A FEW MILES
by Philip Jose Farmer
Brer John Carmody was bent over, pulling out the carrots from the garden soil, when he heard his name called.
He straightened up, saying “Ough!” as he did so and putting the palm of his hand to his aching back. He waited for Brer Francis because Brer Francis had not told him to come but had merely named him.
Brer John was a short heavily built man with a square face, one drooping eyelid and a shock of blueblack hair that bristled like porcupine quills. Lay brothers of the order of St. Jairus, to which he belonged, did not shave their heads. He wore an ankle-length robe of maroon fiberglass and maroon plastic sandals. A broad plastleather belt circled his bulging stomach, and from it hung a cross and a small maroon book.
Brer Francis, a tall thin man with a narrow face and a ski-slope, nose, halted before the fat man. He pointed at the bunch of carrots in the fat man’s hand and said, “What happened to those, Brer?”
“Rabbits,“ said Brer John. He looked upwards and gestured furiously, though it was evident by his half-grin that his anger was mock.
“Rabbits! How do you explain that, heh? We live in cities that are completely roofed over and walled, and the walls go deep into the ground. Yet rabbits and mice and rats manage to get under the walls and raid our gardens and pantries. And squirrels somehow climb into our trees, and birds, who must squeeze themselves through the interstices of the molecules of the roof, nest on every tree. And insects, who don’t know how to burrow, only to fly or hop, are here at hand.”
He swatted at a fly and said, “And on my nose, too. That pesky creature of Satan has been tickling my bulbous proboscis for the last past hour. However, I have refused to kill it on the grounds that it might have been sent to tempt me to anger and violence. And it has nearly succeeded, too, I might add."
“Brer John, you talk too much,” said Brer Francis. “Far too much. However, I did not come here to reprimand you for that . . .”
“Though you have stayed to do so," said Brer . John; and then, quickly, before Brer Francis, reddening face exploded into words, “Forgive me for that last remark. And the previous ones, too. As you said, I talk too much. It is a very grave fault, or, if not a fault, at least a characteristic to be frowned upon, and . . .”
“Brer John!" said Brer Francis. “Will you keep quiet long enough to allow me to tell you why I am here? I did not come out here to satisfy my curiosity, you know."
“Forgive me,” said Brer John. “I'm all ears.”
“The bishop wishes to see you. At once,” said Brer Francis very quickly as if he were afraid Brer John would interrupt if he breathed between words.
Brer John turned and threw the rabbit-damaged carrots into a cart and the good carrots into another. Then he set off towards the main building, a long low structure of pressed earth-blocks painted a dark maroon. Its high-pitched roof was raised several feet above the walls by thin poles, and a grillework of maroon metal filled the space between roof and wall. The entrances had no doors, for it was the tradition of the order never to have a locked door, and here in the controlled environment of the enclosed city, it was not necessary to keep out the weather. The roof was there only to give privacy from people flying overhead.
Brer John entered the main building and, without bothering to clean his dirty hands and face, went straight to the office of the Father Superior. When the chief called, no man loitered.
The rooms within the building did have doors, though they were unlocked. As the door to the Father Superior’s office was closed, Brer John knocked.
“Come in!” said a voice within, and Brer John, not for the first time since he had joined the order as a lay brother, entered the large triangular room. He stood at the base of the triangle, and the Father Superior sat behind a large translucent desk at the apex of the triangle. The top of the desk was loaded with piles of tapes, a stenowriter, and a vuephone. The Father Superior, however, was not dwarfed by the mountainous mass before him; he was a very tall man.
He was broad-faced with long rusty-red hair and a full rusty-red beard, which he and only he in the "inn” was entitled to wear. He was puffing on a huge Havana cigar.
Brer John, who had given up smoking for a month as a penance for one of his several sins, sniffed hungrily at the green smoke roiling around him.
The Father Superior flicked off the toggle of the stenowriter into which he had been dictating.
