Farewell to Yesterday's Tomorrow

by Alexei Panshin

  Garth didn’t study. He was an ignorant old fool and would freely admit it. Ignorance is a privilege of stupid old men who live in stables. He proved his piety, as much as it needed proving, by attending the floggings religiously.

  Tansman would lie awake in bed on nights when he had bad dreams and think about the questions he thought Brother Boris would ask and the questions that he might ask. And sometimes, when the dreams were bad enough, the questions that he could ask. He wished he had gaiety enough to be blithe and superficial, but he was a hound-driven cony with pretensions and was necessarily stuck with scholarship.

  He checked the store a dozen times. He leafed through every book that Rilke had in stock looking for danger. There were encyclopedia distillates and self-help books couched in half-mystical terms. He left those. There were books like The Secret of the Ships that purported to tell all and in reality told nothing. They were written by some poor idiot like Rilke to temper prejudice by substituting gray lies for black, as though that were the way to do it. He could picture the well-intentioned fire-bringer sitting up late night after night, weeks leading into months, to fashion these compromises. But he left them on the shelves.

  What Tansman removed were two books by Senior Brother Alva Abarbanel. He did it even though they looked innocent enough, at least to his eye. They said nothing about the Ships or the Sons of Prometheus. They even carried the overmark of a Superior Brother, attesting to their freedom from corruption. But they were theology, and he felt them to be dangerous. He was willing to let Rilke be the one to sell them if Rilke wanted them sold. He wasn’t going to do it.

  Then he had nothing to do but wait for Brother Boris to come and either pass or fail him. While he waited, he counted his discomforts. You could make a list of them: rain, cold, mud, filth. Strangeness—strangeness is a basic discomfort. A hard bed. Garth’s cooking. Bad dreams. Between the bed, the cooking and the dreams, he slept badly. When counting the discomforts ceased to put him back to sleep, he turned to Abarbanel’s theology and that served. The motives behind The Possibility of New Covenants might be admirable, but the arguments that demonstrated that one might even be from a Ship and be pure were knotted.

  Tansman knew how many days he had served on Zebulon and how many more he had remaining. In his spare moments he thought about chromoplasts and the door he would lock himself behind when he was safely home.

  It threatened rain on the afternoon that Brother Boris finally came. Tansman knew that Brother Boris was coming—the store had had no business all day. Tansman recognized the meaning of that, but he didn’t attempt a last-minute cram. He was either prepared or he wasn’t, and there wasn’t much that he could do about it now.

  It was Garth who pointed out the imminence of rain. Tansman helped Garth wrestle barrels off the porch and inside the store. His hands were tougher now than when he had come. He’d found a certain satisfaction in showing that a city boy with a fancy coat and soft hands could work.

  Tansman was tamping down a lid on a pickle barrel when Brother Boris, even more florid than he remembered, stepped up on the end of the porch followed by two young aspirants to the Questry.

  “As I promised, Mr. Tansman,” he said, “I’ve come to look at your store.”

  “My uncle’s store, Brother Boris,” said Tansman, offering him a respectful salute. “Would you care for a pickle?”

  He had tried the pickles himself and found they made him ill, but Garth Buie loved them and would eat three in an afternoon, piercing and pungent though they were.

  Brother Boris said, “Thank you.”

  There was sweat on his forehead though it was a cool afternoon. Pickle in hand, he turned to the younger brothers who followed him.

  “Mind,” he said. “It is perfectly in order to accept offers of privilege, hospitality and tokens of esteem. You may learn much in this fashion. You simply must be determined that your judgment shall not be affected.”

  And he bit into the pickle until the juice ran. He closed his eyes at the sharpness of it.

  To Tansman he said, “This is Brother David and Brother Emile. I teach them what I know. Brother Emile already lays a very pretty stripe.”

  They nodded and Brother Emile smiled faintly. Both brothers were very young and aspiring to greater dignity than they could easily carry.

  Tansman saluted them. “A pickle, Brother David? Brother Emile?”

