Limbo System

by Rick Cook

  “Is there anything I can get you?”

  “Water.”

  Father Simon turned back to Jawbone who was standing by the door. “He wants water. Is there any here?”

  The Colonist motioned to one side of the room and the priest saw a metal fitting on the wall with a large flat bowl under it. One or two of the other Colonists snorted and grumbled at him as he picked up the bowl and filled it with water, but none of them tried to stop him. He brought the bowl back to where Fruitpicker lay and the Colonist lapped greedily with his thick black tongue.

  At last he raised his head from the bowl. “Thank you, Fathersimon,” he said. His voice dropped to a mutter and his breathing became more regular and less labored. The priest whispered a prayer and blessed him.

  “I will come again tomorrow if I can,” Father Simon told him and left the room.

  “The others in the room didn’t seem to care what happened to him either,” Father Simon said to Jawbone as they made their way back through the corridors. “Are they philosophers, too?”

  Jawbone hissed. “Not them. But they have seen it many times before.”

  “Why didn’t they try to help him?”

  Jawbone twitched a shrug. “We are many different lineages, sub-lineages and clans all mixed together here. Fortunate is the one who has lineage-mates to aid him. But most of us owe little or nothing to those around us and we can expect little or nothing from them.”

  They walked along in silence. “Does this happen often?” Father Simon asked.

  “All the time.”

  The priest stopped and faced his companion. “Can you find out for me when others have turned their faces to the wall?”

  “Why would you want to know a thing like that?”

  “So that I can go to them and give them what help I can.”

  “But they are not of your school,” Jawbone said. “You do not know them.”

  “We are taught that whether of our school or not, all men are bound together. That what we do to the least of them is as if we did it to our Teacher himself.”

  “But we are not men,” Jawbone objected.

  “Our Teacher defined ‘man’ very broadly,” Father Simon replied.

  So Father Simon added visiting sick and dying aliens to his daily routine. There was nothing he could do for any of them. He had no food to give them, no medicine. He could not even minister to their hurts. All he could do was sit and talk to the Colonists, bless them and pray for them. But something compelled him to go on.

  In Fruitpicker’s case, it didn’t matter. When Father Simon returned the next day, the Colonist was gone. He didn’t have to be told what had happened to him.

  One-Eye disapproved of the priest’s new habits and he wasn’t shy about saying so. Jawbone was more tolerant, if no more understanding. The school of the True Forms believed that acts of merit could affect a soul’s rebirth, but the alien didn’t understand how what Father Simon was doing could be considered meritorious.

  “You blur the boundaries ordained by the Universal Essence,” Jawbone complained one day as they sat talking philosophy. “You treat strangers as kin. Next you will be treating enemies as friends.”

  “Our Teacher told us we must love our enemies as we love ourselves.”

  Jawbone hissed with laughter. “Even those who imprison you here?”

  “Especially those,” Father Simon told him. “Especially those are we commanded to love.”

  “Yes,” said One-Eye with growing excitement. “Yes. By loving those who wrong you, you free yourself from bondage to them. You gain closure on the past and your essence is free to move onward.”

  “Uh, that’s certainly part of it,” the priest said.

  “Oh excellent,” One-Eye said, rocking back and forth and holding onto himself. “Oh, most excellent wisdom. Thank you Father Simon. Thank you.”

  One-Eye and Jawbone weren’t the only ones who had opinions about Father Simon’s actions. The humans thought he had cracked up, and the priest was developing a reputation among the other prisoners as well.

  “They call you a sorcerer,” One-Eye told him one day, hissing with amusement. “They think you visit those who have turned their faces to the wall to steal their essences.”

  “I am sorry to hear that,” Father Simon said.

  “There are others who deny that you steal essences. Some who had turned their faces to the wall turned them again after you visited them. They proclaim you a great healer who comes among us to do good.” He hissed more loudly. “Of course that makes you an even bigger sorcerer to them.”

  “How can I show them that I am not a sorcerer?”

  “You cannot,” One-Eye snapped. “You cannot because they are credulous fools. Although they are less to blame than you. They have no notion of what constitutes wisdom. You know wisdom and you twist it by mixing it with cult-stuff.”

  “For me, wisdom grows directly from my religion. It is not alien to religion, it is an integral part of it.”

  “It leads to dangerous confusions,” One-Eye said.

  “You have not yet found a logical flaw,” Father Simon said mildly.

  The old philosopher snorted explosively.

  Father Simon had noticed that One-Eye had been growing more intense in his arguments for some time. Ever since the incident with Fruitpicker, the Colonist had been questioning him more sharply, probing harder for weaknesses or holes in his arguments. The easy, scholarly air that had pervaded their earlier discussions was gone and in its place was almost a hostility. Occasionally One-Eye would find something in what Father Simon said that would make him rock back and forth with excitement, but mostly he was an inquisitor determined to find flaws.

  The final break came in a discussion of the nature of God, specifically while he and Jawbone were talking about the differences between the True Forms’ Universal Essence and the Christian God.

  “So you believe this force being directly influences other beings?” Jawbone asked the priest while One-Eye sat by and fidgeted.

