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  Guiltily I awoke to my duties. I had allowed myself to be distracted again. Responsibility for an occasional Cathedral service was a special honor for an acolyte, but if these slips were noticed, my taking of orders might be delayed another year. Already I was a year beyond the usual age. I adjusted the cap and slipped my hands back into the gauntlets.

  Out upon the darkened platform below I stepped in the full, coarse, gray robes of the monastery, my head cowled, my face shadowed into anonymity. And if the image was an illusion, the effect was solid and three-dimensional. Softly, slowly, the Miracle Theme began, swelling throughout the rest of the service until it reached a thundering, triumphant note of challenge and plunged into a gently muted blessing.

  At first the miracles were ritualistic and uninspired. My image cupped its hands. Out of them grew a brilliant red flower. My hands drew away; it hung suspended in the air. It was only a bud, but it blossomed and grew, its colors brightening, glowing, until the petal lines were lost in the brightness. And it was a sun, yellowish instead of the familiar white, flaming gently on a family of planets. They circled it, spinning in the darkness; as the third world swam into view, the sun began to fade. And the third world swelled up blue-green and lovely until its spherical outlines melted into a flat, pastoral land, a green land of peace and plenty.

  …to tend My creatures…

  Fleecy, four-footed animals grazed peacefully on the cropped green turf, but their guardian was not the usual cowled monk. Sudden inspiration made it a girl in flowing white robes, the girl whose terror had led her to seek sanctuary in the Cathedral. Here she was not tormented by fear; here she was at peace with herself and her world, her clear eyes gazing out untroubled upon an untroubled land. Here she was beauty, even more beautiful than reality.

  She turned and skirted the foot of a low green hill. A large white building rose behind, a building with a beautiful hemispherical dome. She passed through a wide archway that had no doors, into a room almost filled with tall racks, each rack with its row of plastic-enclosed memory tapes or even older, tattered books.

  …to preserve knowledge…

  The vision was detailed because I knew it so well. It was the historical Archives. Monks worked and listened and studied in small, bare cubicles along the wall. The girl drifted through the room and into another beyond, where large transparent cases exposed their mysteries for an endless distance.

  …the history of mankind—for all men are one…

  It was the museum of ancient artifacts, with its displays of strange tools, machines, and weapons, restored and reconstructed, gathered from a hundred worlds. But that huge room, too, was left behind, and the girl entered a third.

  …beauty…

  Beauty—the room blazed with it: statues, paintings, patterns of light for the eye; delicate carvings, fabrics, and artificial stimuli for the finger tips; bottled and generated odors of rare sweetness and strange pungency for the nostrils; uncounted sources of music for the ear… And even among these resurrected masterpieces of a thousand forgotten geniuses, she was more beautiful… When she came out at last into the open again, it was night. A large, luminous satellite let down a pale silver light upon the face she lifted to the jeweled sky.

  Her arms spread wide, she embraced the heavens in a gesture that claimed kinship with the universe. Her body was love, her face was hope, her gesture was unity—mystic unity, the infinite circle that encompasses all existence but does not restrict. Up the path of the girl's arms, the view fled, out into the denser blackness of space until the worshippers were once more face to face with their God.

  …custody of these things I have given to My ministers to hold in trust for humanity because they contain man's search for eternal truth….

  My participation was over, but I realized what I had done. Innovation was close to rebellion, and I didn't want to rebel. I was happy. I was secure. I was dedicated to a life that was eminently worthwhile, with which my life was intertwined, in which it could find its greatest fulfillment. Rebellion? At what did I have to rebel? And then I saw the girl on the screen, and I knew.

  Not life but Life—not the specific but the general. Life that brought here to the Cathedral almost mindless men, that left them here briefly for a moment of almost mindless peace, Life that had scourged a girl with terror into momentary sanctuary. And at that moment I realized that there is a greater duty, a greater fulfillment, than unthinking obedience.

  Would I ever be the same?

  I had given the girl something—I could not say exactly what it was—a wordless message of beauty and hope and faith and—and love. She was kneeling at a bench in the back, her face upturned to the Revelation, smiling a little, her eyes glistening with unspilled tears. And I was glad. Whatever price I was called upon to pay, I knew that regret would never erase the memory of her face or the warm, sweet feeling of love bestowed without desire for return.

  …only those who seek can find, only those who give can receive…

  Slowly the girl got up. Free from terror, she walked toward the front of the Cathedral, straight toward the Revelation. Over the offering plate she held her hand as if engrossed in a last minute debate, but her decision was already made. The fist, no longer clenched, opened. Her offering fell toward the plate—to disappear, flickeringly, the instant before it touched.

  She turned and walked back the way she had come. But the burden she had carried was gone. Her step was carefree; her shoulders were straight and buoyant. She might have been going to some gay, impromptu party called forth by youth and the season, where laughter would rise like silver birds into the warm, scented air… Outside the men waited, like evil black shadows. She didn't hesitate.

  In the control room I struggled with an impulse. There were only two exits from the Cathedral—the Barrier and the Portal. But maybe there was a third if I dared to try it, if I dared to interfere once more. The Abbot would never approve. And what could I do with her? How could I help her?

  The impulse might have won, but she turned at the Barrier and looked up. For a fleeting moment her blue eyes seemed to be staring directly into mine, as if she saw my ugly face and yet liked what she saw. Her lips worked for a moment in a wordless appeal. I strained forward, as if that would help me to hear, and in that moment, before I could act, she turned and stepped beyond the Barrier and beyond my power to interfere.

  The watchers lounged forward carelessly in the dusty street, but their carelessness concealed an artful boxing that removed every possibility of escape. The scene was imprinted indelibly upon my memory, framed against a background of the slums surrounding the Cathedral: a tottering rabbit-warren of a tenement, an abandoned, decaying warehouse, a bookshop with an almost new front…

  She waited for them, smiling. A fat-barreled gun appeared in the hand of the dark one. She said something to him, and he answered, smiling. But the passing freedmen and slaves averted their eyes and scurried away, as if they could deny evil by ignoring it. I sat fixed to my chair in an anguish of expectation.

  And there in the street the dark one cut off her feet at the ankle. With a thin jet of flame from his gun, he sliced them off, casually, smiling gently, as he might have gestured to an acquaintance. A brief spurt of blood, and before the girl could topple, two of the others had caught her from each side. The girl smiled up at the dark one, mockingly and clear, before she fainted.

  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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  Chapter Two

  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 lif
e 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."