The Wild (62 page)

Does she truly believe what she says?

Danlo wondered this as he gazed at Harrah across a few dozen feet of the Hall. He sensed a terrible conflict behind her soft, brown eyes and her perfectly unreadable face.

Or does she defend this doctrine only to placate Bertram Jaspari and her enemies?

'And now,' Harrah continued, 'we must invite the Elders to speak. We invite them to ask Danlo wi Soli Ringess anything they would know concerning his quest.'

The first of the Elders to question Danlo was, of course, Bertram Jaspari. He stood up from his table of honour and pointed at Danlo. 'This pilot speaks words that border on blasphemy. He accuses our Holy Church of engineering the Plague virus! He tells of an unspeakable hakra whom he calls a god and dignifies by the name of the Solid State Entity! He has consorted with the Narain heretics! As a naman, what else could we expect of him? But we must never forget that he is a naman. We must never forget that his words are full of negative programs – the very shaida evil that he would seek a cure for! Must we listen to these words? Our Holy Ivi has said that we must, and therefore we shall. But we must question all that the pilot has told us. There is much in his account of his journey – and his very life! – that is unbelievable.'

For what seemed a long time, Bertram asked Danlo questions. Neither he nor many other Elders could quite accept that Danlo had grown to manhood among a people who had long ago engineered themselves into the forms of primitive Neanderthal human beings. That Danlo and his tribe had once hunted living animals for their meat revolted Bertram. As with all the Architects of Tannahill, for his whole life he had eaten only cultured plant foods – and these produced in armoured factories down in the levels of Ornice Olorun that no one was allowed to visit. He could scarcely imagine the icy islands of Danlo's childhood, much less envision Danlo gripping a spear and skiing after a shagshay bull through the great green yu trees of a primeval forest. Although these details of Danlo's life in the wild fascinated Bertram, he was obviously much more interested in Danlo's career as a pilot. He wanted to know everything about the Order; he asked about the relationship of Neverness to the rest of the Civilized Worlds. And many other questions. Had the Reformed Cybernetic Church really established itself as an authority in Neverness? Had they really spread their heresy to Yarkona and Larondissement and a thousand other worlds? How many pilots and lightships could the Order send out into the galaxy? And of this number; how many had joined in the Second Vild Mission and journeyed to Thiells where the Order was establishing a new Academy? Most of all, as with the Narain Transcendentals, Bertram Jaspari desired to understand how a pilot could fall so far across the stars. But this Danlo would not reveal. He then told the Elders of the Koivuniemin why he was not permitted to speak of his blessed pilots' art. To most of Bertram's other questions, however, he responded as truthfully as he could – sometimes too truthfully.

'You say that this hakra that you call the Solid State Entity has expanded into a region of space at the edge of the Orion Arm. What, would you estimate, is this hakra's size?'

'She ... is spread out across many stars. Perhaps a whole nebula. Her body and brain are vast.'

'But how vast is vast, Pilot?'

'Perhaps the measure of Her physical self would be six hundred thousand cubic light-years.'

'What! But that's impossible!'

Bertram traded a quick, dangerous look with Jedrek Iviongeon as if to ask why they must suffer the lies of a troublesome naman. Throughout the Hall, however, the Elders buzzed with excitement like bees who have discovered a new source of honey.

'What is truly possible?' Danlo asked. He spoke softly, almost to himself. He sat at his table of honour, and Bertram's doubt both vexed and amused him.

'Why are you smiling, Pilot?'

'I ... was only remembering something.'

'And what is that?'

'It was something that I once asked my Fravashi teacher.'

'Would you care to inform the Koivuniemin what this question was?'

'Yes, if you'd like, Elder Bertram.'

'Well?'

'I asked him how it was possible ... that the impossible is not only possible but inevitable.'

'What? But that's absurd!'

As Bertram stood across the room staring at Danlo, his hard little eyes were a dead-grey colour like old sea ice.

'It is a paradox,' Danlo agreed. 'I am sorry.'

'I think you are fond of paradoxes, Pilot.'

'Sometimes ... yes.'

'Then you should understand that the only way to save the universe is first to destroy it.'

'Do you believe ... that the universe can be destroyed? Truly?'

