This Fortress World (3 page)

I was sick. The last thing I saw were the slender white feet left standing upon the pavement in front of the Cathedral. The last thing I heard was the muted sadness of the benediction and the soundless whisper…

…
there is one word for mankind, one word alone, and the word is
—
choose
…

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I raised my hand to knock at the Abbot's door, hesitated, and let it drop. I tried to think clearly, but thinking was hard. What I had been through had drained my body of strength and confused my mind. And I had never before made a major decision.

Our monastic life had been fixed into routine centuries ago: up at five to kneel beside the bed for morning prayers; ten minutes for each silent meal; six hours of prayer and meditation; six hours of duty within the monastery, in the Cathedral, or at the Barrier; six hours of study, research, and exercise; evening prayers beside the bed at twenty-five; sleep. This was my life.

My hand fumbled in the pouch at my waist, strapped beneath my robe, fumbled among my few personal belongings, and found it. It was still there; already my fingers had learned the slick, polished feel of the crystal pebble I had found in the collection box, gleaming dully among the small coins. I brought it out to look at it once more. It was roughly egg-shaped but smaller than a hen's egg. It was water clear and uncut and unmarked. It was meaningless. Nothing within interfered with its perfect transparency; nothing marred its smooth surface; there was nothing to indicate its purpose, if it had a purpose.

For this a girl had known terror. For this she had sought sanctuary, and when she had passed it on, blindly, trustfully, for this—surely for this! why else but for this?-she had gone forth to meet the fate she knew waited in the dirty street. Waited with a smile on its dark face, waited with cold black eyes and a gun in its hand, waited to cut off two white feet at the ankle…

I drew in my breath, remembering, and it made a funny sort of sob in my throat, and I remembered how I was sick in the control room. I knew I should forget, but my mind clung to the memory stubbornly, bringing it up again ever new, ever more horrible…

Again I asked myself the question:
What can I do?
I wasn't wise; I knew nothing about the outside world. Did I have doubts about the cruelty of Life, about the wisdom of the Church? I shoved them down. I buried them deep and scuffed out the markings of the spot where they had been. The Abbot was kind and good and wise. That was beyond question.

I knocked timidly.

"Enter," said the Abbot's deep, gently resonant voice.

I opened the door and stopped just inside the doorway. The Abbot was not alone.

He was seated in his deep armchair. It was the one concession to his age and white hair in a room otherwise as bare and simply furnished as my small cell. Beside him stood one of the younger acolytes, scarcely more than a boy with fine, golden hair, red lips, and fair, soft skin. Two spots of color burned in his cheeks.

"William Dane, Father," I blurted out. "Acolyte. I would like to speak with you—privately."

In the Abbot's massively powerful face one white eyebrow moved upward and that was all. The psychic force of his piety seemed to fill the room, to dominate it from that shabby chair, to spread outward in expanding, irresistible waves. Back toward him flowed my automatic response, the love that recognized him as my true father, the father of my soul, whoever may have been responsible for the accident of my being.

Doubt? Did I ever doubt?

"Wait in the inner-room," he told the boy. "We will continue our conversation a little later."

The boy opened the inner door a crack, and slipped through. The Abbot sat calmly, patiently, gazing at me with his all-seeing brown eyes, and I wondered if he knew already what had brought me here.

"Father," I said breathlessly. "What should an acolyte do when he has—doubts? About the world—and its justice? I have just come from the Cathedral and—"

"Is this your first time in leading the worship?"

"No, Father. I have served in the control room twice before."

"And each time you have been troubled? Doubts have arisen in your mind?"

"Yes, Father. But it was worse today."

"It is the miracles, I suppose," he mused, almost to himself. "The people accept the miracles as living proof of their God and his active interest in their welfare and the state of their souls. And the knowledge that they are really only illusions produced by the trained thoughts of an operator and a manipulation of knobs and dials—that knowledge disturbs your faith." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes, Father, but—"

"And do you know how those illusions are produced? Can you identify the forces that create a three-dimensional image so deceptively complete that a hand must be passed through it to shatter the illusion, an image which exists only in the mind of the operator? Do you know how thoughts are transmitted from one mind to another, how material objects are transferred from place to place in spite of walls, how the Barrier and the Portal act to screen those who wish to enter, to pass those who have needs that we can and should satisfy and bar all others?"