"Good morning, Brer John," he said. He waved a cartridge at the fat man.
“I have here an order which just came in via spaceship. You are to go to the planet of Wildenwooly at once and report to the Bishop of Breakneck. We will miss you in more ways than one, but we love you. God speed you, and our blessing."
Brer John’s blue eyes widened. He did not move, and for the first time in a long time he could not talk.
The Father Superior, however, had closed his eyes and leaned back on his tiling chair while he dictated out of one corner of his mouth and puffed cigar smoke out of the other. It was evident that he considered that he had given all orders necessary.
For a moment Brer John stared at the long ash on the end of the Father Superior’s cigar. Obviously, the ash was just about to fall, and he wondered if it would fall on the long red beard beneath it.
However, the Father Superior, without opening his eyes, removed the cigar and flieked the ashes onto the stone floor.
Brer John shrugged and left the room, but the wonder was still on his face.
Outside the room, he hesitated for a few minutes. Then, sighing, he walked outside and crossed the garden to Brer Francis.
"Brer Francis, may I speak?"
"Yes," said the thin man. "If you confine yourself to the matter at hand and do not take the opportunity to run off at the tongue as usual."
"Where is Wildenwooly?" said Brer John with a tone that bordered on the pathetic.
"Wildenwooly? It is, I believe, the fourth planet of Tau Caesari. Our order has a church and an inn there,’’ he said.
Brer John did not think that the order had a tavern on the planet. The dwellings of the order were customarily called inns because they had been so designated by the founder, St. Jairus.
"Why do you ask?” continued Brer Francis.
“I have just been ordered to go to Wildenwooly by the Father Superior." He looked hopefully at the other man.
But Brer Francis merely said, "Then you must go at once. God speed you, Brer John. Go with my love. I may have reprimanded you many times, but it has been for your good."
"I thank you for your love," said Brer John. "But I am at a loss."
“Why?"
“Why? To whom do I go to get a ticket for berth on a spaceship? Who gives me a draft on the order for travel expenses? What about a letter of introduction to the Bishop at Breakneck? I don't even know his name. I don’t even know when a spaceship might leave for Wildenwooly or how long I might have to wait for it or where to wait for it. I don’t even know where the spaceport is!"
“You talk too much," said Brer Francis. "You have been given all the orders you will get. Or need. As for the spaceport, it's only a few miles outside the city. And the inn on Wildenwooly is only a few miles outside the city of Breakneck. With good luck you might be there by this afternoon."
“That's all you have to say?" said Brer John unbelievingly.
"Only a few miles," repeated Brer Francis. “You must leave at once. Orders, you know."
Brer John looked hard at Brer Francis. Was he imagining or was a grin about to break out on that long lean rarely smiling face? No, he must be mistaken. The face was grim and unmoving.
"Don’t b
e distressed," said Brer Francis. "I was once given just such an order. And so have others."
Brer John’s eyes narrowed. “This is a test of some sort?"
"The order wouldn’t send you forty thousand light years away just to test you," said Brer Francis. "You are wanted and needed at Wildenwooly. So go."
Brer John Carmody seldom hesitated. Once he had decided upon a course, and it did not customarily take him long to decide, he acted. Now he walked swiftly to the communal shower, entered the room, removed his robe, revealing a white body and legs painted black to the groin. He inserted the robe into a rectangular hole in the wall, and then he entered the shower. He did not stay long, for though the order had installed an entirely automatic shower, it had insisted that only cold water would be provided for the discomfort of its members. Once a month the order was treated to a warm shower.
He stepped out, shivering, and dried off in a blast of air, also cold, which blew from vents in the wall. Then he took out his robe from a receptacle below the one in which he had inserted the robe and put it on. And he gave a short thanksgiving that the order had at least installed a cleaning apparatus. When he got to the frontier planet of Wildenwooly, he would have to wash his clothes by hand. And probably, considering his humble position, the robes of the other members, too.
