Capitol

Not all the congregation reached that decision. Many of them kept holding meetings for a while. One of them even claimed to have the Voice, but when he dictated revelation the scribes refused to write it because there was no ring of truth in it and it didn't burn them with the fire of life as Amblick's words. had. But eventually there was nothing more to say in the meetings, and eventually there was no more money being contributed; when believers lose their faith, their purses discover the fact even before their hearts and minds do.

Amblick's Church of the Undying Voice died only four years after he did. And Garol Stipock, who was then eleven, did not even know it had lasted that long.

Without the congregation to buoy them, Garol's parents soon began to compromise with Capitol; the long war was over. First it was the decision to send Garol to school. He was eight years old when he started, but he learned so quickly that within six months he was caught up to the children his own age, and by the time he was ten he was studying material that bright fourteen-year-olds had trouble with.

His parents made other compromises, too. The first compromise was a quiet one in their own bedroom, where they began taking the medicine that would let them use sex for something other than procreation. The next compromise was a move to a different sector, where they were strangers, and they began to go to parties and invite friends over and Garol's father even joined a group of gamers and Garol's mother became a gourmet cook of sorts. They thought Garol was so young the didn't notice. But he noticed, and though it was not in his nature to say anything, his parents' apostasy shook him to the foundation.

At first he thought his parents had betrayed the faith and wavered between hating them for their infidelity and fearing that God would strike them down.

But, God didn't strike them down, and after a few years Garol discovered that his parents were still decent, good people, and about this time Garol discovered science.

At first it was geology, with the pictures of rocks. He had never seen a rock in his life. To him even granite was a gem, and he lovingly fondled the school's samples of rocks as if just touching them could give him an understanding of a planet and what made it live.

Then it was biology, the endless variety of plants and animals working together to form one vast, planetwide organism. It struck Garol's sense of beauty more than it stimulated his scientific curiosity-- there were few mysteries in biology anymore, and Garol studied it only until he knew how it worked.

And then he found the field where the mysteries still endured: physics. And though he was locked into a planet where nothing grew that was not forced to grow, and where nature was utterly defeated, he became a pioneer for the colony ships. Surely there must be a way to learn, before a ship ever landed on a planet, exactly what mineral deposits there were, and where; exactly what kind of animal life there was, and which animals could be safely killed for food; and what the weather and climate patterns were. His goal was to create a way for an orbiting ship to know everything the colonists would need to know before they landed-- so that the best possible landing site could be chosen, and all necessary precautions could be taken. He was an eclectic-- he knew the questions in other fields that only physics could answer.

He was fifteen and a college graduate when he began his serious work. His professors in his graduate school were uneasy at having a student so young, and their uneasiness turned to outrage when they discovered that he was designing, of all things, machines.

"Mr. Stipock," said the dean to the young man who was quietly listening and obviously not paying the slightest attention, "we are concerned because you seem to be wasting your time with toys."

Garol looked surprised. "Not toys," he said. "Tools."

"Physics is a theoretical science, a mathematical manipulation of the universe, Mr. Stipock. Not a field for magic boxes."

"But Dr. Whickit," Garol protested, "I have to measure minute amounts of radiation. That means I have to have a tool to measure it. And there isn't any such tool."

"If you want to make tools, perhaps you should be in a different program. A technical school."

And Stipock laughed. It was an u

Whickit was furious; he shouted, he resented, he plotted, he undermined. But Stipock had already won. His tools did all he meant them to, and Whickit quickly discovered that the administration would trade twenty Whickits for one Stipock any day.

And they offered Stipock somec.

"We need to keep you alive," the Sleeproom people said. "You're one of the ten or twenty most valuable minds in this century. We need to let you live for centuries so you can help answer the questions that arise then."

Stipock said no. "I'm working on several projects that no one can complete except me, and if they could I wouldn't want them to. Come see me when the projects are finished."

The Sleeproom people weren't used to being refused, but his reasons were plausible, and he was only fifteen, and so they waited.

But Garol's reasons were not what he said they were.

"Mother," he said. "Father. They've offered me somec."

He watched his parents carefully. Somec was the worst sin of all the sins of Capitol, and Amblick and the other prophets had condemned it as the Souldestroyer, the Hatemaker, Somec the Lifestealer. Garol knew enough science to know that God was impossible; knew enough of life to know that no one believed in God and few enough remembered he had ever existed in people's hearts. But all that knowledge had never undone the structure of his childhood: sex for pleasure was still unthinkable, somec was still a sin.

And so he watched his parent to see if they, too, still held on to a measure of the old faith.

"Somec?" asked his father. "What level?"

"Seven under, one up."

"That's high," his mother said.

His father looked at his mother for a moment, and then, rather awkwardly, he asked, "Garol, I understand that someone who's at that high a level can choose several close family members to go on somec with him at the same level, so that his life isn't too disrupted."

"Yes," his mother said. "And we're all the family you have."

Their eyes were bright with hope, and Garol felt the last of the religion crash down inside himself. He felt angry, betrayed, hurt; but all he said was, "Of course. I won't be going on for a few years, but you can come with me."

"A few years?" asked his mother. "Why?"

"I have work to do."

His, father coughed, looked a little upset. "It's your right, I suppose. But remember, Garol, that while you're still young, we're getting a bit on in years."

Garol did nothing to show his contempt. The next day he went to the Sleeproom and told them that he would go on somec in three years, but he wanted his parents to go on somec now.

"But Mr. Stipock," said the man at the Sleeproom, "they can only go on somec at precisely the same level as you. So if they went on now and you went on in three years, they would never see you again. They'd always be asleep when you awoke, and vice-versa."