The Chantry Guild

CHAPTER 7

Hal woke without opening his eyes, without moving. He felt the weight of Amanda's upper body and head come down again on the bed beside him. He would see her if he opened his eyes. This was no pressure field they slept upon, but, at his own choice, an antique form of spring and mattress such as was still used on most of the poorer Younger Worlds - which included the Dorsai. In a pressure bed he would not have been able to feel her movements a millimeter distant.

So - she had just now again lifted up to look at him as he slept, in the starlight and the light of the new moon shining through the illusion of a skylight in the room's ceiling. She had done that often, these last three nights. She was skillful enough to raise herself without waking him, but the return to a prone position was impossible without doing so. He wondered what she had seen in those dark moments, how much discovered?

For three days and nights he had avoided talking to her about what he knew he must talk to her about, eventually. It had been cowardice to have held off from it this long, the first deliberately cowardly act in all his lives. But the thought of making it final, by putting it into words that they must go away from each other - seemed to close off his throat and make him speechless every time he tried to make himself speak of it.

Or had she read it all in his face as he Jay sleeping? He did not underestimate her. She was capable of reading deeper into other humans, including him, than anyone else he had ever known. "Yes." He rolled over on his back and stared up at the stars in their true positions as seen from here, artificial illusion though the skylight was. "We should talk."

She rose on her elbow again and the darkness of her head and shoulder occulted part of the skylight. In the dimmer illumination of her own shadow, her features were just barely visible. Her hair, unloosed, fell over her shoulder and brushed with faint fingers at the left side of his face. For a moment she looked down at him. Then she lowered her head and kissed him gently on the lips. Then raised again and stayed looking down at him. "I should have told you the moment you got here," he said. "But..." "It's al I right, dear," she said. "I know. Rukh and Ajela told me. You think you have to stop searching for an answer."

Of course. They would have told her as soon as she got here, when he had just before that announced it to them. "Yes," he answered. "I've been here for three years, Amanda, and in all that time - not one step forward."

Her dark head nodded slowly against the stars. "I see." Her voice was thoughtful. "Up until a year ago," he said, "I still didn't doubt. I was still sure I'd find a way into the Creative Universe. I know it's there. I know if I could have found a way in, the advantages would have been overwhelming and obvious to anyone - to everyone on Old Earth, to begin with. If nothing else, it'd be a place to which the people could escape, if the force of the Younger Worlds does finally break through the phase-shield." "And at best?" "Why, at best - but haven't I told you all this before?" "You've told me very little. A bit about what you hoped to reach," said Amanda's voice softly. "A good deal about what made you start reaching, a lot about the past, but little about the future." "I guess - yes," said Hal. "You're right. I never did tell you much of what I hoped for. But that was because I didn't want to promise anything I couldn't..."

He ran out of words. He was fumbling for the words he wanted. An unusual thing for him, and an unusual feeling.

"You didn't want even me to get my expectations up, in case you weren't able to do it," Amanda said. "I suppose so. Yes," he answered, "you're right. That was why- Even you." "Didn't it ever cross your mind you didn't have to prove yourself to me by success?" "I don't know." He hesitated. "Maybe I was afraid of just what's happened. I mean - not afraid that I wouldn't be successful, but that I'd have to decide to stop trying while there was still life in me to try with."

He waited for some response. But she said nothing to help him. He turned again to face her dark shape. "You know this is different," he said. "No matter what you feel, and I feel, you know we have to go different ways, if I turn away, take myself out of the equation while you're still in it. And you know you'll stay in it. You're what you are. The Third Amanda could never turn her back on worlds full of people needing her, simply to follow me into nothingness, for my own sake. What you were born to be and all you were trained to be won't let you. Isn't that so?" "It would be so," she said slowly, "if you did turn away yourself. Yes."

It was almost a relief to hear her say it, and know that it was at last stated, out in the open, final. "That's why I've delayed like this, telling you," he went on. "Oh, Amanda... Amanda... "

