by Rick Cook
As if he was sleepwalking, Father Simon moved away from the other humans and walked to the fallen alien. Two guards moved to block him, their truncheons raised. The priest looked levelly into their huge yellow eyes and kept coming. When he was almost close enough to touch them the guards fell back.
Father Simon knelt over the alien. The Colonist shivered and his breath came in great racking sobs. Then he convulsed and lay still. The priest bowed his head and his lips moved as he recited a prayer. Then he crossed himself and rose to face the guards.
“What did you do?” the guard commander demanded through the translator.
“I offered a prayer for his soul.”
It took a long time for that to translate, but apparently the explanation was satisfactory. The alien backed away and motioned the other prisoners to drag off the corpse.
Father Simon and the others watched until the procession was out of sight.
Sharon was white and shaking. “Does this happen all the time?” she asked.
“I have never seen anything like it before,” replied the priest, equally white and just as shaky.
“All the same, I think I’m going to stay in our rooms. This place is horrible!” She raised her face to glare at the priest. “And what in the world possessed you to do a thing like that?”
Father Simon frowned. “I really don’t know,” he said slowly. “Reflex, I suppose.”
“Not smart, man,” Diaz said. “They could have killed you.”
“No, it wasn’t very smart,” Father Simon agreed. Then he sighed. “Come on. Let’s go back.”
There were no repercussions, no reprisals. The aliens ignored the incident as if it had never happened and the humans didn’t talk about it. But after the scene in the tunnel no one wanted to accompany Father Simon on his walks.
The priest wasn’t eager to go out again either. For two days he stayed in the human quarters. But finally the need for movement drove him out.
He didn’t go far. He stayed on a circuit close by that brought him past the entrance to the human area and its two guards every few hundred yards. The guards ignored him as they always did and the priest tried to ignore them and the flexible bludgeons hanging from their harness.
He was making his fourth or fifth circuit when a Colonist stepped out of a side tunnel and blocked his way.
“I would speak with you.”
The alien was tall and lean, even by the standards of this race. To Father Simon’s eye he looked old, although the priest wasn’t sure how to tell the age of Colonists. But the most remarkable thing about him was that he was missing an eye. A ragged scar ran from his muzzle back over the socket and almost to the top of his head leaving bare dark skin showing. The scar and the missing eye made him look piratical and sinister.
“You are the truth-seeker among the humans.” The voice came out of the translator as a statement, not a question.
“I am a scientist, yes,” Father Simon said uneasily. It was almost unprecedented for any alien prisoner to talk to the humans and there was nothing in the appearance of this one to inspire confidence.
“Not science, truth.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Truth,” the alien repeated, so loudly Father Simon’s ears rang. “The thing-ness of all things. The nature of the first and the last. That which separates that which is from that which is not. The forces which regulate beings in their orbits.” The Colonist stopped and looked expectantly at the priest, head cocked to one side like a bird’s.
“Ah, you mean philosophy?” Father Simon asked.
“Truth,” the Colonist bellowed firmly.
He laid a hand on Father Simon’s arm. It was the first time the priest had ever felt an alien’s naked skin. It was soft and warm.
“I too am a truth-seeker. I wish to speak of truth with you.”
The priest looked at the alien. It would be a diversion, he thought. “Very well,” he said. “Where shall we go?”
A few yards down the tunnel from the humans’ quarters there was an alcove cut into the rock with a rock shelf or ledge running around it waist-high. From the holes drilled into stone and the oil stains on the floor, Father Simon assumed it had housed machinery of some sort. Now it was empty and it made a convenient place to sit and talk.
“Here I am called One-Eye,” the alien said, squatting down on the stone floor.
“I am called Father Simon.”
“Father Simon,” the Colonist repeated, although what came out of his mouth bore little resemblance to the translation. “Are you named or titled?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Are you called by a rank-name within your lineage or the name of the function you perform?”
“Both. My name is Simon, which corresponds to what you call a rank-name. I am a priest, so I am given the title ‘Father’.”
“Priest?”
“A member of a religious order.”
The Colonist tossed his head in assent. “A cult leader as well as a philosopher, then.”
“And you?” the priest asked. “Are you named or titled?”
“For us there are no titles here,” the Colonist told him. “Nor rank-names either. We are named or pick names that suit us. But, come, tell me of your kind’s truth.”
Where to begin? “We call it ‘philosophy,’ which means ‘love of wisdom’ in one of our ancient languages.”
“It is good to love wisdom,” One-Eye declared. “From Wisdom flows true happiness.”
“What does this wisdom consist of?”
“To know the truth. To separate the true pleasures from the false.”
“This is important for us as well,” Father Simon told him.
The man and the alien talked for nearly three hours in the chilly alcove cut into the gray rock. Most of the time was spent trying to define terms. Finally, when Father Simon had talked himself hoarse and One-Eye seemed to have taken on as many foreign philosophical terms as he could absorb, they parted.