I hesitated. "No, Father."

"Nor do I," said the Abbot softly. "Nor does anyone on this world, nor on any other. When one of the machines breaks down, sometimes we can repair it and often we cannot. Because we don't know anything about the forces involved. I might say to you that this is, in itself, a miracle. That we can use these strange, divine forces, knowing nothing of their principles, to spread the Message among the people is a gift from God; we have been given guardianship over a small part of His divine omnipotence. That would be the power to work miracles of which we tell the people, and that would be true."

"Yes, Father."

His eyes studied me wisely. "But that would be casuistry. I will not use that argument to satisfy your doubts. For the machines we use in the Cathedral were the work of men, divinely inspired though they may have been. You have studied in the Archives. You know that we still find plans, occasionally, which our trained lay brothers decipher, from which they draw up designs and our craftsmen execute, and we test. It has occurred to me that man was once wiser and greater than he is today. But perhaps, if we persevere in our labors and our faith, someday we, too, may understand the forces with which we work."

"I have thought that, Father."

The Abbot glanced up shrewdly, nodding. "There is one explanation I have not offered. It is usually reserved for those who have taken orders and even then it is not often given."

I flushed, feeling subtly flattered. "If there is anything I should not—"

He silenced me with a strong, white hand. "That, William," he said gently, "is for me to decide. It has been left to my discretion by the Bishop and through him from the Archbishop himself. Your need is great, and because of that, because of your very doubts, you will be of great worth to us and to the service of God. Others, more easily satisfied, will be content to do less and be less. Someday you, too, will be Abbot, I am sure, or even"—he smiled with humility—"rise much higher in the hierarchy. Perhaps even to Archbishop itself, for though the galaxy is wide still one man in it must be Archbishop."

"Oh, no, Father," I objected. "I have no ambition—"

"Perhaps not. But preferment will seek you out. This, however, is what I want you to consider. The people—the slaves, the serfs, the freedmen, the mercenaries, the Peddlers, even the nobility—live in a world of chaos, besieged by countless sense impressions, beset by a thousand daily doubts of the wisdom of God. Their lives are hard, often bitter, and it should not be surprising that a simple message of faith finds them unresponsive. The masses of the people demand proof, constant daily proof, of the presence of their God and his power. Is it trickery to give them what they need? No. It is kindness."

"I see that, Father."

"But we live simply here in the monastery. We are protected from chaos and even from ourselves. We have the time and inclination for study and contemplation. We live close to God. Should we need the crutches to faith with which we aid the people?"

"No, Father. No." And for a moment, forgetting all else, I was swayed by the rich persuasiveness of the Abbot's voice into what seemed like a blinding flash of insight.

"That we should not need miracles to sustain our faith," the Abbot continued, "is our gift from the Church for renouncing the worldly life. We are provided with the environment most conducive to spiritual growth. But in the case of the specially gifted—in your case, William—we have special obligations. It is our opportunity to rise above the knowledge that the means we use to spread the Message are physical illusions. When the doubts are keen, that requires a superior faith. It demands a spirit that can recognize the imperfection of the means and yet believe in the higher truth which lies beyond means. It is your challenge, William, as it once was mine, to see and yet believe, to have your eyes not partly but fully opened, so that the truth of God can enter naked and pure. If you can do that, William, believe me, the rewards will be great—greater than you can now imagine."

I sank to my knees, trembling, to kiss the hem of his coarse, gray robe. "I can, Father. I can."

"Bless you, my son," the Abbot said huskily, and he traced in the air the mystic circle.