His throat closed up on him. He could not say any more. Her hand reached out and stroked his forehead, gently, soothingly, as if he was a child with a fever. "You're not gone yet," she murmured. "But that's just it," he said, able to talk again, although talking was painful. "I've already delayed too long. There's more to it. It's not just me stepping away from an insoluble situation before it drives me insane. If it were that alone, I'd keep trying until they had to carry me off. But every day I wait, I hold back the time when Bleys finds out I'm gone. One day longer to the change that has to come when the historic forces move into the vacuum where I was." "Are you sure when they do move, that'll be for the good of what we've all worked for'? What if it's for the worse?" "I don't know what'll happen, of course," he said. "There's only one thing I know. My quitting's going to leave an imbalance. One that the forces - which are the result of the reactions of all the people on all the worlds - won't be able to tolerate. By going I leave Bleys unopposed, too strong. I explained that to Rukh and Ajela. The imbalance has got to react against Bleys, where up until now the forces of history were working for him and the Others." "You're sure of that?" she said. "How can it be or have been any other way?" He stared through the darkness at her, wanting to see the expression of her face more clearly. "In all our history, no one person, one side, ever held the race to its own will for any length of time. Sometimes inside a generation - or less - all that a great conqueror took, or builder erected, was gone. Something else had come to replace it. You can say the civilizations of Egypt, the Dynasties of China, the Roman Empire, lasted for hundreds of years. But steadily, even while the names lasted, what they stood for changed. Always. Even the great religions grew, splintered, altered - until from one generation to another, even a hundred years later, they'd all have seemed very, very different to someone used to their earlier forms."

Amanda said nothing. She continued to stroke his forehead. "You know this is true!" he said. "When the balance leans too far one way, it automatically swings back. If I go, Bleys can never have what he's fought for - a single, unchanging Old Earth, where all the humans alive are permanently under the control of him and his kind. The historic forces will make an adjustment - hopefully for the better. It must happen, just as a child grows into an adult and an adult grows into old age and death - inexorably. Without the constant change that brings adaptation, the race can't survive."

Still she said nothing. Her hand continued to stroke him, that was all. It seemed she was ready to listen eternally. "I never hoped to stop that ceaseless back-and-forth, that oscillation," he said. "My only hope was to take advantage of its momentum to break through to some kind of permanent improvement in people, a growth, not in anything put together by men and women as a society, but already waiting in the very hearts and souls and natures of each one of them, individually. So that on the next swing each living human would have more be more, and choose more wisely. And this improvement would have to have come inevitably, as the value of the learning and self-discipline acquired by each individual, as the price of being able to use the Creative Universe. If only I could have found the way into it for them, that pass through the mountains! "

He stopped talking, out of words. They stayed as they were a little while, Amanda's hand still gently soothing his forehead. At last, however, she ceased, and took her hand away. "You've thought of what your leaving is going to mean to Tam, of course?" she said. "Of course," he answered, his voice thick with self-anger and disgust. "He had faith in me, in my finding a solution. I've been holding off telling him just as I held off telling you. But perhaps it's better to, now. But it'll be hard on him, after struggling to live all these years until an answer could be found. I know it. But I can't delay leaving any longer. Bleys is driving the Younger Worlds to produce ships and man them, to the point where it'll kill them. Of course, he wants them to die. And that makes it only a matter of time before he has what he needs for a massive breakthrough. As the time before that event shortens, the time in which my quitting can begin to cause a change in the balance of forces gets smaller and smaller. I have to tell Tam now, and go - now."

He hesitated. "I'd rather do anything than face him with that news. Anything, but not face him with it." "You think it means only disappointment to him?" "What else?" he said. "He counted on me to find it. He counted on me to take over the Encyclopedia. I can't do either. If I stayed here, there'd be no true vacuum of power created, and affairs would haul me back into position again." "But only disappointment, that's all you think it'll mean to Tam?"

He stared through the darkness at her, at the face he could not read. "What else would there be? What do you mean?" he demanded.

She said nothing for a second. Then, when she spoke, her voice was a little different, almost detached. "Do you know the children's story of the Great Dark Place?" she asked.

His mind drew a blank, made an automatic half-effort to call up the knowledge center of the Encyclopedia to find it, but he was too sick and weary inside for the effort. Besides, he knew Amanda must have some reason for wanting to retell it herself, or she would not have mentioned it so. "No," he said.

"The sun, the rain and the wind happened to meet one day," she said softly. "And the rain was upset - so upset that he was almost turning into sleet. It's just terrible,' he told the sun and the wind, 'I've come from seeing something I wouldn't have believed if anyone had told me about it. A Great Dark Place. I've never seen a place so dark and terrible. I got away just as fast as I could. It scared me to death.' " The wind laughed. " 'Come on, now,' the wind said, 'no place can be that frightening. In fact, I don't believe it even exists. You're making it up. Isn't he, Sun? " 'I certainly can't imagine any such place,' said the Sun.

