The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction Fifth Series

by Edited by Anthony Boucher

  “Do you now retract it?” the abbot demanded as he rolled down his sleeve.

  “Father, I cannot.”

  The priest turned his back and was silent for a moment. “Very well,” he said tersely. “Go. But do not expect to profess your solemn vows this season with the others.”

  Brother Francis returned to his cell in tears. His fellow novices would join the ranks of the professed monks of the order, while he must wait another year—and spend another Lenten season among the wolves in the desert, seeking a vocation which he felt had already been granted to him quite emphatically. As the weeks passed, however, he found some satisfaction in noticing that Father Juan had not been entirely serious in referring to his find as “an assortment of junk.” The archeological relics aroused considerable interest among the brothers, and much time was spent at cleaning the tools, classifying them, restoring the documents to a pliable condition, and attempting to ascertain their meaning. It was even whispered among the novices that Brother Francis had discovered true relics of the Blessed Leibowitz—especially in the form of the blueprint bearing the legend op cobblestone, req leibowitz & hardin, which was stained with several brown splotches which might have been his blood—or equally likely, as the abbot pointed out, might be stains from a decayed apple core. But the print was dated in the Year of Grace 1956, which was—as nearly as could be determined—during that venerable man’s lifetime, a lifetime now obscured by legend and myth, so that it was hard to determine any but a few facts about the man.

  It was said that God, in order to test mankind, had commanded wise men of that age, among them the Blessed Leibowitz, to perfect diabolic weapons and give them into the hands of latter-day Pharaohs. And with such weapons Man had within the span of a few weeks, destroyed most of his civilization and wiped out a large part of the population. After the Deluge of Flame came the plagues, the madness, and the bloody inception of the Age of Simplification when the furious remnants of humanity had tom politicians, technicians, and men of learning limb from limb, and burned all records that might contain information that could once more lead into paths of destruction. Nothing had been so fiercely hated as the written word, the learned man. It was during this time that the word “simpleton” came to mean “honest, upright, virtuous citizen,” a concept once denoted by the term “common man.”

  To escape the righteous wrath of the surviving simpletons, many scientists and learned men fled to the only sanctuary which would try to offer them protection. Holy Mother Church received them, vested them in monk’s robes, tried to conceal them from the mobs. Sometimes the sanctuary was effective; more often it was not. Monasteries were invaded, records and sacred books were burned, refugees seized and hanged. Leibowitz had fled to the Cistercians, professed their vows, became a priest, and after twelve years had won permission from the Holy See to found a new monastic order to be called “the Albertians,” after St. Albert the Great, teacher of Aquinas and patron saint of scientists. The new order was to be dedicated to the preservation of knowledge, secular and sacred, and the duty of the brothers was to memorize such books and papers as could be smuggled to them from all parts of the world. Leibowitz was at last identified by simpletons as a former scientist, and was martyred by hanging; but the order continued, and when it became safe again to possess written documents, many books were transcribed from memory. Precedence, however, had been given to sacred writings, to history, the humanities, and social sciences—since the memories of the memorizers were limited, and few of the brothers were trained to understand the physical sciences. From the vast store of human knowledge, only a pitiful collection of handwritten books remained.

  Now, after six centuries of darkness, the monks still preserved it, studied it, recopied it, and waited. It mattered not in the least to them that the knowledge they saved was useless—and some of it even incomprehensible. The knowledge was there, and it was their duty to save it, and it would still be with them if the darkness in the world lasted ten thousand years.

  Brother Francis Gerard of Utah returned to the desert the following year and fasted again in solitude. Once more he returned, weak and emaciated, to be confronted by the abbot, who demanded to know if he claimed further conferences with members of the Heavenly Host, or was prepared to renounce his story of the previous year.

  “I cannot help what I have seen, my teacher,” the lad repeated.

  Once more did the abbot chastise him in Christ, and once more did he postpone his profession. The document, however, had been forwarded to a seminary for study, after a copy had been made. Brother Francis remained a novice, and continued to dream wistfully of the shrine which might someday be built upon the site of his find.

  “Stubborn boy!” fumed the abbot. “Why didn’t somebody else see his silly pilgrim, if the slovenly fellow was heading for the abbey as he said? One more escapade for the Devil’s Advocate to cry hoax about. Burlap loincloth indeed!”

  The burlap had been troubling the abbot, for tradition related that Leibowitz had been hanged with, a burlap bag for a hood.

  ~ * ~

  Brother Francis spent seven years in the novitiate, seven Lenten vigils in the desert, and became highly proficient in the imitation of wolf calls. For the amusement of his brethren, he would summon the pack to the vicinity of the abbey by howling from the walls after dark. By day, he served in the kitchen, scrubbed the stone floors, and continued his studies of the ancients.

  Then one day a messenger from the seminary came riding to the abbey on an ass, bearing the tidings of great joy. “It is known,” said the messenger, “that the documents found near here are authentic as to date of origin, and that the blueprint was somehow connected with your founder’s work. It’s being sent to New Vatican for further study.”

