Chapter Three

A Face in the Abyss

The cosmos unfurled its frigid splendor across the screens of the Teknor’s private command post. Tankar paced back and forth in his small apartment, glancing occasionally at the communications screen to see Tan, comfortably ensconced in a low-slung chair, glass in hand, and Anaena, elbows on the gleaming polished wood of the Teknor’s desk where she sat.

“What’s the point of living when everything around you has gone to hell?” Tankar demanded. “Okay, yes, my life in the Guards may have lacked meaning. Certainly the life I lived was based on a series of lies:

“Fight bravely, be loyal to your superiors, worship the Emperor, and all will go well for you in this world and in the next.

“But above all don’t ask questions. Accept the life that has been given to you: kill, pillage, rape if need be. A thousand commoners are worth less than one Stellar Guard. A thousand soldiers are worth less than one Stellar Guard.”

He continued reciting the Guards’ mantra by heart in a tone so sarcastic it almost certainly would have cost him his life during the Empire.

“You have lovely toys to play with and powerful, speedy starships that can rip out the insides of a planet. Enjoy yourself as you follow the Emperor’s orders.

“Leave it to others to answer the tough questions; leave it to your commanders to devise battle plans until you become a commander…or lay down your life in battle; leave it to priests to debate the last rites.

“Do you not have the Emperor, a descendant of the divine, who will never fail you?

“That was my life,” he went on. “I knew that not everything was perfect in the Empire, that best of all possible worlds,” he sneered, “but it wasn’t up to me to try to change it!” His tone turned defensive. “Then the rebellion happened, my starship was sabotaged, and I found myself adrift in space.

“I wasn’t afraid to die; in fact, now I’m sure that it would’ve been better for me to have perished the way I should’ve: as a Guard! Instead, you rescued me. You fed me and gave me freedom within your wandering world.

“And then you humiliated me. In your eyes I was just a planetary dog, barely worth holding in reserve on the off chance that I might have an interesting secret. I don’t blame you for that; how could you have done anything else?

“To tell you the truth, when I look back on the pitiful beliefs that served as the foundation of my life and conduct, I have to admit that you were right to treat me the way you did. I deserved the contempt that any civilized person feels for a barbarian, but that contempt proved to me that your society was as unjust and as cruel as the Empire, since it never even crossed your minds that my being a barbarian wasn’t my fault! Also, it never occurred to you how dangerous it might be to humiliate a barbarian if you don’t kill him right away. Finally, you never considered that a barbarian might suffer.”

Tankar, knowing that one or both of his listeners would object, raised his hand to stop them. “I know, I know. After a while, you changed your mind about me…a little. A few of you even began to see me as a human being like yourselves. Orena was the first. In the beginning, I merely amused her. Now I regret how I treated her. I used her like I would’ve a commoner girl in the Empire.”

Anaena broke in. “She didn’t deserve any better! She was the one who took your blueprints!”

“What?” Tankar stopped pacing.

“After we built the tracers, we used the notes you’d left in the lab to develop hyperspatial communicators. We were pretty damn surprised to connect with the Frank and to realize they had them as well.”

“But…but why did she do it?”

“She suffered from a profound fear of the Mpfifis,” the Teknor calmly explained.

Anaena jumped back in. “She was convinced you’d never hand over the blueprints, so she just took them to benefit all the People of the Stars and, I’m sure, to bolster the advantist cause,” she added with a sneer. “She also probably hoped to turn you against me.” Barely above a whisper she sighed, “She certainly scored on that count.”

“So it’s her fault that…. Well the past is past.” Tankar resumed pacing. “As you know, the theft of the plans reinforced my belief that we had nothing in common. But even that might not have mattered, if you hadn’t destroyed my faith, my reason to live, without giving me anything to replace it.

“Oh, nobody engaged in full-on anti-Empire propaganda,” he acknowledged with a wave of his arms. “You just said you hated it, and I understood that. But your conversations? Your books? Your way of life? They all served to destroy my faith in the Empire. If a civilization as powerful as yours could develop on such radically different premises from those on Earth…that proved the Emperor was not the divinity he claimed to be.” He stopped pacing and looked at the screen. “And then I met Iolia.”

His voice softened. “Her people behaved so much more kindly to me than you did, and they were honest with me too. They offered me their faith because they sensed the emptiness in my soul. But it was either too soon or too late: too soon, because the Empire was still imprinted in me; too late, because of the damage you’d already done.”

He glared first at the Teknor, then at Anaena. “I hated you. God, I hated you. I truly hated you, Anaena. And then, when circumstances turned us into brothers-in-arms on the unnamed planet, I still might have loved you and saved myself.” He resumed pacing. “But I remained certain that you were the one who’d plotted to steal my plans, and then your treatment of Iolia repelled me. So I married Iolia, Iolia the sweet, the gentle, hoping to find with her both respite and love. You know, of course, what happened as the result of my stubbornness, my arrogance, and your prejudice.