With a wave of his hand, Bertram brushed this question aside. He turned to his fellow Elders and said, 'As for the people who have died in the light of the supernovas, we must remember that they were only namans. At the end of their lives, they would have died the real death anyway. Should we mourn people who turn away from the possibility of being vastened in Ede? We must remember the missions that we sent to Ezhno and Masalina were rejected without even the opportunity to tell of Ede's Vastening and the Algorithm that He gave us. And what of those brave Iviomils whom we sent to Matopek? Lost in the manifold – or perhaps murdered upon reaching the namans' world. Such murders have happened before. How many Iviomils have given their first lives to bring the truth to such murderous namans? If a naman should reject the truth, should we mourn his inevitable death? Is it not written that he who turns away from Ede is like a flower hiding from the sun? Should we be surprised when these flowers wither and die?'

He is confusing his metaphors, Danlo thought. So many people, so many children – all these splendid flowers facing their own truths and dying into light as their suns died.

'Others have turned away from Ede, as well,' Bertram reminded the Koivuniemin. 'Even Worthy Architects who were once our own. We find it more than disturbing that Danlo wi Soli Ringess should act as an emissary for the Narain heretics. He has said that he prays for peace, but we must wonder if peace is really his purpose?'

As if a signal had been given, one of the Elders behind Bertram – a jowly old Iviomil named Demothi Iviaslin – struggled to his feet and wheezed out, 'Let us ask the Pilot if he has entered any of the forbidden cybernetic spaces that the Narain are known to face in complete disregard of the instantiation rules of the Logics?'

Danlo told the Koivuniemin, then, much of what had occurred during his time on Alumit Bridge. Although he was reluctant to describe his ecstatic merging with that sublime being known as Shahar, he admitted that he had entered the Narain's computer-generated Field and had faced the Transcended Ones.

'Truly, they were as bright as stars,' Danlo said. 'I ... tried not to turn away from them.'

'That is blasphemy!' Bertram suddenly shouted. 'The Pilot blasphemes, and we might possibly forgive him his crime, for he is only a naman. But we cannot forgive the heretics. They have surely left the Church. And so they are not only heretics but apostates! We must decide what should be done with them. We must seek a solution to the Narain problem before it is too late.'

Just then another of the Iviomils behind Bertram called out, 'What should be done with the Narain?'

And, across the Hall, another of Bertram's confederates loudly demanded, 'What should be done about the problem of Alumit Bridge?'

'Let's call a facifah!' cried a red-faced Elder.

'Yes, a holy war!' Then, several voices called out at once, 'Let's make a holy war upon the heretics!'

For a while, the Hall of the Koivuniemin rang with shouts and calls for war. And, from other Architects such as Leo Tolow and Varaza li Shehn, calls for reason as well. At last Harrah Ivi en li Ede called for quiet. She looked down at Bertram and the many other Iviomils bent on bringing violence into the Hall. Then she reminded the Elders, 'This is not the time to debate the merits of a facifah. We are here only to speak with Danlo wi Soli Ringess.'

'Then I must ask the Pilot a question,' Bertram Jaspari said. In the light falling down from the Hall's glittering ceiling, his face seemed as gaunt and grim as the bones of an old skull. 'Did any of the Narain call themselves gods? Did any man or woman ever claim to be God, in mockery of all that is holy?'

Danlo stared at the point of Bertram's misshapen head pushing up beneath his brown skullcap. It reminded him of the peak of Mount Urkel that towered above Neverness. He remembered, then, the Narain madman who had indeed claimed to be Ede the God. Because Danlo could not help but tell the truth (and because he suspected that Bertram already knew the answer to his own question), he spoke to the rapt Elders of this man.

'Tadeo Aharagni calls himself as Ede the God, truly. But he means only that he and Ede the God are of the same substance. That they share the same spirit. This sharing occurs between all the Narain and the Architects of the Church, yes? I believe ... that the Narain of Alumit Bridge have remained true to the spirit of Edeism.'

'You believe this?' Bertram shouted in outrage. 'A naman wishes to tell us about the spirit of Ede the God?'

'Spirit ... is always truly spirit, yes?'

'But the heretics mock Ede! In trying to make a new religion, they mock the Holy Algorithm!'

'But does not your Church teach that—'

'What can a naman know about our holy Church?'

