Chapter Eleven

 

 

Alone in his old quarters, the tiny green-walled room, Noren thought it through. He knew that he would receive no help from Stefred, much less any pressure; his decision was to be entirely free. It would be freer than it could ever have been while he hated the Scholars. Of all the strange things that had happened to him in the City, to have been granted this freedom was the strangest.

He had no idea what depended on whether or not he recanted, although reason told him that something must, some aspect of his personal future. “You’re not permitted to know yet, Noren,” Stefred had said. “As I told you, there’ll be difficulties either way, but I can’t explain them in advance.”

“Why not?”

“You tell me why not,” Stefred had replied, smiling.

“I’d say it’d be—well, the wrong basis for a decision.”

“Anyone who’s come this far has a better basis,” Stefred had agreed. “You don’t need any advice from me; your own mind is more than adequate to determine your course.”

“If you believe that, Stefred,” Noren had challenged, “then why do you make heresy a crime?”

“We don’t. Heresy isn’t forbidden by the High Law; the villagers ban it themselves.” He’d hesitated. “The reason they do is complicated, and I can discuss only a little of it now. Later you’ll learn more.”

Stefred had gone on then to tell what had happened after the First Scholar died. The Book of the Prophecy, and with it the High Law, had been given to the villagers the next year. That had been possible because in accordance with the First Scholar’s instructions, all those who’d originally come from the Six Worlds had been admitted to the City as Technicians. It had been announced that only the “dictator’s” insanity had kept them out in the first place—which was the last lie ever told by the Scholars. In the role of High Priests they had practiced no form of deceit.

The first-generation villagers had been warned that once inside the City they could never leave, but all the same they’d been happy, for they had missed the kind of life they’d been born to. The native-born, on the other hand, hadn’t wanted to live in the City. They’d always been skeptical of their parents’ claim to have been reared in such a place, and they’d known that with the elders gone, they would be the undisputed village leaders. So they’d been quite content with the distant promises of the Prophecy, which they had believed without question. There’d been nobody left who could refute anything it said—nobody who could distinguish symbols from science—and after all, it had been the first book they’d ever seen; they had learned to read and write by means of slates. Most had thought reading and writing a silly waste of time. Still, the Book of the Prophecy proved that the elders’ insistence on school had not been entirely foolish, for if the Scholars themselves said the future would be unlike the past, was it not well to look ahead to that future? The Scholars that appeared as High Priests did not act like the “dictator” who’d been thought mad, and besides, the people knew that they were dependent on those Scholars’ good will. They weren’t anxious to jeopardize village welfare by letting anybody disobey the High Law, which set forth the same rules they’d been taught as children in any case. As time went on, however, they made rules of their own and became more and more intolerant.

“I don’t quite see why,” Noren had confessed.

“You’ll have to study a good deal before you do. Essentially it was because village society reverted to a more primitive level not only as far as technology was concerned, but also in other ways. Attitudes that had been outgrown by the time the people of the Six Worlds built their starships came back, just as tallow lamps did.”

“Couldn’t you Scholars have prevented that?”

“No, no more than we could have prevented technological skills from being lost. Societies, like people, cannot be controlled without destroying their ability to grow and develop. All we can do is maintain an island of light amid the dark.” With a sigh, Stefred had added, “Those of us on the island are not just basking in that light, you know. We’re working against time to bring about the Prophecy’s fulfillment.”

Thinking about it, Noren knew that it was that—the research work—about which he really had to decide.

The Prophecy was true. He would gladly admit that publicly, though his reasons for doing so would be misconstrued by everyone but the Scholars themselves. He would affirm the Prophecy with pride; he knew that the First Scholar had created it in those painful last hours because only such a promise could ensure that the Dark Age would be temporary.

The High Law was also valid, and it too was necessary. It contained no provisions that were not essential either to the survival of humankind or to prevention of harm that might be caused by people’s wrong interpretations. Stefred had given him a copy to review and, reading it in the light of his new knowledge, he’d seen that. The decree that convicted heretics must be turned over to the Scholars, he realized, had been placed there not to ensure their punishment, but to provide them with an avenue to the truth! The rules about Machines were all concerned with keeping people from damaging those Machines, or from going to the opposite extreme and worshipping them. There was nothing in the High Law that he was not willing to obey.