  “Yes.”

  “He influences your life?”

  “Yes. I have felt Him. Just as I have felt gravity.”

  “But gravity is,” Jawbone protested.

  “Show me gravity,” Father Simon challenged. “Measure me off a meter of gravity, weigh me out a kilogram, or just draw me a picture.”

  “Absurd,” said One-Eye. “One does not see gravity. One knows it by its effects.”

  “So it is with God’s love,” said Father Simon.

  “Preposterous!” said One-Eye. “Your god is filled with love for all beings, is he not?”

  “Yes.”

  “And your god is all-seeing and all-powerful.”

  “So we believe.”

  “Then why is there pain and misery in the world? Eh?” He cocked his head. “Why do we suffer so?”

  “Because one of God’s gifts is free will. God leaves each being free to choose his or her own orbit. We may act rightly or wrongly and although it pains God greatly when we act wrongly, He will not interfere. He leaves us free to work out our own destinies.”

  “A difficulty,” Jawbone put in. “How can beings’ orbits be unconstrained if this all-powerful, all-knowing force exists?”

  “The force itself is a being with its own will. It wills that we should be free to choose our own orbits. God knows the outcome because God’s knowledge is infinite. He comprehends all space and time because He stands outside space and time. Thus He knows what the outcome will be, but He chooses to allow us to exercise our free will.”

  Jawbone grunted, a harsh, coughing bark. “Plausible.”

  “But let us return to the main point,” said One-Eye. “You say that your god knows the outcome?”

  “He does.”

  “And he knows that many beings will choose wrongly?”

  “He knows that.”

  “And further, that because of those wrong choices these beings will be punished?”

  “Yes.”

&n
bsp; “Then why does this god who loves all things allow them free will when it means eternal misery for many of them?”

  “We do not know the complete answer to that,” the priest said. “God is beyond complete human understanding. We do know that God can draw good out of physical evil and that pain and trial can draw us closer to God.”

  “So your perfectly good being, for reasons you cannot know, sanctions wrong actions and then punishes those who make it? He stands idly by and watches as the innocent are murdered? He countenances condemning the blameless to a living death? This is absurd!”

  “It is a difficulty, certainly,” Father Simon replied. “But as you recognize, a difficulty does not necessarily make a doubt. Further, I can demonstrate to you that the problem cannot be so stated as to show any absolute contradiction.”

  The philosopher froze. “This is not wisdom, this is madness!” One-Eye roared at last. “You confuse and corrupt us with your unnatural ways. I will have no more of it.” With that the Colonist rose and stalked out into the corridor.

  Jawbone hesitated and then got up and followed.

  “. . . And he just walked off,” Father Simon said when he told Sharon Dolan about the incident that evening.

  “It sounds like you offended him,” Sharon said.

  “I know, but I can’t for the life of me understand how.”

  “Some people don’t like to lose arguments. I guess Owlies are the same way.”

  Father Simon frowned. “One-Eye didn’t seem like the kind of man who’d get mad just because he was bested in a philosophical discussion.”

  “He’s not a man,” Sharon said sharply. “He’s an Owlie.”

  “Right now he’s a mystery,” the priest said. “I still wish I knew what I did.”

  It was several days before Father Simon saw either One-Eye or Jawbone again. By this time, he was familiar enough with the warrens that he was able to continue his rounds without a guide. He missed the aliens and their talks, but he didn’t understand what had happened. And even if he knew what to apologize for, he didn’t know where to find either of the Colonists.

  Then one morning, Father Simon found One-Eye waiting for him outside the door.

  “I came to admit to you that you are right,” One-Eye said. “For many cycles, I have sought the tranquility that wisdom and right action could bring me.” His beak was slightly open and he was panting as if in pain. “I thought that I had found it, but I see now that I was in error. You have shown me a better way and I wish to understand it fully.” One-Eye crouched before the priest. “Fathersimon, I beg you to initiate me into the mysteries of your cult.”

  “What?” Father Simon gasped.

  “Please Fathersimon. I wish to be of the body and blood of the Christ.”

  “That . . . that’s not a simple matter, One-Eye,” Father Simon licked his lips.

  “I will do whatever is necessary.”

  “I will have to think on this,” the priest muttered. “Excuse me.” He turned and hurried back through the guarded portal into the human quarters.

  Next to Father Simon, Sharon Dolan left the human quarters the most of all the humans. She didn’t go far, but sometimes the boredom and the cabin fever drove her past the guards at the door and out into the nearby corridors.

  She was very careful where she went and at the least sign of a Colonist she would backtrack or hide. Thus she was all the more surprised when an alien voice boomed out behind her as she was coming down the corridor. Sharon screamed and jumped.

  There was One-Eye. “I would speak with you,” the translation came.

  Sharon recognized him, of course. “If—if I can,” she said, placing her hand on her chest.

  “I did not mean to perturb your harmony,” the alien said, making a conscious effort to lower his voice.

  “That’s all right,” Sharon told him. “You just startled me.”

  “You are the one called Sharon who is the friend of Fathersimon?”

  “I am one of his friends,” Sharon told him. “All humans are friends here.” Except for Aubrey!