Danlo was silent for a moment as he pressed his fist against his forehead. 'What do you know about your Church, then?' he asked.

'What! What do you mean?'

And Danlo told Bertram, 'If you cannot see what is holy in another's religion, you cannot see ... what is holy in your own.'

'I see a heretic sitting before us in our holy Hall telling us lies!' Bertram shrieked. 'That is to say, you would be a heretic if you had ever had faith in the only true religion.'

'And you would ... kill all heretics, yes?'

'We would save them from themselves! We would cleanse them of their negative programs. As fire burns away fungus in a diseased face.'

'Is this the same fire ... that has fallen out of the murdered stars?'

Bertram stood staring at Danlo. Then he said, 'We shouldn't be surprised, I suppose, that a naman is concerned over the fate of other namans doomed to die.'

'They were people!' Danlo, who rarely evinced anger towards other men, felt the beginnings of black wrath as a pounding of his heart and a terrible heat behind his eyes. 'Mothers and fathers ... children who played with flowers in the sun.'

'No, namans, only namans.'

'But they of Alumit Bridge – they are not namans! They are your far-cousins! They are your granddaughters and great-grandsons!'

'They are heretics and apostates.'

Danlo looked at Bertram for a long time. 'How is it that you hate so deeply ... people who seek only love?'

'I'm afraid that you could never understand how we Iviomils feel towards the heretics who have betrayed us.'

Danlo, who knew almost all there was to know about hatred, said, 'No, it is just the opposite.'

I understand too well, Danlo thought. The orthodox always hate prophets and new revelations. The godless always hate the godful.

'Please, tell us, Pilot, what you think you understand,' Bertram said in his most mocking voice.

Danlo bowed his head slightly, and said, 'If you'd like. You Iviomils ... are like merchants who have hoarded gold for a thousand years and set a guard around your wealth. But all your coins are cold in your hands. You seek the true gold – everyone does. This is the gold of flowers and sunlight. It shimmers inside all things. It is just life itself. The wild joy of life finding ever greater life within itself. It is ... as warm as a newborn child. It is as splendid and rare as a blue giant star. You look across the stars at Alumit Bridge, and you see the Narain dancing in that loveliest of lights. Do you fear that they have found what you most deeply desire? Truly, you do. And so you covet their gold. And so you hate them, and hating, you speak so easily of making a holy war. But even if you call a facifah, you cannot make their treasure your own. All you can do is to destroy it. All you can do is to hate – and in the end you will only hate yourselves for killing that which was most precious to you.'

After Danlo had finished speaking, a vast silence fell over the Hall. His words had shocked and shamed many of the Eiders. Many of them stared openly at Bertram as if to ask why he had shown the Church so poorly to this pilot and emissary from the stars. But the Iviomils sitting at their curved tables stared at Danlo in silent rage. As did Bertram. His sweaty hands were clenched into fists, his blue-tinged skin flushed red.

'This naman,' he said, pointing at Danlo, 'is a dangerous man.'

There was menace in his voice, rising hatred in his eyes.

'And perhaps something more,' he continued. He smiled grimly and looked over at cruel, old Jedrek Iviongeon; he looked at Fe Farruco Ede and Oksana Ivi Selow and many of his other friends. 'Something I am reluctant to put a name to.'

Danlo sat straight in his chair counting the beats of his heart. All his life he had tried to speak the truth. Only now, as he watched the dark angels of violence pass eye to eye from Bertram to Jedrek and then on to the Iviomils who sat near them, he wondered how well truth had served his purpose. With men such as Bertram Jaspari, would not a carefully-constructed lie be a much more effective tool? He watched Bertram staring at him, and he remembered something that his friend Hanuman had once told him: that bad things always happen to those who think they must bring the truth.

'If I may,' Bertram said almost softly, 'I should like to ask the Pilot one more question.'

From her reading desk at the front of the Hall there came a stirring and a swish of silk as if Harrah had awoken from a bad dream. Slowly she nodded her head. 'You've already asked many questions. But if you wish, you may ask one more – as long as you're careful of what you ask.'

'Thank you, Holy Ivi,' he said, bowing. Then he turned to Danlo and said, 'You seem to have a love of the heretics – have the dreams of the Narain become your dreams? Is it your wish to try to become a god?'