The Chantry Guild

CHAPTER 4

Hal gazed at Rukh, almost helplessly. "No," he said. "No, of course not. It's not that the Others can't be stopped, it's just that I can't stop them, in the way I hoped to. The rest of you haven't failed. I've failed." "Thou art alive," said Rukh. The mountain was as impenetrable as collapsed metal. "Thou canst not therefore use the word failed - yet. " "I could go on trying indefinitely," said Hal, "but it'll be best for everyone under the phase-shield if we face facts and I stop trying. Now." "But why should you stop?" said Ajela. "Because for a year now, I've tried to take the final step, and I can't do it. Ajela, you understand how the memory of the Final Encyclopedia works. But Rukh-" He turned to the other woman. "how much do you understand'?" "Call it nothing," said Rukh, calmly. "Some scraps of understanding I've picked up in my time here. But essentially I know nothing." "Well, I want you to understand as well as Ajela," Hal said, "because it's not easy to explain. Rukh, briefly, the Encyclopedia's memory is, for all practical purposes, bottomless. It already holds all the available knowledge of the human race. Theoretically, it could hold no one knows how many times that much more, added to what's there already. You see, like the phase-shift we use to travel between the stars in our ships, and the phase-shield that protects Earth, now - to say nothing of the earlier one that's guarded this Encyclopedia for twenty years - it's a product of phase mechanics." "I know nothing of phase mechanics," Rukh said. "No one else fully understands it, not even our own Jeamus Walters, here," said Hal. "You know him?" "The Head of Technical Research at the Encyclopedia," answered Rukh. "And you've seen the representation of that stored knowledge in the Operations Section down below us?" Hal said. "I've seen it, yes," said Rukh, "like a mass of iron wires red hot. And the people working with it made some attempt to explain it to me, but I still understood almost nothing." "Basically," said Hal, "what it represents isn't the knowledge itself, but the so-called 'tags' that identify each piece of information stored in the Encyclopedia. The information itself can be as extensive as a book-set of encyclopedias, or larger, but the tags are each represented by only a tiny section of the knowledge-chains that look like wires in the display." "Yes," said Rukh, "I remember them telling me that much at least. " "And you know Tam was unusual in that, by just looking at the image, he could to a certain extent read it?" "Yes." Rukh frowned. "Wasn't there something about his finding evidence that at least two of the visiting scholars from Earth had been spies for Bleys? Back at a time when the Encyclopedia was always open to qualified scholars from all the Worlds?"

Hal nodded. "That's right," he said. "But you have to understand something. The addition of any new information always causes a slight movement in one of the chains - the apparent wires. There were tiny differences of position that gave away to Tam that the knowledge store had been systematically searched across wide fields of knowledge, in a way no one scholar would have needed to do. But if you'd been there and asked him, he wouldn't have been able to tell you what the knowledge was they'd examined. He could read the display, but not what it represented, not the actual information itself, and in spite of three years of trying, neither can I.-

He stared hard at her. "Do you follow me? The difference is the way it would be between having an encyclopedia in a set of books but with each book locked closed, so that you couldn't get at the information in it. " "Ah," said Rukh. She looked back at him appraisingly. "So Tam could see, but not read? And you-?" "I was only able to go a little further," said Hal. "I spent two years at it, and I got to the point where I could hold the whole display in my mind, as I had last looked at it. But the information's still locked away from me, too." "Now I don't follow you," said Ajela, leaning forward across the table toward him. "Why do you need to do more than that? Or even that much?"

He turned to her. "Because two things are needed to create anything - say, a great painting. The concept, which is the art of it, and the skill with colors and brush that's the craft behind its making. To have a great dream is one thing. To execute it in real elements calls for a skill with all the elements involved, and that requires knowledge. "

Ajela was frowning, he thought doubtfully. "Look," he said, "you could tell yourself 'I'd like a castle.' But to create that castle in the real universe, you'd have to know many things, the architecture of its structure, all the crafts of building with different materials, even knowledge about the ground that would have to support its weight. To physically enter a creative universe you have to first create at least some kind of Physical place to support your presence there. To do that, you need to know everything about the surface below your feet, the atmosphere around and above you, what kind of sun you want in the sky overhead... and a long, long list of other things." "I see, then," - said Rukh. "So that was why you wanted to be able to read from the knowledge of the core image directly?" "I'd have to be able to," said Hal. "It's impossible otherwise. " "In effect," Ajela said, her voice sharper than usual, "you were hoping to enter the Creative Universe and use there any or all of the information stored in the Final Encyclopedia - by making some use of phase mechanics, using your mind, alone?"

Hal nodded, slowly. "Very well. I now understand the size of the problem. But why give up now?" demanded Rukh. "Why, at this particular point?" "Because I believe the sooner I'm gone, the sooner my quitting is likely to improve the odds for all the rest of you." "What makes you say that?" Ajela's voice was even more sharp.

