The young Marians used to enjoy themselves here with all their hearts, donning airtight helmets for a lark to make themselves unrecognisable.
Tome Polar somehow managed to fall for his dancing partner, although he hadn’t yet seen her face. It seemed to him that it ought to be beautiful, so vibrant and tender was her voice, even when muffled by the mask.
When Ena took off her helmet, she turned out to be exactly what he had been expecting.
A straight brow sloping slightly backwards to continue the line of the nose, elongated eyes with a slight slant up towards the temples, russet hair with a heavy bun on the neck so that it did not fit easily into a helmet-such was his new acquaintance, Ena Fae. There was something in her of her great-great-great-grandmother, Ala Veg; but neither Tome nor Ena had the slightest idea of what she had looked like.
It was love at first sight between the two Marians, as if two torches had been brought to the same fire.
The young couple passed through the entrance airlock, which had always been a source of puzzlement to Tome Polar. Why had it been made entirely of metal (and when there was a permanent metal famine!), round in shape and straining upwards, like the ancient skyscrapers of the legendary Faena? Had the first Marians perhaps wanted to set up a monument to the beautiful fairy tale? Tome Polar, of course did not share the superstitions according to which the tower had once voyaged among the stars with no mechanical means of propulsion. This legend had been born of the unusual shape of the installation which served as an entrance airlock to the city.
There was only one real monument in the city, the one to the Great Elder. Sculpted out of a stalagmite, the Elder of ancient times towered to his full enormous stature, with his stone beard falling onto his chest and with mystery in the dark, piercing cavities of his eyes.
New deposits had formed with the years on the stone sculpture, and these smoothed over (as in memory) the features of the great Marian of the past who had called himself a Faetian.
The monument to the Great Elder stood in the cave of the young.
It was towards this that Tome Polar and Ena Fae made their way when they had taken off their space-suits.
Nothing, it seemed, could ever come between them to spoil their radiant love and happy life together. Tome and Ena, however, had a hard trial ahead of them.
According to the ancient Marian tradition, it was by the monument to the Great Elder that vows of love and faithfulness were sworn, and also the work was chosen which, from that moment on, the future married couple would take upon themselves. On Mar, the young people bound themselves with ties of marriage which, as they understood it, concerned no one else.
On this spot, the lovers had to declare to one another which path in life each had chosen.
“Ena!” said Tome. “There can be no greater happiness for me than to be with you always, not only in the family but at work. I want you to be a loyal helpmate to me in the scientific research which I have decided to do.”
“Am I ready for this?” said Ena doubtfully, looking admiringly at her betrothed.
“It will be enough for me if you are by my side in our cave-laboratory.”
“What cave?” asked Ena, brightening up. “Are they going to give us a small hall?”
“No. I’ve found myself a cave in the mountains. We’ll fit it out ourselves. We’ll make airlocks and we’ll take with us the air-recycling equipment from spare space-suits.”
“But what for?” asked Ena, amazed. “Surely you could find a cave in the underground city?”
“The experiments we are going to do are dangerous. No one believes me, but I suspect that matter has a tendency to disintegrate into even smaller particles than the ‘indivisible’ ones of which matter consists.”
“Matter has a tendency to disintegrate?” echoed Ena in horror.
“Yes, that’s the thought I’ve reached. Of course, it’s only a scientific hunch, nothing more. You and I will take a vow here to enrich the Marians with the energy of disintegration.”
“No,” said Ena Fae firmly. “You’re mad to have such ambitions.”
“But why? Are you really going to become one of those who misunderstand me?”
“Listen to what, as a Marian girl, I have to say to you. We who bear within us new generations of Marians have had passed down to us the injunction of the Great Elder at whose monument we now stand.”
“The Great Elder bequeathed to us the power of knowledge. What else?”
“Follow me,” commanded Ena.
Tome obediently went after her.
Ena took him by a roundabout path. Descending steeply, it led them into a stalagmite cave which was evidently directly underneath the Cave of Youth.
Ena pointed at the roof.
“The Elder above is pointing downwards, and if you follow the line of direction, it runs through a stalactite to indicate some writings.”
Sure enough, under the stalactite there was a stone slab fashioned from the base of a removed stalagmite. The deposits on it had been carefully cleaned off.
“Read it!” commanded Ena.
Some passages in the inscription seemed particularly strange to Tome Polar.
“Never must the Marians, descendants of the Faetians, touch those fields of knowledge which led to the destruction of the beautiful Faena. Never must they strive to learn of what matter consists, never must they strive to achieve movement without propulsion. These prohibitions are for the protection of future generations who must be saved from the suffering that comes from such knowledge.”
Tome turned to Ena.
“What crude superstition! What did this Elder do to be called great? What do the structure of matter and movement without propulsion have in common? Apart from that, the deciding question should be, ‘Who is in possession of the knowledge?’ ”
“I don’t know enough to argue with you,” said Ena, “but what rational people know today can become the property of very different ones tomorrow. That is why the Prohibitions of the Great Elder have been imposed on the Marian women. That duty of ours is higher than anything else. No one must know what is forbidden.”
“What d’you mean by ‘higher than anything else’?” said Tome, much put out. “Higher than love?”
Ena lowered her eyes.
“Yes, my Tome, even higher than love.”
“I don’t recognise you!”
Tome Polar could not bear objections, especially if they weren’t upheld by the logic of reason. He despised and rejected everything that seemed unfounded. This had been encouraged in him since early childhood by his parents, whom he remembered vaguely (he had been the youngest of nine children), and it had subsequently developed thanks to his own outstanding abilities, enabling him to laugh off any lack of understanding. But to meet with no response from the girl of his choice was too hard for Tome Polar. A spoiled darling of fate, he refused to believe his ears. His mood darkened and he said haughtily:
“I didn’t expect your love to be so feeble that it would pale before the first flash of superstition.”
“You must make a vow,” demanded Ena in a ringing voice that echoed under the roof of the cave, “you must make a vow never again to try and learn the secret of matter which is supposed to be liable to disintegration.”
“How can I make such a vow if that is the one thing I yearn for?”
“I thought you were yearning for me…”
Tome Polar was taken aback. He had been ready for anything in the marriage ceremony with Ena Fae except this unreasonable stubbornness. He did not know that his bride was speaking for generations of Faetesses who had handed down their concern for posterity to her. Perhaps the terrible disaster on Faena had awakened in the exiles on Mars a new feature which should guarantee life for the Marians. This had found expression in the Great Elder’s Prohibitions, which had been passed on to all without exception.