Heaven (20 page)

He fervently hoped he didn’t accidentally voice any of his doubts. He was starting to clamber his perilous way up the ecclesiastical
greasy pole, and it would set him back years if he appeared to be acting above his station. Blatant insubordination might
well prove terminal to his career, and then he would complete his days carrying out tasks far less agreeable than running
a duplicator.

Sam was amazed to find himself thinking any of these thoughts. He never used to think like that. But then, he hadn’t been
exposed to the training regime of a novice lifesoul-healer. In fact, he now understood in a flash of insight, it was the
training
that had led him to start asking himself such questions. His instructor, he realized with a rush of excitement,
wanted
him to think for himself. Not too much, but enough to have some control over his own direction.

If he was to heal damaged lifesouls, he must first take charge of his own.

But with humility.

That was the key; that was the lesson that the Veenseffer-co-Fropt had been hoping he would learn, but could never overtly
teach. It could not
tell
him how to take responsibility for his own life, for then he would merely be carrying out his instructor’s bidding. He had
to be given the opportunity to think it out for himself. And that would be the next step in his advancement. He had to make
it clear that he had made this vital step in his thinking, while continuing to appear humble.

He corrected himself hurriedly. To
be
humble. But even the humble could have plans and dreams.

He was getting used to the cold corridors and the bare, unfinished walls of the tunnels. He was even getting used to the pallid,
downcast, hollow-souled beings whose paths constantly crossed his as he threaded his way through the under-ice maze. He passed
a squad of Illensan monks, dragging a large chlorine tank along on crude runners, and scarcely noticed how distressed they
were at the physical effort involved, or how labored their breathing had become. Had he given the matter any thought, he would
have wondered just how effective their breathing masks were; their splutterings and inflamed nasal passages would have suggested
they were suffering from a small, nonfatal but irritating excess of carbon dioxide. But such things were commonplace, and
his task was to heal the lifesouls of his clients, not to interfere with beings who had been consigned to the care of others.

There were three querists in the room when he arrived and made entry. Never before had he been in the presence of more than
one. He was unsure what this meant, but presumably it had to be important.

One he recognized: It was his own instructor. The other two looked older; one was a Rhemnolid, who ran to fat and had pronounced
storage pouches, and the other had to be a !t!, for no other sentient being possessed such a slender exoskeleton. Sam had
never encountered a !t! before, for they were the rarest species in the Community, but he had seen many images of them, for
the same reason.

The Rhemnolid glanced at the knotted silvery braids, identification marks on Sam’s maroon robe. A Precursor translation field
enveloped the room, and Sam had no difficulty in understanding the sibilant spurts of fetid air, laden with chemical content,
that Rhemnolids used for speech. “Thisss is the novice, then. He is a Traversss? That is a name well known and respected in
the Church. The Travers women are mostly virtuous, so I am informed; their men are ssseldom of poor faith. The son of Godwin
. . . Mmm, I have held awarenesss of several Godwins, all trustworthy humen.”

“I read that this young servant,” said the !t!, speaking as if Sam were not present at all, “is the fourteenth member of his
lineage since his forefathers first embraced the righteousness of the United Cosmos. I have encountered smaller generation
numbers, but seldom in a healer-novitiate.” Its speech, a rapid-fire sequence of chirruping clicks produced by flexing a special
joint in its ventral forelimb, could be heard in the background as a patchwork of frequency textures.

“His family’s progress has indeed been of unprecedented rapidity,” said Sam’s instructor. It was true. Only fourteen generations
in the same task. Sam was indeed fortunate for his lineage to have advanced so quickly.

“Yes, and so has his own. You tell me that he handled that setback with that Neanderthal child . . . ?”

“Dry Leaves Fall Slowly.”

“Yes, that was its name. He handled it with delicacy and well-directed love. It was not his fault that the child needed .
. .
extra
love. Special treatment. No, it was not his fault; he outperformed any novice I have encountered.” The !t! flexed its joints,
uncomfortable in the relatively high gravity despite the support of its exoskeleton. “He is most unusual, as we had already
noticed. He conforms, but that is not his true nature. He is actively engaged in everything he does—he is not merely playing
out a role.”

