A Canticle For Leibowitz Part 9

One bird finally landed. It strutted indignantly about a mound of fresh earth with a rock marker at one end. Disappointed, it took wing again. The flock of dark scavengers abandoned the site and soared high on the rising currents of air while they hungrily watched the land.

There was a dead hog beyond the Valley of the Misborn. The buzzards observed it gaily and glided down for a feast. Later, in a far mountain pa.s.s, a cougar licked her chops and left her kill. The buzzards seemed thankful for the chance to finish her meal.

The buzzards laid their eggs in season and lovingly fed their young: a dead snake, and bits of a feral dog.

The younger generation waxed strong, soared high and far on black wings, waiting for the fruitful Earth to yield up her bountiful carrion. Sometimes dinner was only a toad. Once it was a messenger from New Rome.

Their flight carried them over the midwestern plains. They were delighted with the bounty of good things which the nomads left lying on the land during their ride-over toward the south.

The buzzards laid their eggs in season and lovingly fed their young. Earth had nourished them bountifully for centuries. She would nourish them for centuries more... season and lovingly fed their young. Earth had nourished them bountifully for centuries. She would nourish them for centuries more...

Pickings were good for a while in the region of the Red River; but then out of the carnage, a city-state arose. For rising city-states, the buzzards had no fondness, although they approved of their eventual fall. They shied away from Texarkana and ranged far over the plain to the west. After the manner of all living things, they replenished the Earth many times with their kind.

Eventually it was the Year of Our Lord 3174.

There were rumors of war.

Part II - Fiat Lux

12.

Marcus Apollo became certain of war's imminence the moment he overheard Hannegan's third wife tell a serving maid that her favorite courtier had returned with his skin intact from a mission to the tents of Mad Bear's clan. The fact that he had come back alive from the nomad encampment meant that a war was brewing. Purportedly, the emissary's mission had been to tell the Plains tribes that the civilized states had entered into the Agreement of the Holy Scourge concerning the disputed lands, and would hereafter wreak stern vengeance on the nomadic peoples and bandit groups for any further raiding activities. But no man carried such news to Mad Bear and came back alive. Therefore, Apollo concluded the ultimatum had not been delivered, and Hannegan's emissary had gone out to the Plains with an ulterior purpose,. And the purpose was all too clear.

Apollo picked his way politely through the small throng of guests, his sharp eyes searching out Brother Claret and trying to attract his glance. Apollo's tall figure in severe black ca.s.sock with a small flash of color at the waist to denote his rank stood out sharply in contrast to the kaleidoscope-whirl of color worn by others in the banquet hall, and he was not long in catching his clerk's eye and nodding him toward the table of refreshments which was now reduced to a litter of sc.r.a.ps, greasy cups, and a few roast squabs that looked overcooked. Apollo dragged at the dregs of the punch bowl with the ladle, observed a dead roach floating among the spices, and thoughtfully handed the first cup to Brother Claret as the clerk approached.

"Thank you, Messer," said Claret, not noticing the roach. "You wanted to see me?"

"As soon as the reception's over. In my quarters. Sarkal came back alive."

"Oh."

"I've never heard a more ominous 'oh.' I take it you understand the interesting implications?"

"Certainly, Messer. It means the Agreement was a fraud on Hannegan's part, and he intends to use it against-"

"Shhh. Later." Apollo's eyes signaled the approach of an audience, and the clerk turned to refill his cup from the punch bowl. His interest became suddenly absorbed there, and he did not look at the lean figure in watered-silk who strode toward them from the entrance. Apollo smiled formally and bowed to the man. Their hand-clasp was brief and noticeably chilly.

"Well, Thon Taddeo," said the priest, "your presence surprises me. I thought you shunned such festive gatherings. What could be so special about this one to attract such a distinguished scholar?' He lifted his brows in mock perplexity.

"You're the attraction, of course," said the newcomer, matching Apollo's sarcasm, "and my only reason for attending."

