Stewards of the Flame (63 page)

“You have a point, Jesse,” Kira said. “Appeals to reason wouldn’t work. An altered state would be needed—even, I think, by you and me. Although,” she added, “I guess in the old days, when they sedated passengers, somebody had to be the last one in, alone and fully conscious.”

“I think that was the Captain’s job,” Jesse said. “It still is.” He hadn’t previously given thought to this, but it was glaringly obvious, even, he saw, to Carla, who sat quietly on the bed, white-faced at the turn of the discussion. The last person to go in would have no telepathic support from anyone. . . .

“We wouldn’t want sedation even if we had drugs,” Hari pointed out. “Our way of dealing with fear depends on full volitional control, after all. And our people are trained in it. It should not be impossible to use one of the states with which they’re already experienced.”

“You’re right, of course,” Peter agreed. “But practically speaking, we don’t have the means to induce it. I could get one or two people at a time into a suitable state any number of ways. It could be done easily with hypnosis—or we could even set up the neurofeedback equipment and do it with mind-patterns. But a mass induction is another matter. The only area large enough to hold the Group is nowhere near the stasis deck. People brought to the point of such things as walking on fire don’t go off and do it by themselves, away from supporters.”

“Are we assuming there’s not enough time to prepare people individually, then?” asked Reiko.

“Our time’s running out,” Jesse replied. “Every hour we continue to use normal life support increases the odds of our dying aboard the ship.” Ironically, as the others were starting to consider the alternative, he himself was becoming more aware of its impossibility. His idea of forcing people into stasis at gunpoint would not work, he saw—not because it wouldn’t be justifiable, but because, as Hari had said, the Group’s freedom from fear was attained only through volition. Members were trained, and pledged, to resist pressure. Any attempt to compel someone would bring about more resistance than it would overcome.

“It’s almost too bad that going into stasis isn’t painful,” Kira was saying. “If it were, people’s attention would be on attaining immunity to pain, a state they all know how to get into. They wouldn’t have time to be afraid.”

“Well, yes,” said Peter. “That’s the principle behind a lot of what we do. But it can’t help us with this. Even if we held the Ritual to bring people into that state—”

“Couldn’t we do that?” Reiko suggested. “The shared high from the Ritual lasts long enough to get people into stasis without panicking.”

Peter shook his head. “The Ritual requires stronger emotion than personal fear. A novice is emotionally aroused by the demand for commitment, while the onlookers not only renew their own, but take responsibility for that novice’s safety. At Ian’s funeral, when we held it with a large group, we were all feeling intense grief. And on top of these emotions, everyone who joins in the Ritual
wants
to participate—there is always desire. We couldn’t pull it off with people merely repelled by something they wanted to avoid.”

“We couldn’t hold the Ritual anyway,” said Hari. “We don’t have a torch or candles.”

“Yes, we do,” Carla told him. “I packed the candles with the lab equipment because we might not be able to make any on the new world.”

Jesse’s mind was still on Ian. “Peter,” he ventured, “when Ian first had the dream about us establishing our own colony, how did he know it was precognitive?”

“For one thing, he’d had them before, dreams of equivalent clarity that came true,” Peter said. “The reason he believed this one, though, was because he had it the night you arrived on Undine. That was why we felt fate had sent you to us.”

“Well, then, don’t we know we’re going to get to that colony—which we can’t do without going into stasis?”

“No. They don’t
all
come true. Precognition can be overridden by events.”

“If that’s so, he would have tried to do everything possible to foresee the events that might override it. He would have learned all the details he could about the plans you and he were making.”

“I’m sure he did,” Peter agreed.

“And yet you told me the agent who found out about this ship didn’t tell you its name. That struck me as odd—any notation of its availability would have included the name and class. Did the report come to your computer, or Ian’s?”

“To his. I was working full time besides going to the Lodge. Ian was at home, so he handled the offworld communication.”

Kira, intrigued, said, “What are you getting at, Jesse?”

Jesse turned to her. “You said when Ian died that it was strange they executed him. That because he was so old and already dying, they should have shown more mercy.”

