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VI

Mukerji entered the wardroom to find Schuster alone, laying out a hand of solitaire. "Where's Romulo?" he asked.

"Off in his own place, quietly going crazy," Schuster said. "He's trying to figure out what Davy was getting at just before—" He raised a face whose plumpness looked oddly pinched. "Heard anything from the kid?"

"No. I shall let you know the minute I do, of course. His set must still be on, I hear natives speak and move about. But not a word from him, and everyone else is probably afraid to answer the talking box."

"Oh, God. I sent him there."

"You could not have known there was any danger."

"I could know the ship was the safest place to be. I should have gone myself." Schuster stared blindly at his cards. "He was my apprentice."

Mukerji laid a hand on the merchant's shoulder. "You had no business on a routine mission like that. Fighting and all, it was routine. Your brains are needed here."

"What brains?"

"You must have some plan. What were you talking to that peasant about, a few hours before sunrise?"

"I bribed him with a trade knife to carry a message for me to the Sanctuary. Telling Herktaskor he should come out for a private conference. Second in command of the astrology department, you may recall; a very bright fellow, and I think more friendly than otherwise to us. At least, he doesn't have Sketulo's fanatical resistance to innovation." Schuster found he was laying a heart on a diamond, cursed, and scattered the cards with a sweep of his hand. "Obviously Rebo showed up, having seen the gun flashes, and dealt with Sketulo's killers. But did he come in time? Is Davy still alive?"

The scanner hooted. Both men leaped to their feet and ran out the door to the closest viewscreen. "Speak of the devil," Mukerji said. "Take over, Martin. I shall go back and hunch above the radio."

Schuster suppressed his inward turmoil and opened the air lock. A cold early-morning wind, laden with sharp odors, gusted at him. Herktaskor mounted the gangway and entered. His great form was muffled in a cloak, which he did not take off until the door had closed again. Beneath, he wore his robes. Evidently he hadn't wanted to be recognized on his way here.

"Greeting," said Schuster in a dull tone. "Thank you for coming."

"Your message left me scant choice," said the Consecrate. "For the good of Larsum and the Faith, I am bound to listen if you claim to have an important matter to discuss."

"Have you, ah, been forbidden to enter the ship?"

"No, but it is as well not to give the Chief the idea that he should forbid it." Herktaskor squinted against an illumination which he found blindingly harsh, though it had been reduced well below normal to conserve the small amount of charge left in the accumulators. Schuster led the being to his own cabin, dimmed the lights further, and offered the lounger.

They sat down and regarded each other for a silent while. At length Herktaskor said, "If you repeat this, I shall have to call you a liar. But having found you honorable"—that hurt a little; Schuster's plans were not precisely above-board—"I think you should know that many Consecrates feel Sketulo was wrong in immediately banning your new mathematics and astrology. Could he show by Scripture, tradition, or reasoning that they contravened the Word of God, then naturally the whole Sanctuary would have joined him in rejecting your teachings. But he has made no attempt to show it, has merely issued a flat decree."

"Are you permitted to argue with him about the matter?"

"Yes, the rule has always been that full-rank Consecrates may dispute freely within the bounds of doctrine. But we must obey the orders of our superiors as long as those are not themselves unlawful."

"I thought so. Well—" Schuster reached for a cigar. "Here is what I wanted to tell you. I wish the cooperation of the Sanctuary rather than its enmity. In order to win that cooperation, I would like to prove to you that we are no danger to the Faith, but may rather be the instruments of its furtherance. Then perhaps you can convince the others."

Herktaskor waited, impassive. Yet his eyes narrowed and seemed to kindle.

Schuster started the cigar and puffed ragged clouds. "The purpose of your astrology is to learn God's will and the plan on which He has constructed the universe. To me, this implies that the larger purpose of the Consecrates is to search out the nature of God, insofar as it may be understood by mortals. Your theologians have reached conclusions in the past. But are those conclusions final? May there not be much more to deduce?"

Herktaskor bowed his lion head and traced a solemn circle in the air. "There may. There must. Nothing of importance has been done in that field since the Book of Domno was written, but I myself have often speculated—Go on, I pray you."

"We newcomers are not initiates of your religion," Schuster said. "However, we, too, in our own fashion, have spent many centuries wondering about the divine. We, too, believe," well, some of us, "in a single God, immortal, omnipotent, omniscient . . . perfect . . . Who made all things. Now maybe our theology varies from yours at crucial points. But maybe not. May I compare views with you? If you can show me where my people have erred, I will be grateful and will, if I live, carry back the truth to them. If, on the other hand, I can show you, or merely suggest to you, points on which our thought has gone beyond yours, then you will understand, and can make your colleagues understand, that we outlanders are no menace, but rather a beneficial influence."

"I doubt that Sketulo and certain other stiff-minded Consecrates will ever concede that," Herktaskor said. His voice took on an edge. "Yet if a new truth were indeed revealed, and anyone dared deny it—" His fists unclenched. "I listen."

Schuster was not surprised. Every religion in Earth's past, no matter how exclusive in theory, had had influential thinkers who were willing to borrow ideas from contemporary rivals. He made himself as comfortable as possible. This would take a while.