" 'You go see for yourself then,' said the rain. 'Anyway, I know it's there and I'm not going anywhere near it, ever again. The very thought of it chills me clear through - look how my drops are freezing at the thought of it!' " 'Poo!' said the wind. 'Where's it supposed to be - back the way you just came? I'll go see for myself, right now!' and off he went. "The sun went on his regular way, because it was important that a day always have the right number of minutes in it for the day it was, and he'd almost forgotten about the rain's fright and story, when the wind came up to him. And the wind was so shaken he was blowing in irregular gusts. " 'Calm down, now,' said the sun. 'What's wrong?' " 'What's wrong?' said the wind. 'I'll tell you what's wrong! I went to look for that Great Dark Place the rain talked about - and it was there! Just as rain said! The greatest, darkest place you ever - well, there's just no describing how terribly great and dark it was. I'll never get over the fright it gave me - never!' " 'Come, come,' said the sun, for he was a very large and comforting person, by nature, 'it just isn't possible for any place to be that frightening. How about this? I'll go have a look for myself, right now. There may have to be a few extra minutes in this day, but we can't go having the rain and wind all upset like that. The weather will turn crazy, if it's sleeting in the middle of summer and you're blowing a gusty gale when you ought to be cooling everybody's brow with gentle breezes. I'll be right back.' "Off he went. But he didn't come right back. In fact, he didn't come back for quite a while indeed, and when he did, he was exhausted. While the wind had been waiting the rain had come up to join him and they both watched the sun approaching. " 'Well?" called the rain, as the sun got close enough to hear. 'Now, you see? Isn't it the most terrible and greatest Dark Place you ever saw? " 'It certainly is not!' replied the sun as he reached them. He was hot and more than a little cross, for now the day would have at least an extra hour in it it never should have had - unless moon could be talked into shortening the night by that much. 'In fact I don't believe there ever was any such place. The two of you made it up to send me on a wild goose chase. I looked high and low. I looked into everything and under everything - and there's no dark place at all, anywhere! If there was, I couldn't have missed finding it. I don't think it ever existed in the first place, and that's the last time I go looking for something like that!" Hal had been lulled almost into drowsiness by the soft, regular voice of Amanda as she told the story. Besides being natural singers, the Morgans of Fal Morgan were gifted storytellers, and Amanda had all the family skills in that area. Now, the sudden stopping of her voice woke him suddenly, to the night and what he had himself been talking of before. "And this dark place," he said to her, "it has some particular application to me?" "You know why the sun couldn't find it, of course," said Amanda. "The dark place was there, but the sun saw only his own light when he looked. Tam has a dark place, even after all these years, but when you look at it, you see it so fully lighted by your own vision, you don't or won't see it as a dark place, because it echoes a dark place very like it, in you. The memory of your responsibility for how your brother Mor died."

Hal closed his eyes reflexively - because Amanda's last words had slapped him like a physical blow. Yet again his mind brought him the sight of William, the finally defeated and now fully insane Prince of the great planet Ceta, as he pressed the button that opened double doors to reveal the tortured body of what had once been Mor - the image was as fresh as if it had been yesterday, instead of a century past.

He made himself open his eyes again. "Tell me what you mean," he said. "No one you ever knew dies - for you," said Amanda, and the eerie near-echoing of what he had told himself, standing surrounded by the image of the library on the estate back down on Earth in the mountain rains, just a few days before, was part of what she always seemed able to do. "Similarly, for Tam, your uncle Kensie and Jamethon Black, and even David Hall his brother-in-law - will never have died. Tam's lived with his part in those deaths longer than you've lived with Mor's death. He's carried his guilt about them more than a century, and the only hope he's had was that your finding what you've been after would prove that there were other causes - that it was one of the necessary happenings that made possible your discovery of a way into the Creative Universe for all people."

She paused. "So, that's what you're going to be taking from him, when you tell him you're giving up: his last hope of some forgiveness from the darkness, before he dies. For Ajela, for the Encyclopedia, even for you in your own right, he's fought to live that long. But mostly for hope of pardon for what happened to David and Kensie and Jamethon. Nearly a hundred years of service here hasn't won that pardon for him. But you might have. This one thing of all things you couldn't see - because his darkness echoes yours too closely. When you got close to seeing it, it woke your own guilt over Mor, and so you didn't want to look deeply into him where his trouble lay."

Hal lay stiffly still in the bed. "You make leaving harder, only," he said. "No, I didn't realize that about Tam, but knowing it now makes no difference. What can I do that I haven't done already?" "Did it ever strike you," said Amanda softly, "that you've been going at the problem of entry to the Creative Universe in what amounts to a head-on attack-like an attempt by pure force on a fabric or situation, to break through it. Maybe you could back off for a moment, and try to find a way of approaching the problem obliquely, in a way that wouldn't provoke so much resistance."

He propped himself up on one elbow to stare at her. "By God!" he said. "Even in this you see more than anyone else can-" He broke off and slumped back. "But there is no other way. I've tried them all." "You've been too close to the problem even to see them all," she said. "You think so?" He was silent for a long moment. "No," he said, "I can't believe that. It's too easy an answer."