He was a little slow answering. He had been carried away by the unusual emotion behind his own last few words. "I'm hoping that with me gone, the pressure I've exerted, balancing the pressure of Bleys in the historical forces, will be removed, and the sudden vacuum will cause the forces to react against his side of the argument, rather than ours. It might even... be the cause of our winning, after all, by some different route." "What would you do, then?" Rukh's voice was abruptly soft.

Hal smiled grimly. "Take a new name for the last time, perhaps," he said. "Go down to the surface and enlist with the real Earth-borns who're signing up for training by the Dorsai. Anything, so that as a major force I'd be permanently out of the picture. I could probably be useful on one of those new warships they're turning out so fast." "Thou wouldst go looking for death," said Rukh, "which is a sin in the Name of God. And how would doing anything like that be best for the rest of us?" "I think it might rectify a mistake I made, attempting to influence the historic forces," Hal answered. "That's no answer," said Ajela with an absolutely nonExotic near-approach to exasperation. It was, thought Hal, a sign of the exhaustion in her finally beginning to wear her to the quick. "To make an excuse out of something the workings of which apparently only you fully understand!" "I've never claimed I fully understand the historic forces," Hal said. "I doubt if anyone in the human race will, for generations yet. There're simply too many factors operating in every case. But I thought you, at least, did - enough to understand why I'm doing this, Ajela." "I thought I did too," she replied, "but evidently I don't. You've talked about it many times, and explained it I don't know how often. Let me see what I remember. You've said something to the effect of - 'the course of history is determined by the cumulative effect of all the decisions resulting in physical acts of the people alive in the race at any given time. It used to be thought that only a few people made decisions. We now realize that these people are influenced by the people around them, and those people by more people around them, until in effect every person may have had an influence on decisions made, and therefore on the course of history. The farther back in history we go, the slower the influence of the mass of the people concerned, on any decision point." "That last bit's the crucial one," said Hal. "In earlier centuries it often took a very long time for mass decision to shape history, though it always did, in the end. The difference between then and now is communications. Present communications make it possible for the effect of mass attitudes and actions to have an effect almost immediately within the chain of human interaction. The minute I leave here permanently and this becomes known to the worlds in general, attitudes will change throughout the race and the effect of those changes be noticed very quickly. As I say, my going will leave a vacuum opposing Bleys, and the instinctive inertia of the historic forces should cause the racial momentum to react against him and for us." "How?" said Ajela. "You know what I've been after from my beginning as Donal," said Hal. "I've been trying to push humanity toward a greater instinctive sense of responsibility. Apparently this last effort, trying to access the Creative Universe, was too much force in one direction. The historic forces pushed back by producing something new, that none of the present human social groups could fight against. The Others, with their ability to influence any political structure from behind the scenes. They push away from responsibility, toward instinctive obedience."

He stopped, unsure about whether he had made sense to them Or not. "And?" said Rukh. "And so you've got the present situation, with Bleys heading up the other faction, and me, until now, heading up ours."

"I'll in still waiting to hear," said Ajela - but she said it patiently, this time "what this has to do with your giving up and going off, as Rukh said, to look for death."

"It removes me as the spearhead on our side," said Hal. "That gives Bleys and the Others too much of an advantage That means, as I said a few moments ago, he'll be the one who, pushing against the balance of forces, and they'll react against him." "What'll happen?" said Ajela. "I don't know," said Hal. "If you start to estimate something like that, you have to begin by estimating the influence of my leaving on people, like you, immediately around me. Then you have to figure in the impact of your reactions on the larger group of humans around you, and then on those around them, and so on and on - until you're into backlash reactions, and in the end you have to take everyone in the human race into account." "Have you forgotten Tam?" interrupted Rukh. "All these years he's been like Simeon, in the Gospel according to Luke, in the Book of God. You know the story of Simeon?" "Yes," said Hal, both his memory and his work with the core of the Encyclopedia bringing the passage back to his mind. "I don't!" said Ajela. "Tell me."

Rukh turned toward her, but Hal knew that her words were still aimed at him. "...And behold,' '' said Rukh, as steadily as if she were reading from pages open before her, " 'there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Ghost was upon him. " 'And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. " 'And he came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him after the custom of the law, " 'Then he took him up in his arms, and blessed God and said, " 'Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word... For mine eyes have seen thy salvation.'"

Rukh paused, and Ajela turned her gaze unwaveringly back to Hal. "If you give up now, Hal," said Rukh, "what about Tam, whose whole life has been waiting for you to fulfill the promise he found in you?"

