This Star Shall Abide by Sylvia Engdahl

Technicians actually weren’t informed. “Don’t the Scholars tell you?” he inquired casually.
    “They tell us very little,” the young man said. “We are trained in our work; that is all. Someone who does well can receive extra training if he wishes, but he is not taught the reasons for things.”
    The words sounded a bit rueful, and Noren was nonplused; he had not stopped to think that the Technicians themselves might long for more knowledge. Machines were obviously complicated and would require much wisdom to build. “Is it not necessary to know reasons in order to make the Machines function?” he asked.
    “No, not at all. If a Machine is damaged, a specialist must repair it, and few of us do work of that kind.”
    Startled, Noren perceived that the men who operated the Machines might know very little about how they were made, though he had never before had cause to suspect such a distinction. “Do you choose the kind of work you want to learn?” he persisted.
    “Yes, if it’s available; we’re as free as you are in that respect.”
    That seemed an odd way to put it. Maybe, Noren reflected, he had been mistaken about these men’s motive for sitting down with him; they were less patronizing than most, and it was possible that they were simply making conversation. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the room was still nearly deserted. He paused, wondering how best to make use of this opportunity, while the older of the two men refilled the mugs with ale.
    “I myself would like to know reasons as well as skills,” the younger man continued. “I can’t see what harm there’d be in it.”
    Noren stared at him. Somehow it had not occurred to him that he might find allies among the Technicians. He’d lumped them together with the Scholars, assuming them to be equally calculating in their support of the High Law. But that was not really very reasonable. If they were men, they had opinions and feelings like other men, and they too must resent being deprived of the whole truth! For he saw that apart from the specific jobs they performed, they did not know nearly as much as he’d supposed. They were only tools. They probably took the Prophecy as seriously as did the villagers.
    He must find out! Alone he was powerless; even if he should succeed in convincing a handful of other people, they could do nothing against the Scholars. But if Technicians could be won over…
    “You were asking me about the Prophecy,” he said. “I’ve been told, of course, that it came to us from the Mother Star; but that’s confusing. The Mother Star is not yet even visible. So how did it determine the words written in a book?”
    “That is a mystery,” said the other Technician. “We are not intended to understand such things as that.”
    He had said “we,” Noren noted. And the more he thought about it, the more evident it was that the Scholars would not have confided in the Technicians. There were too many of them; if they suspected any fraud, they would no longer take orders. Technicians, being outside village law, were subject to the direct authority of the Scholars, whose power depended on their obedience.
    “I suppose the Scholars understand.”
    “The Scholars understand everything,” agreed the man.
    “No doubt. Yet are they really more capable of understanding than wise men like yourselves? You, sir—” Noren turned to the sympathetic younger Technician with the tone of deference that he’d long ago learned to feign. “You have so much more knowledge than I do; I can’t believe that there’s anything you could not grasp if it were explained to you. Have you never wished that these mysteries were not hidden?”
    “I have, sometimes,” the youth admitted. “At times I’m weary of spending my days in the villages checking radiophone equipment; in fact I’ve requested Inner City work, which would give me opportunity to see the Scholars and perhaps learn from them. But that, for us, is an honor