She let him think in silence for a while. "If you don't mind a suggestion..." she said at last. "I might have known!" He smiled grimly at her, aware that the moonlight showed his face to her clearly. "No - of course I want a suggestion!" "Then suppose I tell you that on Kultis, where I've been working underground, the people have found their own way of resisting the armed forces Bleys sent to occupy the Exotic worlds? A way that doesn't mean giving up their commitment to nonviolence? Would it make a difference if I could show you a small corner on that world where a new kind of Exotic is coming into being?"

He stared through the darkness at her, letting her words resound and re-echo in his mind, the implications of what she had just said flying out like sound waves from each stroke of a clapper against the metal side of some heavy bell. "New?" he said. "You mean a development-upward?" "Yes. Possibly upward. But new - I'm sure. Totally new, unmistakably different." "And better?" "I think so," said Amanda, "there's a group who've revived the old name of Chantry Guild for themselves, the name of the organization back in the twenty-first century, that you were once concerned with as Paul Formain. The organization from which the whole Exotic culture sprang, changed as it was from its beginnings." "It would mean. He rolled over once more on to his back, talking to the ceiling as much as to her, again. "It would mean one more sure indication the race as a whole is on the brink of a step forward. But the Exotics were a Splinter Culture, like the Friendlies and the Dorsai. More than the Friendlies and Dorsai, they were deliberately trying to improve all people. But to make that improvement now, under these conditions, when everything they have has been given away, or taken from them... it's incredible."

He shook his head. "And even if you're right, would it work here? These are Old Earth people, the laggards of the laggards..."

He fell silent, his own mind answering him with the memory of how for this last year or so Ajela had been pointing out evidence that on the world below its peoples, too, had been changing, giving up - more and more of their millennia-old sectionalism. Ajela had talked of how for the first time they were beginning to think and act as a unit. Rukh had insisted, not once but many times repeating what was said by those who had come from Harmony and Association to help her speak out against the nihilism of those who preached support of Bleys' and the Others' attitudes. These Friendlies had said that, even among those who did not flock by the hundreds of thousands to see Rukh herself in person, some still showed an openness, a willingness to see that it was not really the Younger Worlds, like some horde of enemies, that threatened them, but a destructive attitude on the part of Bleys and the Others that was the core and heart of their opposition.

He had thought that by saying these things Rukh and Ajela were merely trying to lift his own dulled spirits. But perhaps they had been honestly reporting. Perhaps, even here on Old Earth, there was a new wind of thought, bringing together the established, self-centered, divided and often opposed-to-eachother peoples of a world which for some hundreds of years had trailed behind the rest of the race in its thinking.

If that was true... then it could suddenly be important what was happening on Kultis. If the Exotics were indeed, even in one small spot, anywhere near breaking through to a new and better form of their particular Splinter-culture type of social human. If that was the case, he badly wanted to see such a thing for himself. The problem was, however, he reminded himself, that even if this was true and meaningful, he could see no way now that it could help him, personally, with the problem that had stopped him dead in his tracks these last three years.

His spark of momentary excitement had gone out. And into that void Amanda once more spoke as if she had been thinking his thoughts with him. "Suppose," she said, "you put off telling Tam - say, for the two months it would take you to go to Kultis, see for yourself what I'm talking about - and return?" "Yes," he said slowly, as he thought about her suggestion. Even though his excitement had cooled, he found he could cling to the thought that, in any case it was two more months for Tam, Ajela and the rest to hope in. Even Amanda might hope. She had not asked for herself, but then she would not, although she and he were so close that he could not avoid knowing how it would cost her to lose him, just as it would cost him to be parted from her. "I'd like you to go with me," he said to her. "I'd planned on it," she said. "I'd have to guide you to the people I've been talking about, anyway. They're hidden as well as they can be from the Others' occupying military. Once there, though, I'd have to leave you with them and just drop back at intervals. It's my district and I've got responsibilities there. Also, in this case, I better not carry you to Kultis by myself. We'll need a driver." "So long as you get someone who can keep a secret." "About the fact you're gone from the Encyclopedia?" she said. "Did you think I wouldn't? Leave all that to me, and we'll get under way as soon as possible."

"All right then," he said, "but two months only, including travel time." "Including travel time. Yes," she said.

He nodded and smiled - for her sake. But it was no use, said the inner part of him. It was a false hope, only delaying the inevitable, while shortening vitally necessary time. Desperately, he wished he could find some way of estimating when the Younger Worlds would have enough properly crewed ships outside the phase-shield to try a breakthrough to Earth.

But it was no use hoping for that. Even Bleys could not know. It would depend on how much flesh and blood could stand on the Younger Worlds, how fast the people there could be driven to produce what the Others needed.