by Rick Cook
“And I also,” said Jawbone.
“I am sorry,” Father Simon said again.
Whenever Father Simon left the human quarters, One-Eye would be waiting for him. He accompanied him on his visits to the other prisoners and he and Jawbone took to visiting the sick prisoners as well. They still talked philosophy, but Father Simon tried to steer the discussion away from theology as much as he could.
One-Eye wasn’t always in attendance on Father Simon. He would go off on his own visits to the sick or on other alien business. But the priest never knew when he would look up and find the one-eyed philosopher standing quietly behind him, watching him with his single good eye.
Father Simon had a general idea what One-Eye was doing but he didn’t find out the details until sometime later, and quite by accident.
The priest was out on one of his solitary walks, increasingly rare now because of the press of other business. He had reached the furthest point on his circuit and he was getting ready to turn back when he saw someone in the distance coming down the corridor.
Father Simon wasn’t afraid of the aliens like Sharon Dolan, but he tried to avoid them in deserted areas. So he slipped back into an alcove off a side tunnel. It wasn’t until the Colonist was almost on top of him that he recognized One-Eye.
The alien was moving down the corridor with a sack over his shoulder. At every intersection he stopped and looked in all directions, swiveling his head nearly all the way around to look over his shoulders with his single good eye. Then he padded stealthily on.
Father Simon waited until the Colonist was well out of sight. Then he walked back in the other direction and sought out Jawbone.
The Colonist was squatting in a corridor talking to two other aliens. When the priest approached, Jawbone’s companions withdrew respectfully.
“They still fear you a little, Fathersimon,” Jawbone explained with a hiss of laughter. Then he looked at the priest with his huge yellow eyes and became more serious. “Since it is not time for our talks, you must want to see me about something else. What?”
“What is One-Eye up to?”
Jawbone twitched a shrug. “Inspired by your cult, he seeks wisdom. What else?”
“What does seeking wisdom have to do with sneaking around carrying a sack?”
The Colonist looked at him intently. “Who told you this thing?”
“I saw it. Just now. He was carrying something in a bag and he was trying very hard not to be seen.”
Jawbone looked up and down the corridor to make sure they were alone. Then he leaned close to the priest.
“One-Eye has been collecting food from the other prisoners to take to the ones in the outer tunnels.”
“Outer tunnels?” Father Simon asked blankly.
“This was once a much larger place,” Jawbone explained. “There are many tunnels which are unmaintained and uninhabited. Some of them still have pressure.”
“What is out there?”
Jawbone stared at him. “You do not know? No, for your kind are valuable and kept safe and cosseted. Well, we are not. Not all of us have the breeding or wisdom to turn our faces to the wall when this place becomes unendurable. Others become lost within themselves, sometimes quietly, sometimes dangerously. When one becomes so lost as to be uncontrollable, the guards drive that one into the outer tunnels. There they wander to live or die as Heaven wills.”
Father Simon stared at him. “And One-Eye has been going there alone?”
Jawbone tossed his head in agreement. “The ways in to the Outer Tunnels are sealed and guarded. But One-Eye is very old. He has been here longer than any other one, I think. Certainly he knows things about this place that not even the guards know. Including how to get in and out of those places.”
“That is dangerous, isn’t it?”
“More than you know, perhaps. We are not allowed to go outside our tunnels and the guards would kill him if they caught him. But worse, he gets other prisoners to cooperate with him. The one thing the guards fear above all else is that we will make alliance against them. They do not know about his trips to the outer tunnels, but they do know that he causes prisoners to cooperate. It is all very dangerous.”
“If he is not careful something terrible will happen to him,” Father Simon said.
“He tests them and through them himself,” Jawbone told him. “This will end badly, I think.”
The next day, Father Simon sought out One-Eye in one of the tunnels near the sleeping quarters.
“I understand you have been going into the outer tunnels to help the people there,” the priest said as they walked along.
“I have,” One-Eye said serenely.