  Both shook their heads.

  Brother Boris finished his pickle and wiped his juicy fingers on his suit. Around the last of his mouthful he said, “Come, let us go inside. We have much to discuss. Time grows short, many are yet to be examined, and already the megrim has struck a black sinner in Delera. We must see to the state of your soul, Mr. Tansman.”

  Tansman rolled the barrel inside the store on its lower rim, wheeled it across the floor, and slammed it into place beside its fellows. The three brothers followed him inside.

  Garth looked up as they entered. He saluted the brothers and made a ducking motion as though he would withdraw.

  “No, no. Stay, my son. We may wish to make question of you, too, Garth. Even the least among us may fall prey to the corruption of disease.”

  “Would you like to go into the living quarters?” Tansman asked. “It’s more comfortable there.”

  “We can inspect your living quarters later. Indeed, we will. We will begin with the store now. Don’t try to direct us, Mr. Tansman. We are quite capable of directing ourselves.”

  “Your pardon, Brother Boris,” Tansman said.

  Brother Boris blinked and shook his head as though he were trying to rid himself of mind-flies. He wiped his forehead and looked at the sweat on his fingertips.

  “It’s dim in here,” he said. “Let us have light.”

  Tansman gestured to Old Garth who hurried to light lamps. It didn’t seem that dark to Tansman, but he was determined to make no trouble for himself by crossing Brother Boris. He seated himself on his pickle barrel and waited. As the lights came up, Brother Boris began to circle the store like a hound cruising for scent. Brother David and Brother Emile stood together, watching Brother Boris, watching Tansman.

  Brother Boris circled the counters examining merchandise, picking up this and that and then setting it down. At last he stopped in front of Tansman and pointed a finger.

  “You haven’t attended the floggings in the town square, Mr. Tansman. You have figured in my prayers since I first noted your absence, but you have continued in your failure to appear.” He shook his head. “You make me fear for you.”

  Brother Emile smiled again as though already anticipating another opportunity to practice his lessons. Tansman swallowed, but kept his composure. It was a question that had occurred to him in his hard restless bed, and he had an answer of sorts.

  Watching his words, he said, “I am of tender stomach, Brother Boris. It’s a fault of my city breeding.”

  He sat straight, knees together, attempting to offer as little offense as possible. His answer was only a guess, and each word was only an uncertain approximation, spoken in fear and trembling, spoken in the knowledge that it could not be recalled and altered for the better. He stilled one hand with another in his lap.

  Into the silence he said, “While others were at the flogging, I remained here, studying the Colligations.”

  He opened his mouth to speak of the superiority of his sort of piety to the other, but then did not dare. Who could know what Brother Boris preferred? So he left his mouth hanging open and then slowly closed it. The silence remained and he sat uncomfortably under Brother Boris’ eye. He could not look away at Brother David or Brother Emile or Old Garth hanging the last lamp.

  At last Brother Boris said, “I am to believe that you are a scholar of the Colligations?”

  “Oh, aye,” said Old Garth. “He’s always at his scripture, one good book or the other. Every spare moment.”

  Tansman felt a rush of gratitude for the ignorant old monkey. It seemed he was always coming to his aid when a prope
r word was needed with Brother Boris.

  Tansman said, “It is nothing I am used to speaking of. There are many in the city who would not understand.”

  “That is true!” said Brother Boris vehemently. “And the city will suffer for its corruption and disbelief. Many many will die. The megrim is God’s knife to cut down the sinner.”

  He paused then and sucked in a sudden breath. “Oh,” he said. “My head. It spins. Your pickle, your pickle, Mr. Tansman. It does not seem to agree with me.” And he wiped more sweat from his forehead.

  “Your pardon, Brother Boris,” Tansman said. “In the Teachings, Elder Osgood says that a rest at the proper moment redoubles the strength for holy work.” He rose from the pickle barrel. “May I find you a place to rest?”

