A Time of Changes

30

“This taboo on self-expression,” Schweiz asked me when we were together another time. “Can you explain it, your grace?”

“You mean the prohibition against saying ‘I’ and ‘me’?”

“Not that, so much as the whole pattern of thought that would have you deny there are such things as ‘I’ and ‘me,’ ” he said: “The commandment that you must Keep your private affairs private at all times, except only with bond-kin and drainers. The custom of wall-building around oneself that affects even your grammar.”

“The Covenant, you mean?”

“The Covenant,” said Schweiz.

“You say you know our history?”

“Much of it.”

“You know that our forefathers were stern folk from a northern climate, accustomed to hardship, mistrustful of luxury and ease, who came to Borthan to avoid what they saw as the contaminating decadence of their native world?”

“Was it so? One thought only that they were refugees from religious persecution.”

“Refugees from sloth and self-indulgence,” I said. “And, coming here, they established a code of conduct to protect their children’s children against corruption.”

“The Covenant.”

“The Covenant, yes. The pledge they made each to each, the pledge that each of us makes to all his fellow men on his Naming Day. When we swear never to force our turmoils on another, when we vow to be strong-willed and hardy of spirit, so that the gods will continue to smile on us. And so on and so on. We are trained to abominate the demon that is self.”

“Demon?”

“So we regard it. A tempting demon, that urges us to make use of others instead of relying on our own strengths.”

“Where there is no love of self, there is neither friendship nor sharing,” said Schweiz.

“Perhaps so.”

“And thus there is no trust.”

“We specify areas of responsibility through contract,” I said. “There is no need for knowledge of the souls of others, where law rules. And in Velada Borthan no one questions the rule of law.”

“You say you abominate self,” said Schweiz. “It seems, rather, that you glorify it.”

“How so?”

“By living apart from one another, each in the castle of his skull. Proud. Unbending. Aloof. Uncaring. The reign of self indeed, and no abomination of it!”

“You put things oddly,” I said. “You invert our customs, and think you speak wisely.”

“Has it always been like this,” Schweiz asked, “since the beginning of settlement in Velada Borthan?”

“Yes,” I said. “Except among those malcontents you know of, who fled to the southern continent. The rest of us abide by the Covenant. And our customs harden: thus we not may not talk of ourselves in the first person singular, since this is a raw exposure of self, but in medieval times this could be done. On the other hand, some things soften. Once we were guarded even in giving our names to strangers. We spoke to one another only when absolutely necessary. We show more trust nowadays.”

“But not a great deal.”

“But not a great deal,” I admitted.

“And is there no pain in this for you? Every man sealed against all others? Do you never say to yourselves that there must be a happier way for humans to live?”

“We abide by the Covenant.”

“With ease or with difficulty?”

“With ease,” I said. “The pain is not so great, when you consider that we have bond-kin, with whom we are exempted from the rule of selflessness. And the same with our drainers.”

“To others, though, you may not complain, you may not unburden a sorrowful soul, you may not seek advice, you may not expose your desires and needs, you may not speak of dreams and fantasies and romance, you may not talk of anything but chilly, impersonal things.” Schweiz shuddered. “Pardon, your grace, but one finds this a harsh way to live. One’s own search has constantly been for warmth and love and human contact, for sharing, for opening, and this world here seems to elevate the opposite of what one prizes most highly.”

“Have you had much luck,” I asked, “finding warmth and love and human contact?”

Schweiz shrugged. “It has not always been easy.”

“For us there is never loneliness, since we have bond-kin. With Halum, with Noim, with such as these to offer comfort, why does one need a world of strangers?”

“And if your bond-kin are not close at hand? If one is wandering, say, far from them in the snows of Glin?”

“One suffers, then. And one’s character grows tougher. But that is an exceptional situation. Schweiz, our system may force us into isolation, yet it also guarantees us love.”

“But not the love of husband for wife. Not the love of father for child.”

“Perhaps not.”

“And even the love of bond-kin is limited. For you yourself, eh, have admitted that you feel a longing for your bondsister Halum that cannot be—”

I cut him off, telling him sharply, “Speak of other things!” Color flared in my cheeks; my skin grew hot.