But recantation meant more than affirming the Prophecy and the High Law. It also involved affirmation of the system under which Scholars had privileges unavailable to others. It meant agreeing that they must remain supreme until the Prophecy’s promises had been fulfilled—giving up all thought of changing the world immediately, letting people think he approved of things as they were . . . was that right?

It was not right! Yet the First Scholar had known better than anyone else that it was not; he’d established the system not because it was right, but because it was the lesser of two evils. And he had died at the hands of men whom he’d allowed to misunderstand him.

For the Prophecy was true only as long as the system was upheld. The ancient knowledge shall be free to all people—that couldn’t happen unless the Six Worlds’ knowledge was preserved. The Scholars were working to extend that knowledge so that humans could survive on this world as they had on the old ones. They were striving desperately to create the kinds of metal needed to make the Machines that were essential to the support of life. They must finish the work; the world couldn’t begin to change until they did.

To try to make it perfect overnight wouldn’t make it perfect, it would only cause all that had been salvaged from the burning of the Six Worlds to be lost. Humankind would perish just as surely as if the First Scholar’s plan had failed. Even revelation of the secret would be fatal, not for the same reasons as in his time, but because people were now as dependent on their belief in the Prophecy as they’d once been on the Six Worlds’ culture. Through its fulfillment alone could the world be successfully transformed.

Between the dreams and what Stefred had told him, Noren knew something about why the research work was taking so long. It was harder than anything that had been achieved on the Six Worlds. There, they’d had plenty of metal; they had found it in the ground. Even people like the villagers had found it, and had used it to make tools and Machines of their own—slowly, generation by generation, they had improved them, before either Technicians or Scholars had ever existed, and by doing so they had learned more and more, until finally they were Technicians and Scholars. His theory about savages becoming smarter and discovering knowledge for themselves had been quite true on the mother world. That was the way human beings were meant to progress, and that was how all the knowledge in the computers had been accumulated.

But normal progress couldn’t occur where there could be no technological innovation. On the mother world, tribes of people who never learned to get metal from the ground never improved their ways of doing things; once they’d gone as far as they could with stone, they stopped changing. And because this world’s ground had no metal at all that was suitable for making tools, the villagers’ situation was very similar. They could not develop better ways to use their limited resources, since their ancestors had already known the most efficient methods there were for everything from the fashioning of household implements to the building of bridges. Only within the City did the conditions for new discoveries exist.

And the discovery that must be made was extremely difficult even for the Scholars—they must learn how to create metallic elements through nuclear fusion. Noren hadn’t really grasped what nuclear fusion was, but he could see that although it involved combining several substances to get a different one, it was not just a matter of stirring those substances together. The Six Worlds’ scientists had known how to achieve nuclear fusion to get Power. Nuclear fusion to get metal had been beyond anyone’s hopes. Here, however, it was the only hope there was.

No one knew when that hope would be realized. Conceivably it could be soon, and in that case new Cities would be built immediately; the Prophecy did not say that there would be no changes before the Star appeared! In the meantime, the Scholars must retain their stewardship if hope was to continue.

You would have died in spite of us, Stefred had told him, if you had not been brave enough to live. The words had been puzzling, but all at once Noren understood them. A person who’d seen the world through the First Scholar’s eyes had to be brave, for no one who wasn’t could face the hard truth about the world. But there was more to it. Only a brave person could face the awareness that his own honest attempt to fight injustice, if successful, would have accomplished the opposite of what had been aiming for.

Noren faced it. He admitted to himself that overthrowing the Scholars would not have helped the villagers, but would instead have prevented Machines and knowledge from ever becoming available to them. To capitulate and recant would not be a defeat, he realized with surprise. His goals had not changed; his beliefs had not changed. What he’d wanted all along was for the world to be as the Prophecy said it would become. He would merely be conceding that it could not be that way before the time was ripe.

That evening he told the man who brought him food that he wanted to see Stefred. The Chief Inquisitor had been quite correct, he reflected ruefully, in predicting that in the end his innate honesty would leave him no choice.

*  *  *

It was dusk; the City towers were shafts of silver thrust skyward between the orange moons. Noren sat by the window in Stefred’s study and watched the stars come out. “Will people ever travel between the stars again?” he asked wistfully. “Will there be more worlds to settle someday?”