  Brother Boris waved him away. “The work will not wait. The work will not wait. There are questions yet to be answered. I am told by most reliable communicants of the Confraternity that you have for sale here the works of the heretic Brother Alva Abarbanel. He is confined to a penitent’s cell, but all the mistakes of his misbegotten lifetime continue to spread.”

  “I did not know that he had been declared heretic.”

  “You were not at the flogging this morning.”

  “My most grievous fault,” said Tansman. “But while it is true that my uncle did have the early writing of Brother Alva for sale, knowing no better and judging the matter, I’m sure, by the Superior Brother’s overmark, as soon as I discovered the books, I removed them from sale. You may ask Garth.”

  But that was an error. Garth might be relied on to volunteer a helpful comment, but he couldn’t be asked for one.

  He hung his head and said, “The truth is that I do na read so well. I did na know that Mr. Rilke kept the books of Brother Asmodeus for sale. Is it true?”

  Brother Boris said, “You continue to surprise me, Mr. Tansman. I would like to meet this uncle of yours. Where are the books he sells?”

  Tansman pointed to the shelves at the rear of the store and Brother Boris started to move toward them. Then he caught at a counter suddenly and leaned on it. He turned and beckoned to Brother David and waved him to the books. Brother David hopped to the job. He hurried back through the store and began to look over the books. He pulled out one and then another and replaced them, and then he pulled out a third, looked at it briefly, and hounded back with it to Brother Boris, still leaning on the counter.

  Brother Boris took the book and began to glance at it. As he read, his natural redness increased.

  “How do you explain this?” he cried, his voice rising.

  “What is the book?”

  Brother Boris held it up. “The Secret of the Ships. If you love the Confraternity, why do you peddle this filth? Evil is corrupting. Is profit so important?”

  Tansman said, “But the book carries the personal overmark of a Senior Brother. I saw that.”

  “He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know!” Brother Boris slammed the book to the floor. Then he raised a shaky hand to his forehead. “I see the evil and I know it. But my head—why does it not…stop…moving?”

  He pawed at Brother David with a blind left hand. He banged his forehead with his right, as though he could knock the fog and trouble from his mind. Brother David reached for him, but then Brother Boris’ knees gave way and he fell to the floor. Tansman came off his barrel calling for Garth and knelt beside Brother Boris. His forehead was sweaty and cold.

  But Brother David stood with Brother Boris’ left hand still in his own. The loose white arm of the suit had fallen away. Brother Boris’ arm bore the stigmata of the plague. It showed three purple blotches, the sign of corruption. Brother David stood looking at it with horror. He pointed silently, mouth agape, mouth working, and then he dropped the arm, which struck the floor with the damp slap of a dead fish.

  “The megrim,” he said. “It’s the megrim.”

  He backed away toward his twin, but the other young brother did not wait for him, turning and plunging in panic out the door. Brother David, after one more backward glance at the man who had taught him all he knew about the detection of evil, who now lay motionless on the floor, felled by the megrim, the very mark of evil, hurried after, calling, “Wait! Wait for me, Brother Emile!”

  Tansman turned toward Garth. The little old man was half-crouched behind a counter as though he, too, would duck and hide if only he dared, if only he could escape Tansman’s eye.

  Tansman said, “Give me a hand, Garth. We must get Brother Boris to the wagon and carry him to the monastery.”

  “Oh, na. Na. Don’t make me touch him. Leave him as he lies.”

  “We can’t do that. He is still alive. He may recover if he is given care.”

  “Na, Mr. Tansman. The megrim is death or an addled mind. I’m affrighted. I’m old. I don’t want to die. Especial I don’t want to die of the megrim and go to perdition.”

  Old Garth continued to stay his safe trembling distance. Tansman could not bring himself to force the little man. Old as Garth was, he was younger than Tansman. He could not blame the man, and he would not cut his few short years shorter.

  “Hitch the wagon,” he said. “Bring it to the alley door. I’ll take him to the monastery myself.”