“I appreciate your efforts and I honor you for them, but I urge you to be careful.”
One-Eye hissed. “I am always careful, Fathersimon.”
“I would also urge that you do not throw your life away.”
The alien stopped and faced the priest. “Fathersimon, you are not my priest so you are not responsible for my conscience. I must do as my conscience commands me.”
“I think what you do, you do for pride,” the priest told him. “That is a sin.”
One-Eye fixed him with his yellow unblinking eye. “Perhaps I err, for I have no teacher. But I try to help those who need help that I may grow in wisdom.”
The guards came early in the morning.
Roaring and screaming, they rousted the sleeping humans from their beds and hustled them out into the corridor in a confused, shivering knot.
There were more guards waiting there, with an officer to direct them. Two of the guards held a Colonist in a prisoner’s smock slumped over between them. It took Father Simon a second look to realize that the prisoner was One-Eye.
He was shrunken and quivering, with dark patches of blood on his fur/feathers. The talons of one hand were twisted and crushed and the forearm hung at an odd angle. But when he saw the humans with Father Simon in the front he straightened up and stood as proudly as the guards holding him would allow.
The officer gave One-Eye a contemptuous look and then stalked over to the priest.
“This one has acted wrongly,” the alien roared, sticking his beak in Father Simon’s face and speaking so loudly that the priest’s ears rang. “You are commanded to command him to stop.”
“If he has acted to harm you then of course he should stop,” Father Simon replied. “But he is not under my orders and he will not obey me.” He breathed deeply. “Even if he were I cannot order him to go against his own beliefs.”
“I obey only my own conscience,” One-Eye said from where the guards held him. One of the guards smashed him across the back with a truncheon and he lurched forward in the grasp of his captors.
The officer snapped his beak in Father Simon’s face and in spite of himself the priest flinched back. Then he stalked away from him to where the guards held One-Eye. He thrust his muzzle into One-Eye’s face and yelled at him.
The words came too fast for the humans’ translators, but the din was terrible. Several humans clasped their hands over their ears to try to shut out the noise.
One-Eye waited without moving until the officer finished with a beak snap like an explosion.
“No,” One-Eye told him.
The officer bristled. His fur/feathers puffed out away from his body and his beak clacked like a gunshot ringing through the tunnel. The guards let go of the Colonist and stepped away from him. Sharon paled and clutched Father Simon’s arm. The priest bit his lip.
One-Eye stood unmoved and apparently unaffected by the display, calmly waiting what might come next.
The officer gestured and the guards with him raised their lasers. Even as the beams lanced out One-Eye raised his arm as if to bless them.
Three streaks of searing brightness crossed and struck the Colonist in the chest. Father Simon gasped and Sharon screamed, but One-Eye crumpled without a sound.
“You must be proud of him,” Sharon Dolan murmured as the guards dragged the bod
y of One-Eye off down the tunnel.
“I did not come here to make martyrs,” Father Simon replied stiffly and turned away.
The other humans filed wordlessly back into their quarters. Father Simon remained outside, looking at the stained spot on the rough rock floor where it had happened and praying for the soul of One-Eye.
He was still there several hours later when Jawbone motioned him further down the tunnel, out of earshot of the door guards.
“I am sorry, Fathersimon. They would not let any of us near this place.”
“I am sorry too, Jawbone,” the priest said sadly.
The alien twitched a shrug. “One-Eye was not sorry, I think. He had found what he sought.” He hissed. “A strange place to find ultimate wisdom, no? In death?”
Father Simon didn’t say anything for a long time. “I hope he found what he sought afterwards as well.”
“Is such a reward possible for one who is not a member of your cult?”
“Well, there are exceptions of course . . .” he started. “Oh, I don’t know!” he burst out. “I’m sick of theology, I’m sick of philosophy. And I’m sick of this place.” For the first time since seminary, Father Michael Simon began to cry. “God help me, I just don’t know anymore!”
Jawbone reached out a taloned hand and patted the priest’s shoulder gently.