  “Possibly a true relic of Leibowitz, then?” the abbot asked calmly.

  But the messenger could not commit himself to that extent, and only raised a shrug of one eyebrow. “It is said that Leibowitz was a widower at the time of his ordination. If the name of his deceased wife could be discovered…”

  The abbot recalled the note in the box concerning certain articles of food for a woman, and he too shrugged an eyebrow.

  Soon afterwards, he summoned Brother Francis into his presence. “My boy,” said the priest, actually beaming. “I believe the time has come for you to profess your solemn vows. And may I commend you for your patience and persistence. We shall speak no more of your, ah . . . encounter with the ah, desert wanderer. You are a good simpleton. You may kneel for my blessing, if you wish.”

  Brother Francis sighed and fell forward in a dead faint. The abbot blessed him and revived him, and he was permitted to profess the solemn vows of the Albertian Brothers of Leibowitz, swearing himself to perpetual poverty, chastity, obedience and observance of the rule.

  Soon afterwards, he was assigned to the copying room, apprentice under an aged monk named Horner, where he would undoubtedly spend the rest of his days illuminating the pages of algebra texts with patterns of olive leaves and cheerful cherubim.

  “You have five hours a week,” croaked his aged overseer, “which you may devote to an approved project of your own choosing, if you wish. If not, the time will be assigned to copying the Summa Theologica and such fragmentary copies of the Britannica as exist.”

  The young monk thought it over, then asked: “May I have the time for elaborating a beautiful copy of the Leibowitz blueprint?”

  Brother Homer frowned doubtfully. “I don’t know, son— our good abbot is rather sensitive on this subject. I’m afraid…”

  Brother Francis begged him earnestly.

  “Well, perhaps,” the old man said reluctantly. “It seems like a rather brief project, so—I’ll permit it.”

  The young monk selected the finest lambskin available and spent many weeks curing it and stretching it and stoning it to a perfect surface, bleached to a snowy whiteness. He spent more weeks at studying copies of his precious document in every detail, so that he knew each tiny lin
e and marking in the complicated web of geometric markings and mystifying symbols. He pored over it until he could see the whole amazing complexity with his eyes closed. Additional weeks were spent searching painstakingly through the monastery’s library for any information at all that might lead to some glimmer of understanding of the design.

  Brother Jeris, a young monk who worked with him in the copy room and who frequently teased him about miraculous encounters in the desert, came to squint at it over his shoulder and asked: “What pray, is the meaning of Transistorized Control System for Unit Six-B?”

  “Clearly, it is the name of the thing which this diagram represents,” said Francis, a trifle crossly since Jeris had merely read the title of the document aloud.

  “Surely,” said Jeris. “But what is the thing the diagram represents?”

  “The transistorized control system for unit six-B, obviously.”

  Jeris laughed mockingly.

  Brother Francis reddened. “I should imagine,” said he, “that it represents an abstract concept, rather than a concrete thing. It’s clearly not a recognizable picture of an object, unless the form is so stylized as to require special training to see it. In my opinion, Transistorized Control System is some highly abstraction of transcendental value.”

  “Pertaining to what field of learning?” asked Jeris, still smiling smugly.

  “Why…” Brother Francis paused. “Since our Beatus Leibowitz was an electronicist prior to his profession and ordination, I suppose the concept applies to the lost art called electronics.”

  “So it is written. But what was the subject matter of that art, Brother?”

  “That too is written. The subject matter of electronics was the Electron, which one fragmentary source defines as a Negative Twist of Nothingness.”

  “I am impressed by your astuteness,” said Jeris. “Now perhaps you can tell me how to negate nothingness?”

  Brother Francis reddened slightly and squirmed for a reply.

  “A negation of nothingness should yield somethingness, I suppose,” Jeris continued. “So the Electron must have been a twist of something. Unless the negation applies to the ‘twist,’ and then we would be ‘Untwisting Nothing,’ eh?” He chuckled. “How clever they must have been, these ancients. I suppose if you keep at it, Francis, you will learn how to untwist a nothing, and then we shall have the Electron in our midst. Where would we put it? On the high altar, perhaps?”

  “I couldn’t say,” Francis answered stiffly. “But I have a certain faith that the Electron must have existed at one time, even though I can’t say how it was constructed or what it might have been used for.”

  The iconoclast laughed mockingly and returned to his work. The incident saddened Francis, but did not turn him from his devotion to his project.

  As soon as he had exhausted the library’s meager supply of information concerning the lost art of the Albertians’ founder, he began preparing preliminary sketches of the designs he meant to use on the lambskin. The diagram itself, since its meaning was obscure, would be redrawn precisely as it was in the blueprint, and penned in coal-black lines. The lettering and numbering, however, he would translate into a more decorative and colorful script than the plain block letters used by the ancients. And the text contained in a square block marked specifications would be distributed pleasingly around the borders of the document, upon scrolls and shields supported by doves and cherubims. He would make the black lines of the diagram less stark and austere by imagining the geometric tracery to be a trellis, and decorate it with green vines and golden fruit, birds and perhaps a wily serpent. At the very top would be a representation of the Triune God, and at the bottom the coat of arms of the Albertian Order. Thus was the Transistorized Control System of the Blessed Liebowitz to be glorified and rendered appealing to the eye as well as to the intellect.