“Someday,” Stefred said, “if we don’t fail on this one. It’s the only permanent answer to our lack of resources here. The starships’ design is stored in our computers, and in fact there are still stripped hulls in orbit; but there is much else we must accomplish first. It can’t happen in our lifetime.”

“Neither can the things I wanted people to fight for.”

“No. There are some things fighting can’t achieve.”

“Is it always wrong to fight, then?”

“Not always. That can be necessary, too. If you study the history of the Six Worlds, you’ll find that there are no clear-cut answers.”

“There’s a time to fight, I guess . . . and a time to surrender. I—I’ve come to surrender, sir.” Noren sighed, glad that he had finally gotten the words out.

For quite a while Stefred was silent. Then, in a troubled voice, he asked, “Have you ever witnessed a public recantation, Noren?”

“Yes.” Noren’s heart chilled at the recollection.

“For some people it’s worse than for others,” the Scholar said, “and I can spare you nothing.”

“I—I don’t suppose you can.”

“I must be sure you understand,” Stefred persisted. “If you recant, I shall preside at the ceremony. You may think that because we know each other, trust each other, it will be less difficult for you; but it won’t. It will be more so. You have never knelt to me, and I’ve never asked it; in fact I’d have thought less of you if you had. Can you do it before a crowd of villagers who’ll think I’ve broken your spirit?”

“It’s a form, a symbol, as the words of the Prophecy are symbols,” Noren said. “It doesn’t mean I’m your inferior. It means only that what you represent is worth honoring.”

“Yes, you know that now. But the people in the crowd will not.”

Noren swallowed. “It’s necessary.”

“Why, Noren?” demanded Stefred suddenly. “You know I won’t force this on you. You must also know that you won’t be punished for not doing it. Why take on such an ordeal? You came here seeking the truth, and you found it; what more do you hope to achieve?”

“I wanted truth not just for myself, but for everyone. I can’t accept it without giving.”

“Giving what? You won’t be allowed to reveal anything of what you’ve learned; you’ll stick to a prepared script.”

“There won’t be any lies in the script, will there?”

“No. The words you say will be literally true. But they’ll be phrased in the language of the Prophecy, and the people have already heard those words.”

“They’ve also heard me deny them. They’ve heard me ask them to deny them, and every heretic who does so strikes at the thing the First Scholar died for. I was wrong, Stefred! Would you have me conceal my error to save my pride?”

“No,” answered Stefred. “I wouldn’t have you do that. But though you were wrong, you were not without justification; and when a heretic recants no justification can be claimed.”

“That doesn’t matter. Truth is truth, and it’s more important than what people think of me. Don’t you see? I stuck to my heresy because I cared about truth; now I’ve got to recant for the same reason.”

“I see very clearly,” Stefred admitted, “but I had to satisfy myself that you do. This is no mere formality. It will be harder than you realize, Noren, and there will be lasting consequences.”

“You warned me about consequences before,” said Noren, smiling. “You thought I’d beg to be let off. You underestimated me after all.”

“Don’t be too sure. Your problems aren’t over yet.” The Scholar pulled a sheaf of papers from his desk and looked through them, handing one to Noren. “This is the statement you’ll make. Read it.”

Noren did so with growing dismay. He had not remembered the specific wording of the ceremony; the tone of it was something of a shock. Phrases like “I am most grievously sorry for all my heresies,” and “I confess my guilt freely; I am deeply repentant, and acknowledge myself deserving of whatever punishment may fall to me,” stuck in his throat. He went through it again, slowly and thoughtfully, before raising his eyes.

“Is it more than you bargained for?” Stefred inquired.

“Yes,” said Noren candidly. “I thought I wouldn’t be expected to say anything I didn’t mean. Well, I was mistaken about the Prophecy and the High Law, and I’m willing to admit it; but I’m not sorry for having been a heretic. At the time I couldn’t have been anything else.”

“You agreed that there can be no self-justification.”

“There’ll be no self-abasement, either! To say my opinions were wrong is one thing, but to declare that I was morally wrong in holding them would be something else entirely.”

“We will not ask you to lie,” Stefred said slowly. “If there are things in the statement that are untrue, strike them.” He held out his stylus.

