“Allow me to remind you that the ‘negotiating’ you attribute to these females is nothing but a mindless following of instructions. They do not act alone, Father Dorien; they simply function, much as a servomechanism would function, for the linguistic convenience of the skilled men present who provide them with their instructions. I don’t approve of it. I never have, and I don’t mind saying so. A way should be found to restrain the greed of the government so that only males of the Lines would be involved, to avoid precisely this kind of needless—and, I might add, unscientific—confusion in the minds of the ignorant. Not that I am referring to you as ignorant, Father Dorien, I hasten to add, but, really Father! I must object to your mode of expression in front of Sister Miriam Rose! You risk introducing serious confusion into the sister’s thoughts, Father!”
Had Miriam not been present, Father Dorien would certainly have told Father Agar what a tiresome and insubordinate old fart he was; hampered by her presence, he could only nod and look wise and hope the tiresome and insubordinate old fart would shut up shortly. It added nothing to his peace of mind when Father Claude leaped in to remind everyone how many times the linguists had made the point that there is no significant correlation between intelligence and the acquisition of language in infants and small children—a fact which Agar immediately challenged, parading his ignorance for the delectation of one and all and providing Father Claude with an opportunity to present a full-scale introductory lecture on the subject. He carefully did not look at Sister Miriam.
Being surrounded by nincompoops was a situation that Dorien had deliberately brought upon himself. Keep the nincompoops at home where he could deal with them, that was his policy, and send the brilliant priests out into the world where they could be of use without having to be saddled with the nincompoops. By and large, it worked well, and was no doubt good for his character; occasionally, it could be embarrassing. And he realized that no matter how absurd it might be, he was embarrassed at the way his stupid colleagues were flaunting their stupidity before Sister Miriam. The idea that she might be more intelligent than either one of them—or both of them put together—was both improper and inescapable.
“Sister Miriam,” he said abruptly, grabbing a small gap in the dialogue when Agar and Claude had paused simultaneously for breath, “we Fathers are agreed, I am certain, that this example does represent heresy; it does indeed manifest the taint of goddess worship. If not in full flower, at least in the bud. And the example is by no means unique.”
“Tell me, Sister,” Agar piped up, and Dorien smothered a curse that would have been the end of dignity before the nun by turning his head away and pretending to cough, “do these frightful females address Our Lord with the feminine pronoun? That would settle the case, you know.”
Sister Miriam smiled the modest and soothing smile of the nun whose purpose is always to be a comfort. “Father,” she replied, “one cannot know. The pronouns of the language are not marked for sexual gender.”
“Barbarous!” Agar exclaimed, taken aback. “Just barbarous! Why, how could a language call itself a language without masculine pronouns, and feminine pronouns, and—”
Father Dorien moved instantly into the breach. He was certain that Sister Miriam was too well-bred to humiliate poor old Agar by listing for him the multitude of living languages on this Earth in which a single pronoun form is used for masculine, feminine, and neuter; but he did not trust Father Claude not to do so. He cut Father Agar off in mid-babble, and spoke directly to the woman.
“My dear Sister,” he said tersely, “if I might have your attention, I think what we must do is consider the question of our next move. That it’s necessary to stifle this heresy before it condemns the immortal souls of these foolish women to perdition, and before it spreads beyond the present groups, is overwhelmingly obvious.” That you speak in clichés and platitudes, Father, is overwhelmingly obvious. “That our goal should be to transfer the present fervor to a seemly devotion for the Blessed Virgin is not in dispute. The materials you have brought us—and we thank you for your industry in that regard, Sister—demonstrate that the heresy is real and that we were not just imagining the problem. All these things are clear. In that context, then, what should we do next?”
“Why, we tell their clergy!” puffed Father Agar. “We tell them, at once, that the women of their flocks are being led into the foulest temptation and the most seductive evil, and that unless they make an immediate effort to counter this phenomenon it will be the Almighty they have to answer to one day!”
Sweet suffering saints, thought Father Dorien; Father Claude gave the ceiling his total attention, and Sister Miriam favored the floor with her glance. Neither would meet Dorien’s eyes, and he did not blame them.”
“Father Agar,” he purred, “will you be so kind as to explain to Claude, and to me, how we are to accomplish the goal of converting these women to Holy Mother Church if we call in their ministers and alert them to our opportunity? Haven’t you been listening at all? Where is your mind?”
When the head of your monastery speaks to you in that fashion, and in that tone, you know yourself rebuked; Father Agar was grateful that no one except Claude was present to witness his humiliation.
“In my concern for their, uh, immortal souls,” he stammered, his lips stiff and his eyes averted, “I perhaps lost track of . . . of less vital issues, Father Dorien. I beg your pardon.”
“Less vital issues? Less vital?” The rays of light radiating from Father Dorien’s head, although you knew very well that they were only coming from the sunlight through the window, seemed to Agar to gain in brilliance with the outrage in the abbot’s eyes. “What, may I ask, is more vital than the winning of these souls to the True Faith?”