“This is most excellent, Fathersimon,” One-Eye said. “Perhaps we can continue again tomorrow.”
“I would be honored,” the priest told the alien.
“You were gone a long time today,” Sharon said to him when he got back. “What happened?”
“I’m not sure,” Father Simon said. “I think I made a friend.”
As the days dragged on, Father Simon spent more and more time with One-Eye. The alien would squat in the alcove while Father Simon perched on the ledge and they would talk for hours.
“Won’t you get in trouble for talking to us?” Father Simon asked One-Eye one day.
The alien made a hissing sound Father Simon knew for a kind of laughter. “What would they do?” he asked. “Separate me from my lineage? Deprive me of my title and honors? Imprison me?” He gestured about him.
“The truly wise man cannot be imprisoned. His body, of course,”—One-Eye made an overall twitch that was the Colonists’ equivalent of a shrug—“but his essence, his is-ness, cannot be confined, save by his own action or by wrong thinking.”
“They could kill you if they thought the offense serious enough,” the priest pointed out.
“Killing me would take me out of this place,” One-Eye said. “It would free my essence from this world and its evils and that does not seem to me to be a punishment. Besides,” he went on more practically, “as long as we stay in our places they do not care what we do here.”
“I do not mean to pry, but why were you sent here? What crime did you commit?”
One-Eye drew himself up. “Crime? I committed no wrong action. I was simply inconvenient to the Elders of the Inner Grove and Derfuhrer.” He twitched a shrug again. “It is true of almost everyone here.”
“That’s terrible,” Father Simon said.
“It is so in all Colonies. There are always inconvenient ones and they are always sent to a place of detention. The difference is that in this planet Derfuhrer has a bigger, better place than most.” He looked around a
nd hissed. “It is most excellent, do you not agree?”
“You said that if you died your soul would go someplace else. Where do you believe your soul will go?”
One-Eye considered. “That is a matter of debate. Some, such as the followers of the True Form, think that essences are forever reborn according to merit. Others say that at death our essences will reunite with the Essence of the Universe. For myself, I think that when we die our essence is extinguished with our bodies. How say your philosophers?”
“We have schools that believe all of those things,” Father Simon told the Colonist. “My own—ah—school’s teacher told us that our souls live after us and that after death they will be judged. If we have lived rightly and in wisdom, our souls will live with our God, who is much like the essence of the universe. If we have not lived rightly or refused wisdom, then we will be punished.”
One-Eye froze. “Your school has a god? Like a cult?”
“I am not sure this is translating correctly, but, yes, what you call our school is a direct outgrowth of our religion.”
“Strange, Fathersimon. Strange indeed. Perhaps we had best leave this until your translator becomes more fluent.”
“Very well,” the priest said. “But what about your gods?”
One-Eye made a dismissing gesture. “There are no gods. Or if there are, they pay no attention to our affairs.”
“Some of us believe that there is a single God and that He is constantly active in human affairs,” the priest told the alien.
“Outworn doctrine,” One-Eye snorted and changed the subject.
The next time Father Simon came to the alcove, there were two other Colonists with One-Eye. One of them was about One-Eye’s height and the other was smaller and more slender. Both of them wore the dark tan smocks of prisoners.
“Jawbone and Fruitpicker,” One-Eye introduced his companions. “They are also seekers after truth.”
“I am of the students of the True Forms,” said the one called Jawbone proudly. “Before, I was a teacher among them.”
Fruitpicker said nothing.
“Tell me of the differences between your truth and ours,” Jawbone demanded, settling himself on the floor next to One-Eye.
Father Simon leaned back against the rock wall. “There are many differences and many things the same,” he said. “Our seekers after truth have had many of the same thoughts, followed many of the same lines of speculation. But there are also differences.
“Now you center your philosophies on ethics, the search for right action. Some of our philosophy is concerned with that, but more of it deals with other issues.”
“What else should philosophy deal with than truth and the search for right action?” Fruitpicker asked.
“Some of us believe that the fundamental questions of ethics have been answered, so many of our philosophers have moved on to other matters.”
All three aliens leaned forward. “How did you answer them?”
“Our religion provides the answers to those questions.”
“Your cults deal in such matters?” Jawbone asked.
“Our religions—great cults—do,” Father Simon said. “They are the legacy of great teachers and their followers strive to live according to their precepts.”
“Strange, to mix cult and wisdom so,” said Jawbone.
“Don’t your cults command you to right action?”
Jawbone and One-Eye looked at each other.
“That is a matter on which we differ,” One-Eye said. “As I told you, I do not believe there are gods. Cults have no place in the search for wisdom.”
“I, too, do not believe there are gods as the cults teach of them,” Jawbone said. “But there is a Universal Essence and the essence in each of us is a clouded mirror of that great essence.
“When one dies, one’s essence returns according to his merits,” Jawbone went on. “Those who have lived a virtuous life are reborn to a higher station closer to the trunk of the Great Lineage. Those who have done evil are reborn further out on the branches or even as animals. Thus are we rewarded and punished according to our desserts.”
