Short Fiction Complete

by Fred Saberhagen

  The rage had been some time accumulating thought Defender Belam, who now stood waiting for it to be over. Accumulated and saved until now, when it could be discharged harmlessly, vented into the discreet ears of a trusted auditor.

  The Vicar paused, distracted in his peripatetic tirade against his military opponents by a look down into a courtyard where workmen were unloading massive blocks of marble from a train of carts and a sculptor waited to choose one block for Nabur’s portrait-statue. What matter if his eighty predecessors had each been willing to let posterity decide such matters for them?

  The Vicar turned suddenly, the skirts of his simple white robe swirling, and caught Belam wearing a disapproving face.

  In his angry tenor the Vicar snapped: “When the statue is finished we will place it in the city’s Great Square, that the majesty of our person may be increased in the eyes of the people!”

  “Yes, my Vicar.” Belam, for decades a defender and prince of the Temple, had seen them come and go. He was not easily perturbed by Vicarial temper.

  “It is needful that we be shown increased respect. The infidels and heretics are tearing apart the world which has been given by God into our care!” The last sentence came bursting out, a cry from the inner heart.

  “I have faith, my Vicar, that our prayers and our armies will yet prevail.”

  “Prevail? Of course!” A sarcastic grimace. “Someday! Before the end of time! But now our Holy Temple lies bleeding and suffering, and we . . . we must bear many burdens. Many, Belam. You cannot began to realize, until you mount our throne.”

  Belam bowed in silent reverence.

  The Vicar paced again, skirts flapping. This time he had a goal. From his high-piled worktable his shaking fist snatched up a pamphlet already worn from handling—and perhaps from angry crumpling as well. A contributing and perhaps sufficient cause of today’s anger, computed Belam’s cool theologian’s brain, knowing what the pamphlet was. A small thorn, compared with others. But this one had stabbed Nabur in the tenderest part of his vanity.

  Nabur turned round and shook the paper-covered pamphlet at him. “Because you have been away, Belam, we have not yet had the chance to discuss this with you. This back-stabbing abomination of Messire Vincento’s! This so-called Dialogue on the Movement of the Tides! In this he continues to promulgate his heresy-tainted dreams of reducing the solid world beneath our feet to a mere speck which flies around the sun. But that is not enough. No, not for him! No!” Belam frowned now in puzzlement. “What else, my Vicar?” Nabur advanced on him in a glow of anger. “The arguments of the pamphlet are cast in the form of a dialogue among three persons. And Vincento intends one of these fictional debaters—the one who defends traditional ideas, who therefore is described as ‘simple minded’ and “below the level of human intelligence’—he intends this person to represent ourself!”

  “My Vicar!”

  “He even places some of my own words in the mouth of this simpleton, so-called!”

  Belam shook his head doubtfully. “Vincento has never been moderate in his disputes, which have been many. But I am not convinced that he has ever intended any irreverence to your person.”

  “I make no doubt of it!” Vicar Nabur almost screamed. Then the most honored man in the world—possibly also the most hated, quite possibly also the most strained by what he saw as his appointed tasks—groaned incontinently and threw himself like a spoiled child into a chair.

  Arrogance remained, as always, but the spoiled-child aspect did not last long. Irascible humors having been discharged, calm and intelligence returned. “Belam.”

  “My Vicar?”

  “Have you had a chance to read this pamphlet? It has been widely circulated.”

  Belam gravely inclined his head.

  “Then give us your considered opinion.”

  “I am a theologian, my Vicar, and not an astronomer. But it seems to me that Vincento’s arguments in the pamphlet concerning the tides really prove nothing regarding the movement of the celestial bodies and are not even very accurate as regards the tides themselves—”

  “He thinks we are fools, who will accept whatever argument he offers. And who will not realize it when he mocks us!” The Vicar stood up, then tiredly sat down again.

