The Wild (69 page)

'These missionaries,' Danlo said, 'would bring to the lost Architects your understanding of the Program of Totality, yes?'

'We're afraid that it's not as simple as that.'

'But it is simple, truly. Why can't your missionaries say that the stars are blessed and must be looked upon with all the love of a child for his mother's eyes?'

Harrah smiled and then laughed softly into the sleeve of her kimono. 'We believe that you're a very romantic man, Pilot.'

'Truly, I am.'

'But of course we can't simply send missionaries into the Vild to proselytize people with our understanding of the Program. First we would have to redefine it.'

Harrah went on to explain that the Program of Totality was no part of the holy Algorithm. In truth, few of the programs of the Church really were. In the Algorithm, like a wise father addressing his children beneath a sabi tree, Ede had spoken many words concerning the nature of life in the universe and how it should be lived. Men and women had come to interpret, debate, and formalize the imperatives implicit in these words. And so, over fifteen hundred years of falling across the stars, the greatest minds of the Cybernetic Universal Church had come to formulate many programs. These statements of the Church's fundamental beliefs were gathered in the Commentaries, which, after the Logics and the Algorithm itself, was the most sacred body of Church literature. As Danlo would discover, the Commentaries were well named, for their full elaboration had been an historic and evolutionary process: a great Architect such as Yurik Iviongeon would put forth his understanding of what Ede had meant when He had said: 'The universe is like a universal Turing machine'. And then others would make comments concerning Elder Yurik's inspiration, and over time there would be comments concerning arguments made about the comments of some obscure theologian of little name or accomplishment. In this way, the programs of the Church came to be formatted and defined. And although it was the prerogative of all Holy Ivis to add to the Commentaries, editing or redefining the Church's most ancient programs was always difficult. And always dangerous, for a Holy Ivi must always act with her finger on the pulse of her people. Above all she must win the Koivuniemin to her vision rather than merely commanding dissident Iviomils to obey her pronouncements, as her exalted rank permitted her to do. A High Architect who ignored the zeal or sanctimony of the Elders risked disharmony in her Church, schism, and even war.

'You must understand,' Harrah told Danlo as she stirred some sugar into a new cup of tea, 'that it's the Elders who elect a new Ivi. And those programs that the old Ivi has redefined may be completely undone by the new. It's our duty – as with every Ivi – to give our people programs not just for a year but for all time. Until the end of time, until the architecture of the universe is complete.'

Here she clapped her hands once as she looked at the far wall of the room and intoned, 'First scene, please.'

At the sound of her voice, the image of Nikolos Daru Ede glittering on the wall's chatoyant surface began to dissolve and fade. In moments, in its place, there appeared the likenesses of three newborn babies, two girls and a boy. Their fat little faces were pink and round, and they were frozen into expressions of empty-eyed wonder, as if they had just attempted their first look at the marvels of the world. Each baby wore a new white kimono of precious cotton cloth; each wore a knitted white dobra snug over her or his bald head.

'Do you see my babies?' Harrah asked. 'My great-grandchildren. Tirza Iviertes and Isabel Iviorvan en li Ede – these are the girls. The boy is, ah, give me a moment please.'

Harrah shut her eyes, then, as she folded her hands over her heart. Danlo thought that she had beautiful hands, with long, strong fingers still adept at plucking a gosharp's strings.

'The boy is Mensah Iviercier, of my fourteenth daughter's line – she is Valeska Iviercier en li Ede. I have another daughter, Katura Iviercier, and I'm afraid I sometimes confuse their lines.'

Danlo, not quite knowing what to say, responded with a commonplace. 'They ... are beautiful children,' he told her.

Although, due to the trials of birth, Mensah Iviercier's head seemed almost as pointed as Bertram Jaspari's, Danlo spoke the truth. To him, all babies were beautiful.

'Indeed, they are,' Harrah said.

