The Pillars of Eternity

Boaz did not understand what Madrigo meant by these last words until, some time later, he came to know something of colonnader cosmology. The world consisted in reality of mind-fire, their term for a kind of undifferentiated consciousness. Something happened in this mind-fire; it began to attenuate here and thicken there, becoming uneven. From this movement there began to differentiate out the physical elements. The sidereal universe evolved, and the elements combined in countless ways. Yet mind-fire was always there, even if reduced in quantity and quality, and it coarsened itself sufficiently to become individual consciousness, manifest in organic creatures.

This was how the universe came into being, congealed, as it were, out of mind-fire. But only for a period. After an unknown number of billions of years it entered a phase of collapse until eventually it was consumed by fire – mind-fire, the purest form of fire imaginable. The elements dissolved into it, sinking back to the latent state. Thus the world came to an end. But not forever. After a similarly protracted period of time the process began again, exactly as before. The manifest universe re-emerged just as it had already been. Every atom, every individual, every event recurred, identical in every detail. Nothing ever changed, from eternity to eternity.

The cosmic oscillation was fundamental: two pillars of universal stability. Indeed they were but the first instance of the basic law of polarity on which all manifest existence depended.

Fond of symbolism, the colonnaders represented this law in terms of two upright pillars, one positive, one negative. And there were names for them dating back to ancient lore: Joachim and Boaz.

The crippled lad found these conceptions awesome. On a more personal level they solved a problem for him. Since coming to Theta he had given thought to the choosing of a new name for himself. The trouble was that all names he heard sounded like someone else, not himself. But now, ignoring any possible accusation of false grandeur, he decided to give himself names representative of his rebirth as a person, and besides that indicative of the new mental horizons opening before him.

He named himself Joachim Boaz.

His old life was finished, and he put all thought of Corsair behind. Three months later, the bonemakers announced that they were ready to perform the operation.

His heart beating (he was not yet so trained in ataraxy that he did not feel prey to fear), he submitted himself to pre-med. His body was purged of poisons and waste matter. He was meticulously cleaned and shaved. It was explained to him that he would be unconscious for ten weeks. After the skeleton replacement, he would lie in a tank where his muscles would be coaxed into adjusting themselves to his new, straightened frame. There would be a subsequent operation in which the new bones would be connected up to his nervous system. Finally, completely healed, he would be taken from the tank and allowed a further short term of recuperation. Only then would his higher brain functions be switched back on. He would awaken between crisp sheets in a fresh room with the scent of flowers wafting through an open window, and he would be new.

And so it was.

Boaz stirred in his chair. He thought he had fallen asleep and had been dreaming, but no, he was only remembering. There was a remedy for memory. It could be selectively excised by surgery or by electrical manipulation of the brain’s storage areas. New memories could be introduced, even. One could have a new past, become a new, different person with different experiences. There were cults that practiced this rewriting of past life. But Boaz, a man of rigid personal integrity, had never even considered it. Life was real, and only memories that were based on real episodes counted. To accept other memories was to live in a dream, and from a dream, even if it took half of eternity, one must eventually awaken …

The thought evoked a painful emotion in him, and in response the ship stirred. It was always busy, always worrying both over itself and over Boaz – they both were its province. He heard a faint hum, a click, the quietest whisper of some change of state taking place in the ever-watchful mechanisms. Then he sank into the vivid hallucinatory quality of his memories again….

There was no mirror in the recuperation center. He asked for one, but they told him to be patient. First he had to learn to balance, to walk, to get used to himself. What of the bone functions? he asked. They were not switched on. He would be shown how later.

Just by looking down at himself he could see he was differently shaped. Looking around him, he could see he stood in a different relationship to his environment. No longer was his form a cowering one. He was tall: nearly as tall as most people. His spine was erect. His limbs moved freely.