“But tell me,” said Father Simon, “does an essence remember its previous life?”
“Of course not,” said Fruitpicker.
“Then the essence does not know that it is being punished when it is reborn as an animal or rewarded when it returns as a higher person?”
“That is so,” the Colonist admitted.
“Then tell me, how can this be effective reward or punishment when the essence is unconscious of it?”
Jawbone snorted explosively.
One-Eye hissed with laughter. “Most excellent, Fathersimon. Most excellent indeed.”
“I did not originate the argument,” Father Simon said. “A man we call Justin Martyr stated it two thousand years ago.”
“Was he named or titled?” One-Eye asked.
“Both,” Father Simon told him. “Justin was his name and he was a martyr.”
There was a long pause for the translation.
“Explain martyr,” One-Eye commanded at last.
“A martyr is one who died voluntarily for our faith or for the preservation of some Christian virtue.”
“Voluntarily? You mean such a one deliberately chose death?”
“Yes.”
“And this was in accordance with the will of your Teacher?”
“We believe so.”
The alien snorted explosively. “Foolish to order one’s followers to commit suicide in such a way.”
“We believe there are some things worse than death here and now,” the priest told him. “What would you do if you were commanded to deny your beliefs on pain of death?”
“Deny them of course. Saying a thing is not so does not make it not so.”
“We are commanded always to speak the truth about what we believe.”
One-Eye snorted again.
“If what I say bothers you so much, why do you keep talking to me?”
“Because it passes the time,” One-Eye told him. “Because I find your cult’s school of truth-seeking strange and perhaps in some ways superior to others I have known. It is always wisdom to seek to learn new truths, even when they cannot profit you directly, is it not?”
“And besides,” the Colonist added practically, “perhaps someday I shall walk among the living again. Then I could open a school and grow rich teaching this new wisdom.” All three aliens hissed with laughter.
One day Father Simon came out to find that Fruitpicker was not there. One-Eye and Jawbone carried on as if nothing unusual had happened, so Father Simon said nothing. But the next day, Fruitpicker was still missing, and the day after that as well.
“Where is Fruitpicker?” Father Simon asked after several days.
“He has turned his face to the wall,” Jawbone said. “He will be with us no more.”
Father Simon crossed himself. “You mean he died?”
“His essence is still in his body, but not for long,” One-Eye told the priest.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He has turned his face to the wall,” repeated Jawbone.
“But why?” demanded Father Simon.
One-Eye twitched a shrug. “Why does anyone do this? There are many things. Some die in their proper time. There is much sickness here. The food is sparse and poor. Some decide to die or simply give up. Of course the weight of this place presses cruelly.”
Father Simon realized that although the gravity here was little more than a third of Earth-normal, it must be terrible to creatures who had never known anything more than one-quarter G.
“Life is hard,” Jawbone said simply.
“But what’s wrong with Fruitpicker?”
“I do not know,” One-Eye said.
“Have you seen him?”
“We do not share a roost.”
“I mean have you been to visit him?”
One-Eye looked surprised. “No. Why should I?”
“He is your friend.”
“Friendship like all things of the here-and-now is fleeting,” One-Eye said. “We meet, we part. To fasten onto such happenstance is to trouble oneself unnecessarily.”
“It doesn’t trouble you that your friend is dying?”
One-Eye gave another of the alien shrugs. “It is not a cause for regret. Each of us dies soon or late and we can do nothing to stop it. Soon Fruitpicker’s soul will be freed. Then he will be happier than those who are left behind. There is no need to visit him.”
“Well, he is my friend,” Father Simon said firmly. “Will you take me to him?”
“This shows lack of wisdom,” One-Eye grumbled.
“There are many different kinds of wisdom,” Father Simon told the alien tartly.
“My wisdom commands me to stay here,” One-Eye said.
“My wisdom and my Teacher tell me to go to a person who might need me. Will you show me the way?”
Jawbone rose. “I will take you.”
The room was as large as the common room of the humans, but there were perhaps fifty Colonists packed into it. They squatted or lay along the walls or shuffled listlessly about. The cold dry air was thick with the smell of them.
Off in the distance, he could hear a Colonist bellowing. The voice lacked the modulation and differentiation he had come to associate with the aliens’ speech. It was merely the sound of pain, or perhaps madness.
“He is there,” Jawbone said, pointing. Heedless of the alien stares. Father Simon picked his way over to him.
Fruitpicker lay on a pallet against the far wall. His feathers were fluffed out and his great yellow eyes were glazed. His beak was slightly open and his breath seemed to come irregularly.
“Hello, Fruitpicker,” Father Simon said.
The alien started and his eyes seemed to focus. His taloned fingers clutched Father Simon’s arm until the points pricked the skin and drew blood.
“How are you?” the priest asked.
“I progress, Fathersimon. I move in my ordained path.”
“Are you in pain?”
Fruitpicker hissed weakly. “What is pain to a philosopher, eh?”