Father Agar was a nincompoop, but he was not stupid; he simply lacked foresight and resolve. He knew that Father Dorien was deliberately shaming him, and it seemed to him especially cruel of Dorien to do so when a nun was watching, though of course her opinion was unimportant and if she did gossip about this no one would pay any attention to her nonsense. He knew Dorien was perfectly well aware that Agar had only lost track for a minute of the drift of the discussion. Now the question was whether he should be defiant—as he certainly had every right to be, because Dorien’s behavior was inexcusable—or humble, which was safer, because Dorien was capable of doing a good deal worse if you made him really angry, and he did seem to be angry. Agar was sufficiently worried about this that instead of being offended when Sister Miriam spoke, he was pleased. Now she would be rebuked, and that would distract Dorien. What had she said? Something about an urgent appointment with her Mother Superior?
“Sister Miriam Rose!” Father Dorien thundered. “I was addressing a question to Father Agar—I had not given you permission to interrupt!”
He had forgotten, for the moment, that he had opened the meeting by excusing her from the obligation of waiting for permission to speak; he remembered the instant the reprimand was given. But it didn’t matter; there was no way that she could have contradicted him, or protested the injustice. And she did not try. Before he had even come to the end of the angry speech, Miriam was on her knees on the floor beside the wooden stool, her head bowed in contrition. It earned her no points with Father Dorien, who ordered her to get up at once and take her seat again, but it did cause him to drop his interrogation of Father Agar.
“You are finished with your melodramatics, Sister?” he asked her coldly, when she was decently seated again. “We can proceed?”
“Yes, Father,” murmured the nun. “It is my privilege to obey.”
“Try to do it with less fuss, then. We are not a frontier parish frolic!”
“Yes, Father. I am deeply sorry, Father.”
“The question was: what are we to do next? Not alert the Protestant clergy—let that be stated at once and not mentioned again. But what? Sister Miriam, the next step in the plan, once it had been determined that our suspicions were justified, once the nuns in your group had est
ablished themselves within these devotional meetings, was for you to begin a systematic modification of the language of the heretical texts. Are you prepared to get that task underway? You have permission to speak.”
“That is the plan you proposed, Father. And you will recall that you thought it would be an excellent idea for us to set the resulting texts to music, so that we could perform them for the women present—women, you will remember remarking, are so susceptible to music, and especially to religious music. And I of course agreed with your suggestions, Father.”
What Father Dorien actually recalled was that the idea of setting the modified texts to music and performing them, to take advantage of the power of the melodic line to reinforce mere words, had been Sister Miriam’s. And unlike many men, he did not immediately decide that it was an idea he had been just on the point of presenting when the woman rudely appropriated it for herself. He understood—unlike many men—that “less intelligent” was not synonymous with “stupid.” But he appreciated Miriam’s fine sense of decorum, and he allowed her to proceed as she thought was proper; it would do him no harm, and she would be spared the distress of yet another verbal confrontation.
“Are you ready to move ahead with the plan, Sister?” He spoke warmly now, to let her know that he understood the strategy she was following and approved.
“There is a significant problem, Father,” she answered, surprising him. He had given her the best nuns he could find, and ample funds, and she had had no difficulty finding the damning materials; he had not expected to hear that there was a problem.
“What problem, Sister? Why should there be a problem?”
“I am not a linguist, Father,” she answered. Quite superfluously. He knew she wasn’t a linguist.
“I am aware of that. Please continue.”
“A linguist might well be able to work out the grammar of the language from the texts that we have collected, and then make the necessary changes. I can’t do that, Father; I would not even know how to begin.
Dorien leaned toward her, frowning. “I’m not sure I understand you, Sister. Are you saying that the grammar of this language—made up out of whole cloth by a pack of women—is beyond your abilities?”
“I would not be at all surprised, Father,” she said quietly. “I am not a learned woman, and I know little of grammar, for any language. But that is not yet the point. The point is that no such grammar exists.”
“That’s impossible!” he snapped. “Don’t be absurd!”
“I beg your pardon, Father, you are quite right—it is impossible. I should have said: no grammar is available, neither on microfiche nor on chiplet. There is no course in the subject that one may take by comset, or anything of that kind. The only grammar, Father, is in the computer databanks of Chornyak Barren House. To which I have no access.”
“The only one?” Dorien was very dubious; it was so unlikely.
“Yes, Father. And I must tell you that it was not easy for me to determine that even that one existed.”
“Why not?”
“Because the women were extremely reluctant to tell me, Father. Only when I made it clear to them that I was not to be put off with nonsense about there being no written grammar at all—as if they could have done those translations without one—would they tell me that a single grammar does exist. In the databank, as I said. There are no hard copies.”
“But it can be called up at any time by any other computer, at any of the other Households of the Lines, and printed out on the spot,” put in Father Claude dryly. “Instant grammars, in any quantity desired.”
“I am not familiar with computer systems, Father Claude,” said Sister Miriam, “except as we use them in the convent for simple accounts and letters. I regret my ignorance—and I assure you, and the other Fathers, that I am taking steps to correct it, since I must do the programming for the revision of the texts. But I have only just begun my studies.”
