The Fountains of Paradise

The Maha Thero had given neither advice nor discouragement, and if he was grieved by his colleague's departure he had shown no sign. He had merely intoned, "All things are impermanent", clasped his hands, and given his blessing.

The Venerable Parakarma, who had once been Dr. Choam Goldberg, and might be so again, would have had great difficulty in explaining all his motives. "Right action" was easy to say; it was not easy to discover.

At the Sri Kanda Maha Vihara he had found peace of mind – but that was not enough. With his scientific training, he was no longer content to accept the Order's ambiguous attitude towards God; such indifference had come at last to seem worse than outright denial.

If such a thing as a rabbinical gene could exist, Dr. Goldberg possessed it. Like many before him, Goldberg-Parakarma had sought God through mathematics, undiscouraged even by the bombshell that Kurt Gödel, with the discovery of undecidable propositions, had exploded early in the Twentieth Century. He could not understand how anyone could contemplate the dynamic asymmetry of Euler's profound, yet beautifully simple, e^(pi* i) + I = 0 without wondering if the universe was the creation of some vast intelligence.

Having first made his name with a new cosmological theory that had survived almost ten years before being refuted, Goldberg had been widely acclaimed as another Einstein or N'goya. In an age of ultra-specialisation, he had also managed to make notable advances in aero and hydrodynamics – long regarded as dead subjects, incapable of further surprises.

Then, at the height of his powers, he had experienced a religious conversion not unlike Pascal's, though without so many morbid undertones. For the next decade, he had been content to lose himself in saffron anonymity, focusing his brilliant mind upon questions of doctrine and philosophy. He did not regret the interlude, and he was not even sure that he had abandoned the Order; one day, perhaps, this great stairway would see him again. But his God-given talents were reasserting themselves; there was massive work to be done, and he needed tools that could not be found on Sri Kanda – or even, for that matter, on Earth itself.

He felt little hostility, now, towards Vannevar Morgan. However inadvertently, the engineer had ignited the spark; in his blundering way, he too was an agent of God. Yet at all costs the temple must be protected. Whether or not the Wheel of Fate ever returned him to its tranquillity, Parakarma was implacably resolved upon that.

And so, like a new Moses bringing down from the mountain laws that would change the destinies of men, the Venerable Parakarma descended to the world he had once renounced. He was blind to the beauties of land and sky that were all around him; for they were utterly trivial compared to those that he alone could see, in the armies of equations that were marching through his mind.

23. Moondozer

"Your trouble, Dr. Morgan," said the man in the wheelchair, "is that you're on the wrong planet."

"I can't help thinking," retorted Morgan, looking pointedly at his visitor's life-support system, "that much the same may be said of you."

The Vice-President (Investments) of Narodny Mars gave an appreciative chuckle.

"At least I'm here only for a week – then it's back to the Moon, and a civilised gravity. Oh, I can walk if I really have to: but I prefer otherwise."

"If I may ask, why do you come to Earth at all?"

"I do so as little as possible, but sometimes one has to be on the spot. Contrary to general belief; you can't do everything by remotes. I'm sure you are aware of that."

Morgan nodded; it was true enough. He thought of all the times when the texture of some material, the feel of rock or soil underfoot, the smell of a jungle, the sting of spray upon his face, had played a vital role in one of his projects. Some day, perhaps even these sensations could be transferred by electronics – indeed, it had already been done so crudely, on an experimental basis, and at enormous cost. But there was no substitute for reality; one should beware of imitations.

"If you've visited Earth especially to meet me," Morgan replied, "I appreciate the honour. But if you're offering me a job on Mars, you're wasting your time. I'm enjoying my retirement, meeting friends and relatives I haven't seen for years, and I've no intention of starting a new career."

"I find that surprising; after all, you're only 52. How do you propose to occupy your time?"