First Scholar that set him apart from everyone else. He was torn; he did not want such a position—yet could Stefred conceivably be right? Was there something buried in his mind, perhaps, that could explain why he felt unlike other people, even the people who shared his concern for knowledge, the Scholars with whom he’d once thought he wouldn’t be a misfit?
He had been a misfit as a boy in the village. He’d never gotten on well with his father and brothers, who had not cared about any of the things that mattered to him. Once he had despised them, as he’d despised the village life they had found satisfying. He was no longer so callous; for all their rough ways, they had been honest men who’d worked hard and who would leave many descendants. He wondered sometimes what had happened to them. Did they still feel shame at his having been convicted of heresy? The severance of family ties demanded of Inner City residents had been no sacrifice for him, though for most others he knew, it was. It bothered him a little to realize that he’d had nothing to lose.
Except, of course, Talyra. And he had not lost her because of his heretical ideas after all. Ironically, he had lost her for no purpose whatsoever; and worse, she’d lost her own life… .
The First Scholar had come to terms with grief. But his wife had chosen to die—chosen tragically and mistakenly, to be sure, but nevertheless she had made her own decision. Talyra hadn’t. He could never reconcile himself to that! If some end had been served by it, something she would have chosen had she known… but it had achieved nothing.
He could endure his own guilt. He knew, from the dreams, that the First Scholar had lived with some terrible and mysterious horror for which he’d felt to blame, and had endured it—he could never have been at peace in the end if he had not. The end, the deathbed recording, contained no traces of any horror. There was sadness in it, and physical pain, but otherwise only hope: the exultant hope that had engendered the Prophecy. For himself, Noren thought, there would never be hope again. Talyra had died uselessly, and the things she’d believed in, the things the Prophecy said, were never going to come true in any case.
It always came back to that.
Turning over in the dark, the total darkness of a windowless room in which for lack of metal wire, there could be no illumination when no battery-powered lamp was in use, he found himself thinking again about genetics. It was strange he could not put that out of his mind. He’d long since learned all he could about it, lacking practical applications to focus on. He had satisfied his curiosity as to the specific way in which unprocessed soil and water damaged human reproductive cells. It was an incredibly complex process requiring understanding of both chemistry and biology at the molecular level; he’d spent weeks wholly immersed in it, and even so, only the mental discipline acquired from his past study of nuclear physics had enabled him to master the concepts. He was by now, he supposed, the greatest authority on useless information who’d ever lived in the City. The greatest shirker of responsibility, too, people would say, had he not gone back to an outward pretense of devotion to the unattainable goal of metal synthesization.
Yet he could not let his new knowledge drop. He did not know why. It wasn’t escape from terror any longer, nor was it still escape from the futility of his official work—for was not genetics equally futile?
How frustrating that he couldn’t justify devoting more time to it. He would like to experiment. He might genetically modify some native plant to grow in treated soil, and that would give people relief from the monotony of a diet based on a single crop. But the cost would be too high, not only in his time, but in the time the land-treatment machines would last. A second crop would be welcomed by village farmers; they would want extra fields to grow it
He had been a misfit as a boy in the village. He’d never gotten on well with his father and brothers, who had not cared about any of the things that mattered to him. Once he had despised them, as he’d despised the village life they had found satisfying. He was no longer so callous; for all their rough ways, they had been honest men who’d worked hard and who would leave many descendants. He wondered sometimes what had happened to them. Did they still feel shame at his having been convicted of heresy? The severance of family ties demanded of Inner City residents had been no sacrifice for him, though for most others he knew, it was. It bothered him a little to realize that he’d had nothing to lose.
Except, of course, Talyra. And he had not lost her because of his heretical ideas after all. Ironically, he had lost her for no purpose whatsoever; and worse, she’d lost her own life… .
The First Scholar had come to terms with grief. But his wife had chosen to die—chosen tragically and mistakenly, to be sure, but nevertheless she had made her own decision. Talyra hadn’t. He could never reconcile himself to that! If some end had been served by it, something she would have chosen had she known… but it had achieved nothing.
He could endure his own guilt. He knew, from the dreams, that the First Scholar had lived with some terrible and mysterious horror for which he’d felt to blame, and had endured it—he could never have been at peace in the end if he had not. The end, the deathbed recording, contained no traces of any horror. There was sadness in it, and physical pain, but otherwise only hope: the exultant hope that had engendered the Prophecy. For himself, Noren thought, there would never be hope again. Talyra had died uselessly, and the things she’d believed in, the things the Prophecy said, were never going to come true in any case.
It always came back to that.
Turning over in the dark, the total darkness of a windowless room in which for lack of metal wire, there could be no illumination when no battery-powered lamp was in use, he found himself thinking again about genetics. It was strange he could not put that out of his mind. He’d long since learned all he could about it, lacking practical applications to focus on. He had satisfied his curiosity as to the specific way in which unprocessed soil and water damaged human reproductive cells. It was an incredibly complex process requiring understanding of both chemistry and biology at the molecular level; he’d spent weeks wholly immersed in it, and even so, only the mental discipline acquired from his past study of nuclear physics had enabled him to master the concepts. He was by now, he supposed, the greatest authority on useless information who’d ever lived in the City. The greatest shirker of responsibility, too, people would say, had he not gone back to an outward pretense of devotion to the unattainable goal of metal synthesization.
Yet he could not let his new knowledge drop. He did not know why. It wasn’t escape from terror any longer, nor was it still escape from the futility of his official work—for was not genetics equally futile?
How frustrating that he couldn’t justify devoting more time to it. He would like to experiment. He might genetically modify some native plant to grow in treated soil, and that would give people relief from the monotony of a diet based on a single crop. But the cost would be too high, not only in his time, but in the time the land-treatment machines would last. A second crop would be welcomed by village farmers; they would want extra fields to grow it
Similar Books