  Belam ignored for the moment the theory that Vincento had intended personal mockery. “As the Vicar may possibly recall, I had occasion some years ago to write to Vincento regarding these speculations on the idea of a sun-centered universe. Then as now such theorizing caused me concern in my capacity as a Defender.”

  “We recall very well. Messire Vincento has already been summoned to stand trial for his violation in this pamphlet of your injunction. What exactly did you write him, again?”

  Belam spoke slowly and thoughtfully. “First, that mathematicians are quite free to calculate and publish whatever they wish regarding the celestial appearances—provided they remain strictly in the realm of hyopthesis.

  “Secondly, it is quite a different matter to say that in fact the sun is in the center of the universe—that in fact our globe spins from west to east each day while revolving round the sun each year. Such statements must be considered very dangerous; though not precisely heretical, they are liable to injure faith by contradicting the Holy Writings.”

  “Your memory, Belam, is even more than usually excellent. Just when did you write this letter of injunction?”

  “Fifteen years ago, my Vicar.” Belam smiled briefly and dryly. “Though I must admit that I reread our archive copy this morning, after perusing the—um—pamphlet in question.

  He became utterly serious again. “Thirdly and lastly, I wrote Vincento that if some real proof existed of the sun-centered universe he champions, we should then be forced to revise our interpretation of those passages in the Holy Writings which would appear to be contradicted. We have in the past revised our thinking, for example in regard to the roundness of the world.

  “But, in the absence of any real proof, traditional authority and opinion is not to be set aside.”

  Nabur was listening with great attentiveness. “It seems to us, Belam, that you wrote well, as usual.”

  “Thank you, my Vicar.”

  Satisfaction appeared mixed with anger in the Vicarial mien. “Certainly in this pamphlet Vincento has violated your injunction! The debater into whose mouth he puts his own opinions argues that in very truth our globe spins like a toy top beneath our feet—until the very last page. Then our argument, that God may produce what effect he likes in the world, without being bound by scientific causes—our argument is quoted by the simpleton, who has been wrong about everything else—quoted as coming from ‘a person of high learning and wisdom, supremely above contradiction’. And at this the other debaters piously declare themselves silenced. One cannot fail to see them, and their author, laughing up their sleeves!”

  Vicar Nabur paused to regain breath and calm. Then he went on. “Now, Belam. Other than this weary argument on tides, which I agree is inconclusive, can there exist anywhere any evidence for Vincento’s spinning world? Anything he might impertinently produce at his trial, to . . . disrupt its course?”

  Belam frowned thoughtfully at the floor. “My Vicar, I have through the years made an effort to keep abreast of astronomers’s thinking. I fear many of them, religious and laymen both, have become Messire Vincento’s enemies, largely because of his arrogance in claiming for his own all that these new devices, telescopes, find in the heavens. An arrogant and argumentative man is hard to bear and triply so when he is so often in the right.” Belam glanced up for a moment, but Nabur had not taken the description as applying to anyone but Vincento.

  The Defender of the Faith went on: “But still I believe that most astronomers now perform their calculations using the mathematical assumption that the planets, or some of them, revolve about the sun. Of course such an idea is not original with Vincento, nor is the idea that our globe is only a planet. It seems these ideas make the mathematics of celestial movement s
omewhat more elegant and satisfying; fewer epicycles need be included in the orbits to make them fit the circular form—”

  “You say Vincento makes the mathematics more elegant. But can he have proof, mathematical or otherwise? Plain evidence of any kind?”

  “I would say rather the contrary.”

  “Ha!”

  Belam gestured with his scholar’s hands, frail fingers unsure of technicalities, but till grasping firmly what they had to grasp. “It seems that if our globe did make a yearly journey round the sun, the relative positions of the stars should appear to us to change from month to month as we approached certain constellations or drew away from them. And no such displacement of stars can be observed.”

  “Ha!”