She told him, then, something of her marriage to the Elder Sarojin Eshte Iviastalir, who had died of the mehalis infection many years since. She said that during the first part of her marriage, she had borne fifty-three children, one child each year until she had begun her rise in the Church hierarchy at the age of sixty-eight. Over the past sixty years since then, her line had increased so that she counted one thousand, six hundred and seventeen grandchildren as her direct descendants, many of whom still lived in her birth city, Montellivi. So far, she had more than ten thousand great-grandchildren; there was no day of the year, she said, in which one or two new great-grandchildren did not come forth to change the face of the universe.

'We try so hard to remember their names,' she said to Danlo. 'But now, even my great-grandchildren are bearing their own children.'

Over yet another cup of tea sweetened with sugar, Harrah confided that she spent part of each morning memorizing the names of her vast family and sending birthday presents.

'There are mnemonics and other attitudes of recall that the remembrancers of my Order teach,' Danlo said. 'If you'd like, I could help you with some of these attitudes.'

'That's a gracious offer, Pilot, and we believe that you're a man of remarkable grace. We've also heard that you have a remarkable memory.'

Danlo did not tell her that when he was only four years old, he had memorized the names of his grandfathers and thousands of his far great-grandfathers back some fifty generations. He chose not to explain that once, as an exercise, he had envisioned the names and faces of half a million of his own descendants, should he ever be so blessed as to father children.

'Truly, the problem is not how we remember,' he said. 'It is why we ever forget.'

Harrah smiled sadly, and she turned to face the far wall. 'Next scene, please,' she said. Almost immediately the chatoy surface of the wall glittered with new colours, and a new scene appeared. At least ten thousand Architects, as tiny as dots, stood shoulder to shoulder and face to face in a very crowded portrait of Harrah's family.

'We cannot forget that each of our children is a star,' Harrah said. 'Each of us is a child of Ede, and we were each meant to shine. Are you familiar with the Program of Increase, Pilot?'

'This is the imperative that women should bear many children, yes?'

'Indeed it is. And it's a good program, a sacred program in which we all believe. Has not Ede told us that we should increase without bound and fill all the universe with our children's children? And yet....'

Danlo waited a moment then said, 'Yes?'

'And yet there was a time, at the beginning of the Church, when this natural increase was left to the passion of each husband and wife.'

'I see.'

'We have all time to fill the universe, you know. And all time is in Ede, and we must remember that the Program of Increase is part of His Infinite Program which will run in its own time until halting at the end of all things.'

Danlo smiled as he squeezed his flute. He said, 'I am no Iviomil, Blessed Harrah. You do not need to convince me.'

'No, we suppose not,' she said, laughing softly. 'And yet we do wish we could reason with the Iviomils. Bertram Jaspari wilfully forgets that it was men and women such as ourselves who once defined this program.'

'This definition ... occurred at the time of the Great Plague, yes?'

Harrah looked up suddenly and nearly dropped her tea in surprise. 'How is it, Pilot, that you know what so many elders of our Church have forgotten?'

'I ... have been studying Church history,' Danlo said. He explained that he had spent a part of every morning sitting beneath the holy heaume in his chambers, exploring various cybernetic spaces. 'I... have found your archives, your history pools. Those which were not forbidden. There is much information there.'

'At the time of the Plague,' Harrah said, 'nine of ten children died. In some places ninety-nine of a hundred. Therefore it was necessary that a woman should bear as many babies as she could.'

'But your people ... outlived the Plague.'

'Indeed we did, as many other peoples did not. But we believe we paid a price. It was Ivi Sigrid Iviastalir and the Elders of her Koivuniemin who defined the Program of Increase as it reads today.'

'That a woman must bear at least five children?'

'Every married woman.'

'And that a woman should bear ten times as many?'

'Or more, if she is so graced. This is the ideal.'

'So many children,' Danlo said.

Harrah rubbed the soft, old skin around her eyes and sighed. She seemed almost angry as she said, 'We believe that the Program of Increase should never have been defined so as to specify a number of children required of each woman.'

'So many children. In your city, in your world, so many people.'

'Too many,' Harrah said, almost whispering. 'Too many of our people don't have enough food to eat.'

For a moment, Danlo bowed his head as he remembered what it was like to be hungry. Once, as a young man, during his journey to Neverness, he had nearly starved to death out on the ice of the frozen sea.