Putting on his robe, he went to his cell. This was a room, six feet by seven feet, with luminescent walls, a crucifix attached to the wall, a hammock which was rolled into a bag during the day, a desk which folded down from the wall, and a niche in the wall where he kept all his worldly possessions. These, a missal, a history of the Church from 1 A.D. to 2260 A.D., a Latin grammar, and a Life of Saint Jairus, he put into the sack formed by the hood hanging down over his shoulders. Then he got down onto his knees before the crucifix, said, “Lord and Master, let me know what I am doing. Amen,” rose and walked to the door of his cell. Just before leaving, and without breaking his stride, he reached out and took a long shepherd’s staff from its peg on the wall. All lay brothers were required to take that crook with them when they went into the outside world, if the encapsulated city of Fourth of July could be called the outside world.
It was past noon, and the Arizona summer sun was sliding downhill. Brer John found the temperature only a little warmer than inside the inn. The plastic roof over the city was, at this time of the day, opaqued enough to reflect most of the rays. Even so, Brer John looked forward to getting outside the walls, even if it meant being immersed in the staggering heat of midsummer Arizona. He had long felt cooped up, and, though he had never openly complained, he had felt the urge to do so. And had accordingly confessed and made his penance.
For a moment he paused. He knew there was a spaceport near Fourth of July, but he had no idea in which direction. So he went to a cop.
The cop was one of the new types, a Mark LIV. Its face and body were made of a tantalum alloy, but the eyes were of protoplasm, copied from those of some long-dead corpse and grown in the laboratory. And it had a semiindependent action, for the brain in its metallic belly was not a mechanism controlled remotely from headquarters below the ground. Its brain was a grey protoplasmic shape like a man’s, twice as large and half as intelligent. It could not carry on a decent conversation, much less an indecent one, but it could handle its job quite well, and it could not be bribed or influenced. And, unlike its predecessors, it got around on legs instead of wheels. Its feet were flat.
Brer John looked at the name on its chest, and then said, "Officer O’Malley, where is the spaceport?"
"What spaceport?" replied the cop. The voice was loud and toneless and sent shivers down Brer John’s spine. It was like talking with a man deprived of his soul.
"Ah, yes, I forgot," said Brer John. “It's been so long since I talked to a cop. And they were usually shooting at me. I must ask direct questions, nest-ce pas?"
"N’cst-ce pas?" echoed the cop. "What language do you speak? I will refer you to Headquarters," and the cop reached with~a huge grey-scaled hand for the microphone attached to the side of its head.
“I speak American,” said Brer John hastily. “I wish to know how to get to the Fourth of July Spaceport from here."
“Are you going by tubeway or private car?" said the cop.
Brer John put his hand into the huge pockets of his robe and then withdrew them, empty. "Shank’s mare," he said sadly.
“You told me you spoke American,” said the cop. “Please speak American."
“I mean, I am going to the spaceport on foot," said Brer John. “I am walking.”
The cop stood silent for a moment. Its face was expressionless as metal, but Brer John, who had a vivid imagination, thought he saw puzzlement film the features and then flit away.
"I can’t tell you how to get there if you walk,” said the Cop. "Just a moment. I’ll refer you to Headquarters."
“That won’t be necessary," said Brer John hastily. He could visualize himself going into a lengthy explanation to Headquarters just why he was walking to a city exit from this distant point. And perhaps being delayed to wait while a human cop was sent to investigate him on the spot.
“I can follow the tubeway to its end," he said. He pointed to a line of tall metal rods, each of which was surmounted by an enormous loop of metal.
"Which way do I go to the exit closest to the spaceport? Fourth of July,” he added.
The cop was silent for two seconds. Then it said, “You don’t mean on the date of the Fourth of July? You mean the spaceport called Fourth of July, right?”
"Right,” said Brer John.
The cop pointed to the closest tube way. "Take a North car on Number Ten Tubeway. Get off at the exit to the city. Go outside the city. Take a taxi from there to the spaceport of Fourth of July.”