Schweiz nodded and smiled a chastened smile. “Pardon, your grace. The conversation became too intense; there was loss of control, but no injury meant.”

“Very well.”

“The reference was too personal. One is abashed.”

“You meant no injury,” I said, guilty over my outburst, knowing he had stung me at a vulnerable place and that I had overreacted to the bite of truth. I poured more wine. We drank in silence for a time.

Then Schweiz said, “May one make a proposal, your grace? May one invite you to take part in an experiment that may prove interesting and valuable to you?”

“Go on,” I said, frowning, ill at ease.

“You know,” he began, “that one has long felt uncomfortably conscious of his solitary state in the universe, and that one has sought without success some means of comprehending his relationship to that universe. For you, the method lies in religious faith, but one has failed to reach such faith because of his unfortunate compulsion toward total rationalism. Eh? One cannot break through to that larger sense of belonging by words alone, by prayer alone, by ritual alone. This thing is possible for you, and one envies you for it. One finds himself trapped, isolated, sealed up in his skull, condemned to metaphysical solitude: a man apart, a man on his own. One does not find this state of godlessness enjoyable or desirable. You of Borthan can tolerate the sort of emotional isolation you impose on yourselves, since you have the consolations of your religion, you have drainers and whatever mystical mergings-with-the-gods the act of draining gives you; but the one who speaks to you now has no such advantages.”

“All this we have discussed many times,” I said. “You spoke of a proposal, an experiment.”

“Be patient, your grace. One must explain oneself fully, step by step.”

Schweiz flashed me his most charming smile, and turned on me eyes that were bright with visionary schemes. His hands roamed the air expressively, conjuring up invisible drama, as he said, “Perhaps your grace is aware that there are certain chemical substances — drugs, yes, call them drugs — that allow one to make an opening into the infinite, or at least to have the illusion that one has made such an opening — to attain a brief and tentative glimpse into the mystic realms of the intangible. Eh? Known for thousands of years, these drugs, used in the days before Earthmen ever went to the stars. Employed in ancient religious rites. Employed by others as a substitute for religion, as a secular means of finding faith, the gateway to the infinite for such as this one, who can get there no other way.”

“Such drugs are forbidden in Velada Borthan,” I said.

“Of course, of course! For you they offer a means of sidestepping the processes of formal religion. Why waste time at a drainer’s if you can expand your soul with a pill? Your law is wise on this point. Your Covenant could not survive if you allowed these chemicals to be used here.”

“Your proposal, Schweiz,” I said.

“One first must tell you that he has used these drugs himself, and found them not entirely satisfactory. True, they open the infinite. True, they let one merge with the Godhead. But only for moments: a few hours at best. And at the end of it, one is as alone as before. It is the illusion of the soul’s opening, not the opening itself. Whereas this planet produces a drug that can provide the real thing.”

“What?”

“In Sumara Borthan,” said Schweiz, “dwell those who fled the rule of the Covenant. One is told that they are savages, going naked and living on roots and seeds and fish; the cloak of civilization has dropped away from them and they have slipped back into barbarism. So one learned from a traveler who had visited that continent not long ago. One also learned that in Sumara Borthan they use a drug made from a certain powdered root, which has the capacity of opening mind to mind, so that each can read the inmost thoughts of the other. It is the very opposite of your Covenant, do you see? They know one another from the soul out, by way of this drug they eat.”

“One has heard stories of the savagery of those folk,” I said.

Schweiz put his face close to mine. “One confesses himself tempted by the Sumaran drug. One hopes that if he could ever get inside another mind, he could find that community of soul for which he has searched so long. It might be the bridge to the infinite that he seeks, the spiritual transformation. Eh? In quest of revelations he has tried many substances. Why not this?”

“If it exists.”

“It exists, your grace. This traveler who came from Sumara Borthan brought some of it with him to Manneran, and sold some of it to the curious Earthman.” Schweiz drew forth from a pocket a small glossy envelope, and held it toward me. It contained a small quantity of some white powder; it could have been sugar. “Here it is,” he said.

I stared at it as if he had pulled out a flask of poison.

“Your proposal?” I demanded. “Your experiment, Schweiz?”

“Let us share the Sumaran drug,” he said.