"I?" He feigned surprise, but the a.s.sertion was probably true. The wedding reception of a half-sister was not the sort of thing that would impel Thon Taddeo to bedeck himself in formal finery and leave the cloistered halls of the collegium.

"As a matter of fact, I've been looking for you all day. They told me you'd be here. Otherwise-" He looked around the banquet hall and snorted irritably.

The snort cut whatever thread of fascination was tying Brother Claret's gaze to the punch bowl, and he turned to bow to the thon. "Care for punch, thon Taddeo?" he asked, offering a full cup.

The scholar accepted it with a nod and drained it. "I wanted to ask you a little more about the Leibowitzian doc.u.ments we discussed," he said to Marcus Apollo. "I had a letter from a fellow named Kornh.o.e.r at the abbey. He a.s.sured me they have writings that date back to the last years of the European-American civilization."

If the fact that he himself had a.s.sured the scholar of the same thing several months ago was irritating to Apollo, his expression gave no hint of it. "Yes," he said. "They're quite authentic, I'm told."

"If so, it strikes me as very mysterious that n.o.body's heard-but never mind that. Kornh.o.e.r listed a number of doc.u.ments and texts they claim to have and described them. If they exist at all, I've got to see them."

"Oh?"

"Yes. If it's a hoax, it should be found out, and if it isn't, the data might well be priceless."

The monsignor frowned. "I a.s.sure you there is no hoax," he said stiffly.

"The letter contained an invitation to visit the abbey and study the doc.u.ments. They've evidently heard of me.

"Not necessarily," said Apollo, unable to resist the opportunity. "They aren't particular about who reads their books, as long as he washes his hands and doesn't deface their property."

The scholar glowered. The suggestion that there might exist literate persons who had never heard his name did not please him.

"But there, then!" Apollo went on affably. "You have no problem. Accept their invitation, go to the abbey, study their relics. They'll make you welcome."

The scholar huffed irritably at the suggestion. "And travel through the Plains at a time when Mad Bear's clan is-" Thon Taddeo broke off abruptly.

"You were saying?" Apollo prompted, his face showing an special alertness, although a vein in his temple began to throb as he stared expectantly at Thon Taddeo.

"Only that it's a long dangerous trip, and I can't spare six months' absence from the collegium. I wanted to discuss the possibility of sending a well-armed party of the Mayor's guardsmen to fetch the doc.u.ments here for study."

Apollo choked. He felt a childish impulse to kick the scholar in the shins. "I'm afraid," he said politely, "that would be quite impossible. But in any case, the matter is outside my sphere, and I'm afraid I can't be of any help to you."

"Why not?" Thon Taddeo demanded. "Aren't you the Vatican's nuncio to the Court of Hannegan?"

"Precisely. I represent New Rome, not the monastic Orders. The government of an abbey is in the hands of its abbot."

"But with a little pressure from New Rome..."

The impulse to kick shins surged swiftly. "We'd better discuss it later," Monsignor Apollo said curtly. "This evening in my study, if you like." He half turned, and looked back inquiringly as if to say Well? Well?

"I'll be there," the scholar said sharply, and marched away.

"Why didn't you tell him flatly no, then and there?" Claret fumed when they were alone in the emba.s.sy suite an hour later. "Transport priceless relics through bandit country in these times?" It's unthinkable, Messer."

"Certainly."

"Then why-"

"Two reasons. First, Thon Taddeo is Hannegan's kinsman, and influential too. We have to be courteous to Caesar and his kin whether we like him or not. Second, he started to say something about the Mad Bear clan, and then broke off. I think he knows what's going to happen. I'm not going to engage in espionage, but if he volunteers any information, there's nothing to prevent our including it in the report you're about to deliver personally to New Rome."

"I!" The clerk looked shocked. "To New Rome-? But what-" The clerk looked shocked. "To New Rome-? But what-"

"Not so loud," said the nuncio, glancing at the door.

