Sylvia Engdahl - The Doors of the Universe

From the reviews of The Doors of the Universe

Although it is the third book of a trilogy, The Doors of the Universe stands powerfully by itself as a quest for survival on a planet that is basically alien to the Six Worlds life forms. This is much more than an adventure story. It is one mans realization of the need for change and his slow acceptance of the responsibility to lead that change.... One never gets bored with the story and it haunts the reader long after it is finished. Journal of Reading

This Star Shall Abide and Beyond the Tomorrow Mountains ... serve as solid foundation for this powerful culminating volume that treats in far greater depth the philosophical/ethical/religious issues raised in the earlier books.... Engdahls latest story is certain to appeal to the thoughtful good reader. Booklist

Engdahl again proves herself a master storyteller in this third book of her sci-fi trilogy. As a converted sci-fi hater, I am again impressed with the depth of ideas that she explores.... The constant twists and expansions of plot keep the readers attention from lagging. Provident Book Finder, Scottsdale PA

Engdahl can make a reader forget her characters are on another planet, forget that they may not be human in precisely the way the people on this planet are, forget the problems Noren is facing are simply fiction.... Humanity, she says, transcends the definitions of outward form and physical location. Ypsilanti Press

This book and its companions, This Star Shall Abide and Beyond the Tomorrow Mountains, will become classics of science fiction. They will not, unfortunately, be popular [with teens] because the intellectual level and reading difficulty will restrict their circulation to the more intelligent high school students. Childrens Book Review, Brigham Young University

The Doors of the Universe

(Children of the Star, Book Three)

by

Sylvia Engdahl

Ad Stellae Books, 2010

Copyright 1981, 2000 by Sylvia Louise Engdahl

All rights reserved. For information contact sle@sylviaengdahl.com. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only, and may not be resold, given away, or altered.

This is the third book of a trilogy. It is preceded by This Star Shall Abide and Beyond the Tomorrow Mountains . They can be read independently, although doing so will eliminate the suspense of the first book.

Atheneum edition (hardcover) published in 1981

Meisha Merlin edition (with minor updating) published in 2000 in the single-volume Children of the Star trilogy

More information available at www.adstellaebooks.com

Author website: www.sylviaengdahl.com

Cover photo by Ryan Pike / 123RF

...The land was barren, and brought forth neither food nor pure water, nor was there any metal; and no one lived upon it until the Founding. And on the day of the Founding humankind came out of the sky from the Mother Star, which is our source. But the land alone could not give us life. So the Scholars came to bless it, that it might be quickened: they built the City; and they called down from the sky Power and Machines; and they made the High Law lest we forget our origin, grow neglectful of our bounden duties, and thereby perish. Knowledge shall be kept safe within the City; it shall be held in trust until the Mother Star itself becomes visible to us. For though the Star is now beyond our seeing, it will not always be so....

There shall come a time of great exultation, when the doors of the universe shall be thrown open and everyone shall rejoice. And at that time, when the Mother Star appears in the sky, the ancient knowledge shall be free to all people, and shall be spread forth over the whole earth. And Cities shall rise beyond the Tomorrow Mountains, and shall have Power, and Machines; and the Scholars will no longer be their guardians. For the Mother Star is our source and our destiny, the wellspring of our heritage; and the spirit of this Star shall abide forever in our hearts, and in those of our children, and our childrens children, even unto countless generations. It is our guide and protector, without which we could not survive; it is our lifes bulwark. And so long as we believe in it, no force can destroy us, though the heavens themselves be consumed! Through the time of waiting we will follow the Law; but its mysteries will be made plain when the Star appears, and the children of the Star will find their own wisdom and choose their own Law. from the Book of the Prophecy

Chapter One

The day, like all days, had been hot; the clouds had dispersed promptly after the mornings scheduled rain. As the hours went by the sun had parched the villages, penetrating the thatch roofs of their stone buildings. Now low, its light filtered by thick air, it subdued the sharp contrast between machine-processed farmland and the surrounding wilderness of native growth, a rolling expanse of purple-notched grayness that stretched to the Tomorrow Mountains. Sunlight was seldom noticed within the City, for the domes, and most rooms of the clustered towers they ringed, were windowless. But since long before dawn Noren had watched the landscape from the topmost level of a tower hed rarely entered. Like the other converted starships that served as Inner City living quarters, it had a view lounge at its pinnacle. And it was there that he awaited the birth of his child.

Hed been barred from the birthing roompart of the nursery area where infants were tended until, at the age of weaning, they must be sent out for adoption by village families. That was off limits to all but the mothers and attendants. By tradition, Scholars could not see their children. Even the women did not, except when no wet nurse was available among Technician women. Talyra, as a Technician, would nurse her own baby. Whether that would make it easier or harder when the time came for her to give it up, he was not sure. The knowledge that she could not keep the child hadnt lessened her gladness in pregnancy any more than it had tarnished his own elation. It would not affect their desire for many offspring in the years to come. Yet it did not seem fairshed given up so much for his sake....

For the worlds sake, she would say, and it was truer than she imagined. In our children shall be our hope, and for them we shall labor, generation upon generation until the Stars light comes to us, shed quoted softly the night before, when her pains began. Unlike himself, Talyra had found the symbolic language of the Prophecy meaningful even during her childhood in the village. He too now used it, not just to please her but with sincerity.

And the land shall remain fruitful, and the people shall multiply across the face of the earth, hed replied, smiling. Then, more soberly, For the City shall serve the people; those within have been consecrated to that service. He knew that Talyra indeed felt consecrated, no less than he, though in a different way. Still, it troubled him that she could not know the truth behind the ritual phrases. She could not know that the City and its dependent villages contained but a remnant of the race that had once inhabited six vaporized worlds of the remote Mother Star, that to bring forth babies was not only an honor and sacred duty, but a necessity if humanity was to survive. Nor could she be told the main reason why Inner City people were not free to rear families, though it was obvious enough to her that the space enclosed by the Outer Citys encircling domes was limited.

Shed clung to his arm as they left their tiny room and walked across the inter-tower courtyard. At the door to the nursery area, shed leaned against him with her dark curls damp against his shoulder. The pains were coming often; he knew they could not linger over the parting. And there was no cause to linger. Childbirth roused no apprehension in Talyra; she was, after all, a nurse-midwife by profession.