Hal felt the pain of her words as if it was a physical thing inside him. "I know what it'll do to Tam," he said harshly. "But the race has to come first, and the only hope for the race I can see now is for me to step out of the equation. I've got to go, leaving the natural actions of the historic forces to guide us to what I couldn't reach by myself. Those forces have kept the race moving forward and upward from the beginning. It was my own good opinion of myself that led me to think I was necessary to moving it where it needed to go." "But what about him, when he learns you've quit?" said Ajela fiercely. "What about him, I say?" "Let him... " The words were painful to Hal, but he had to say them. "Let him go on thinking I'm still trying... to the end. It's the kindest thing, and there's no choice about my going. I have to keep repeating - unless I actually remove myself, the pressure on the historic forces won't change. Rukh-"

He turned to her. "You understand now, don't you?" he said. "All that can be done is let me go, and hope... "

But, surprisingly, Rukh was no longer listening to him. Instead, she was looking down at the screen inset in the desk-top before her. "There's someone outside - a very small ship dodging around outside the shield, trying to get inside right now," she said to Ajela, as if Hal was not only not speaking, but no longer there. "There is?" said Ajela.

She looked down at the screen before her and her fingers began to fly on the control pad beside it, tapping out commands. "We've talked before, you'll remember," said Hal, hoping that if he spoke on quietly, they would give up whatever had fascinated them on the screens and return to the important matter at hand, "about how the human race is, in some ways, like a single composite organism - a body made up of a number of separate and individual parts, the same way a hive of bees or an ant colony can be considered a single individual-"

But they were not listening. Looking into his own screens, Hal saw the focus there was now all on the movements of the small ship Rukh had mentioned. At Aiela's commands the screens were using the capabilities of the Encyclopedia to cancel out the visual blocking of a direct sight at the phase-shield, so that the ship outside it they watched was clearly visible, dodging among the enemy vessels.

Puzzled, Hal watched it, also. Its driver - no one who was familiar with spaceships used the ancient word "pilot" anymore - was phase-shifting in small jumps. His or her craft, a midge among the warships on patrol out there, was obviously trying to keep the gathering enemy from getting into formation around it. Meanwhile, it was jockeying for a position where it might be able to jump through the screen.

Just at that moment, in fact, it achieved the position it wanted, and jumped through. It was instantly englobed by two wings of defensive ships, driven by Dorsai commanders much more capable than those in the enemy ships outside - besides having had the advantage of being able to lie in wait for the small craft.

The enemy warships did not attempt to shift through in pursuit. They probably, thought Hal, had orders not to in any case but if they had they would have been easily destroyed by the better Dorsai-built craft and their more capable crews. The incoming vessel lay still in the midst of the defending vessels, making no effort to escape.

There was a chime on the air of the office. "Forgive this interruption, Ajela," said a masculine voice. "I know you're not to be disturbed during conferences, but this is a ship asking to be allowed into the Encyclopedia, and you left orders-" "It's small enough to get into one of the locks?" Ajela cut in. "Yes," said the voice.

The vessel entrances of the Encyclopedia, Hal knew, had been designed for the shuttles that carried people up from the surface of the Earth and back down again, or out to other ships. By ordinary warship standards the lock dimensions were impossibly small. For any regular space warship, it would have been like a bear trying to get into a badger hole. "Good. Permission to come in granted." Almost in the same breath she went on. "Hal," she said.

He raised his head at the sound of his name. "Hal, I want you to put this decision about giving up on hold, for a few days at least. This ship coming in is one I've been expecting. It just may have some information that could change the way you think. If you don't mind, I want to talk to the driver alone. So would you mind leaving the office, now? Rukh, wait for a minute, will you? There's something more I want to say to you. "

Hal looked back, surprised. Ajela had not merely asked if he would wait a few days before making his decision - a decision he had believed he had already made - she had, in effect, ordered him to wait. Not only was that unExotic, it was totally unlike her, and to top it off, she had no authority to order him to do, or not do, anything. Technically, she was his assistant. Though in justice he knew how little he had actually run the Encyclopedia, and how fully she had.

She could probably force him to stay, for a while, at least, by refusing him transportation to the surface, but the thought of the situation coming to that pass was ridiculous.

However, of course he would wait, for as long as she wanted. Or rather, for any reasonable length of time. Anything else was unthinkable. But the way she had put it was strange. It had to be her exhaustion talking. As, come to think of it, was her excluding him from whatever business she had with the driver of this incoming ship. The driver was almost certainly one of those who had volunteered to go out as a spy onto one of the Younger Worlds, so that Earth would have some idea of how matters stood out there. Though how anything so learned could affect his present decision to leave... however, there was no point in worrying about it now. "Of course," he said.

Getting up, he went out of the office, back toward his own quarters. There was, in fact, one more thing he was going to do in any case, though there was no telling if it would do any good. That was to write down and make sure it was stored in the Encyclopedia itself, all he knew or had learned, surmised or come to believe, about the Creative Universe and the possible ways into it.

He would include an account of the ways he himself had tried and failed. It might save whoever took up the work someday Some time that otherwise might be wasted in duplicating efforts that had proved useless.

Behind him, neither Ajela nor Rukh even looked up from their screens as the door closed.