Noren took it and did a thorough editing job; then, without comment, he handed the paper back. The Scholar perused it carefully. “You’ve removed all references to penitence,” he observed.

“I’m not penitent, sir.”

“You will wear penitent’s garb, and your hair will be cropped short.”

“I’ll submit to whatever indignities are required of me, but I will not proclaim guilt I don’t feel, Stefred.”

Stefred eyed him. “What happens to an impenitent heretic, both during the ceremony and afterwards, is not quite the same as what is done with someone who repents,” he said evenly.

“I can’t help that.”

“Aren’t you being inconsistent? You tell me you must recant because heresy strikes at the cause for which the First Scholar was martyred; surely you’re aware that a display of repentance would be far more convincing than the mere admission of error—”

“I’ve been perfectly consistent right from the beginning,” Noren declared obstinately. “I said at my trial that keeping things from the villagers was wrong, and it is. I’m recanting only because I’ve learned that there’s something worse. There will always be heretics, and there should be; I won’t tell people that heresy’s a sin. To affirm the Prophecy and the High Law is as far as I’ll go.”

“So be it, Noren,” said Stefred. He rose, Noren following, and for a few minutes they stood side by side looking out at the darkening sky. “I know you’re wondering what’s going to become of you when this is over,” the Scholar continued, “but I can tell you only that though the difficulties will be greater than you imagine, I think you’ll prove equal to them. I must say no more until after the ceremony three days from now.” As an afterthought he added, “You will not understand the whole ceremony at first; remember that I’m on your side, and that I’ll have reasons for what I do.”

“Three days?” faltered Noren. “I—I’d rather get it over with tomorrow.”

“No doubt you would, but a little time for reflection will be good for you. You’ve shifted your whole outlook at a very rapid pace; this is a major step, and you mustn’t rush into it.”

Noren shuddered. Stefred was right, he knew; yet he was inwardly afraid that if he didn’t rush into it, he would never have the courage to carry it through.

*  *  *

The next days were the longest Noren had ever spent. He was left entirely alone; the Technicians who brought his meals did not speak to him. At least he was now trusted to see Technicians, he realized. It was no longer feared that he’d tell them any secrets. What, he wondered, would happen if he ever encountered the one who’d befriended him? It would be hard to remain silent, but he knew that he would do so, although the man would be bound to draw the wrong conclusions.

Noren dared not speculate about the future in store for him, the mysterious fate about which he’d as yet been given no information. It would not be easy to face; Stefred had often warned him of that, and so far everything Stefred had said had proved to be true. He could not be forgiven and released. It had been clearly stated that the secret could not go outside the City walls. The Scholars themselves never went out, and if they didn’t, they certainly wouldn’t let him do it. To be sure, he’d been told that he would be allowed to go on learning; that was some consolation. It was also consoling to know that Stefred thought him equal to whatever was going to happen.

What was going to happen during the ceremony was inescapably grim, and he had apparently made it grimmer by refusing to declare himself penitent. He could understand that. Though the Scholars themselves tolerated heresy, they could not do so publicly, and it was Stefred’s duty to persuade heretics to repent. An example must be made of those who would not. Yet Noren still wasn’t sorry; only if he had yielded before learning the truth would he have felt guilty. The fact that the system was the lesser of two evils might excuse the Scholars for establishing it, but that couldn’t excuse a person who didn’t know the facts for accepting such a system!

On the third morning two Technicians came to him. “The Scholar Stefred sends you a message,” one of them said formally. “First, you are offered a final opportunity to withdraw.”

“No,” said Noren steadily, inwardly angry. Did they want him to recant or didn’t they?

“Very well,” the Technician replied. “In that case, you are reminded that you must obey us implicitly, remembering that you have chosen to submit of your own accord.”

Noren nodded, his indignation growing. There had been no need for such a reminder.

“Finally,” concluded the Technician, “you are informed that there will be a departure from the script. After you read your statement, the Scholar will question you; he asks that you be told that he is relying on you to reply with absolute honesty.”

Stefred ought to know by now, Noren thought, that he would scarcely do anything else! But why the change in plans? It had been emphasized that the ceremony would be formal and that no departures from the script would be permitted. Still, he’d sensed from Stefred’s manner that he must expect further surprises; there was no guessing their nature.