“Thank you,” said Brer John.
"You’re welcome to the services of the city,” said the cop.
Brer John hurried away. The living eyes in the dead face made him uncomfortable. But he could not help wondering if the cop was truly incorruptible. Ah, if it had been the old John Carmody talking to the cop, then things might have been different! Not a humble lay brother of St. Jairus asking directions, but the cleverest crook in the cosmos trying to see if finally here was a cop who couldn't be bribed, tricked or coerced.
“John Carmody," said Brer John to himself, “you're a long way from being pure in thought. And you’ve just added another penance to suffer. God preserve you! You've barely left the cloister, just ventured into the outside world, and already you're thinking of the old days as the good old days. Yet you were a monster, John Carmody, a hideous monster who should have been obliterated. Not at all the lovable rogue you were picturing yourself as."
He walked below the tubeway. Overhead, a bus shot through the loops at the ends of the poles, then paused a hundred yards . ahead of him and sank down to the ground to discharge its passengers. He wished he had a deci-credit, vulgarly called “dessy," as fare. One decicredit would take him to the city exit and spare him the ten miles of shank's mare he had ahead of him.
He sighed, and said, "John, if wishes were horses . . ." and then he chuckled, visioning himself on a horse in this city. What a panic that would create! People running to stare at this monster seen now only on tridi or in the zoo! People running away in fright, the cops being called, and he . . . hauled off to jail. And guilty not only of secular crime but of ecclesiastical. A humble lay brother anything but humble, prancing pridefully on a horse, or was it a horse that pranced? Guilty of public display, inciting to riot and God knew what else.
He sighed again and began walking. Fortunately, he thought, a man was able to walk from one end of the city to the other if he followed the narrow path created by the poles of the tubeway. Unlike the old days, when there had been streets for a man to walk on, the city was one maze of narrow yards with high fences and a single family room in the middle of each strip of fence and grass, the main quarters being underground. And underneath the houses, the factory or offices where
the house dwellers earned their living. If you could call it living.
He walked and walked, while overhead the citizens traveled in the tubeway bus or flew in their private cars (rented to them by the clutch to which they belonged). Once a robin flew over him, and Brer John said, “Ah, John, if you believed in the pernicious doctrine of transmigration, you would wish to enter the cycle of karma again as a bird. But of course, you don’t, so why sigh for the ecstasy of wings? It is your aching feet that make you think these dangerous thoughts. Go, John, go! Plod on like the weary ass that you are.”
He walked for perhaps two more miles and then to his delight he saw a park open up before him. It was one of the two large parks afforded by the city, where the citizens flocked to get a facsimile of the outdoors world. Here were winding dirt paths and rocks heaped up to resemble small mountains and caves in the mountains and trees and birds and squirrels and lakes on which swans and geese and ducks swam and every now and then a fish leaped up from beneath the surface.
It was, compared to the geometric jungle from which he had just come, a paradise. Alas! this paradise had no snakes, but it had too many Adams and Eves. They swarmed everywhere with their little Abels, and Cains, lolling, drinking, eating, shouting, running, screaming, bellowing, lovemaking, quarreling, laughing, scowling.
Appalled, Brer John halted. He had been shut up so long inside the walls of Our Lady of Fourth of July that he had forgotten the manswarm.
He paused, and at the same time he heard a sound that shut up the uproar. A fire siren whooping in the distance.
He turned and saw the smoke pouring from an eathouse on the edge of the park. And overhead, shooting through the air, the red needle shape of a fire engine.
Brer John ran towards the eathouse. It was one of the few aboveground dining places in the city, a building constructed to resemble an Early American log- house. Here the picknickers could go to eat in "atmosphere” and get away from the vast and dismally clean and bright cafeterias of the clutches where they habitually ate.
Farmer, Philip Jose - Father Carmody 00.4 Page 1