“That’s true,” she said. “They couldn’t have freed him after a confession of aggravated murder, but Undine’s authorities aren’t intentionally cruel. They could easily have waited a week or two and put him into stasis after he died. Even if Warick wanted to rush it, the others should have objected—and in any case, if he’d let Peter consult a lawyer, a stay pending exemption could have been obtained.”

“I think,” Jesse said, “that perhaps he
requested
not to be exempted. That he guessed we might have to go into stasis, and was trying to send us a signal.”

The others, startled, gasped in dismay. “How could he have guessed?” Reiko asked. “Are you saying he had another dream about space?”

“That’s possible,” said Peter thoughtfully. “But even if he didn’t, he was well aware that astrogating to an unopened world would be a risky undertaking.”

“It’s no secret that
Mayflower
class ships have operational stasis vaults,” Jesse went on. “Ian surely would have known it; he would have investigated the ship he was told we’d be getting. But he didn’t tell you, Peter—just as he didn’t tell you what his last words meant.”

“He couldn’t,” Peter agreed. “To bring up their former use in space travel would have jeopardized the symbol he knew we’d need as long as we remained on Undine.”

“Then, when he confessed to murder in order to save me,” Jesse went on, “he saw a way to show us he wasn’t afraid of dying in stasis. And he asked you to be with him at the end, knowing you’d tell us he wasn’t afraid—even if we never figured out any more. But if we
have
figured it out, it helps, doesn’t it? To believe he went into stasis voluntarily while he was still alive?”

“Oh yes,” said Kira. “The mere possibility that he did will help those who fear underneath that stasis interferes with what comes after death. They know Ian wouldn’t have accepted it so calmly if he believed it does.”

Slowly, Peter said, “I remember, now . . . feelings I had during those last minutes with Ian. He had far greater paranormal powers than the rest of us; it’s possible that he communicated more than he wanted me to be aware of then. I think perhaps he believed that he shouldn’t spell it out for us—that only by facing our greatest fear could we become fit founders of a new culture.”

“But he was taking a chance that you wouldn’t ask people to face it.”

 
“Not really. It’s possible, Jesse, that when he told you he trusted you, he didn’t mean only to command a starship, or even to serve on the Council.”

“To do what, then?” Besides what Kira had said about supporting Peter. . . .

“To question symbols we might cling to too long, and to see what he had to hide from me. He came to you telepathically in a dream, after all. He may have planted something in your mind as well as in mine.”

“Yes,” Jesse agreed. “I realized, just a few minutes ago, that perhaps he had.”

“When he found that he could, it all must have fallen into place for him,” Peter said softly. “His own two dreams, his concern for our future, and then after our despair over your condemnation, the chance to help us survive that wouldn’t have existed if you hadn’t been arrested . . . he must have been awed by that strange pattern, just as I am now.”

Carla, who had listened with increasing absorption, rose and came to Jesse, resting her hands on his shoulders. “How could I not trust you as much as Ian did, when I love you so?” she murmured. “He gave his life to make you Captain! He relied on you to do whatever it took to make his dream come true.”

“Whether we go into stasis is not a matter for the Council to vote on,” Peter said. “We were wrong to assume it’s up to us. Ian placed our lives in Jesse’s hands, knowing full well that in space, the Captain commands. If we’re to die, it is for Jesse to decide how it will happen. As Executive Officer, my role is merely to see that his orders are carried out.”

Moved to tears, Jesse said, “Personally I’ll consider it an honor to die as Ian died, if it comes to that. But I believe it won’t. I’m sure
he
believed we’re going to live.”

“An honor,” Peter reflected. “Yes—yes, it would be that for us all. And on that—on our love for him, our desire to give no less than he did toward our goal, our realization that he entered stasis willingly—we can build the Ritual.”

~
 
68
 
~

To the full Group, assembled on his command, Jesse explained the facts of their situation. He informed them of how long the ship’s life support would last. But he said nothing about the option of stasis. “That must be revealed telepathically,” Peter had warned. “I’ve already told some people—those whose support I can count on, who will help us spread confidence when the moment comes. The rest mustn’t think about it in their normal state of mind. Our only hope of overcoming resistance lies in not letting it start.”

