The Face of the Waters

  * * *

  Father Quillan had been thinking about the Face too.

  "I have a new theory about it," he announced.

  The priest had spent an entire morning meditating, sitting beside Gharkid in the gantry area. Lawler, going past them, had stared in wonder. The two of them had seemed lost in trances. Their souls might have been on some other plane of existence entirely.

  "I've changed my mind," said Quillan. "You remember I told you before that I thought the Face had to be Paradise and God Himself walked there, the First Cause, the actual Creator, He to whom we address all our prayers. Well, I don't feel that way any more."

  "All right," Lawler said, indifferently. The Face isn't God's vaargh, then. If you say so. You know more about these things than I do."

  "Not God's vaargh, no. But definitely some god's vaargh. This is the exact reverse of my original notion about the island, you see. And of everything I have ever believed about the nature of the Divine. I begin to drop into the greatest heresy. I become a polytheist at this late stage in my life. A pagan! It seems absurd even to me. And yet I embrace it with all my heart."

  "I don't understand. A god, the god-what's the difference? If you can believe in one god, you can believe in any number of them, as far as I can see. The trick is to believe in as many as one, and I can't even get that far."

  Quillan gave him a loving smile. "You really don't understand, do you? The classical Christian tradition, which derives from Judaism and for all we know from something out of ancient Egypt, holds that God is a single indivisible entity. I've never questioned that. I've never even thought of questioning that. We Christians speak of Him as a Trinity, but we are aware that the Trinity is One. That may seem confusing to an unbeliever, but we know what it means. No dispute about it: one God, only one. Just in the past few days, though-the last few hours, even-" The priest paused. "Let me make use of a mathematical analogy. Do you know what Godel's Theorem is?"

  "No."

  "Well, neither do I, not exactly. But I can give you an approximation of it. It's a twentieth-century idea, I think. What Godel's Theorem asserts, and nobody has ever been able to disprove it, is that there's a fundamental limit to the rational reach of mathematics. We can prove all the assumptions of mathematical reasoning down to a certain bed-rock point, and then we hit a level where we simply can't go any farther. Ultimately we find that we've descended beyond the process of mathematical proof to a realm of unprovable axioms, things that simply have to be taken on faith if we're to make any sense out of the universe. What we reach is the boundary of reason. In order to go beyond it-in order to go on thinking at all, really-we are compelled to accept our defining axioms as true, even though we can't prove them. Are you following me?"

  "I think so."

  "All right. What I propose is that Godel's Theorem marks the dividing line between gods and mortals."

  "Really," Lawler said.

  "This is what I mean," said Quillan. "It sets a boundary for human reasoning. The gods occupy the far side of that boundary. Gods, by definition, are creatures who aren't bound by the Godel limits. We humans live in a world where reality ultimately breaks down into irrational assumptions, or at least assumptions that are non-rational because they're unprovable. Gods live in a realm of absolutes where realities are not only fixed and knowable down beyond the level of our axiomatic floor, but can be redefined and reshaped by divine control."

  For the first time in this discussion Lawler felt a flicker of interest. "The galaxy is full of beings which aren't human, but their maths isn't any better than ours, is it? Where do they fit your scheme?"

  "Let's define all intelligent beings who are subject to the Godel limitations as human, regardless of their actual species. And any beings that are capable of functioning in an ultra-Godelian realm of logic are gods."

  Lawler nodded. "Go on."

  "Now let me introduce the concept that came to me this morning when I was sitting up there thinking about the Face of the Waters. This actually is the blackest heresy, I admit. But I've been heretical before, and survived it. Though not this heretical." Again Quillan smiled beatifically. "Let us suppose that the gods themselves at some point must reach a Godel limit, a place where their own reasoning powers-that is, their powers of creation and recreation-run up against some kind of barrier. Like us, but on a qualitatively different plane, they eventually come to a point at which they can go thus far, and no farther."

  "The ultimate limit of the universe," Lawler said.