The Technicians ordered him to change into the clothes they provided, the gray, unadorned penitent’s garb that to the spectators would be a badge of shame. He did so grimly, then sat in stoic silence while they cropped his hair. But when they proceeded to bind his wrists behind him, using not ropes but strong inflexible bands, Noren protested vehemently.

“It’s unnecessary,” he raged. “You know I’m not planning to run away from you.”

“We know, but all the same it must be done. It’s a matter of form.”

It was a matter of appearances, Noren realized miserably. The impression would be given that he was a criminal who had been browbeaten into submission; his voluntary choice of this course, his pride in honesty that overrode the sort of pride that could admit no error, would not be permitted to show. Abruptly he grasped the full import of Stefred’s remark that he could be spared nothing. To the crowd, there would be no difference between his recantation and that of the man whom he himself had held in such contempt! And perhaps there was no difference. Perhaps that man, too, had experienced the dreams before capitulating; Stefred had never said that his case was unusual.

They walked through passageways Noren had not seen before, descended in the cubicle that he’d learned was called a lift, and crossed a small vestibule, finally emerging into the courtyard that surrounded the closely-placed towers. Looking back, he recognized the entrance of the Hall of Scholars from the last dream; he had been inside it all the time, he thought in wonder. He had been in the same tower in which the First Scholar had lived and died. In there were the computers, the awesome repository of the Six Worlds’ knowledge, which he longed fervently to glimpse; would he ever be allowed to enter it again?

When they reached the dome through which one must pass to leave the City, Noren’s guards did not accompany him into the broad, high-ceilinged corridor that stretched ahead; different Technicians took over, enclosing him within the formal rank of an escort of six. The eyes of the passers-by were all upon him. Noren straightened his shoulders and raised his head, trying not to notice. This was nothing, he knew, to what he must face outside the Gates, where he would be viewed with derision and scorn.

The Gates appeared before him all too quickly, and to his surprise he recognized their inner surface; the First Scholar had gone through those doors to his death. The memory was so vivid that he found himself shivering. A Technician pushed a button set into the corridor’s wall and the huge panels began to slide back. At the same time another spoke, raising his voice to be heard above the rumble. “One more reminder: in public, the Scholar Stefred is to be addressed as ‘Reverend Sir.’”

Noren pressed his lips tightly together, holding back the ire that rose in him. His own words echoed in his mind: It is a form, a symbol, as the words of the Prophecy are symbols. . . .

He stepped forward into brilliant sunlight reflected from white pavement. Immediately a shout arose from the crowd, a hostile, contemptuous shout. And Noren froze, stricken by a terror he had never anticipated. It was like the dream! He was to stand in the very spot where the First Scholar had been struck down; he was being led directly and purposely to it. The sun, the noise, the enmity of the people: they were all the same—but this time there was no possibility of waking up.

The Technicians, after proceeding all the way to the platform’s edge, moved back slightly, exposing Noren to full view. There was no barrier anymore. Before him was the wide expanse of steps, the steps up which the First Scholar’s assailants had come, where he himself had been immobilized at the time of his recapture. Men and women were swarming to the top. Blasphemer, they had called him then, and their mood had been one of shock; now they used more vulgar epithets. Their mood was not shocked, but ugly, as on the night in the village. The crowd was far larger, however, and the hecklers were bolder, knowing him to be helpless because of his manacled wrists and the vigilance of the Technicians. Noren struggled to master his panic, realizing that, ironically, the Technicians were there not to guard but to protect him. Whatever else happened, they would not allow him to be murdered.

As he looked around, he saw to his dismay that there were no Scholars anywhere. The people would not act like this in the presence of Scholars; why had Stefred sent him out alone before he himself was ready to appear? And why, when he was doing what they had wanted him to do all along, should he be deliberately terrorized by being forced to re-enact the dream? The likenesses were too precise to be accidental.

When the first clod of mud struck him, Noren was so stunned that he nearly lost command of himself; but he quickly regained his poise and stood erect, taking it impassively. That was the only way to take it, he saw. He must not flinch from anything to which he was subjected. The sun dazzled him and the heat of it shimmered from the glaring pavement, so that the steps, the crowd, and the markets beyond the plaza all blurred into a hazy mist. He focused his eyes on nothing and tried not to think. He’d been aware that he would be despised, reviled; but having watched only the latter part of the other recantation, he had not foreseen that he would be the target of such abuse as this. The significance of the prisoner’s filthy garments had escaped him despite the traders’ then-cryptic remarks. Yet looking back, he could see that exposure to the crowd prior to the Scholars’ entrance must be a traditional part of the ordeal.