  “Of course it is possible to argue that the stars are simply too distant for our measurements to show such displacement. My Vicar, I fear that no astronomer can prove Vincento wrong, though some would dearly love to do so. The celestial appearances would seem to be essentially the same, whether we go round the sun or it goes round us.

  “Now, as I wrote Vincento, where there is lack of certainty we have no excuse for turning our backs on tradition and on the plain meaning of the Holy Writings. We of the Temple have been entrusted by God with the duty to defend the truth. And, my Vicar, what I wrote Vincento fifteen years ago is still true today—I have never been shown any proof of the motion of the world we stand on. And so I cannot believe that any such proof or any such motion exists.”

  The Vicar raised his hands, then clamped them down upon the arms of his ornate work-chair, though his face had gentled in regret. “Then it is our decision that you and the other Defenders must proceed with the trial.” As Nabur spoke on, his anger gradually returned. “No doubt he can be convicted, of violating your injunction against teaching a doctrine liable to injure faith. But understand, we have no wish to visit any great punishment upon our erring son; in charity we grant that he intended no direct insult to our person. He is only headstrong and stubborn. And intemperate in debate! He must learn that he cannot set himself up as a superior authority on all matters, spiritual and temporal . . . did he not once even attempt to lecture you on theology?”

  Belam inclined his head and sharply warned himself to guard against taking any personal satisfaction in Vincento’s coming humiliation.

  “Ah, I could curse the man! In the past, we have been the first to heap praise on his achievements. We have granted him hours of private audience; we have shown him friendliness in a degree we do not always grant to princes. Before our ascending to this chair, we once even wrote a pamphlet in his praise! And now, how are we repaid?”

  “I understand, my Vicar.”

  IV

  “I see that you have requested assignment to one particular time, Colonel Odegard,” said the examining psychologist. “The two days Vincento spends near the town of Oibbog on the way to his trial, waiting to cross a flooded river. Had you any particular reason for wanting those two days?”

  “Just that I know the locale very well. I once spent a long holiday there, and it was one of those places that didn’t change much in three or four hundred years.” Of course like everything else on the surface, the town and cathedral of Oibbog were in the past tense now. And of course Derron did have his own inner particular reason; the long holiday there had been with her.

  The psychologist threw one of his fast balls. “Have you any reason for wanting to be a field agent at all?”

  One reason seemed to be Matt and Ay, their images blending into one kingly figure as they receded from the moving moment of the present, blending and seeming to grow larger with distance like a mountain when a man walked away from it. Derron didn’t know if he could put that into words, and he saw no need to try.

  “I know the period very well, as I said. I believe I can do a good job. Like everyone else, I want to win the war. I want prestige, I suppose. Accomplishment.”

  “I see.” The psychologist ruffled routinely through papers on his desk. “Just one more thing I want to bring up before approving you as agent material, Colonel. What are your personal religious views?”

  “Oh. Well frankly. I think that gods and temples are fine things for people who need crutches. I haven’t yet found any necessary.”

  “I see. I raise the point because of the dangers inherent in sending back to Vincento’s time anyone likely to find himself personally involved in the issues of that time. Taking sides. You as an historian know better than I how thick the air is back there with dogma and doctrine. Religious controversy and warfare.”

  “I understand.” Derron shook his head calmly. “No, I’m no fanatic; I’ll play any part that’s necessary. I’ll be a rabid monk and spit on Vincento if required.”

  “That’s all right, then. But I rather think you’ll do better as a traveling scholar.”

  Operations gave him a name—Valzay—and started to build for him a character who had never historically existed and rushed him into preparation with about a dozen other agents, mostly male. Each agent was to stay watchfully near Vincento during a day or so of the critical period of his life.

  The training and preparation was rushed and rugged, beginning with the surgical implantation of communications transducers in jawbone and skull, so an agent could be in contact with Operations without being seem to mumble aloud. Amid fatigue and concentration Derron noticed almost without surprise that Lisa was now employed in Operations, one of the calm-voiced girls who relayed orders and information to sentries, and would do the same for slaveunit operators or live agents in the field.