  "No. Just their ultimate limit. It may well be that there are greater gods beyond them. The gods we're talking about are encapsulated just as we mortals are within a larger reality defined by a different mathematics to which they have no access. They look upward to the next reality and the next level of gods. And those gods-that is, the inhabitants of that larger reality-also have a Godel wall around them, with even greater gods outside it. And so on and so on and so on."

  Lawler felt dizzy. "To infinity?"

  "Yes."

  "But don't you define a god as something that's infinite? How can an infinite thing be smaller than infinity?"

  "An infinite set may be contained within an infinite set. An infinite set may contain an infinity of infinite subsets."

  "If you say so," replied Lawler, a little restless now. "But what does this have to do with the Face?"

  "If the Face is a true Paradise, unspoiled and virgin-a domain of the holy spirit-then it may very well be occupied by superior entities, beings of great purity and power. What we of the Church once called angels. Or gods, as those of older faiths might have said."

  Be patient, Lawler thought. The man takes these things seriously.

  He said, "And these superior beings, angels, gods, whatever term we choose to use-these are the local post-Godelian geniuses, do I have it right? Gods, to us. Gods to the Gillies, too, since the Face seems to be a holy place for them. But not God Himself, God Almighty, your god, the one that your church worships, the prime creator of the Gillies and us and everything else in the universe. You won't find Him around here, at least not very often. That god is higher up along the scale of things. He doesn't live on any one particular planet. He's up above somewhere in a higher realm, a larger universe, looking down, checking up occasionally on how things are going here."

  "Exactly."

  "But even He isn't all the way at the top?"

  "There is no top," Quillan said. "There's only an ever-retreating ladder of Godhood, ranging from the hardly-more-than-mortal to the utterly unfathomable. I don't know where the inhabitants of the Face are located on the ladder, but very likely it's somewhere at a point higher than the one we occupy. It's the whole ladder that is God Almighty. Because God is infinite, there can be no one level of godhood, but only an eternally ascending chain; there is no Highest, merely Higher and Higher and Even Higher, ad infinitum. The Face is some intermediate level on that chain."

  "I see," said Lawler uncertainly.

  "And by meditating on these things, one can begin to perceive the higher infinities, even though by definition we can never perceive the Highest of all, since to do that we'd have to be greater than the greatest of infinities." Quillan looked toward the heavens and spread his arms wide in a gesture that was almost self-mocking. But then he turned to Lawler and said in an entirely different tone of voice from the one he had used a moment before, "At last, doc, I've come to an understanding of why I failed in the priesthood. I must have been aware all along that the God I was looking for, the One Supreme Entity who watches over us, is utterly unattainable. So far as we're concerned He doesn't in fact exist. Or if He does. He exists in a region so far removed from our existence that He might just as well not exist at all. Now finally I understand that I need to go looking for a lesser god, one who's closer to our own level of awareness. For the first time, Lawler, I see the possibility that I can find some comfort in this life."

  "What kind of bullshit are you two discussing?" said Delagard, who had come up be
hind them.

  "Theological bullshit," Quillan said.

  "Ah. Ah. A new revelation?"

  "Sit down," said the priest. "I'll tell you all about it."

  Inflamed by the logic of his new revelation, Quillan went about the ship offering to share it with anyone who would listen. But he found few takers.

  Gharkid seemed the most interested. Lawler had always suspected that the strange little man had a deep streak of mysticism in him; and now, enigmatic as always, Gharkid could be seen sitting with shining eyes in a pose of the deepest attention, drinking in everything that the priest had to say. But as ever Gharkid had no comments of his own to offer, only the occasional soft query.

  * * *

  Sundira spent an hour with Quillan and came to Lawler afterward looking puzzled and thoughtful. "The poor man," she said. "A paradise. Holy spirits walking around in the underbrush, offering benedictions to pilgrims. All these weeks at sea must have driven him out of his mind."

  "If he was ever in it in the first place."

