Part 36 (2/2)

'I ... am only a pilot,' Danlo said. 'I have vowed only to find Tannahill perhaps I should return to the lords of my Order so that they might send you a true amba.s.sador.'

'In time, that might be. But now it is you who sits in my house, no other. It is you who have cured Elder Janegg your brilliant eyes, Pilot, the pa.s.sing of your beautiful breath, from your mouth and from your flute.'

Danlo looked at Harrah's wise old face as he took a sip of tea. He said, 'But the songs that I have played on my shakuhachi what could this music possibly have to do with why I was sent to find your world?'

'Possibly everything,' Harrah said. She, too, took a sip of tea, and favoured him with one of her mysterious smiles.

'The stars,' Danlo said, 'are dying. All these millions of marvellous lights and men are murdering them, one by one.'

'But you don't really mean ”men”, do you? It is we Architects who are destroying the stars.'

'Yes.'

'And your Order would simply ask us to desist in these cosmic murders, isn't that so?'

'Yes.'

Harrah let out a long, sad sigh. 'We do wish that it could be so simple. But although Ede's love for his children is the simplest thing there could be, it would seem that His Program for the universe is just the opposite.'

'What do you mean?''Have you considered, Pilot, who these Architects are who destroy the heavens?'

'They ... are of your Church, yes? Men and women who wear white kimonos and seek Ede's face in the light of the shattered stars.'

'They are of the Church,' Harrah admitted, 'but they are not with the Church.'

'I do not understand.'

'We speak of the Architects of the Long Pilgrimage they who have been lost to us for more than a thousand years. And all the Iviomils and others who have been sent out from Tannahill, out into what you call the Vild.'

'But they are Architects, yes?'

'Oh, yes, we believe so. However, we can't simply face them and speak to them as we can our other children here on Tannahill and even the other worlds of the Known Stars.'

'I see.'

'In all their journeys, in their fargoing pilgrimage toward Ede, they've had to carry the Church with them in their hearts.' Here she smiled sadly, then added, 'And in the holy computers installed in their s.h.i.+ps.'

'But they still carry the doctrines of the Church, yes? All those sacred commandments and beliefs ... that your Church calls programs.'

'We can only hope so,' Harrah said.

'Then they carry with them the Program of Totality, yes? Like children carrying torches into a dry forest.'

'The Program of Totality is part of Ede's Program for the Universe.'

'To destroy the universe ... in order to save it?'

'No, Pilot to remake the universe. To be a part of this glorious work of architecture all around us.'

'I see.'

Harrah, beholding the despair on Danlo's face, smiled and reached across the table to touch his hand. 'We must tell you, however, of our understanding of the Program of Totality. We don't believe that it necessarily requires us to destroy the stars.'

'Truly?'

Like a condemned prisoner who has received an unexpected pardon, Danlo felt wave upon wave of aliveness rippling through his blood.

'We must warn you that this is only our understanding.'

'But you are the Holy Ivi of the Cybernetic Universal Church!'

'In time, it may be that the Church will share our understanding.'

'I ... see.'

'But now other Architects the stargoing Iviomils and they of the Long Pilgrimage understand the Program differently. And we lack all means to face them, to speak with them.'

Danlo removed his shakuhachi from his pocket. He sat staring at the flute's glossy golden surface as he considered all that Harrah had told him.

'My Order has always trained pilots,' he finally said. 'We are making a new Academy on the planet Thiells. There you could send your children. We could make a thousand new pilots. In time, ten thousand, and more. We would make ten thousand lights.h.i.+ps and bring your understanding of the Program to every star in the Vild.'

'Are you proposing an alliance between the Church and your Order?'

'Why not?'

'We wish that it could be so simple.'

'If you look deeply enough,' Danlo said, 'all things are simple.'

'Perhaps but we're afraid an alliance would be impossible.'

'Bertram Jaspari would oppose this, yes?''He and all Iviomils would call such a union with namans an abomination. A hakr, even. But we believe that Elder Bertram secretly desires the benefits of this union, if not its form.'

'I see. He desires the power ... to fall among the stars, yes?'

'Indeed. We believe that power is his purpose.'

'The power to expand the Church out into the stars?'

'And more,' Harrah said, taking a sip of tea. 'He believes, as do we, that the Architects of the Long Pilgrimage would respect the authority of the architetcy.'

'But you are the Holy Ivi.'

'But we will not live forever, in this form. You must know, Pilot, that it's Elder Bertram's hope to become the Ivi after we have died and gone on to our vastening. He hopes to be Ivi of all the lost Architects of the Vild and all the Iviomils sent forth from Tannahill over the last thousand years. So many people. So great a power.'

'And do you have such hopes of your own, then?'

<script>