“Your ignorance is expected and appropriate,” Claude responded testily, “and I personally wish that it could continue. You do not need to apologize, my child. But you may be sure, anything that is in any databank owned by the linguists is also available to every single one of their computers, and hard copies are a simple matter of pushing a button or speaking a command.”
“Indeed,” Miriam said. “How very clever, and how useful . . . and of course frugal, since but one copy is needed to serve for all. Thank you, Father; I am pleased to learn something new.”
“Not at all, my child,” said Father Claude, feeling somehow soothed. “We are here to help you in this project, in every way we can.”
“That is my good fortune, Father Claude,” she answered.
Father Dorien broke in, feeling that Claude had had all the sugar and cream that was good for him in a single serving.
“You need this grammar, then, in order to proceed,” he said, and she agreed that she certainly did.
“Did you ask for it? That is, did you ask that a copy be made for you?”
She didn’t answer, just stood there biting her lip and looking at her hands, and he grew impatient. “Sister Miriam Rose?” he asked sharply. “Did you hear my question?”
“Father Dorien . . . may I speak frankly? Expressing my own opinion, which may be quite wrong?”
“For heaven’s sakes . . . of course. Please proceed.”
“Father . . .” She said the word, and then looked directly at him, so that he was suddenly aware of those disconcerting eyes. “Father, it is true that most of the women attending the Thursday services are exactly as you have described them. Silly ignorant women playing at religion, taking part in a fad because it is a fad. They think it fashionable to flaunt their liberal ideas. . . .”
“Linguists are becoming chic, eh?”
“Yes, Father. Now that infants from outside the Lines are sharing the Interfaces. . . . You do see, Father.”
“I do. And it’s as ugly as the prejudice was.”
“As you say, Father.”
“Your point, Sister!”
“My point is that the women of the Lines are something else entirely. They are a good deal more than silly ignorant women leading a fad and glorying in their chance to do something fashionable for once in their poor dreary lives. Father Dorien, the women of the Lines are dangerous.”
“Dangerous. Indeed.”
“Yes, Father. I refer to spiritual dangers only, of course—for other women. And among the dangers they represent is this one: they are not going to let me have a copy of that grammar.”
“Ah!” Dorien rubbed his chin, considering that. “Do you know why that should be, Sister? A polite request from a harmless nun, refused in that rude way? Did they offer you an explanation?”
“Oh, yes.”
“May we hear it?”
“They would be humiliated to have me see it in its present state,” she told him. Grimly, looking down again, and he was glad of that; her eyes distracted him. “It’s no more than a rough draft. Much too unformed, much too embryonic, to be examined by anyone outside the family. The men of the Lines would be extremely angry if anything so clumsy were to be seen by a stranger. They are working on it—when they have a spare moment or two, which is not often—and when it is fit to be seen they will just be delighted to give me a copy. And so on, Father.”
“This . . . rhapsodizing. It does not represent genuine womanly modesty?”
There were those eyes again, and he very nearly looked downward himself to avoid them.
“I am absolutely certain that they are lying,” she stated. “Deliberately and willfully lying. No question about it.”
“Hmmm. You’re most emphatic about it, Sister.”
“It sounds very unwholesome,” put in Father Agar. “Disgraceful. I don’t like it at all.”
“Do they,” Dorien wondered aloud, “like so many Protestants, look upon you as a sort of distant relative of Satan? Lechery in the convent basements, and you its representative? Is that the reason for the lies?�
��
Sister Miriam looked uncomfortable, but she said only, “Perhaps that is the explanation, Father.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“No.”
“What do you think it is, then?”
“I think they are up to something,” she said flatly. “And I say again—I think they are dangerous. I think they need curbing.”
“They are only women, Sister.”
She made no reply, but the weight of her doubts hung heavy in the room, and the four of them sat a while in silence, thinking. Until finally Father Dorien spoke, disapprovingly.
“Sister Miriam,” he said, “I will make no comment at this time on your assessment of the situation. Frankly, if it were any woman but yourself speaking, I would tell you that I considered your remarks to be symptomatic of hysteria. Since it is you speaking, I will reserve my judgment, but I ask that you guard your tongue in future. And of course, if you have convinced yourself that the women are a threat, it will be an additional motivation for you to carry out your assigned tasks; perhaps a touch of hysteria is not misplaced in these circumstances. But as for the grammar in that databank . . .”
“Yes, Father?”
“Don’t concern yourself about it, Sister. A copy will be made available to you. What format would you prefer?”
“Could it be a paper copy?”
“Isn’t that an unnecessary extravagance?”
“Forgive me, Father, but I would find it easier to plan the changes in the text if I could sit down somewhere alone with a paper copy and a pencil. I would be uneasy displaying those texts on a comscreen in the convent.”
“She has a point, Dorien,” said Father Agar. “Some of the nuns are so brainless—the chance of contamination, if they saw this stuff, or at least of unseemly gossip, would be considerable. Sister Miriam, I commend you for your scrupulous concern for your weaker sisters.”
“Thank you, Father,” she said.
“Get her her paper copy, Dorien, for goodness’ sakes,” Father Claude said crossly. “We can certainly afford one.”
Father Dorien nodded. They certainly could. “All right,” he agreed. “As you wish.”
The Judas Rose Page 27