Why? The Scholars, he knew, did not believe that he or anyone else deserved punishment of this kind, and they could easily prevent it. Why didn’t they, if they disapproved of the villagers’ attitude as Stefred had claimed? Noren cringed inwardly as more and more mud was flung at him, but he let his bearing show no sign. He was meant to understand, he felt, and concentration on the effort to do so was the only defense open to him.

The Scholars could not prevent people from hating, he realized. They could only provide occasion for the hatred to be vented in relatively harmless ways. In the beginning, the First Scholar had taken it upon himself, and when it had become dangerous, he’d discharged it by allowing the villagers to throw not mud, but stones and knives.

Most villagers no longer hated Scholars. Now they hated heretics; they hated anyone who was not like themselves, either for daring to be different or simply for being so. What would happen if they were given no outlet for their hate, if those turned over to the Scholars suffered no public humiliation? Fewer heretics would reach the City! More of them would die as Kern had died! So it had to be this way, but the role of scapegoat was not forced on anyone. Stefred had not forced him; on the contrary, in the end he’d tried to dissuade him. Like the First Scholar, he stood in this spot only because he had given free consent.

As that thought came to him, Noren glimpsed a little of Stefred’s design. The similarity to the dream was not intimidation; instead, it was meant to bolster his self-esteem. The villagers hated him, misunderstood him—but they’d hated and misunderstood the First Scholar, too, and he was facing them for the First Scholar’s own reasons. The people who’d once been on his side now despised him most of all, for they thought recantation a coward’s act, a sellout; and though he knew better, it was hard not to feel that the surrender he’d fought so long would diminish him. The carefully arranged comparison was a reminder that it would not. Moreover, it was Stefred’s subtle means of bestowing on him a status that the Scholars could not openly confer. To them, it must seem honorable to walk in those footsteps; the assumption that he too would find it so was a tacit endorsement of his inner equality.

With sudden insight Noren perceived that all he had ever believed, all he had ever done, had led inexorably to this moment. This, not the inquisition, was the true trial of his convictions. It was easy to uphold them when to do so meant merely to defy authority. To do so in secret, when not even his fellow-rebels would give him credit for it, was the only real proof that they meant more to him than anything else—and that he could trust himself to follow his own way.

He waited in silence, and the people went on pelting him with mud until his bare arms were splattered with it and the penitent’s garb was no longer gray, but brown. He did not move; he did not bend his head; and somewhere inside he began to know that he was not really suffering any indignity. Dignity came from within; it could not be affected by a barrage of insults and filth.

And then, with cold shock, he glanced down at the steps and saw Talyra.

She had climbed more than halfway up them, heedless of the jeering mob, and she stood staring at him, her shawl pulled tight around her shoulders. In her face was more pain than he had ever seen in anyone’s. His first thought was that he could endure no more of what to her would seem degradation, nor could he bear to have her think he’d betrayed the beliefs for which he had been willing to sacrifice their love. But at the sight of her grief he realized that he did not care about anything except the fact that she too was suffering. That she would witness the ceremony had not entered his mind; it hadn’t occurred to him that she would ever know.

How could he have been so stupid? He’d known she was near the City, for she had told him she was going to the training center; and recantations were announced in advance. Talyra would have been heartbroken by his recapture, but relieved by the news that he was still alive. Yet her feelings must be mixed, for he’d convinced her that he would never recant of his own free will. Since she could not suspect the truth, there was only one thing she could possibly think: that he’d been tortured and had given in. There was no way he could tell her otherwise. She would think it for as long as she lived, and living with such a thought would be harder than resignation to his death.

Their eyes met. Talyra’s face was wet with tears, and the anguish Noren felt surpassed anything he had previously undergone. She had come just to see him once more; she couldn’t have stayed away; yet what was happening would hurt her far more than it was hurting him. He would break down, he thought in terror; he would lose all self-possession and run to her. . . .