"The first question I wish to raise," he said, "is why God created the universe. Have you any answer to that?"

Herktaskor started. "Why, no. The writings say only that He did. Dare we inquire into His reasons?"

"I believe so. See, if God is unbounded in every way, then He must have existed eternally before the world was. He is above everything finite. But thought and existence are themselves finite, are they not?"

"Well . . . well . . . yes. That sounds reasonable. Thought and existence as we know them, anyhow."

"Just so. I daresay your philosophers have argued whether the sound of a stone falling in the desert, unheard by any ears, is a real phenomenon." Herktaskor nodded. "It is an old conundrum, found on countless planets, I mean in many countries. In like manner, a God alone in utter limitlessness could not be be comprehended by thought nor described in words. No thinking, speaking creatures were there. Accordingly, in a certain manner of speaking, He did not exist. That is to say, His existence lacked an element of completion, the element of being observed and comprehended. But how can the existence of the perfect God be incomplete? Obviously it cannot. Therefore it was necessary for Him to bring forth the universe, that it might know Him. Do you follow me?"

Herktaskor's nod was tense. He had begun to breathe faster.

"Have I said anything thus far which contradicts your creed?" Schuster asked.

"No . . . I do not believe you have. Though this is so new—Go on!"

"The act of creation," Schuster said around his cigar, "must logically involve the desire to create, thought about the thing to be created, the decision to create, and the work of creation. Otherwise God would be acting capriciously, which is absurd. Yet such properties—desire, thought, decision, and work—are limited. They are inevitably focused on one creation, out of the infinite possibilities, and involve one set of operations. Thus the act of creation implies a degree of finitude in God. But this is unthinkable, even temporarily. Thus we have the paradox that He must create and yet He cannot. How shall this be resolved?"

"How do you resolve it?" Herktaskor breathed, looking a little groggy.

"Why, by deciding that the actual creation must have been carried out by ten intelligences known as the Sephiroth—"

"Hold on!" The Consecrate half rose. "There are no other gods, even lesser ones, and the Book does not credit the angels with making the world."

"Of course. Those I speak of are not gods or angels, they are separate manifestations of the One God, somewhat as the facets of a jewel are manifestations of it without being themselves jewels. God no doubt has infinitely many manifestations, but the ten Sephiroth are all that we have found logically necessary to explain the fact of creation. To begin with the first of them, the wish and idea of creation must have been coexistent with God from eternity. Therefore it contains the nine others which are required as attributes of that which is to be created—"

 

Some hours later, Herktaskor said farewell. He walked like one in a daze. Schuster stood in the lock watching him go. He himself felt utterly exhausted.

If it turns out I've done this to him, to all of them, for nothing, may my own dear God forgive me.

Mukerji hurried from the wardroom. His feet clattered loudly on the deck. "Martin!" he yelled. "Davy's alive!"

Schuster spun on his heel. A wave of giddiness went through him, he leaned against the bulkhead and gasped weakly.

"His call came after you went off with that Brahmin," Mukerji said. "I don't know if I would do harm by interrupting you, so—Yes. He was wounded, hand and leg, nothing that won't heal, you know we need not worry about any local microbes. He fainted, and I imagine that he went directly from a swoon to a sleep. He could still only mumble when he called from Rebo's castle, said he would call back after he had gotten some more rest and explain his idea. Come, Romulo and I have already broken out a bottle to celebrate!"

"I could use that," Schuster said, and followed him.

After a few long swallows, he felt more himself. He set down his glass and gave the others a shaky grin. "Did you ever have anybody tell you you were not a murderer?" he asked. "That's how I'm feeling."

"Oh, come off it," Pasqual snorted. "You are not that responsible for your apprentices."

"No, maybe not, except I sent him where I could have gone myself—But he's okay, you say!"

"Without you here on the spot, that might make very little difference," Pasqual said. "Krish is just a spaceman and I just an engineer and Davy just a kid. We need somebody to scheme our way out of this hole. And you, amigo mío, are a schemer by trade."

"Well, Davy seems to have thought of something. What, I don't know." Schuster shrugged. "Or maybe I do know—some item I learned in school and forgot. He's closer to his school days."

"Assuming his idea is any good," Pasqual said with a return of worry. "I have not made any feasible plans myself, but believe me, I have thought of many harebrained ones."

"We'll have to wait and see. Uh, do you have any more details on the situation in Gilrigor?"

"Yes, I spoke directly with Rebo, after Davy had shown him how the radio works," Mukerji said. "The assassins were killed in his attack. He said he ordered that because he suspected they were indeed Sanctuary guards. If he had taken any of them prisoner, he would have been bound to release them again, or else face an awkward clash of wills between himself and Sketulo. And they would promptly have taken word back here. As it is, he has avoided the dilemma, and can claim his action was perfectly justified. At arrowshot distance, he could not see their insignia, and the natural assumption was that they were bandits—whom it is his duty to eradicate."

