Free This Star Shall Abide by Sylvia Engdahl Page B

of defiance. “I do not believe that there is a Mother Star,” he stated honestly.
    He expected pandemonium, but instead, the room remained hushed; everybody was speechless. Finally the Chief of Council mustered the composure to proceed. “We’ll waste no more time here,” he said, “for it’s plain that you are past redemption. I grow cold at the thought of the punishments that will be yours when you enter the City! Are you not aware that the Technicians present in this room have a Machine wherewith they have recorded every word you have said? When you face the Scholars, Noren, you will be forced to listen to those words spoken by your own voice; and it will then be too late to plead for the forgiveness you will crave.”
    Noren hadn’t known of the Recording Machine, but though startling, the idea of hearing his testimony repeated did not strike him as the dire ordeal it was evidently intended to be. “Do you think I don’t plan to be truthful before the Scholars?” he demanded. “If my words are recorded, then I’ll be saved the trouble of saying the same things over.
    “You are insolent now. Your life may be spared once your insolence has been crushed, but I’ll wager you’ll be made sorry to be alive.” The Chief of Council rose. “We have reached a unanimous verdict. We pronounce you guilty as charged, and hereby remand you to the custody of the Scholars as is required of us under the High Law, though I have never seen anyone less deserving of their mercy.”
    The marshals stepped again to Noren’s side. As he was led down the aisle, Talyra’s eyes met his, and she was in tears; he saw that despite her revulsion at his beliefs, she still loved him and would grieve for him. No one else showed any sympathy. Even Arnil lowered his head when Noren passed. From behind, one of the judges added, “May the spirit of the Mother Star protect you, Noren, for it’s sure that you’ll find no succor among men.”
     
     
     

Chapter Four
     
     
    Noren was lodged in the jail that night; the Technicians, apparently, were not yet ready to take him away. After some hours he remembered that he had had no food since the previous evening. Perhaps that contributed to his faintness, though he felt no hunger.
    Fear was rising in him again now that the trial was over. He’d suppressed it while there’d been something he had to do, but once alone, he could no longer keep it down. Too many of his nightmares in the past years had been centered on the unknown horrors that were about to confront him. We can’t be forced to do or to believe anything against our will, Kern had said, but Noren could not help worrying.
    The Scholars, he realized, would not view him as his judges had. They, after all, knew even more of the truth than he did; they would not consider it stupid or sinful not to believe in things like the Founding and the Mother Star. On the contrary, they would recognize the sharpness of his mind. They would recognize it as a threat to their supremacy. One way or another, they would have to silence him; it was no wonder that they required all heretics to be placed in their hands. Nor was it any wonder that no villagers seemed to care about truth, he saw with bitterness. Anyone who’d shown signs of caring had been trapped, as he had, and summarily disposed of.
    His attempt to convince people at the trial had been an utter failure, Noren knew. Nobody had been impressed by his arguments; they had simply been incensed. Thinking of it, impotent rage burgeoned within him: rage at the defeat, the blindness of others, the whole injustice of the way the world was arranged. He strained against the tight ropes with which he was again bound until his wrists were raw and his body clammy with sweat. Was there no power that could stand against a system that was so wrong?
    There was, he perceived suddenly. He would undoubtedly be hurt in the City; in the end he would be killed; but as long as he kept on caring, nothing could