The Rhemnolid instructor settled into his sling-couch—a ponderous procedure. “The novice is not yet aware that the child was
a tessst?”

“That she was deliberately selected because of her incurable obstinacy? Her wicked lies and delusions? Assigned to him
so that he must fail
? Not until this moment.” For the first time the !t! instructor addressed Sam directly. “Do you understand what I have just
revealed about our training methods, Samuel the son of Godwin, fourteenth in the male lineage of the Travers clan?”

Sam swallowed hard and tried to regain his poise. “Masters, I understand—now that you have told me—that the child was deliberately
assigned to me to . . . to test my patience, my faith, and my . . . uh . . . capacity for love. And I understand that I was
expected to fail, that I was bound to fail. That . . . that what counted would be the manner of my failure.”

Sam’s instructor fluffed his olfactory tufts with pride. “You see?” he said to his companions. “It is just as I predicted.”

“That is ssso,” said the Rhemnolid. “Do you also understand, Fourteen Sssamuel, that in failing so magnificently, you triumphed?
For when you learned that other techniques had saved the lifesssoul of the child, you showed not the slightest sign of envy
or jealousy. You were pleased for her, and for those who had begun the long, slow processs of healing her.”

Sam remained as he was, head bowed, but his eyes shone. Praise was almost unheard of in the monastery of equals. But he did
not wish to be seen to have sought it. Or to take pride in hearing it. He could not trust himself to keep pride from his voice,
so he said nothing.

“He is ready, is he not?” said the Veenseffer-co-Fropt.

“For the next ssstep in his training? Undoubtedly. Now he must face the ethical dilemma that has exercised the Church since
its Founders first encountered the wickednesss that infesssts so many souls . . . the sin of intolerance. Can the Church tolerate
sin? No. So can it tolerate the intolerant? That is a paradox. For can the sole route to the One be self-defeating? Fourteen
Sssamuel, what do
you
think?”

Sam’s breath caught. He would need to be careful, but he had to answer, and quickly. It would have helped if he had any real
idea of what the querists were talking about. But the general gist seemed clear.

“The . . . Wisdom of Unity cannot be denied,” Sam said, reciting a text from
Conversations with Huff Elder
that he had been taught almost before he could walk. “Action that defeats itself is not true action at all, for it contains
the seeds of its own annihilation. But—masters, forgive me if I err, but it has long seemed to me . . .” (Here Sam took a
golden opportunity to demonstrate that he had absorbed the meta-lesson of his training and that now he was developing a mind
of his own.) “. . . it seems to me that it may be possible to meet intolerance with tolerance, and yet overcome it.”

The Rhemnolid’s thick-lipped eyes stared at him impassively. “How?”

“Uh . . . one may, perhaps . . . be tolerant in one’s mind, master, while still enforcing correction in the external world.
Wickedness cannot be permitted to continue as a
fact,
but there is no inconsistency in pitying the wicked for the
cause
and accepting that their error may result from cultural inadequacies, not from their own true lifesoul.”

The Rhemnolid nodded, and gave the !t! a quick, approving glance. Its spatulate tongue licked quickly over its face and was
reabsorbed. Sam, encouraged by the informality of this display, developed his theme. “Of course, an individual’s true lifesoul
will often be obscured by the habits and . . . uh, the values of their culture. A key duty of the lifesoul-healer is to save
the lifesoul from such cultural tarnish. And so . . . I
think,
masters . . . that one may tolerate the
occurrence
of tarnished lifesouls, but not their continued existence in that state.” He stopped abruptly. “But I do not wish to overstep
my place. This was only an idle thought. If I am in error—”

“No, your thinking is orthodox, though more subtle than anything you could have been taught explicitly,” said the !t!. “However,
your thinking goes only so far. You are not yet aware of its practical implications, Fourteen Samuel. Thought must be translated
into action, if it is ever to accomplish anything, and actions are harder to accept than words. You understand why?”

Sam shook his head. “Master, I do not.”