"Excellent." Schuster chuckled. "Rebo's a smart gazzer. If he finds an excuse not to send a messenger here, as I'm sure he can, we'll have gained several days before Sketulo wonders what's happened and sends someone else out to inquire—who's then got to get there and back, taking still more time. In other words, by keeping our mouths shut about the whole business, we turn his own delaying tactics on him." He looked around the table. "And time is what we need right now, second only to haulage. Time for the Sanctuary to get so badly off balance, so embroiled internally, that no one can think up a new quasi-legal gimmick for stopping us."

"Be careful they are not driven to violence," Mukerji said.

"That's not too likely," Schuster replied. "The attempt on Davy was by stealth; I'm pretty sure Sketulo will disown his dead agents when the news breaks. Any decision to act with open illegality is tough for him, you see. It'd give people like Rebo much too good a talking point, or even an excuse to fight back. Besides, as I already remarked, time should now begin to work against the old devil."

Pasqual cocked his head at the merchant. "What have you been brewing?"

"Well—" Schuster reached for the bottle again. Liquor gurgled cheerily into his glass. "First off, as you know, I introduced Newtonian astronomy. I disguised it as a fictional hypothesis, but that just makes it sneakier, not any less explosive. Nobody can fool himself forever with a pretense this is only a fairy tale to simplify his arithmetic. Sooner or later, he'll decide the planetary orbits really are elliptical. And that knocks a major prop out from under his belief in the sacredness of circles, which in turn will repercuss like crazy on the rest of the religion. Sketulo foresaw as much, and right away he forbade any use of my ideas. This simply delays the inevitable, though. He can't stop his astrologers from thinking, and some of them from resenting the prohibition. That'll make tension in the Sanctuary, which'll occupy a certain amount of his time and energy, which'll therefore be diverted from the problem of how to burke us."

"Nice," Mukerji frowned, "but a little long range. The revolution might take fifty years to ripen."

"Admitted. The trend helps our cause, but not enough by itself. So today I got Herktaskor here. We talked theology."

"What? You can't upset a religion in an afternoon!"

"Oh, sure. I know that." Schuster took a drink. His grin broadened. "The goyim have been working on mine for two or three thousand years and got nowhere. I only pointed out certain logical implications of the local creed and suggested some of the answers to those implications which've been reached on Earth."

"So?" Pasqual asked wonderingly.

"Well, you know I'm interested in the history of science and philosophy, like to read about it and so forth. Because of this, as well as some family traditions, I've got a knowledge of the Kabbalah."

"¿Qúe es?"

"The system of medieval Jewish theosophy. In one form or another, it had tremendous influence for centuries, even on Christian thought. But believe you me, it's the most fantastically complicated structure the human race ever built out of a few texts, a lot of clouds, and a logic that got the bit between its teeth. Jewish Orthodoxy never wanted any part of it—much too hairy, and among the Chasidim in particular it led to some wild emotional excesses.

"But it fits the Larsan system like a skin. For instance, in the Kabbalah there are ten subordinate emanations of God, who are the separate attributes of perfection. They're divided into three triads, each denoting one male and one female quality plus their union. There hasn't been much numerology here before now, but when I reminded Herktaskor that three points determine a circle, he gasped. Each of these triadic apices is identified with some part of the body of the archetypal man. One more Sephirah encircles the lot, which also accords nicely with Larsan symbolism, and the conjunction of them produced the universe. . . . Well, never mind details. It goes on to develop techniques of letter rearrangement by which the inner meaning of Scripture can be discovered, a doctrine of triple reincarnation, a whole series of demonologies and magical prescriptions, altogether magnificent, glittering nonsense that seduced some of the best minds Earth ever knew. I gave it to Herktaskor."

"And—?" Mukerji asked very softly.

"Oh, not all. That'd take months. I just told him the bare outlines. He may or may not come back for more. That hardly matters. The damage has been done. Larsan philosophy is still rather primitive, not ready to deal with such strong meat. Religion is theoretically a pure monotheism, in practice tainted with the ghosties and ghoulies of popular superstition, and no one so far has given its premises a really thorough examination. Yet theology does exist as a respectable enterprise. So the Consecrates are cocked and primed to go off, in an explosion of reinterpretations, reformations, counterreformations, revelations, new doctrines, fundamentalistic reactions, and every other kind of hooraw we humans have been through. As I've already said, the Kabbalah sure had that effect on Earth. In time, this should break up the Sanctuary and let some fresh air into Larsum."

Schuster sighed. "I'm afraid the process will be bloody," he finished. "If I didn't think it was for the long-range best, I wouldn't have done this thing, not even to save our lives."

Pasqual looked bewildered. "You are too subtle for me," he complained. "Will it?"

"If we can move that generator here within the next few weeks, I'm certain it will. Herktaskor is no fool, even if he is a natural-born theologian. After what happened about the calculus, he'll be discreet about who he picks to talk my ideas over with. But those are good brains in the Sanctuary, hungry to be used. If fact is denied them to work with, theory will serve. The notions will spread like a shock wave. Questions will soon be openly raised. Sketulo can't lawfully suppress discussion of that sort, and the others will be too heated up to obey an unlawful order. So he's going to have his hands full, that gazzer, for the rest of his life!"

 

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