Heaven (14 page)

Now he was faced with the realization that “crazed” meant what it said. Such a being
would
risk its own lifesoul. It would not value its lifesoul as a rational being would.

“Then tragedy is unavoidable,” said Sam. “Prayers will be chanted afterwards for the dead younglings.”

“Is that the only action you can devise?”

“Uh, well . . . of course the unfortunate criminal would have to be confined—”

“No! It would have to be
killed
.”

Sam was genuinely shocked. “But the
Koans of the Cuckoo
tell us that it is a mortal error to kill another sentient, master.”

“That is one interpretation, Fourteen Samuel,” the querist demurred. “But the scholars have discovered another. The Cuckoo,
as a Founder, cannot be challenged. But the context for his wise words does not always apply as it did then. The leading theologians
now teach that it is ethical in such circumstances to kill the mad thing and save the innocent younglings. And to say the
prayers for the lifesoul of the
criminal
.”

Sam thought about that. “But what of the lifesoul of the being that kills the criminal?”

The querist was impressed. His student had depth, and had seen the moral difficulty. Now he must be told its resolution.

“Sam . . .”

Never before had the instructor stooped to such informality. Sam was touched.

“. . . is it not recorded that the greatest service that one sentient can render to another is self-sacrifice?”

“Most certainly, master.”

“And is it not a major sacrifice to risk the health of one’s lifesoul?”

“Yes . . .”

The Veenseffer-co-Fropt’s tufts were quivering, which meant either that he was feeling extraordinarily pleased with his own
cleverness or that he was late in readying himself mentally for the simulated onset of his homeworld’s lengthy night, which
would shortly begin in his private quarters. Sam saw where his instructor was heading. He didn’t like it, but he saw no way
around it.

“So you see that the killer, by risking the possibility that he has misinterpreted the Koans and has damaged the health of
his own lifesoul as a consequence, is making an enormous sacrifice for the benefit of the lifesouls of all those children
and their families?”

Sam nodded. It was difficult to disagree with the logic.

“So it is ethical to kill the criminal.
If all else fails
.”

There. The instructor had said it. No hedging, no hiding behind euphemisms. So now Sam could give a more subtle answer: “When
killing would ultimately result in fewer deaths than not killing.”

The one may be sacrificed for the benefit of the many. And sometimes
must
be. It was logical. It made sense. It was, no doubt, the kind of wisdom that a healer must acquire. But it wasn’t what he
had been taught to see as tolerance or love. It damaged lifesouls.

But
not
killing the criminal would damage even more!

The judgment was relative, not absolute. Simple arithmetic. Count the number of lifesouls that are damaged. Minimize it.

Sam guessed that he was starting to grow up. It had all seemed so simple when he was a child. Now he was learning to weigh
options, compute ethical balances. Even so, he mostly felt confused.
“That is when you are beginning to understand,”
he heard his childhood teacher’s voice say in his mind. He hoped it was true.

Aquifer’s ice caverns housed a monastery of equals. Certain special, selected devotees of Cosmic Unity—“monks,” to use an
archaic term—spent their days there in total seclusion, dedicating their lives to coexistence with other species. As well
as the monks, there were a few technicians and medics, some menials and orderlies to assist them, and a few security guards.
Quite a lot of security guards, actually. Sam vaguely wondered why.

It was a harsh lifestyle, as he now knew from personal experience. Above all, the caverns were
cold
. Not because they were beneath the polar ice cap—the caverns could easily have been warmed without melting the ice, merely
by applying the appropriate insulating materials. No, they were cold because most of the monks were gas-giant blimps, who
could not survive in temperatures that humans would find comfortable without life-support equipment. Higher authority was
represented by a wide variety of species, in agreement with the Quota of Love, as was only proper. Like most creatures that
lived on gas giants, the blimps adhered to universal phenotypes, and so resembled the sacred Jovians who had taken part in
the Prime Mission, the first diaspora of Cosmic Unity. In particular, they were balloonists. But also, again like most creatures
that lived on gas giants, they differed from these fabled progenitors in countless ways. The universality of the balloonist
phenotype was a consequence of convergent evolution, not identical biochemistry. Just as most sea beings of a certain weight
and size had fins and a tail, their body plan was the inevitable outcome of fluid dynamics. There were only so many ways to
swim.