He asked, 'But doesn't the Algorithm say that whoever is vastened will take sustenance in the infinite body of Ede?'

'But whoever is not vastened must still eat, you know.'

'But wouldn't Bertram Jaspari say that the sufferings of this world are only a test to determine who is worthy of vastening and who is not?'

'Indeed he would.'

'And wouldn't all the Iviomils say that the sufferings of this life are redeemed when an Architect dies and his selfness is vastened in an eternal computer?'

Harrah pointed at the portrait of her family glistening on the wall. 'These are my children, Pilot! My babies. And they are hungry. The truth of evil and suffering is one of the Four Great Truths, but to seek needless suffering is a hakr against God.'

'The Program of Increase ... causes the greatest of suffering.'

'And this is why,' Harrah said, 'we must always take utmost care in formatting and defining a program.'

'Because it is harder to redefine a program than to define it in the first place, yes?'

Harrah nodded her head. 'An error written into a program as a mere reaction to a temporary problem, however grave, can lead to great harm.'

'An error,' Danlo said, deep in thought. 'Like a virus.'

'What do you mean?'

Danlo suddenly looked up at Harrah. 'Like an aberrant virus infecting one's DNA, it can become impossible to gel rid of.'

At this terrible metaphor, Harrah smiled sadly and said, 'We're afraid our Holy Church is inherently conservative. But unfortunately we conserve the negative as well as the positive.'

'Isn't this the nature of orthodoxy?'

'Indeed it is.'

'But even so, your Church ... has always provided for change, yes?'

'What do you mean?'

'I have learned ... that the Holy Ivi may receive new programs.'

'And how do you think we may do this?'

'I have learned ... that the Holy Ivi is the guardian of Ede's first computer. The first eternal computer, into which he carked his soul.'

'You've learned almost too much,' Harrah said, smiling at him.

'It is said that Ede's Program for the universe is written in this computer. It is said that the Holy Ivi – and only the Holy Ivi – may interface with it.'

'And what else is said?'

'It is said that the Holy Ivi alone may read Ede's Infinite Program and determine which programs of the Church are in accord with it.'

'Oh, may she indeed!'

In Harrah's dark, almost black eyes there blazed a light of pure faith. She looked deeply at Danlo for a long time. In the unspoken communication flowing like water between them, Danlo understood that she would never interface Ede's eternal computer merely out of expediency or political needs.

'If the Holy Ivi is truly inspired,' Danlo said, 'if her vision is true, then it is said that she might thus redefine old programs. Or install programs that are wholly new. This is her power, yes?'

Harrah took a long drink of tea and then sighed. 'Is it also said that no Ivi has used this power in five hundred years?'

'I ... do not know.'

'We're aware of our power, Pilot. But power is not a simple thing.'

'Power ... is only just power, yes?'

Harrah slowly shook her head. 'We have the ability to interface Ede's Eternal Computer. We pray for the grace always to realize this ability in receiving new visions.'

'I ... see.'

'And we have the authority to receive a new program and install it in the Church canon. To change the Church, as you say.'

'This is what it means to be the Holy Ivi, yes?'

'So we would hope,' Harrah said. 'But we are uncertain as to whether we have the influence to make the entire Church accept a new program.'

'You believe that the Iviomils would not accept a new Program of Totality?'

'They might not.'

'And you believe that they would not accept a redefinition of the Program of Increase?'

'The Elder Bertram Jaspari has said that they certainly will not.'

'Then you must fear schism, yes?'

For a long time, as Danlo clutched his flute between his hands and looked into Harrah's sad brown eyes, she looked at him. At last she took a drink of tea and said, 'We do fear schism. Above all things, almost, we fear Architect falling against Architect in what the Iviomils would no doubt call a facifah – this unholy holy war that Elder Bert-ram is dying to loose upon the universe. And yet...'

'Yes?'

'There might be a great possibility here. This could be a critical moment for the Church – or even in Ede's Infinite Program itself.'

Yes, infinite possibilities, Danlo thought as he looked at Harrah. He pressed his flute to his lips, but he said nothing.