  While he was lugging Brother Boris across the floor, heels dragging, and wrestling him out the door and up onto the wagon bed, Tansman was too busy to think. Garth watched him from down the alley, nervously, skittishly, as though ready to run for the sanctuary of the stable to hide under the hay.

  It was only when he had Brother Boris’ head pillowed on a smelly horse blanket, the first thing that came to hand, and was sitting on the seat of the wagon, holding the reins ready, that Tansman became afraid. Not of the megrim. He had no fear of that. He was safe as no other person in Delera. He was afraid of driving the wagon. He didn’t know how.

  When he was a boy preparing for Trial, he had learned to ride a horse, though they had always made him nervous, but he had put all that as thoroughly out of mind as he would put the Colligations now that he was safely through his examination. He didn’t remember. And he had never driven a team of horses. One more ordeal in this series of ordeals that was Zebulon.

  He sighed, closed his eyes for a brief moment, wishing, wishing, then opened his eyes and brought the reins down. The horses began to move.

  He held them to a slow pace down the alley. He felt the first hint of relief when they turned left onto the street at his guidance. He continued them at a walk through the town, heart pounding, muscles tense. He knew he was tenser than he needed to be, but he could not relax. Every moment was uncertain. It was a different sort of fear, but no less real, no less unsettling than the fear he had felt under the eye of Brother Boris. He was aware of nothing but the wagon, the team, and the road, waiting for one or another to do something strange and unexpected. If there were people to witness his passage and see the body of Brother Boris lying motionless in the wagon bed, he could give no accounting of them. His attention was narrow.

  They passed through the town and up the hill, still at a slow walk. He knew in his mind that it was the same hill down which Garth had driven him so long before because it could be no other, but in daylight instead of dark, from the new direction, and with the experience of these weeks in Delera behind him, it felt a different place. As though in confirmation, the lane to the monastery was not where he expected it, close to town, close to the bottom of the hill, but much much farther. He could see the dark fortress swimming in the heavy clouds overhead, but only at last did he reach the lane and turn in.

  When they came to the gates, the great heavy doors were shut. Tansman climbed down from the wagon and tied the horses to a standing metal ring. He looked for a way to signal and saw nothing. The high, bare, black walls stretched away to the right and the left, rising out of the hilltop. And he was alone on the road.

  He called and there was no answer. He called again: “Hello, inside! Hey, hello!” But there was no answer.

  At last he p
ounded on the door with the flat of his hand. He alternated with his fist. The sound was heavy and hollow.

  At last a slot opened in the door. A pinchcrack. Tansman could not see who was within.

  “What do you want?”

  “I have with me Brother Boris Zin, the Questryman. He collapsed in town. Open the gate.”

  “The gates are shut. The gates remain shut. There is megrim in the monastery.”

  Tansman said, “I fear Brother Boris has the megrim.”

  “Where are Brother David and Brother Emile?”

  “They ran away when Brother Boris fell ill. What do you wish me to do with Brother Boris?”

  There was a silence. The slot closed in the door and Tansman waited. Nothing happened. The wind whipped and a spattering of rain began to fall, the rain Garth had promised. And still Tansman waited. At last the pinchcrack opened again.

  The voice said, “Take Brother Boris from the wagon and set him by the door. He will be taken inside.”

  So Tansman lowered the tailgate and climbed into the wagon. When he touched Brother Boris, the friar moved and said, “I know the evil. The Men of the Ships are among us, and they must be found.”

  But after that he said nothing more as Tansman moved him to the end of the wagon and eased him to the ground. Then Tansman jumped down and closed the tailgate. Finally he took a deep breath, for Brother Boris was a heavy man for all his shortness, and seized him under the arms and set him by the door, as he had been told. Then he untied the horses, unset the brake, and led the horses in a circle. He could not have driven them that tightly. Then he climbed up and started the team back down the hill at a walk.

  The last time he looked back he could still see Brother Boris, white suit against the dark wall. The doors were still closed.