Purified, inspired, I started to rise and then—horribly, disastrously—memory returned and the glow of inspiration cooled. Into my spiritual world came two small, white feet; my world of peace and exaltation crumbled at their touch.
Save my faith
! I trembled again, but this time it was not with spiritual passion.
Preserve that moment of innocence and power, of knowledge and exaltation
! My face paled; my forehead became beaded with sweat.
Let me not doubt
!

"Father," I said, and my voice, as I heard it distantly, was dull and flat with remembered evil, "this afternoon—in the Cathedral—a girl entered—"

"Was she beautiful?" the Abbot asked gently.

"Yes, Father."

"We are forbidden the pleasures of the flesh, William, because our spirits are so weak. But, when we are young, a sigh or two may be a sin, but I think it is not a serious one. The Archbishop himself—"

"The girl was terrified—"

"Terrified?"

"It was the first time I had seen a member of the nobility so close—"

"Patrician—and terrified," the Abbot repeated, leaning forward in his chair. With a conscious effort he relaxed again. "Go on, William."

"Men followed her"—my voice was still dead—"four of them. They waited for her in the street, beyond the Barrier. Mercenaries, without uniforms. It was they whom she feared."

"Free agents—Go on."

"They waited for her to come out, to grow tired of the Cathedral's temporary sanctuary. Before the end of the service she came to the front and dropped an offering on the plate and left the Cathedral. She stepped through the Barrier into their hands, and they cut off her feet."

The Abbot nodded gravely, unsurprised. "It is often done, I understand; for psychological as well as practical reasons."

I went on, unheeding. My voice had come alive, but the life was remembered horror through which I groped for words. "They smiled while they did it. How can there be such evil in the world? They smiled, and no one cared, and they cut off her feet."

"No doubt she had committed some crime."

"Crime!" I said, lifting my head. "What crime could she have committed?"

The Abbot sighed. "Many things are considered crimes by the Barons or the Emperor—"

"What crime," I went on, "could justify such mutilation? They couldn't be sure she was guilty. They hadn't brought her to trial. They hadn't let her speak in her own defense. If they did this now, what will happen to her later?"

"In the temporal world," the Abbot said sadly, "justice is stern and seldom tempered with mercy. If a man steals, his hand is cut off. Many minor crimes are punishable by death. But it is likely that the girl was accused of treason."

"The miracles are illusions," I said bitterly, "but these things are real. Pain, hunger, violence, injustice, brutality. Only here in the monastery is there safety and shelter. And I am hiding from the world."

"That isn't pity," the Abbot said sternly, "that is a perversion, and close to heresy. Stamp it out, my son! Harry it from your mind with the scourge of faith! Here on Brancusi, God has given temporal power to the Barons and the Emperor. He has given them the right to administer justice and look after the physical lives of their subjects. If they are unjust and cruel, we should pity them, not their vassals and villeins, for the rulers are cutting themselves off from God's eternal peace. It is right that we should pity the temporary suffering of the people, but we must never forget that the physical life is more of an illusion than those we create in the Cathedral. Only the death that is life is real and eternal."

"Yes, Father, but—"

"As for our purpose in the monastery, it is not a withdrawal from life but a dedication to a better life. You should know that, William! You know our duties, our purpose, our goals." His voice dropped; he sighed. "But I must not be too severe. Your sympathies are too easily stirred. They have led you astray."

"I shall pray for guidance, Father,"' I said uneasily.

The Abbot looked down. When he looked up again his expression was unreadable. "You said that she left an offering. What was it?"

I hesitated. Then, abruptly, "I don't know, Father."

"You didn't look?"

"In the excitement, it slipped my mind completely."

"You are sure you don't have it with you?" the Abbot asked gently.

I controlled a start. "Yes, Father."

"Whatever it is, William, it should be turned over to the secular authorities. Its value—if it has any value—is nothing to us. And, from a practical viewpoint, we should never antagonize the temporal powers. We exist in peace, side by side, because our aims do not conflict. Instead they complement each other. Our physical defenses, even our spiritual powers, might not be strong enough to protect us from hostile secular forces. The Church must always look to its future."