Sam had no idea what planet he was on, or where it was, but he did manage to work out why the Monastery of the Nether Ice
Dome was so cold. The religious authorities had been led to a compromise, one that was equally uncomfortable for the main
species represented in the monastery. The caverns were distinctly too warm for blimps, and way too cold for several other
species present, with the notable exception of the cold-blooded Gra’aan, who were at home whatever the temperature as long
as their blood remained liquid. There were very few Gra’aan in Cosmic Unity. Their homeworlds had not yet converted, but like
many species they had some members in the Church, often immigrants or passing visitors to worlds undergoing conversion.

In the monastery, each species was permitted to wear minimal life support—not effective enough to reproduce their own comfortable
conditions, but effective enough to keep them alive. And uncomfortable. And
equal
, which was the point. Sam quickly understood that personal comfort was irrelevant. Indeed, it was good for one’s lifesoul
to suffer for the advancement of cosmic equality. That point had featured in his very first lesson as a trainee healer.

Equality itself, of course, was a compromise. Sam wore a lightweight breathing mask to compensate for the planet’s low oxygen
levels; the blimps, on the other hand, were completely enveloped in translucent sacks and carried heavy tanks of compressed
gases. The planet’s atmospheric composition was much closer to Sam’s requirements than it was to a blimp’s, so here the blimp
was less equal than Sam. On the other hand, the blimp’s envelope was more effective at cooling its wearer than Sam’s thin
cloak was at keeping him warm, so here the blimp gained an advantage.

It all evened out, and again, that was the point.

Although most of the monks were blimps, quite a few other races were represented. So far Sam had run across some miserable-looking
Thunchch, a bunch of distinctly unhealthy Hytth insectoids, a few metallomorphs hitching rides on the other monks, and one
solitary Gra’aan. The Gra’aan were social creatures, and became afraid when removed from the safety of the herd; this one
was clearly teetering on the edge of terror the whole time, and would eventually suffer a mental collapse. There were no other
humans, and only one humanoid, a female Neanderthal child.

Most unusual. Neanderthals were without faith; they hardly ever joined the Church. But this very rarity made them valuable.
He would cherish her lifesoul like any other, but he couldn’t help feeling she was special. He guessed her age to be about
seven. Her face was downcast, and she seemed to take little notice of her surroundings. He had never seen her smile.

The monks all had one thing in common: Their lifesouls were very, very sick. You didn’t need to be a healer to see that. It
was why they had been brought here, why they had been made monks. Their lifesouls required attention . . . correction. Healing.

He wanted to speak with them and comfort them, but of course he was not yet ready for such sensitive contact. Conversation
was permitted only when duties demanded it. In his case, that meant he could talk to other duplicator staff when—and only
when—he was duplicating, and to his clients when he was playing the role of healer. During his training he would be permitted
to talk to his clients, but only when a fully qualified healer was observing. Only after he had successfully completed his
training would he be free to choose when, and to whom, he spoke. And then not in excess.

The physical and mental state of the monks disturbed him. The cavern complex of the Nether Ice Dome may have been a monastery
of equals, but spiritually uplifting it was not. Suffering for one’s faith was one thing, Sam thought, but this kind of suffering
was unnecessary and upsetting. There was no nobility in it. It was . . . squalid.

Even to think such thoughts made Sam feel ashamed. The ecclesiarchs were the spiritual leaders of a religious movement founded
on respect and tolerance, love and universal brotherhood. They were by definition wise and kind. They would never permit such
apparent squalor without having a very good reason. The hierocrats would never accept leaders who acted otherwise.

So, Sam reasoned, the discomfort and unhealthy conditions must serve some significant spiritual purpose. The only problem
was, he was finding it very difficult to work out what that purpose might be.