“Words are . . . idealizations. They have no reality. Their consequences are hypothetical. Actions are different. Their consequences
are real, and immediate, whether imagined in advance or not. If you speak, the implications of the words may remain concealed.
If you act, the implications will be undeniable—even to those who wish to deny them.

“And, Samuel,
those implications may not be anything that you desire
. Does not the Church rest on two Great Memes?”

Kiddygarten stuff
. “The health of the Whole must outweigh that of its parts,” Sam recited. “And the long-term health of the part must outweigh
its immediate comfort.”

“Hmm. And what do those slogans mean?” The spindly !t! inclined its midlimbs questioningly. “In your
own
words, not those of your kiddygarten teacher.”

Sam’s face flushed, as if his mind had been read. Maybe it had. There were rumors that the !t! possessed Precursor telepathy
machines . . . No, that way lay paranoia. “Uh . . . Unity itself is what is important, master—not the wishes of any individual.
And . . . uh . . . individuals . . . no,
an
individual, must . . . er . . .”

“Sometimes one must be cruel to be kind,” said the Veenseffer-co-Fropt, hurrying to the aid of his tutee. “A trite, dismal,
yet ultimately liberating truism, Fourteen Samuel, in which you will now receive unforgettably vivid instruction. And I assure
you that you will
wish
to forget. Until you see the ethical beauty that the dilemma conceals, and transcend your emotional limitations. If you wish
to become a lifesoul-healer, you must understand this truth in the deepest recesses of your being. It must become an inalienable
part of the very fabric of your mind. Otherwise, you will fail, and that failure will destroy you. Come.”

Was it a medical center? The dimly lit room had the astringent smell that Sam associated with medical treatment. And some
of the equipment looked like things he’d seen in hospitals—gas cylinders, masks, tubes. The walls were bare, and the floor
was made of some kind of ceramic; it had been washed recently.

Like the three querists and their half-dozen assistants of varied races, Sam was wearing life-support equipment. In his case,
all that was needed was a simple spray-on monomolecular coating to retain bodily heat, a transparent face mask, and breathing
apparatus. The arrangements for some of the assistants were more elaborate.

“The environment has been configured for the client,” the Rhemnolid’s voice hissed quietly in his ear. There was a hint of
machine-talk in the voice, no doubt resulting from the Precursor translation system into which they had all been linked. “His
name is Clutch-the-Moon Splitcloud.”

The client was spread-eagled on a low, circular dais. It could be moved to position it anywhere in the room. His nine limbs
were neatly arranged like the spokes of a wheel, each held in place by a series of clamps. The blimp’s eye ring was fixed
on the roof above, where an icicle had formed.

“A Jovian?” Sam enquired.

“A helium blimp from the twin gas giants of Delta Hyractis,” the !t! corrected. “The blimps are a sister species to the original
Jovians, but they differ in many vital ways. For example, they are algivores, not filter-feeders. Do not let your feelings
be colored by naive associations with the legendary Founders, Fourteen Samuel.”

“I stand corrected, master. Why is the blimp restrained?”

“You will see when the treatment begins. I must warn you now that Clutch-the-Moon is a difficult case. If you thought that
the Neanderthal child was obstinate, you may wish to revise that opinion. This client is so determined in his heresy that
we all despair of saving him. But . . . we must do what we can.”

“It is to be a medical procedure?” Sam asked. It seemed a fair guess.

“It could be described as such, yes. . . . Are we not taught that our love for our fellow creatures must know no bounds, admit
no barriers? At whatever price to ourselves? So be it.”

The !t! instructor moved closer to the dais, while a slender hind limb waved Sam to remain where he was. The twiglike figure
leaned close to the client, murmuring words that, it seemed, were meant only for the blimp.

Frenetic Hytth technicians scuttled about the room, connecting machinery to inlet valves, running pre-use test programs. The
client’s ring of eyes flicked about the room in agitation.

“Clutch-the-Moon’s error is a seriousss one,” the Rhemnolid said. “Not only does it diminish his own lifesoul, it threatens
that of every being in his community.
He denies Heaven
.”