Just then, however, there was a loud surge of the City’s overpowering music, and Scholars emerged from the Gates, taking their places on the low dais at the opposite side of the platform. At the last came Stefred, who, unlike the others, wore not solid blue but the presiding Scholar’s ceremonial vestments with white-trimmed sleeves. He crossed to the central position and raised his hand. The people, instantly hushed, fell to their knees. The Technicians closed again around Noren, escorting him away from the mud-stained steps to the clean stone base of the dais.

He knew what was required of him. Keeping his back very straight he approached Stefred and, in a gesture more of courtesy than of obeisance, he knelt.

*  *  *

The ritual words, the formal words of invocation, were said; Noren scarcely heard them. Then Stefred looked down and his eyes were cold, a stranger’s eyes. “You come before us as a self-confessed heretic,” he announced. “Are you ready to admit the error of your beliefs?”

“Yes, Reverend Sir.” Noren spoke out clearly; if he was going to do it, he was not going to be backward about it.

The script was placed in front of him by a Technician. It was, he noted with indignation, the unedited version; all of the self-abasing statements he’d crossed out were still there. Stefred’s face remained absolutely impassive. Noren began to read, his voice sounding hollow and distant in his own ears. It made no difference whether those statements had been struck or not; he remembered the phrasing well and omitted them as he spoke, though the words swam dizzily before him.

“I confess my heresies to be false, misconceived and wholly pernicious; I hereby renounce them all. . . . I no longer hold any beliefs contrary to the Book of the Prophecy, which I acknowledge to be true in its entirety and worthy of deepest reverence. . . . I have blasphemed against the Mother Star, which is our source and destiny; I abjure all fallacies that I have uttered and freely affirm my conviction that this Star will appear in the heavens at the time appointed. . . . I retract all criticisms I may ever have made of the High Law; I admit the error of my opinions and declare myself submissive”—he altered the phrase most humbly submissive—” to all of its requirements, affirming it to be necessary to the Prophecy’s fulfillment. . . .”

It went on and on; Noren’s voice broke several times, and he began to wonder if he would ever get through it. But all the words were true words; not once did he let an expression of penitence slip out. He felt suddenly triumphant. If they’d thought they could trap him, they’d been mistaken!

There was a long silence after he finished; then finally Stefred spoke. “You have made no proclamation of repentance,” be said levelly. “Do you feel no remorse for these many heresies?”

“None, Reverend Sir,” replied Noren with equal coolness.

A murmur arose from the crowd; such shameless lack of contrition would surely call down dire retribution indeed. It was a pity, most felt, that the Scholars never imposed their mysterious forms of chastisement in public.

“Do you not agree that you deserve to be severely punished for having held such beliefs?” Stefred demanded.

“No, Reverend Sir, I don’t.”

“But you know that you must take the consequences in any case, do you not? If you were to show sorrow for the things you have confessed and plead our mercy, it might make some difference in your fate.”

“I will not do that,” Noren declared, forgetting the honorific in his anger. One of the Technicians clamped a firm hand on his head, pushing it slightly forward. Fury consumed him; just in time he recovered his wits and repeated with no audible irony, “I will not do that, Reverend Sir.” For the first time it occurred to him that Stefred, who had known perfectly well that he wouldn’t do it, was checking his self-control in preparation for some more formidable challenge.

“Why are you so obdurate,” the Scholar persisted, “when we offer you the chance to redeem yourself in the sight of the people?”

“Because, Reverend Sir, I have done only what I had to do. I was mistaken, but I thought my beliefs were true.”

“You were not asked to think, but only to accept what you were told. Was it not wrong of you to set your own judgment above that of your betters?”

“It was not, Reverend Sir. What but his own judgment is to tell a man who his betters are?”

That was too much for the spectators; there were shouts of disapproval and several loud suggestions of advice as to suitable punishment. Stefred raised his hand, silencing them. “At your trial,” he went on, “your accusers testified that you had claimed that even Scholars were no better men than yourself; and you did not deny it. In your recantation you have made no mention of this. Why?”

Noren frowned, perplexed. He had not been asked to mention it, and he could not imagine why it would be brought up without warning. Surely Stefred knew that he could not retract that particular opinion! If to answer truthfully would do any harm, that was too bad; there was no help for it. “Scholars know more than I do, Reverend Sir,” he said without faltering, “and some of them may indeed be better; but they are not so by virtue of their rank. All men have equal right to earn the respect of others.”