  When he had finished the preliminary sketch, he showed it shyly to Brother Homer for suggestions or approval. “I can see,” said the old man a bit remorsefully, “that your project is not to be as brief as I had hoped. But . . . continue with it anyhow. The design is beautiful, beautiful indeed.”

  “Thank you, Brother.”

  The old man leaned close to wink confidentially. “I’ve heard the case for Blessed Leibowitz’ canonization has been speeded up, so possibly our dear abbot is less troubled by you-know-what than he previously was.”

  The news of the speed-up was, of course, happily received by all monastics of the order. Leibowitz’ beatification had long since been effected, but the final step in declaring him to be a saint might require many more years, even though the case was under way; and indeed there was the possibility that the Devil’s Advocate might uncover evidence to prevent the canonization from occurring at all.

  Many months after he had first conceived the project, Brother Francis began actual work on the lambskin. The intricacies of scrollwork, the excruciatingly delicate work of inlaying the gold leaf, the hair-fine detail, made it a labor of years; and when his eyes began to trouble him, there were long weeks when he dared not touch it at all for fear of spoiling it with one little mistake. But slowly, painfully, the ancient diagram was becoming a blaze of beauty. The brothers of the abbey gathered to watch and murmur over it, and some even said that the inspiration of it was proof enough of his alleged encounter with the pilgrim who might have been Blessed Leibowitz.

  “I can’t see why you don’t spend your time on a useful project,” was Brother Jeris’ comment, however. The skeptical monk had been using his own free-project time to make and decorate sheepskin shades for the oil lamps in the chapel.

  Brother Horner, the old master copyist, had fallen ill. Within weeks, it became apparent that the well-loved monk was on his deathbed. In the midst of the monastery’s grief, the abbot quietly appointed Brother Jeris as master of the copy room.

  A Mass of Burial was chanted early in Advent, and the remains of the holy old man were committed to the earth of their origin. On the following day, Brother Jeris informed Brother Francis that he considered it about time for him to put away the things of a child and start doing a man’s work. Obediently, the monk wrapped his precious project in parchment, protected it with heavy board, shelved it, and began producing sheepskin lampshades. He made no murmur of protest, and contented himself with realizing that someday the soul of Brother Jeris would depart by the same road as that of Brother Horner, to begin the life for which this copy room was but the staging ground; and afterwards, please God, he might be allowed to complete his beloved document.

  Providence, however, took an earlier hand in the matter. During the following summer, a monsignor with several clerks and a donkey train came riding into the abbey and announced that he had come from New Vatican, as Leibowitz advocate in the canonization proceedings, to investigate such evidence as the abbey could produce that might have bearing on the case, including an alleged apparition of the beatified which had come to one Francis Gerard of Utah.

  The gentleman was warmly greeted, quartered in the suite reserved for visiting prelates, lavishly served by six young monks responsive to his every whim, of which he had very few. The finest wines were opened, the huntsman snared the plumpest quail and chaparral cocks, and the advocate was entertained each evening by fiddlers and a troupe of clowns, although the visitor persisted in insisting that life go on as usual at the abbey.

  On the third day of his visit, the abbot sent for Brother Francis. “Monsignor di Simone wishes to see you,” he said. “If you let your imagination run away with you, boy, we’ll use your gut to string a fiddle, feed your carcass to the wolves, and bury the bones in unhallowed ground. Now get along and see the good gentleman.”

  Brother Francis needed no such warning. Since he had awakened from his feverish babblings after his first Lenten fast in the desert, he had never mentioned the encounter with the pilgrim except when asked about it, nor had he allowed himself to speculate any further concerning the pilgrim’s identity. That the pilgrim might be a matter for high eccl
esiastical concern frightened him a little, and his knock was timid at the monsignor’s door.

  His fright proved unfounded. The monsignor was a suave and diplomatic elder who seemed keenly interested in the small monk’s career.

  “Now about your encounter with our blessed founder,” he said after some minutes of preliminary amenities.

  “Oh, but I never said he was our Blessed Leibo—”

  “Of course you didn’t, my son. Now I have here an account of it, as gathered from other sources, and I would like you to read it, and either confirm it or correct it.” He paused to draw a scroll from his case and handed it to Francis. “The sources for this version, of course, had it on hearsay only,” he added, “and only you can describe it first hand, so I want you to edit it most scrupulously.”

  “Of course. What happened was really very simple, Father.”

  But it was apparent from the fatness of the scroll that the hearsay account was not so simple. Brother Francis read with mounting apprehension which soon grew to the proportions of pure horror.