The Pillars of Eternity

‘Yes, Grand Master. That is his ship.’

A dozen members of Thelema, seated in formal convention, faced Grand Master Hebron. Nine of them had been hastily summoned from Kathundra and had arrived only that morning. Hebron turned from the window and resumed his seat, twirling the toga he wore over his modsuit around him.

‘Those of us who came earlier,’ he said, ‘have evaluated the work carried out by Citizen Ebarak and our own scientists on the time artifacts.’ He hesitated. ‘Our scientists have not been called to this meeting, for tactical reasons. It is best that what I have to tell you should not reach the ears of Ebarak.

‘The results are disappointing. It is unlikely that the time-gems will be of any help in achieving our aims. But then, I had reached this conclusion even before the work was moved to Chaunce. As you know, we have gained new information. Through suffering, the mind of man may become the mind of a god.’

Not a hint of reaction came from his followers (all men – women were not permitted into the higher ranks of Thelema) as he reminded them of the nature of their quest. Their discipline, which included restraint in the expression of feeling, was good. ‘The secret lies, then, not in some technical resource, but in the strength of our own will. But can suffering of the requisite intensity be mastered? It must of necessity be transcendent and therefore unendurable. One individual has known this degree of suffering, but failed to be transformed: the shipkeeper Joachim Boaz, a strange man who was marked ineradicably by his experience.’

He paused for almost ten seconds, then in the growing silence said: ‘It is true to say that Boaz is not really a man at all. His body is incapable of sustaining its own life. It is dependent on adp machinery within his ship, which integrates his every somatic function over a communication beam. The ship, rather than the walking man, is the bodily Boaz.’

He again indicated the window, in which Boaz’s ship, not far away on the ship ground, was neatly framed. Hebron did not know that at that moment it was assisting Boaz in an ecstasy of a wholly positive nature. ‘We have a unique opportunity for researching the true means to attaining transcendental consciousness. Control that ship, and we control Boaz. That gives us the means to use him as an experimental subject. It is said that the alien being on Meirjain offered to reintroduce Boaz to his agony, so he could attempt to overcome it. Though he did not have the courage to accept, we can force the issue on him, again and again if need be. Since he failed the test once he will do so again; but in so doing he will provide us with valuable data. This is indispensable if we are to prepare ourselves for the same trial.’

Hebron stopped, looking the meeting over in the manner that tacitly allowed questions. ‘Why should this particular individual be valuable to us?’ someone asked.

‘For two reasons: he is uniquely controllable, and he has already been close to the transcendental state. He is a natural subject for research into it.’

‘And what if our manipulations should, after all, cause him to cross the barrier?’ someone else asked. ‘Our position might be unenviable.’

Hebron smiled. ‘We are playing with fire,’ he agreed. ‘Mind-fire, to be exact. Anyone who is afraid has no place in Thelema.’

He nodded to the one nearest him, who then read out a list of names from among those newly arrived from Kathundra: the attack team.

‘Our task is simple,’ Hebron told them. ‘You will break into the Boaz ship and gain control over the equipment there, using the apparatus you brought with you. You must analyse it before he can return to confront you – he is a fierce adversary if opposed. Once you succeed, he can do nothing by himself.’

The small man who had helped Hebron with the interrogation of Mace spoke. ‘Is there not a moral issue here?’

‘Why should there be?’ Hebron said, his tone supercilious. ‘Who will judge a god?’

In another part of the town (which was much like Hondora, the town Boaz had been thinking of a few minutes earlier) a smaller meeting took place. The Rectification Branch colonel had not arrived on Chaunce in uniform but he donned it now, feeling more secure, stronger, in the shiny black and green, in the broad utensil belt and slant hat.

The room was small and low-ceilinged, shielded against every known spy-ray. Every police station in the econosphere had such a room. ‘It is confirmed, then,’ he said to the three non-uniformed agents with him. ‘The quarry is here.’

‘He is here, sir.’ The agents, though large of build, had an anonymous blankness about them. They were selected for it: it was supposed to make their activities more invisible. The colonel wasn’t sure if the ploy wasn’t sometimes counterproductive: put several of them together, and their ordinariness became almost glaring.