  He had little free time and made no effort to use any of it to speak to her. Then one day as he sat resting between training sessions, Lisa came passing by and stopped.

  “Derron, I want to wish you success.”

  “Thanks. Pull up a chair, if you like.”

  She did. “Derron, I shouldn’t have accused you of killing Matt. I know that wasn’t your intention and it wasn’t your fault. If Matt’s death had caused her anything more than brief sorrow at a friend’s loss, she did not show it now.

  Derron said abruptly: “You and I might have had—something, Lisa. Perhaps not the whole thing there can be between a man and a woman, but still something good. At least I thought we might.”

  “I had some feeling like that about—Matt. But that wouldn’t have been enough for me.”

  He went on hurriedly: “As far as anything permanent and tremendous, well I’ve tried that already once in my life. And I’m still up to my neck in it, as you may have noticed. I’m sorry, I’ve got to get moving.”

  And he got up out of his chair and did so.

  The experts dressed him in suitable clothing, slightly worn. In his haversack they placed a reasonable supply of proper food, and in his wallet a moderate sum of proper money, coins of silver and gold and a forged letter of credit on an Empire City bank. They hoped he would not need much money nor get as far as the Holy City. But just in case.

  Hung around Derron’s neck was an abominably carved wooden wedge-symbol, big enough to conceal the bulk of his communicator and too ugly for anyone to want to steal. If anyone was moved to wonder, it was a present from his wife.

  In an arsenal off Stage Three, they issued him a sturdy traveler’s staff, which was a more effective weapon by far than it appeared to be, and then at last they were ready to drop him.

  All the agents were going to be launched within half a minute, to emerge on different days and in different places. Their training and preparation had been too hurried and too individualized for them to get to know one another very well; hut for a few minutes there was joking camaraderie in Stage Three as the masquerade-costumed group bade one another good luck and good berserker-hunting.

  The launching file formed. Derron stood looking over the head of the agent ahead of him, a short man named Amling, who wore the garb of a traveling friar and who was to watch over Vincente on the two days preceding Derron’s shift. on the count, the line moved briskly forwa
rd, disappearing one figure after another. Amling vanished. Then in a long stride Derron’s booted foot swung out over the mercurial circle and came down.

  He was standing in darkness, in the open air. Except for a drizzle of rain, there was silence all about him, a lonely silence in which this materialization must have been unseen. Good.

  As his eyes grew more accustomed to the gloom, he made out that the hard surface under his boots did seem to be that of the old Empire road which passed through Oibbog. It seemed that the launching people had scored a bull’s-eye, spatially. Whether he had arrived at the proper time remained to be seen, though the rain was as it should be.

  Subvocalizing, he tried to reach Operations for a routine communications check; but some kind of paradox-loop seemed to be blocking contact. One ran into such things, and one would hope they would not last.

  When he felt sure no one was near, he opened his staff at one end and consulted the compass thus revealed to make sure he had the right direction ahead of him. Then he began to walk. Lightning flashed distantly at intervals, but the rain was slowly diminishing. He drew deep breaths of the washed air.

  The transducer behind his ear twinged suddenly. “Odegard, can you read me yet? It’s plus two days since you dropped. Time scale has been slipping.”

  “Affirmative. I’m about plus five minutes since dropping. Still on the road at night in the rain.” Derron was tapping along with his staff to keep from floundering off the pavement into the mud.

  “You’re blurring on the screens. But we think we dropped you about two miles from the cathedral, further than we intended. Have you ascertained your exact location yet?”

  “Negative. How’s the game going?”

  “All the agents ahead of you are back with us, no problems. Except Amling. We haven’t been able to reach him, maybe just because of the time-slippage. Listen, Odegard, keep your eyes open. If you’re more than about two miles from Vincento, a violent attack on you will be possible—”