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Expurgatorius.
The ship arrived the next day. The crew was not much surprised to find that
the two opposing factions of the commission were hardly speaking to each
other. It often happened that way. The four commission members cleaned up in
almost complete silence the house in Xoredeshch Sfath that the Lithians had
given them. Ruiz-Sanchez packed the dark blue book with the gold stamping
without being able to look at it except out of the corner of his eye, but even
obliquely he could not help seeing its long-familiar title:
FINNEGANS WAKE James Joyce
So much for his pride in his solution of the case of conscience the novel
proposed. He felt as though he himself had been collated, bound and stamped, a
tortured human text for future generations of Jesuits to explicate and argue.
He had rendered the verdict he had found it necessary for him to render. But
he knew that it was not a final verdict, even for himself, and certainly not
for the UN, let alone the Church. Instead, the verdict itself would be a
knotty question for members of his Order yet unborn:
Did Father Ruiz-Sanchez correctly interpret the Divine case, and did this
ruling, if so, follow from it?
Except, of course, that they would not use his name--but what good would it do
them to use an alias? Surely there would never be any way to disguise the
original of this problem. Or was that pride again--or misery? It had been
Mephistopheles himself who had said, Solamen miseris socios habuisse
doloris...
"Let's go, Father. It'll be take-off time shortly."
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"All ready, Mike."
It was only a short journey to the clearing, where the mighty spindle of the
ship stood ready to weave its way back through the geodesies of deep space to
the sun that shone on Peru. There was even some sunlight here, piercing now
and then through low, scudding clouds; but it had been raining all morning,
and would begin again soon enough.
The baggage went on board smoothly and without any fuss. So did the specimens,
the films, the
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A Case Of Conscience, by James Blish tapes, the special reports, the
recordings, the sample cases, the slide boxes, the vivariums, the type
cultures, the pressed plants, the animal cages, the tubes of soil, the chunks
of ore, the Lithian manuscripts in their atmospheres of helium--everything was
lifted decorously by the cranes and swung inside.
Agronski went up the cleats to the air lock first, with Michelis following
him, a barracks bag slung over one shoulder. On the ground Cleaver was stowing
some last-minute bit of gear, something that seemed to require delicate,
almost reverent bedding down before the cranes could be allowed to take it in
their indifferent grip; Cleaver Was fanatically motherly about his electronic
apparatus. Ruiz-Sanchez took advantage of the delay to look around once more
at the near margins of the forest. At once, he saw Chtexa. The Lithian was
standing at the entrance to the path the Earthmen themselves had taken from
the city to reach the ship. He was carrying something.
Cleaver swore under his breath and undid something he had just done to do it
in another way.
Ruiz-Sanchez raised his hand. Immediately Chtexa walked toward the ship, in
great loping strides which nevertheless seemed almost leisurely.
"I wish you a good journey," the Lithian said, "wherever you may go. I wish
also that your road may lead back to this world at some future time. I have
brought you the gift that I sought before to give you, if the moment is now
appropriate."
Cleaver had straightened and was now glaring up suspiciously at the Lithian.
Since he did not understand the language, he was unable to find anything to
which he could object. He simply stood there and radiated unwelcomeness.
"Thank you," Ruiz-Sanchez said. This creature of Satan made him miserable all
over again, made him feel intolerably in the wrong. Yet how could Chtexa
know--?
The Lithian was holding out to him a small vase, sealed at the top and
provided with two gently looping handles. The gleaming porcelain of which it
had been made still carried inside it, under the glaze, the fire which had
formed it; it was iridescent, alive with long quivering festoons and plumes of
rainbows, and the form as a whole would have made any potter of Greece abandon
his trade in shame. It was so beautiful that one could imagine no use for it
at all. Certainly one could not make a lamp of it, or fill it with leftover
beets and put it in the refrigerator. Besides, it would take up too much
space.
"This is the gift," Chtexa said. "It is the finest container yet to come out
of Xoredeshch Gton. The material of which it is made includes traces of every
element to be found on Lithia, even including iron, and thus, as you see, it
shows the colors of every shade of emotion and of thought.
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A Case Of Conscience, by James Blish
On Earth, it will tell Earthmen much of Lithia."
"We will be unable to analyze it," Ruiz-Sanchez said. "It is too perfect to
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destroy, too perfect even to open."
"Ah, but we wish you to open it," Chtexa said. "For it contains our other
gift."
"Another gift?"
"Yes, and a more important one. It is a fertilized, living egg of our species.
Take it with you. By the time you reach Earth, it will have hatched, and will
be ready to grow up with you in your strange and marvelous world. The
container is the gift of all of us; but the child inside is my gift, for it is
my child."
Appalled, Ruiz-Sanchez took the vase in trembling hands, as though he expected
it to explode--as indeed he did. It shook with subdued flame in his grip.
"Good-bye," Chtexa said. He turned and walked away, back toward the entrance
to the path.
Cleaver watched him go, shading his eyes.
"Now what was that all about?" the physicist said. "The Snake couldn't have
made a bigger thing of it if he'd been handing you his own head on a platter.
And all the time it was only a jug!"
Ruiz-Sanchez did not answer. He could not have spoken even to himself. He
turned away and began to ascend the cleats, cradling the vase carefully in one
elbow. It was not the gift he had hoped to bring to the holy city for the
grand indulgence of all mankind, no; but it was all he had.
While he was still climbing, a shadow passed rapidly over the hull: Cleaver's
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