Peter stood when Jesse had finished speaking. “The Captain has told you that we’re going to die,” he said. “Yet there is a chance we may not, and to understand that chance, we must look deeper than our fear, deeper than we have ever needed to look before. To perceive it, we must hold the Ritual.”

He paused. There were a few teenagers and novice members present who must not observe the climax, lest foreknowledge interfere when the time came for their own rites. For them, blindfolds were provided by Kira; the telepathic ambience of the gathering would be sufficient to carry them along. Then Peter continued, “We must commit ourselves fully to the power of the Ritual, reserving no trace of worry or doubt. Is there anyone here who is not willing to do this?”

No one objected. They were already spellbound, having been offered unlooked-for hope of reprieve from certain death. Jesse knew that this was the greatest test Peter had ever faced, ever imagined that he would face. If he could not arouse the group’s psi power and hold all minds to the perspective he presented, there would be no reprieve. He would not get a second chance.

The other Council members, too, would share responsibility, Jesse himself no less than the rest. “There are only a few of us to muster the courage of over three hundred people,” Peter had told them. “So remember what’s required to gain use of paranormal skills.”
To gain true volitional control, you must be wholly, unreservedly willing to lose control—to let what comes, come, with full consent to the consequences,
Jesse recalled. He must not try to project telepathically by means of willpower; willpower would not work any better than it did for suppressing panic. He must be willing to let go, willing to let his unconscious mind decide the outcome. He must focus only on his belief in what they must do.

Then to the Council Peter had said, “We will hold our hands in fire longer than usual, not only to gain time for strong telepathic projection, but because power comes from risk. It goes without saying that if any of us were to panic or withdraw, it would break the spell among the watchers. It would be better to be burned than to fail them. If we’ve learned anything about volitional control these past years, let’s use it now, when our lives depend on it.”

Candles were passed out to the people, then lit. It occurred to Jesse that all those flames were using up oxygen, but what the hell—this was what it would take to keep from using the rest of it up. Carla, again serving as torchbearer, came forward holding a makeshift torch of candles bound to a rod. As he ignited it, Peter began to speak.

He spoke of Ian, of how they’d followed Ian through the many years of the Group’s existence. Of how they’d loved him. Of his sacrifice in confessing to a crime of which he was innocent for their sake, paying a terrible penalty to give them the chance to seek a new world. Of how he’d dreamed of that world and believed they would reach it. There were tears in the eyes of most listeners by the time Peter began the formal words, the words Ian himself had spoken at the Ritual commitment of each and every one of them: “Unfaced fear is the destroyer. We will acknowledge fear and accept it, we will go past it and live free. . . .”

As he thrust his hand into the flame, Peter said, “We know now that Ian did not fear stasis. He died in stasis willingly—and if we too must die, let it be as he did. Fate has honored us by giving us that choice.”

Quickly, Jesse and the other Council members placed their hands on Peter’s as he continued, “But fate may also allow us to live. Those who want to live as Ian lived, at the risk of dying as he died, touch now the flame of life to seal your commitment.”

The emotional force of the appeal was magnified as the watching participants passed fingers through the flames of three hundred candles. In that moment, knowledge of what they must do was spread wordlessly. Jesse sensed a greater melding of minds than he had ever felt. He became one with the Group, aware of the Group’s faith in life. Once again he saw Ian as he’d appeared in the dream, with the torch between them, his hand clasping Ian’s in fire, and then he was walking with Ian toward the world of Maclairn, golden against a backdrop of stars, as perhaps all now could see it through his eyes. And he was high, they were all high . . . the death sentence had been no more than a brief nightmare . . . they would dream again, dream of entrapment in stasis, but they would awaken to found a new world. . . .

He wasn’t aware that his flesh was burning until Peter withdrew from the flame and the torch was lowered. Dropping his hand, Jesse saw to his surprise that it was red and blistered. Peter had intended this, he realized, seeing that it was true of them all. Controlling the pain of the burns would keep them in altered consciousness, keep them able to support the people who must now go, still entranced, to what mere minutes ago would have seemed an unthinkable ordeal.