  "He wants so badly to give himself over to something bigger and wiser than he is. He's been chasing God all his life. But I think he's really just trying to find his way back to the womb."

  "What a terribly cynical thing to say."

  "Isn't it, though?" Sundira laid her head on Lawler's lap. "What do you think? Did any of that mathematical mumbo-jumbo make any sense to you? Or the theology? Paradise? An island of holy spirits?"

  He stroked her thick, dark hair. The weeks and months of the voyage had coarsened its texture, giving it a crisped, frizzled look. But it was still beautiful.

  He said, "A certain amount. At least I can understand the metaphor he's using. But it doesn't matter, do you know? Not to me. There could be an infinity of distinct layers of gods in the universe, each one with exactly sixteen times as many eyes as the ones in the layer below it, and Quillan could have absolute irrefutable proof of the existence of the whole elaborate rigmarole, and it wouldn't mean a thing to me. I live in this world, and only in this world, and there aren't any gods here. What might be happening in the higher levels, if there are any, doesn't concern me."

  "That doesn't mean the higher levels don't exist."

  "No. I suppose you're right. Who knows? The old sailor who told us all about the Face in the first place also had some wild story about an underwater city of super-Dwellers just off shore. I can believe that just as easily as I can all of Quillan's theological hodge-podge, I guess. But in fact I can't believe any of it. One notion's just as crazy as the other to me."

  She craned her head around to look at him. "But let's say for argument's sake that there really is a city under the sea not far from the Face, and some special kind of Dwellers live there. If that's so, it would explain why the Dwellers we know regard the Face as a holy island, and are afraid or at least unwilling to go near it. What if there are god-like beings living there?"

  "Let's wait and see what's there when we get there, and then I'll give you an answer to that, okay?"

  "Okay," Sundira said.

  * * *

  Halfway through the night Lawler found himself suddenly awake, in that kind of hyper-wakefulness that is certain to last until dawn. He sat up, rubbing his aching forehead. He felt as though someone had opened his skull while he slept and filled it with a million bright strands of fine shimmering wire, which now were rubbing back and forth against each other with every breath he took.

  Someone was in his cabin. By the faint gleam of starlight that came through his single porthole he saw a tall square-shouldered figure against the bulkhead, quietly watching him. Kinverson? No, not quite big enough for Kinverson, and why would Kinverson invade his cabin in the dead of night anyway? But none of the other men on board were nearly this tall.

  "Who's there?" Lawler said.

  "Don't you know me, Valben?" A deep voice, resonant, wonderfully calm and self-assured.

  "Who are you?"

  "Take a good look, boy." The intruder turned so that the side of his face was in the light. Lawler saw a strong jaw, a thick, curling black beard, a straight, commanding nose. Except for the beard the face could have been his own. No, the eyes were different. They had a powerful gleam; their gaze was at once more stern and more compassionate than Lawler's. He knew that look. A shiver went down his back.

  "I thought I was awake," he said calmly. "But now I see that I'm still dreaming. Hello, father. It's good to see you again. It's been a long time."

  "Has it? Not for me." The tall man took a couple of steps toward him. In the tiny cabin, that brought him practically to the edge of the bunk. He was wearing a dark ruffled robe of an old-fashioned kind, a robe that Lawler remembered well. "It must have been a while, though. You're all grown up, boy. You're older than I am, aren't you?"

  "About the same, now."

  "And a doctor. A good doctor, I hear."

  "Not really. I do my best. It isn't good enough."

  "Your best is always good enough, Valben, if it's truly your best. I used to tell you that, but I suppose you didn't believe me. So long as you don't shirk, so long as you honestly care. A doctor can be an absolute bastard off duty, but so long as he cares he's all right. So long as he understands that he's put here to protect, to heal, to love. And I think you understood that." He sat down on the corner of the bunk. He seemed very much at home. "You didn't have a family, did you?"

  "No, sir."

