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Authors: Robert Silverberg
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abruptly, "Tell me, Poilar, do you think life has any real purpose?"
As always when he asked questions of that sort some lines of the catechism leaped readily to my mind. "Our purpose is to go to the gods at the Summit and pay our homage to them, as the First Climber taught us to do," I said. "And learn useful things from them, as He did, and bring them back to enrich our nation."
"But what point is there in doing that?"
The catechism offered me no clues about that. Puzzled, I said, "Why, so we can lead better lives!"
"And what point is there in that ?"
He was starting to anger me now. I shoved him with my open hand. "Stop this," I said. "You sound like a child who keeps on asking, 'Why,' 'Why,' when things are explained to him. What point indeed? We want to lead better lives because that's better than leading worse ones."
"Yes. Yes, of course."
"Why do you waste your breath with meaningless issues like these, Traiben?"
He was silent for a time. Then he said, "Nothing has any meaning, Poilar. Not if you look at it closely. We say, 'This is good,' or 'This is bad,' or 'The gods will thus and so,' but how do we know? Why is one thing good and another thing bad? Because we say so? Because the gods say so? How do we know that they do? Nobody whom I know has ever heard them speak."
"Enough, Traiben!"
But when these moods possessed him there was no stopping him. He would endlessly pursue some strange line of inquiry that would never have occurred to anyone else, until he reached a conclusion that seemed to bear no relation to any question he had been asking.
He said now, "Even though nothing has any meaning, I believe we should seek for meaning all the same. Do you agree?"
I sighed. "Yes, Traiben."
"And so we must climb the Wall, because we think that the gods will it, and because we hope to gain knowledge from them that will better our lives."
"Yes. Of course. You belabor the obvious."
His eyes were aglow. "But now I've come to see that there's a third reason for going up. Which is to attempt to discover what kind of creatures the gods may be. How they are different from us, and where their superiority lies."
"And what good will that do?"
"So that we can become gods ourselves."
"You want to be a god, Traiben?"
"Why not? Are you content to be what you are?"
"Yes. Very much so," I said.
"And what are you, then? What are we?"
"We are the creatures whom the gods created to do their will. The sacred books tell us so. We were meant to be mortals and they were meant to be gods. That's good enough for me. Why isn't it good enough for you?"
"It isn't because it isn't. The day I say, 'This is good enough for me,' is the day I begin to die, Poilar. I want to know what I am. After that I want to know what I'm capable of becoming. And then I want to become it. I want to keep reaching higher all the time."
I thought of my star-dream, and how as I lay in its throes I would toss and turn and reach my hands toward Heaven. And I thought that I understood something of what Traiben was saying; for, after all, did I not burn with a hunger to climb that mountain to its loftiest point, and stand before the holy beings who inhabited its crest, and give myself up to their will so that I might become something greater than I had been?
But then I shook my head. He had gone too far. "No, Traiben. I think it's wild nonsense to talk about mortals becoming gods. And in any case I don't want to be one myself."
"You'd rather stay a mortal?"
"Yes. I'm a mortal because the gods mean me to be a mortal."
"You ought to give more thought to these matters," Traiben said. "Your mind marches in a circle. And your feet will too, if you're not careful."
I shook my head. "Sometimes I think you may be crazy, Traiben."
"Sometimes I wish you were crazier," he said.
* * *
The number of remaining candidates dropped and dropped. We were down to a hundred, ninety, eighty, seventy. It was a strange time for those of us who remained. We were all
As always when he asked questions of that sort some lines of the catechism leaped readily to my mind. "Our purpose is to go to the gods at the Summit and pay our homage to them, as the First Climber taught us to do," I said. "And learn useful things from them, as He did, and bring them back to enrich our nation."
"But what point is there in doing that?"
The catechism offered me no clues about that. Puzzled, I said, "Why, so we can lead better lives!"
"And what point is there in that ?"
He was starting to anger me now. I shoved him with my open hand. "Stop this," I said. "You sound like a child who keeps on asking, 'Why,' 'Why,' when things are explained to him. What point indeed? We want to lead better lives because that's better than leading worse ones."
"Yes. Yes, of course."
"Why do you waste your breath with meaningless issues like these, Traiben?"
He was silent for a time. Then he said, "Nothing has any meaning, Poilar. Not if you look at it closely. We say, 'This is good,' or 'This is bad,' or 'The gods will thus and so,' but how do we know? Why is one thing good and another thing bad? Because we say so? Because the gods say so? How do we know that they do? Nobody whom I know has ever heard them speak."
"Enough, Traiben!"
But when these moods possessed him there was no stopping him. He would endlessly pursue some strange line of inquiry that would never have occurred to anyone else, until he reached a conclusion that seemed to bear no relation to any question he had been asking.
He said now, "Even though nothing has any meaning, I believe we should seek for meaning all the same. Do you agree?"
I sighed. "Yes, Traiben."
"And so we must climb the Wall, because we think that the gods will it, and because we hope to gain knowledge from them that will better our lives."
"Yes. Of course. You belabor the obvious."
His eyes were aglow. "But now I've come to see that there's a third reason for going up. Which is to attempt to discover what kind of creatures the gods may be. How they are different from us, and where their superiority lies."
"And what good will that do?"
"So that we can become gods ourselves."
"You want to be a god, Traiben?"
"Why not? Are you content to be what you are?"
"Yes. Very much so," I said.
"And what are you, then? What are we?"
"We are the creatures whom the gods created to do their will. The sacred books tell us so. We were meant to be mortals and they were meant to be gods. That's good enough for me. Why isn't it good enough for you?"
"It isn't because it isn't. The day I say, 'This is good enough for me,' is the day I begin to die, Poilar. I want to know what I am. After that I want to know what I'm capable of becoming. And then I want to become it. I want to keep reaching higher all the time."
I thought of my star-dream, and how as I lay in its throes I would toss and turn and reach my hands toward Heaven. And I thought that I understood something of what Traiben was saying; for, after all, did I not burn with a hunger to climb that mountain to its loftiest point, and stand before the holy beings who inhabited its crest, and give myself up to their will so that I might become something greater than I had been?
But then I shook my head. He had gone too far. "No, Traiben. I think it's wild nonsense to talk about mortals becoming gods. And in any case I don't want to be one myself."
"You'd rather stay a mortal?"
"Yes. I'm a mortal because the gods mean me to be a mortal."
"You ought to give more thought to these matters," Traiben said. "Your mind marches in a circle. And your feet will too, if you're not careful."
I shook my head. "Sometimes I think you may be crazy, Traiben."
"Sometimes I wish you were crazier," he said.
* * *
The number of remaining candidates dropped and dropped. We were down to a hundred, ninety, eighty, seventy. It was a strange time for those of us who remained. We were all
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