Sam spent part of every day running a duplicator, and at those times he was happy. He was happy when he copied sections of
metal rod, with screw threads at one end and matching sockets at the other; he was happy when he made smaller batches of pointy
things with screw threads, and blunt, rounded things with sockets. He was happy making funny little equilateral triangles
in batches of a few thousand. He was happy making coils of wire, nuts and bolts, edged blades, springy semicircles of metallic
strip, spikes, metal rings, gas cylinders, brackets, buckets, pots, hammerheads, handles, boxes, irregular lumps of solid
steel, plastic badges, ropes, chains, tubes, spouts, switches, funnels, trays, shelves, life-support machinery, floater components,
and delicate assemblies of glass and gossamer.

It passed through his mind that many of these items were intended to be assembled in some manner and that they had been designed
to be small enough for routine duplication, but he did not attempt to work out how the assembly procedure worked or what its
end result would be.

Healer training, by contrast, was a struggle. He found it hard to wrap his head round the convoluted thinking. He had no trouble
understanding that the Unity of the Cosmos must transcend the fate or wishes of any individual—that was in accordance with
the Great Memes. But the fine points of interpretation were so much more difficult. His mind was in turmoil. He had been trained
since birth never to question the motives of his religious superiors. They were wiser and cleverer than he, and there were
many things that one as lowly as he was not entitled to know. There were heresies, forbidden questions, and secret doctrines
reserved for the eyes and ears of the initiated. On his homeworld, as on
Disseminator 714
, anything not mandatory had been forbidden. Now, though, he had to learn to think for himself.

That was
hard
.

He was racked by doubts. He was only the latest in a lineage of humble duplicator operators, not a healer! Healers could penetrate
people’s innermost secrets and passions. They could see through the layers of pretense as if they were the clearest glass.
They could lay bare a being’s very lifesoul, with all its flaws. And by theological arguments and subtle persuasions, they
could correct those flaws and restore the afflicted lifesoul to full spiritual health. How could he, XIV Samuel, hope to attain
such intellectual powers, when thirteen previous generations had not improved their standing in the Church? He’d overreached
himself. He didn’t want the responsibility. He didn’t want the spiritual fate of thousands to rest on his unaided shoulders.

He tried to tell himself that his crisis of confidence was just a silly panic attack. He would start to feel better when his
instructors moved on to the practical aspects of guardianship. Then he would begin to make more meaningful contact with his
fellow monks. It would be good to talk to the Neanderthal girl, for instance. Maybe he would be able to cheer her up.

She looked so sad.

Sam was getting used to the cold now. It was astonishing how adaptable the human body could be. He still felt distinctly uncomfortable,
but it was becoming easier to concentrate on his assignments. He was beginning to see how a monastery of equals worked, and
why it was set up as such a stark environment. Already it had taught him three important things: obedience, patience, and
humility.

Today his instructor had welcome news. “You have been diligent, Fourteen Samuel, and the time has come for your diligence
to be put to the service of the One.” No mention of diligence being rewarded, for in the Church of Cosmic Unity diligence
was its own reward. Sam remembered a wry remark from his childhood teacher, in a different context:
“The carrot is, we won’t use the stick.”
Yes, that was Cosmic Unity, all right.

But it was a reward nonetheless, even if nobody called it that. His heart had leaped when the querist went on: “It is time
for you to begin practical work. You will be assigned a client, a lifesoul in need of healing.”

Praise be to the Lifesoul-Cherisher!

“You will be briefed before each session, to set the boundaries of what you may say and do. For the foreseeable future, Fourteen
Samuel, you will not be left alone with your client. Always there will be a querist, or several, observing—perhaps from concealment,
perhaps physically present. And after every session with your client, a querist will review your performance and correct your
mistakes.

“If you progress sufficiently, you may in time be permitted a degree of independence. Of course, all healing sessions will
be recorded and the records placed in the archives. You understand?”