"I'm going to have to send my estimate of this situation to His Holiness, and quickly. But it's the kind of thing that one doesn't dare put in writing. If Hannegan's people intercepted such a dispatch, you and I would probably be found floating face down in the Red River. If Hannegan's enemies get hold of it, Hannegan would probably feel justified in hanging us publicly as spies. Martyrdom is all very well, but we have a job to do first."

"And I'm to deliver the report orally at the Vatican?" Brother Claret muttered, apparently not relishing the prospect of crossing hostile country.

"It has to be that way. Thon Taddeo may, just possibly may, give us an excuse for your leaving abruptly for Saint Leibowitz abbey, or New Rome, or both. In case there are any suspicions around the Court. I'll try to steer it."

"And the substance of the report I'm to deliver, Messer?"

"That Hannegan's ambition to unite the continent under one dynasty isn't so wild a dream as we thought. That the Agreement of the Holy Scourge is probably a fraud by Hannegan, and that be means to use it to get both the empire of Denver and Laredan Nation into conflict with the Plains nomads. If Laredan forces are tied up in a running battle with Mad Bear, it wouldn't take much encouragement for the State of Chihuahua to attack Laredo from the south. After all, there's an old enmity there. Hannegan, of course, can then march victoriously to Rio Laredo. With Laredo under his thumb, he can look forward to tackling both Denver and the Mississippi Republic without worrying about a stab in the back from the south."

"Do you think Hannegan can do it, Messer?"

Marcus Apollo started to answer, then closed his mouth slowly. He walked to the window and stared out at the sunlit city, a sprawling disorderly city built mostly of rubble from another age. A city without orderly patterns of streets. It had grown slowly over an ancient ruin, as perhaps someday another city would grow over the ruin of this one.

"I don't know," he answered softly. "In these times, it's hard to condemn any man for wanting to unite this butchered continent. Even by such means as-but no, I don't mean that." He sighed heavily. "In any case, our interests are not the interests of politics. We must forewarn New Rome of what may be coming, because the Church will be affected by it, whatever happens. And forewarned, we may be able to keep out of the squabble."

"You really think so?"

"Of course not!" the priest said gently.

Thon Taddeo Pfardentrott arrived at Marcus Apollo's study as early in the day as could be construed as evening, and his manner had noticeably changed since the reception. He managed a cordial smile, and there was nervous eagerness in the way he spoke. This fellow, thought Marcus, is after something be wants rather badly, and he's even willing to be polite in order to get it. Perhaps the list of ancient writings supplied by the monks at the Leibowitzian abbey had impressed the thon more than he wanted to admit. The nuncio had been prepared for a fencing match, but the scholar's evident excitement made him too easy a victim, and Apollo relaxed his readiness for verbal dueling.

"This afternoon there was a meeting of the faculty of the collegium," said Thon Taddeo as soon as they were seated. "We talked about Brother Kornh.o.e.r's letter, and the list of doc.u.ments." He paused as if uncertain of an approach. The gray dusklight from the large arched window on his left made his face seem blanched and intense, and his wide gray eyes searched at the priest as if measuring him and making estimates.

"I take it there was skepticism?"

The gray eyes fell momentarily, and lifted quickly. "Shall I be polite?"

"Don't bother," Apollo chuckled.

"There was skepticism. 'Incredulity' is more nearly the word. My own feeling is that if such papers exist, they are probably forgeries dating back several centuries. I doubt if the present monks at the abbey are trying to perpetrate a hoax. Naturally, they would believe the doc.u.ments valid."

"Kind of you to absolve them," Apollo said sourly.

"I offered to be polite. Shall I?"

"No. Go on."

The thon slid out of his chair and went to sit in the window. He gazed at the fading yellow patches of cloud in the west and pounded softly on the sill while he spoke.

"The papers. No matter what we may believe of them, the idea that such doc.u.ments may still exist intact-that there's even a slightest chance of their existing-is, well, so arousing a thought that we must investigate them immediately:"

"Very well," said Apollo, a little amused. "They invited you. But tell me: what do you find so arousing about the doc.u.ments?"

