in return for medical benefits. But that won’t solve the theological difficulty, which for him amounts to a deal with the devil to delay his passage into heaven.”

  “Were you part of the rebellion?” Voss asked, thinking about how a speculation having nothing to do with reality might rule a man’s life.

  “No, but I understood it. I think there’s something else that His Holiness may wish to ask of you. I suspect what it might be, but I’m not sure yet.”

  “Do you also wish to save your life?” Voss asked.

  The minister stopped as they came out on the terrace and looked at Voss. “There are circumstances under which life is not worth living. I no longer know what I want.”

  “Would you like to visit my world?” Voss asked.

  Paul Anselle’s demeanor changed. He stood up straighter and hope flashed in his eyes. “May I?”

  “Whenever you wish,” Voss said.

  “In two days?” he asked.

  “As you wish. Tell me, why did the rebels fail?”

  “A plot to kill the Pope and certain key cardinals went wrong when one of the cardinals was killed too early. The assassin was caught, and that led to the capture of his cell group. Another cell made the mistake of trying to rescue them, and we caught them also. We managed to keep all of this quiet, but it’s far from over.”

  “Was there merit to the revolt?” Voss asked.

  The minister sighed. “That depends upon which values are permitted to be used in the argument.” He turned away, clearly reluctant to say more. They continued across the terrace.

  “Our world is also undergoing a revolt,” Voss said as he kept pace.

  “Oh?” the minister asked.

  “There are now enough of us to compel the construction of a new societal container. Our constitution will differ in many ways from the parent mobile.”

  The minister stopped and said, “I don’t understand.”

  “It will be an orderly process,” Voss said, then added, “as it has been in the past.”

  “But you have people who want to leave your way of life entirely. Isn’t that why you are here?”

  “It’s a very small group, and it’s their choice,” Voss said. “We are here primarily to gather resources. It might have been that this world was uninhabited, that your colony had failed. As it is, your world is sparsely settled.”

  The minister pointed to a flight of stairs. “This is the way down to the square. Cross it and follow any of the streets. They all lead back to the square, and to your flyer.”

  Voss was sure that the minister had much more to say, many more questions to ask, and wondered whether he was restraining himself or perhaps thought that this was not the time. The man looked tired, although not as physically devastated as the Pope; but he was also holding back, as if reluctant to learn more.

  “Thank you,” Voss said.

  As Paul Anselle turned away, Voss went down the stone stairs and started across the large stone-paved square in long strides. Groups of men and women were crossing from four directions, but the figures seemed small on the great stony expanse, and he saw that he would not pass near them before he came to the buildings on the other side. The afternoon was warm on his face. It was a cooler, older star than the sun of Earth, more orange than yellow, but still well within the range that made life possible.

  He came to the far edge of the square and turned to look back at the palace. The minister was still on the terrace, looking in the direction of the flyer with what seemed to be great interest. Voss looked to the top of the tower that rose to the left of the square central structure, and saw a statue of a woman with a halo over her head. She stood on what seemed to be a globe, and her feet were crushing a serpent.

  Voss turned away and went down a narrow street. A vehicle passed him with a beep of its horn, spewing fumes from its engine. The driver stared at Voss’s clothes for a moment, then looked ahead.

  Voss came to the end of the street and emerged into a small square, also paved with stones. In front of a few buildings, tables had been set under green awnings. Two men emerged from a doorway near him, carrying long, light brown loaves of sweet-smelling bread. Voss looked around and saw other people in the square. They were disappearing into buildings or stopping to examine items laid out on tables, and he realized that he was in a marketplace.

  He passed a window with a display of locks and keys; another showed dead birds and portions of animal carcasses hanging from hooks. A butcher shop, Voss thought, and his stomach lurched; his people had given up killing animals for food long ago, and he wondered how it was possible to have ever eaten foods so poorly matched to the needs of the eaters.

  He glanced at a table of plant foods, then hurried over when he saw a table of books. Many of the covers of the old volumes were adorned with crosses or images of people with halos. Voss studied the people around him, and saw that their clothes were of spun fabrics, mostly dark jackets and trousers, long woolly coats, skirts edged with embroidery, simple tunics and rimmed hats, berets, and other headgear.

  Another vehicle came out of the street behind him. As it parked he realized that both vehicles he had seen were ad hoc designs, combined out of disparate components by an
insistently practical ingenuity, and he wondered how many vehicles had been cannibalized to make these two.

  “Want to buy it?” a voice asked.

  Voss turned to his right. A man with a gold tooth was smiling at him.

  “I see you like it,” the man went on. “Best workmanship in the neighborhood. And I’ll service it for you, for a reasonable fee,”

  “No, thank you,” Voss replied.

  “Can’t place your accent,” the man said.

  Voss pointed upward and the man understood at once. “From the Visitor? I thought your clothes looked strange.” He came up and touched Voss’s jacket. “Wears well? Looks too light for me.” The man’s breath smelled. Voss smiled and crossed to the next street.

  He glanced back when he reached the corner. The man was already telling others about him. Voss hurried down a tree-lined street, passing a horse-drawn carriage, and turned another corner.

  Here the brick houses displayed curtained windows. Voss quickened his pace toward what seemed to be a park a few blocks away.

  He felt a bit exposed and vulnerable under this sky. The air flowing through his lungs was not filtered, and his body was not fully protected from the sun’s radiation. Any damage being done was already being repaired, any disease that might be present in the air was being attacked, but still, he might be injured in an accident, even killed. A bit of ground might give way in a quake, lightning might strike him, a flood might drown him, or a tornado might hurl him into the air. People died daily on planets, by the thousands, by the minute.

  But unless he were damaged beyond repair, or found too late to be put in stasis, there was almost nothing from which he could not recover. There was no danger to him here; the Link knew exactly where he was at every moment. An effort would have to be made to kill or injure him, his connection to home broken, before he could be lost. There was nothing and no one here to do that.

  At his right, a group of boys rushed down the wrought-metal stairs out of a house and paused to gape at him. He stopped and looked back at them. They knew that he was different, intruding into their daily life with his clothes and manner. What was he? Who was he? But these questions crossed their minds quickly, and in the next moment they turned away and ran toward the park.