Ancient Earth made mistake after mistake, and choked itself in error, so that you would be spared from having to pass through the same fires and torments.” Schweiz laughed harshly. “Earth died to redeem you starfolk from sin. How’s that for a religious notion? A whole liturgy could be composed around that idea. A priestcraft of Earth the redeemer.” Suddenly he leaned forward and said, “Are you a religious man, your grace?”
I was taken aback by the thrusting intimacy of his question. But I put up no barriers.
“Certainly,” I said.
“You go to the godhouse, you talk to the drainers, the whole thing?”
I was caught. I could not help but speak.
“Yes,” I said. “Does that surprise you?”
“Not at all. Everyone on Borthan seems to be genuinely religious. Which amazes one. You know, your grace, one isn’t religious in the least, oneself. One tries, one has always tried, one has worked so hard to convince oneself that there are superior beings out there who guide destiny, and sometimes one almost makes it, your grace, one almost believes, one breaks through into faith, but then skepticism shuts things down every time. And one ends by saying, No, it isn’t possible, it can’t be, it defies logic and common sense. Logic and common sense!”
“But how can you live all your days without a closeness to something holy?”
“Most of the time, one manages fairly well. Most of the time.”
“And the rest of the time?”
“That’s when one feels the impact of knowing one is entirely alone in the universe. Naked under the stars, and the starlight hitting the exposed skin, burning, a cold fire, and no one to shield one from it, no one to offer a hiding place, no one to pray to, do you see? The sky is ice and the ground is ice and the soul is ice, and who’s to warm it? There isn’t anyone. You’ve convinced yourself that no one exists who can give comfort. One wants some system of belief, one wants to submit, to get down and kneel, to be governed by metaphysics, you know? To believe, to have faith! And one can’t. And that’s when the terror sets in. The dry sobs. The nights of no sleeping.” Schweiz’s face was flushed and wild with excitement; I wondered if he could be entirely sane. He reached across the desk, clamped his hand over mine—the gesture stunned me, but I did not pull back—and said hoarsely, “Do you believe in gods, your grace?”
“Surely.”
“In a literal way? You think there’s a god of travelers, and a god of fishermen, and a god of farmers, and one who looks after septarchs, and—”
“There is a force,” I said, “that gives order and form to the universe. The force manifests itself in various ways, and for the sake of bridging the gap between ourselves and that force, we regard each of its manifestations as a ‘god,’ yes, and extend our souls to this manifestation or that one, as our needs demand. Those of us who are without learning accept these gods literally, as beings with faces and personalities. Others realize that they are metaphors for the aspects of the divine force, and not a tribe of potent spirits living overhead. But there is no one in Velada Borthan who denies the existence of the force itself.”
“One feels such fierce envy of that,” said Schweiz. “To be raised in a culture that has coherence and structure, to have such assurance of ultimate verities, to feel yourself part of a divine scheme—how marvelous that must be! To enter into a system of belief—it would almost be worth putting up with this society’s great flaws, to have something like that.”
“Flaws?” Suddenly I found myself on the defensive. “What flaws?”
Schweiz narrowed his gaze and moistened his lips. Perhaps he was calculating whether I would be hurt or angered by what he meant to say. “Flaws was possibly too strong a word,” he replied. “One might say instead, this society’s limits, its—well, its narrowness. One speaks now of the necessity to shield one’s self from one’s fellow men that you impose. The taboos against reference to self, against frank discourse, against any opening of the soul—”
“Has one not opened his soul to you today in this very room?”
“Ah,” Schweiz said, “but you’ve been speaking to an alien, to one who is no part of your culture, to someone you secretly suspect of having tendrils and fangs! Would you be so free with a citizen of Manneran?”
“No one else in