  "Too bad. You'd have been a good father."

  "Would I?"

  "It would have changed you, of course. But for the better, I think. Do you regret it?"

  "I don't know. Probably. I regret a lot of things. I regret that my marriage went bad. I regret that I never married again. I regret that you died too soon, father."

  "Was it too soon?"

  "For me it was."

  "Yes. Yes, I suppose it was."

  "I loved you."

  "And I loved you too, boy. I still do. I love you very much. I'm very proud of you."

  "You talk as though you're still alive. But this is all only a dream: you can say anything you like, can't you?"

  The figure rose and stepped back into the darkness. It seemed to cloak itself in shadows.

  "It isn't a dream, Valben."

  "No? Well, then. You're dead, even so, father. You've been dead twenty-five years. If this isn't a dream, why are you here? If you're a ghost, why did you wait until now to start haunting me?"

  "Because you've never been this close to the Face before."

  "What does the Face have to do with you or me?"

  "I dwell in the Face, Valben."

  Despite himself, Lawler laughed. "That's a thing that a Gillie would say. Not you."

  "It isn't only Gillies that are taken to dwell in the Face, boy."

  The flat, quiet, appalling statement hung in the air like a miasmic cloud. Lawler recoiled from it. He was starting to understand, now. Anger began to rise in him.

  He gestured irritably at the phantom.

  "Get out of here. Let me have some sleep."

  "What way is that to talk to your father?"

  "You aren't my father. You're either a very bad dream or a lying illusion coming from some telepathic sea urchin or dragonfish out there in the ocean. My father would never have said a thing like that. Not even if he came back as a ghost, which is also something he wouldn't have done. Haunting wasn't his style. Go away and leave me alone!"

  "Valben, Valben, Valben!"

  "What do you want with me? Why won't you leave me alone?"

  "Valben, boy-"

  Lawler realized suddenly that he could no longer see the tall shadowy figure.

  "Where are you?"

  "Everywhere around you, and nowhere."

  Lawler's head was throbbing. Something was churning in his stomach. He groped in the dark for his numbweed flask. After a moment he remembered that it was empty.

  "What are you?"

  "I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, y
et shall he live."

  "No!"

  "God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee thus!-"

  "This is lunacy! Stop it! Get out of here! Out!" Trembling now, Lawler searched for his lamp. Light would drive this thing away. But before he could locate it he felt a sudden sharp sense of new solitude and realized that the vision, or whatever it had been, had left him of its own accord.

  Its departure left an unexpected ringing emptiness behind.

  Lawler felt its absence as a shock, like that of an amputation. He sat for a time at the edge of his bunk, shivering, sweat-soaked, shaking as he had shaken during the worst of his period of withdrawal of the drug.

  Then he rose. Sleep wasn't likely now. He went up on deck. A couple of moons were overhead, stained strange purples and greens by the luminescence that rose out of the western horizon and now seemed to fill the air all the time. The Hydros Cross itself, hanging off in the corner of the sky like a bit of discarded finery, was pulsing in colour too, something Lawler had never seen before: from its two great arms came booming, dizzying swirls of turquoise, amber, scarlet, ultramarine.

  Nobody seemed to be on duty. The sails were set, the ship was responding to a light steady breeze, but the deck looked empty. Lawler felt a quick stab of terror at that. The first watch should be on duty: Pilya, Kinverson, Gharkid, Felk, Tharp. Where were they? Even the wheel-box was untended. Was the ship steering itself?

  Apparently so. And steering off course, too. Last night, he remembered now, the Cross had been off the port bow. Now it was lined up with the beam. They were no longer going west-southwest, but had swung around at a sharp angle to their former path.

  He tiptoed around the deck, mystified. When he came by the rear mast he saw Pilya asleep on a pile of ropes, and Tharp nearby, snoring. Delagard would flay them if he knew. A little farther on was Kinverson, sitting against the side with his back to the rail. His eyes were open, but he didn't seem awake either.