The crowd, scandalized, waited with hushed horror to see what the Scholar would do. Stefred addressed them, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “Behold the man who thinks himself as wise as a Scholar!” he exclaimed. “No doubt he fancies that he would manage more successfully than we do; it would be amusing to see how he’d proceed.”

There was no sound; the people were confused, for this reaction was not at all what they’d expected. Relentlessly Stefred pressed on. “Perhaps we should be kneeling to him instead of the other way around,” he said; and, mockingly, he laughed. They laughed with him: at first tentatively, unsure as to whether it was proper, and then in an uproarious release of tension that turned their outrage to mirth.

Noren’s face burned crimson. The ridicule was even harder to bear than the hate. Why was Stefred doing this? It could not be mere cruelty; there was no cruelty in Stefred, and this derisive tone was totally unlike him. Always before he had treated Noren with respect. I’m on your side, he’d said; I’ll have reasons for what I do. And, in the message given by the Technician, I am relying on you to reply with absolute honesty. . . .

“Observe,” Stefred continued, raising his hand once more, “that it is the other way around. This man’s words are arrogant, yet despite his superior wisdom he kneels to me and acknowledges the truth of what he has been taught. I could humble his arrogance if I chose, but I do not so choose. He will receive discipline enough as it is.”

All at once Noren understood what was taking place. Stefred was humiliating him, yes; impenitence could not be allowed to pass unnoticed. But in raising the question of the Scholars’ alleged superhumanity, he was also doing other things, and he was doing them very cleverly. That idea was not part of either the Prophecy or the High Law—the Scholars themselves had never encouraged it, and to deny it was blasphemous only in the eyes of the villagers. To them such a denial merited not derision, but wrath. They would not have been surprised if Stefred had immediately pronounced an unprecedented death sentence. By forcing him to take the apparent risk, Stefred was demonstrating his own tolerance for the sort of “heresy” that should not be so labeled. Furthermore, he was vindicating him before the few who had ears to hear: those to whom such replies indicated not blasphemy, but human dignity and courage. Proof was being produced that the recantation had not been made from cowardice, and thus, perhaps, the seeds of faith would be planted in those who’d doubted its sincerity.

He met Stefred’s eyes, and for the first time the Scholar responded; there was no overt smile, but Noren knew that whatever further ordeals might lie ahead, as far as Stefred was concerned he had done no wrong.

The ceremony resumed. This, the sentencing, was in the standard script, Noren realized; but it was a portion he had not seen. “We pronounce you an impenitent heretic,” Stefred declared with austere formality, “and as such you are liable to the most extreme penalty we can decree. Yet since we bear you no malice, we hereby commute your sentence to perpetual confinement within the City, subject to such disciplines as we shall impose. Look your last on the hills and fields of this world, for you will never again walk among them.”

Noren gazed out past the plaza and the markets to the countryside beyond. He had known beforehand, of course, but he had not really taken it in. The purple knolls; the scent of ripening grain; nights when Little Moon shone like a red glass bead overhead while he and Talyra lay side by side looking up at it . . . farmhouse kitchens, lamp-lit, with bread baking on the hearth . . . the fresh touch of free air . . . his whole being ached at the thought that he was forever barred from those things. Perhaps he would never see sunlight again! A few rooms in the towers, like Stefred’s study, had windows; but there was no reason to suppose that he would receive such accommodations, or that he would be permitted access to the courtyard that was open to the sky. The domes of the Outer City were roofed over. Perhaps he would never see the stars. . . .

A sharp cry broke in on his desolation. “No, oh no!” a girl’s voice screamed. He turned; it was Talyra, who knelt at the topmost level of the steps, and she was sobbing violently, her face hidden by her hands. He could not comfort her. He could never touch her, never even see her from this day forward; and though he had known that, too, it suddenly became the greatest deprivation of all.

The music blared out again, drowning her sobs; Technicians surrounded him, and she was hidden from his sight. Stefred left the platform, followed by the other Scholars. But Noren remained kneeling, his own head bowed for the first time, and he did not even notice the jeers of the dispersing crowd. The sun shone hot on his shoulders, and overhead the sky was vast and blue. He made no move until his guards helped him to his feet and led him back into the City, closing the heavy Gates irrevocably behind.