“So here I am, once again, returned from Earth where, like a spoiled brat, I sought refuge. You seemed so happy to see me again; you’ve even encouraged me to assimilate this time. Okay. I’m willing. After all, what other options do I have? Do you really believe I’ll have more success if I understand you better?” He stopped pacing again and stared directly at Tan Ekator. “What is it that you believe in, Teknor? What is it that keeps you going?”

“We believe in mankind, Tankar,” the Teknor replied softly, put down his glass then shook his head. “Let me rephrase: we believe in intelligence, because there are non-human races that look different from us and yet are human, at least as I understand it. We believe in the type of man you haven’t yet become despite your powerful mind, your muscles and your bravery because, in some respects, you’re still a child. I don’t doubt your manly qualities, Tankar, but they’re not enough to make a man. To be able to stare death in the face serves no purpose.

“Most of us Stellarans don’t believe in anything else,” the Teknor admitted. “We don’t deny what we don’t know. There may be a God, but, if he exists, he’s very different from the deity that appointed the emperors of Earth. After all, Earth is little more than a miserable planet orbiting a tiny star in a medium-sized galaxy.

“He’s not the Pilgrims’ God who made those people a promise. Call God the unknowable, if you like. Maybe it’s reassuring to think that the universe isn’t a void, that there’s a transcendent being, a creator. I myself am not drawn to that idea; in my opinion, if God doesn’t care what happens to human beings, he might as well not exist.

“We know that life sprung up on millions of planets, out of the mud of marshes, from the dirty warmth of early waters. There’s no proof that life is part of an established plan; rather that it inevitably resulted from some physiochemical process.

“The abundance of life throughout the cosmos, even on the many worlds where life once thrived only to die out, seems to me proof that life has only one purpose: to propagate itself. Life has a curious quality, a stubborn determination to fight savagely against entropy, to fight to continue even under the worst conditions, to perpetuate itself even where there’s no hope.

“Then, as life developed and grew more complex, it evolved a conscience; in time, intelligence followed. The cosmos granted itself a vain witness and a futile judge.

“Our footprint on the cosmos is still tiny; a few planets ravaged by our wars, other tiny worlds added by our efforts, but life is still in its infancy.

“It’s only existed in this corner of the universe for the last thousand years. On our mother planet, intelligence is barely a million years old as the first modern humans appeared only forty thousand years ago. Among all the races we’ve encountered, we know of only two that predate us: the H’rtulus at fifty thousand years, and the Kilitis at sixty thousand. Both have suffered through such hard times that, even now, they’re only at our level of development.

“Other species have disappeared, crushed by a blow of the universe – a star going nova or some other cataclysm. We ourselves have crossed the threshold where we could vanish, Tankar, although it’s hard to imagine a catastrophe spanning one hundred thousand light-years. Soon we’ll venture into new galaxies; in fact, two of our city-state starships already are exploring the Andromeda Nebula.

“We don’t think of ourselves as achieving victory over the cosmos. After all, we’re little more than fragile insects that die off from disease or senility, but, if we have time, we’ll beat those enemies too. We’ll spread out, in partnership with allied races, throughout the universe.

“Why will we do all this? Our human will. Intelligent life has no goal in any metaphysical sense. Intelligence sets its own goals, for itself. We’ll conquer the universe because we want to, or simply for the fun of it!

“But all of this is just one piece of the puzzle, Tankar, and not the most important piece. The most important piece will fall into place when intelligence conquers itself.” The Teknor explained, “What I mean by that is that the more intelligent a being is, the more he sees the absurdity of evil, and the harder he fights against it.

“I know there are species – the Mpfifis, for example – who appear to be both intelligent and evil. I say appear because they’re either ill or idiots despite their material success. One has to be either crazy or stupid to use one’s talents, one’s abilities, to destroy rather than to create, unless one is too confused to know the difference.

“The first goal that mankind set for itself was to extend its consciousness as widely as possible. The second was to perfect that consciousness, to make it as constructive as possible. We’re well on our way toward the first goal. But if human beings can’t see it through, other species surely will. Unfortunately, we’re quite far behind on reaching the second goal,” Tan Ekator admitted, “although we Stellarans have advanced further than the Empire. Here on the Tilsin you yourself have seen we’ve still got a long way to go.”

The Teknor continued, talking more to himself than to his listeners. “I don’t know what motivates any one man. What I do know is that any sane person gets more pleasure from creating than from destroying. It’s through creation that man really can blossom, both individually and as a species.

“It isn’t easy to think that humanity’s big adventure is a collective one, or that a species can achieve immortality in a way that one man cannot. Being alive myself, I want life to continue. I could even project that desire into a belief in personal immortality, but I don’t because I think doing that would be lying to myself.”