The scholar shot him a quick glance. "Are you acquainted with my work?"

The monsignor hesitated. He was acquainted with it, but admitting the acquaintance might force him to admit to an awareness that Thon Taddeo's name was being spoken in the same breath with names of natural philosophers dead a thousand years and more, while the thon was scarcely in his thirties. The priest was not eager to admit knowing that this young scientist showed promise of becoming one of those rare outcroppings of human genius that appear only a time or two every century to revolutionize an entire field of thought in one vast sweep. He coughed apologetically.

"I must admit that I haven't read a good deal of-"

"Never mind." Pfardentrott waved off the apology. "Most of it is highly abstract, and tedious to the layman. Theories of electrical essence. Planetary motion. Attracting bodies. Matters of that sort. New Kornh.o.e.r's list mentions such names as Laplace, Maxwell, and Einstein-do they mean anything to you?"

"Not much. History mentions them as natural philosophers, doesn't it? From before the collapse of the last civilization? And I think they're named in one of the pagan hagiologies, aren't they?"

The scholar nodded. "And that's all anyone knows about them, or what they did. Physicists, according to our not-so-reliable historians. Responsible for the rapid rise of the European-American culture, they say. Historians list nothing but trivia. I had nearly forgotten them. But Kornh.o.e.r's descriptions of the old doc.u.ments they say they have are descriptions of papers that might well be taken from physical science texts of some kind. It's just impossible!"

"But you have to make certain?"

"We have to make certain. Now that it's come up, I wish I had never heard of it."

"Why?"

Thon Taddeo was peering at something in the street below. He beckoned to the priest. "Come here a moment. I'll show you why."

Apollo slipped from behind the desk and looked down at the muddy rutted street beyond the wall that encircled the palace and barracks and buildings of the collegium cutting off the mayoral sanctuary from the seething plebeian city. The scholar was pointing at the shadowy figure of a peasant leading a donkey homeward at twilight. The man's feet were wrapped in sackcloth, and the mud had caked about them so that he seemed scarcely able to lift them. But he trudged ahead in one slogging steep after another, resting half a second between footfalls. He seemed too weary to sc.r.a.pe off the mud.

"He doesn't ride the donkey," Than Taddeo stated, "because this morning the donkey was loaded down with corn. It doesn't occur to him that the packs are empty now. What is good enough for the morning is also good enough for the afternoon."

"You know him?"

"He pa.s.ses under my window too. Every morning end evening. Hadn't you noticed him?"

"A thousand like him."

"Look. Can you bring yourself to believe that that brute is the lineal descendant of men who supposedly invented machines that flew, who traveled to the moon, harnessed the forces of Nature, built machines that could talk and seemed to think? Can you believe there were such men?"

Apollo was silent.

"Look at him!" the scholar persisted. "No, but it's too dark now. You can't see the syphilis outbreak on his neck, the way the bridge of his nose is being eaten away. Paresis. But he was undoubtedly a moron to begin with. Illiterate superst.i.tious, murderous. He diseases his children. For a few coins he would kill them. He will sell them anyway, when they are old enough to be useful. Look at him, and tell me if you see the progeny of a once-mighty civilization? What do you see?"

"The image of Christ," grated the monsignor, surprised at his own sudden anger. "What did you expect me to see?"

The scholar huffed impatiently. "The incongruity. Men as you can observe them through any window, and men as historians would have us believe men once were. I can't accept it. How can a great and wise civilization have destroyed itself so completely?"

"Perhaps," said Apollo, "by being materially great and materially wise, and nothing else." He went to light a tallow lamp, for the twilight was rapidly fading into night. He struck steel and flint until the spark caught and he blew gently at it in the tinder.

"Perhaps," said Thon Taddeo, "but I doubt it."

"You reject all history, then, as myth?" A flame edged out from the spark.

"Not 'reject.' But it must be questioned. Who wrote your histories?"