  “Yes, Fathersimon has told me.” The alien hissed. “Most excellent wisdom. You have influence with him, is this not so?”

  “Well, some I suppose,” Sharon said hesitantly. “What is it you want?”

  “Truth!” exclaimed One-Eye, forgetting to modulate his voice. “I wish to learn the cult wisdom of Fathersimon. Please Sharon, I beg you to use your influence that he will resume teaching us.”

  Sharon found the priest alone in the common room, sitting slumped over with his hands clasped between his knees.

  “Father, I just met One-Eye in the corridor. He had an odd request.”

  Father Simon looked up. “What was that?”

  “He wanted me to use my influence with you so you would teach him.” She paused, unsure. “I think he wants to learn about Christianity.”

  Father Simon closed his eyes and sighed. “I know,” he said softly. “I know.”

  “Father, excuse me, but what the hell is going on?”

  The priest smiled a strained smile. “I seem to have started something quite by accident. One-Eye and I got to talking because I wanted to learn more about the Colonists’ philosophies. He was apparently a philosopher of some note before he was imprisoned, you know. Of course I talked to him about human philosophies and one thing led to another and I told him about Christianity.”

  “Catholic Christianity, naturally.”

  “It is the kind I am most familiar with,” Father Simon said dryly. “In any event, the next thing I knew he wanted to convert.”

  Sharon goggled. “An alien wanted to become a Catholic? Forgive me Father, but you must be one hell of a preacher!”

  Father Simon grimaced. “You find that odd?”

  “Well, Christianity is a human religion.”

  “Strictly speaking, it is not. Our Lord commanded that the Gospel be spread to all men and unless you want to limit the term ‘men’ to male humans only . . .” he trailed off and sat wrapped in thought.

  “Yes, but don’t the Colonists have their own religions?”

  “Well, yes and no apparently. They have a huge number of cults, including a major cult of ancestor worship, and they have a kind of state ritual centered around the sun and civic virtue. They also have a strong belief in what we’d call astrology. But those aren’t complete religions.”

  “And Catholicism is.”

  “Christianity is. Catholicism is the most fully developed version of Christianity in this regard. But for that matter most of the major religions are complete religions.”

  He sighed and shifted position again.

  “Miss Dolan, religion meets some of the most fundamental needs of a thinking being. It answers questions like ‘who am I’ and why am I here.’ All the major human religions—Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, even Hinduism—share certain characteristics. They provide an ethical system, a basis for philosophy and a source of spiritual comfort. They appeal to the whole being.

  “Cults generally don’t. They may provide part of that, especially spiritual comfort, but most are deficient as a source of ethics and their philosophical underpinnings are anything but consistent—or even coherent in most cases.”

  “And that’s important?”

  “For some people that’s vital. If you move beyond the simple act of belief it becomes increasingly important. First ethics—what is right action?—and then the larger, philosophical questions.”

  “You’re saying that the Colonists don’t have that?”

  “Not in one piece. These people supplement their cults with philosophies. Their philosophy is quite sophisticated, but like human schools of philosophy they are not very comforting. And the ethics commanded by their philosophers are an uneasy mix with their cults.”

  He sighed again. “It’s an old, old story. It happened a lot on Earth and that had a great deal to do with the spread of Christianity. Christianity has something that these people seem never
to have encountered before. Apparently some of them find it very attractive.”

  “Why won’t you teach them then?” Sharon asked.

  The priest looked pained. “Miss Dolan, it’s not that simple, believe me.”

  “Is it that you’re afraid they might not have souls?”

  “No, no. It has been generally accepted for years that aliens that have sufficient intelligence are presumed to have souls.” He flicked a nervous smile at her. “Subject to contrary proof, of course, but I see none of that here.”

  “Then why won’t you convert them? Isn’t that what a priest is supposed to do?”

  “It is what some priests are supposed to do. Miss Dolan, I am not a missionary. I do not have permission from my superiors to act as one.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Believe me, that is quite a sufficient impediment. There are strict canons about who may act as a missionary, a legacy of some of the excesses of the twentieth century. Without the proper license I cannot work as a missionary.”

  “But you’re here and they are not.”

  “That does not change things. I do not have the authority for missionary work.” He shook his head.

  “The Church foresaw some situations when we went into space. We are no longer bound to use only olive oil, wine and wheaten bread in the sacraments, for instance, not in an emergency. We saw the need for so many things. But this . . . this goes beyond anything anyone imagined.”

  “What are you going to do?” Sharon asked, resting a hand on his shoulder.

  He reached up and patted it. “I don’t know, Miss Dolan. I honestly don’t know.”

  When he came out the next day, One-Eye and Jawbone were waiting for him.

  “Did Sharon tell you my request?” One-Eye asked the priest.

  “She did.” He sighed. “I am very sorry, but I cannot do as you ask. Under the rules of my kind I am not allowed to make converts. I was not given that authority before we left because we did not know we would meet other reasoning beings.”

  One-Eye stood motionless for a long time. “Then I will live as you have taught us that I may share in this wisdom as far as you will allow and that I may be a constant reproach to you.”