He returned his attention to Tankar. “I sometimes envy people like the Pilgrims who can so easily, so convincingly, lie to themselves. I certainly can’t fault you your own barbarian faith, your belief in some sort of a warrior Valhalla, because you sincerely believed it at the time. But you no longer can hold on to that belief, and it’s terrifying when you find yourself face-to-face with a blind and deaf universe. We’ve all of us been afraid, but to be a man is to stare the reality of the abyss in the face, even if it’s troubling…even if it’s horrifying. Can you do that?”

Tankar wondered, “But if the universe is meaningless how do you fight despair?”

“By committing yourself to give it meaning.”

“And what do you do when your faith falters?” Tankar persisted. “There must be times when it fails you.”

The Teknor stood and walked toward a screen. The Tilsin was stationary in space some distance from a gas nebula that appeared to be expanding its fiery, feathered cloud against a background of stars. The cosmos itself extended in every direction, a black abyss that the stars vainly tried to illuminate.

“What do I do?” the Teknor replied. “I face the universe and, with no illusions whatsoever, I spit in its face.”

Anaena interrupted. “Tankar, we’re about to emerge. Are you coming?”

“Where?”

“Tan’s place. He’s spotted a supernova, and we’re going to pull in near to it so the astronomers can study it. You don’t see one of those very often.”

“I’ll be there in 10.”

Anaena’s face disappeared from the screen. Tankar fell back onto his sofa and picked up his glass. Since his return to the Tilsin, he’d been drinking a lot without getting drunk.

He had wandered through the past three months as if in a dream, alone most of the time. He performed his military instruction then hid in his apartment to read, meditate, drink and sleep. At first he had spent time with his friends from Earth. Both Erickson and Malvert were taking well to the Tilsin. After a stormy start, Iria now found herself at home. The shock of the revolution seemed to have cut her off from her roots, and Tankar almost envied her.

I have to admit the Stellarans have changed since I cleared the path.

Anaena tried anything and everything to keep him occupied, but her very presence reminded him of the past he was trying to escape. They had both suffered. He strangely enjoyed the pain as a sort of punishment for a wrong he only half remembered. Tan would meet him and try to pull him out of his melancholy, but the Teknor always ended the meetings disappointed.

Tan discussed this with his niece. “He’ll heal someday, Anaena. For now, he can’t stop blaming himself for Iolia’s death, or the deaths of the other Stellarans who died in the Mpfifi attack. I understand, because I feel the same way; the difference is that we all feel the guilt, so it’s lighter for being shared.”

A deeply unhappy Anaena started to ask, “Do you think….”

“That he will love you one day? You’re the only one he’s ever loved, Ana. He felt tenderness and affection for his wife, but I don’t think he truly loved her. Because he knows or guesses that, he feels even greater remorse. He’ll forget, and you’re both still so young, you have the future ahead of you.”

“I wish I could believe that!”

“Little Ana marrying a planetary,” Tan Ekator mused. “That’ll be something on the Tilsin.” Tan grinned.

“But what can I do? He’s so miserable.”

“Do nothing,” her uncle urged. “Either he’ll heal on his own, or he never will…but you should remain hopeful.”

After brooding over what had felt like a classroom lecture from the Teknor, Tankar got up and ran a hand through his crew cut. He should check out the supernova. At one time he would have been intrigued to observe such a rare cosmic event.

“We waited for you,” the Teknor said.

He gave an order and the screens of the gray monitors opened to reveal an enormous disk of fire. It stared at them, suspended above the abyss. Its hair floated in the cosmic wind, and a strong forehead dominated shadowed eyes as a kind of bushy beard waved on the screen.

“What is it? What…?” Anaena stammered and clung to Tankar.

“The supernova.” The Teknor spoke calmly. “But I wasn’t expecting this.”

He tweaked the settings and the face expanded and moved as if to smack the Tilsin. It also lost definition, and then it was over. All that remained was bubbling gas where a star once had been.

The communicator screen lit up, and they saw Holonas looking radiant. “It’s the sign, Tan! The sign! I have lived to see that God has forgiven mankind!”

Tan hesitated. Should he tell the old man the truth? The Pilgrims were good astronomers. They would figure it out. “Did you try to magnify the picture, Holonas?”

“Do you think we’re children, Tan? Of course I know it’s a supernova. But tell me: how likely was it that, from a distance, it would take on the appearance of a superhuman at exactly the instant we could see it? It’s the sign we were hoping for! Praise the Lord.” The screen went blank.

The Teknor spoke softly. “And so the Pilgrimage has ended. Our friends will turn back into humans like us. I doubt that they’ll be any happier once their elation dies down. I fear that this well may be the beginning of their real tragedy.”

Tankar turned away to hide his tears. Iolia would have been so happy. And because of his own…. He bit his lip and left the room.