The Doors Of The Universe by Sylvia Engdahl Read Free Book Online Page A

loneliness.
    And loneliness wasn’t his heaviest burden. Meeting his eyes, Noren noticed the shadows beneath them, the lines of fatigue and worry in his face. Only a real emergency would have kept Stefred from the service for Talyra; he’d just now returned from a dream-monitoring session with a candidate whom he must consider in peril of cracking up. “This is a bad time for me to have come,” Noren apologized. “I know you can’t tell me the details, but people have heard rumors.”
    Stefred crossed to his desk and slumped wearily into its chair, not bothering to turn on the lamp. “I’ll tell you this,” he said after a short pause. “I’m—afraid, Noren. For the first time, I’m dealing with someone I’m afraid I can’t bring through.”
    “She’s not strong enough?” Noren sat down again, sensing that Stefred really wanted to talk about it. Detached though he felt, the situation puzzled him. If the girl lacked courage, that judgment would have been made earlier, before it was too late to pursue the heresy charge less rigorously and give her Technician rank. Once secrets had been revealed to her, she must be isolated from Technicians for the rest of her life if she proved unable to withstand the full sequence of ordeals that led to Scholar status. Since this would mean not mere confinement to the Inner City but true imprisonment, it was indeed a dismaying prospect—but surely a remote one. Stefred knew how to bring out the best in people.
    “Oh, she’s strong,” he was saying, “she’s more than strong enough; she’s the most promising candidate I’ve seen in a long time. If I fail, the tragedy won’t be just hers and mine. It will affect all of us.”
    “But then if it’s just some personal reaction to the dreams, can’t you help her deal with it?” Stefred, Noren knew, would never violate anyone’s confidence, let alone reveal a confession made under the drugs, which, in a private inquisition, he must have used. However, it was no secret that things in a candidate’s background could make particular aspects of the dreams unduly trying, and in such cases, hypnotic aid was normally given.
    “She’s concealing too much from me,” Stefred said. “There’s a wall in her mind I can’t get past, and I wouldn’t be justified in breaching it even if I could. I’m already sure she meets the qualifications—she hates the caste system as much as we all do and will gladly work toward its abolishment if she finds herself on top. I’ve no warrant to invade her privacy except to determine that. You know I can’t probe her subconscious merely to spare her suffering.”
    “Not unless she consents,” Noren agreed. “Still, if you’ll risk killing her otherwise…” It was possible, in theory, for someone who’d identified closely with the First Scholar to literally share his death in the last dream, the crucial one that dealt with the Prophecy’s origin.
    “The last dream’s not the problem. If it were, I could handle it; she’d need temporary isolation, perhaps, but given time, I could prepare her. What seems to be happening is that she’s too intuitive. The recruiting scheme wasn’t designed to deal with someone who grasps things outside any conceivable past experience.” He leaned forward, frowning. “Noren, what if you’d guessed the extent of the editing in the candidates’ version of the dreams? Could you have gone through with voluntary recantation?”
    “No,” Noren said. “No, I based my decision on first-hand knowledge of the First Scholar’s motives. When you told me afterward about the editing I was furious—I thought for a moment you’d manipulated things to deceive me.”
    “Lianne,” Stefred reflected, “underwent more anguish than any person I have ever monitored in the first dream. It’s not enjoyable for anyone—it can’t be; watching a sun nova and consume its planets isn’t an easy experience. But most candidates are detached at that stage; it’s