Robert Silverberg - To Open the Sky

“It’s a perversion of our religious motives.”

“It’ll get us where we want to go.”

Lazarus had disagreed. Quietly, gathering a few supporters, he had established a rival group, while still nominally retaining his loyalty to Vorst. His apprenticeship with Vorst made him an expert on founding a faith. He proclaimed the reign of eternal harmony, gave his people green robes, symbols, reformist fervor, prayers, a developing liturgy. He could not say that his movement had become particularly powerful beside the Vorst machine, but at least it was a leading heresy, attracting hundreds of new followers each month. Lazarus had been looking toward a missionary movement, knowing that his ideas had a better chance of taking root on Venus and perhaps Mars than Vorst’s.

And on a day in 2090 men in blue robes came to him and took him away, blanking out his guard of espers and stealing him as easily as though he had been a lump of lead. After that he knew no more, until his awakening in Santa Fe. They told him that the year was 2152 and that Venus was in the hands of his people.

Mondschein said, “will you let yourself be changed?”

“I’m not sure yet. I’m considering it.”

“It’ll be difficult for you to function on Venus unless you let them adapt you.”

“Perhaps I could stay on Earth,” Lazarus suggested.

“Impossible. You have no power base here. Vorst’s generosity will stretch only so far. He won’t let you remain here after the excitement of your return dies down.”

“You’re right.” Lazarus sighed. “I’ll let myself be changed, then. I’ll come to Venus and see what you’ve accomplished.”

“You’ll be pleasantly surprised,” Mondschein promised.

Lazarus had already been sufficiently surprised for one incarnation. They left him, and he studied the scriptures of his faith, fascinated by the martyr’s role they had written for him. A book of Harmonist history told Lazarus his own value: where the Brotherhood’s religious emotions crystallized around the remote, forbidding figure of Vorst, the Harmonists could safely revere their gentle martyr. How awkward it must be for them that I’m back, Lazarus thought.

Vorst did not come to him while he rested in the Brotherhood’s hospital. A man named Kirby came, though, frosty-faced with age and said he was the Hemispheric Coordinator and Vorst’s closest collaborator.

“I joined the Brotherhood before your disappearance,” Kirby said. “Did you ever hear of me?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“I was only an underling,” Kirby said. “I suppose you wouldn’t have had reason to hear of me. But I hoped your memory would be clear, if we ever had met. I’ve got all these intervening years to cope with, but you can look back across a clean slate.”

“My memory’s fine,” Lazarus said evenly. “I’ve got no recollection of you.”

“Nor I of you.”

The resuscitated man shrugged. “I worked beside Vorst. I had disputes with him. That much is beyond question. Eventually I split with him. I founded the Harmonists.

Then I—disappeared. And here I am. Do you have trouble believing in me?”

“Perhaps I’ve been tampered with,” Kirby said. “I wish I remembered you.”

Lazarus lay back. He stared at the green, rubbery walls. The instruments monitoring his life-processes whirred and t clicked. There was an acrid odor in the air: asepsis at work. Kirby looked unreal. Lazarus wondered what sort of maze of pumps and trestles held him together beneath his thick, warm blue robe.

Kirby said, “You understand that you can’t remain on Earth, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Life will be uncomfortable for you on Venus unless you’re changed. We’ll do it for you. Your own men can supervise the operation. I’ve talked to Mondschein about it. Are you interested?”

“Yes,” Lazarus said. “Change me.”

They came the next day to turn him into a Venusian. He resented the public nature of the operation, but it was idle to pretend that his life was his own any more, anyway. It would take several weeks, they said, to effect the transformation. Once it had taken months to do it. They would equip him with gills, fit him out to breathe the poisonous muck that was the atmosphere of Venus, and turn him loose. Lazarus submitted. They carved him, and put him back together again, and readied him for shipment.

Vorst came to him, feathery-voiced and shrunken, but still a commanding figure, and said, “You must realize I had no part in your kidnapping. It was totally unauthorized—the work of zealots.”

“Of course.”

“I appreciate diversity of opinion. My way is not necessarily the only right way. I’ve felt the lack of a dialogue with Venus for many years. Once you’re installed—there, I trust you’ll be willing to communicate with me.”

Lazarus said, “I won’t close my mind against you, Vorst. You’ve given me life. I’ll listen to what you have to say. There’s no reason why we can’t cooperate, so long as we respect each other’s sphere of interests.”

“Exactly! Our goal is the same, after all. We can join forces.”

“Warily,” Lazarus said.

“Warily, yes. But wholeheartedly.” Vorst smiled and departed.

The surgeons completed their work. Lazarus, now alien to Earth, journeyed to Venus with Mondschein and the rest of the Harmonist retinue. It was in the nature of a triumphant homecoming, if one can be said to come home to a place where one has never been before.

Green-robed brethren with bluish-purple skins greeted him. Lazarus saw the Harmonist shrines, the holy ikons of his order. They had carried the spiritualistic element further than he had ever visualized, practically deifying him, but Lazarus did not intend to correct that. He knew how precarious his position was. There were men of entrenched power in his organization who secretly might not welcome a prophet’s return, and who might give him a second martyrdom if he challenged their vested interests. Lazarus moved warily.

“We have made great progress with the espers,” Mondschein told him. “We’re considerably ahead of Vorst’s work in that line, so far as we know.”

“Do you have telekinesis yet?”

“For twenty years We’re building the power steadily. Another generation—”

“I’d like a demonstration.”

“We have one planned,” Mondschein said.

They showed him what they could do. To reach into a block of wood and set its molecules dancing in flame—to move a boulder through the sky—to whisk themselves from place to place—yes, it was impressive, it defied comprehension. It certainly must be beyond the abilities of the Brotherhood on Earth.

The Venusian espers cavorted for Lazarus, hour after hour. Mondschein, sedate and complacent, gleamed with satisfaction, spoke of thresholds, levitation, telekinetic impetus, fulcrums of unity, and other matters that left Lazarus baffled but encouraged.

He who had returned pointed to the gray band of clouds that hid the heavens.

“How soon?” Lazarus asked.

“We’re not ready for interstellar transport yet,” Mondschein replied. “Not even interplanetary, though in theory one shouldn’t be any harder than the other. We’re working on it. Give us time. We’ll succeed.”

“Can we do it without Vorst’s help?” Lazarus asked. Mondschein’s complacence was punctured. “What kind of help can he give us? I’ve told you, we’re a generation ahead of his espers.”

“And will espers be enough? Perhaps he can supply what we’re missing. A joint venture—Harmonists and Vorsters collaborating—don’t you think the possibilities are worth exploring, Brother Christopher?”

Mondschein smiled blandly. “Why, yes, yes, of course. Certainly they’re worth exploring. It’s an approach we hadn’t considered. I admit, but you give us a fresh insight into our problems. I’d like to discuss the matter with you further, after you’ve had a chance to settle down here.”