“Forgive me, Jawbone,” Father Simon said finally. “I’m . . . well, please forgive me.”
“I understand, Fathersimon. It comes to all of us here.” He paused, his great yellow eyes fixed on the human.
“There is one other thing. One-Eye knew this would come soon. So he showed me the secret ways to the outer tunnels.” He shuddered slightly. “Truly it is terrible there. But his work will go on. I will do it and now there are others besides.”
“Please be careful,” the priest urged. Then he paled. “Oh my God! The translator! They’ve heared every word we’ve said.” He looked down in horror at the box slung off his shoulder.
Jawbone hissed. “The recording? No one ever listens to them. Do you think I would talk to you like this otherwise?” Then he made the alien gesture of negation. “No, never fear, Fathersimon, I will be very careful. I am not so willing as One-Eye to learn ultimate wisdom yet.”
With that, he turned and strode off up the tunnel. Father Simon said another prayer and then went back to the human place.
The guards came again later that evening. Four of them, with lasers ready. Without a word they moved into the common room where the humans were eating and arrayed themselves along the wall.
“Fathersimon come with us,” their leader roared out.
Father Simon placed his spoon on the table and rose.
“No!” Sharon screamed and jumped up. The guards leveled their rifles and stepped forward. The humans on either side of her grabbed her and pulled her down again.
“It’s all right Miss Dolan, they won’t hurt me.” The priest stepped around the table and the aliens closed in around him.
Father Simon was led through the tunnels far beyond his normal haunts. The guards neither spoke to him nor answered his questions. They simply hustled him along, forcing him to match their long springy strides until the human was huffing and panting to keep up.
Finally, the guards hustled him up a ramp and through an air lock guarded by two more of their kind with lasers. They shoved him further into the room and stood back along the wall, holding their guns ready.
The room was one of the largest Father Simon had seen since he came to this place and it was certainly the most luxurious. The floor was covered with soft matting and there were the slinglike contraptions the aliens used for seats everywhere. What’s more, there were growing things! The plants were almost black in the reddish light and they stretched their spindly, frondlike leaves up close to the lights set over them, but they were real plants. Their leaves and soil gave an odor to the air that was alien and atavistic all at once.
There was a Colonist in the center of the room. He was dressed in neither the smock of a prisoner or the harness of a guard. Instead, he wore the long tunic Father Simon had seen on the Colonists he dealt with over the Maxwell’s screens—how long ago.
“I am the elder of this place,” the alien said without preamble. “Here I command in the name of my lineage.”
“You are the warden then? I am Father Simon.”
“I know who you are. You are the Cult Leader among the humans,” the warden said through his translator.
“I am a priest, yes. Most of the humans are not of my religion.”
“You spread your cult among the Colonist prisoners without permission.”
“I teach those who ask it. I do not seek converts.”
“A quibble. You have no permission.”
The priest was silent.
The warden fluffed his fur/feathers. “This thing that happened today was a bad thing. It cannot be allowed to happen again.”
“I agree,” Father Simon said. “It was a very bad thing.”
“You caused this thing to happen. You made this one act wrongly.”
“One-Eye did what he believed he had to. He was not of my religion and I urged him to prudence. I am truly sorry for this.”
“After today, I cannot allow this,” the warden told him. “You have perturbed the orbits here and that cannot be permitted. You are to cease meeting with these others. You are not to go to them in their roosts.”
It comes to this, Father Simon thought. “No. I cannot do this. I will not talk about religion, but I must continue to visit the sick.”
The warden turned his head and stared at the priest; a hard, fixed stare as if he meant to leap at him.
“You defy me?”
“I must do as my conscience directs,” the priest said. “I will not teach my religion, for I am forbidden to do so by my superiors. But there are those who need my help. I cannot abandon them.”
The warden continued to stare, his arms stretched forward and his talons wide.
“Very well,” he said at last. “If you are disobedient, so be it. From today forward you will have guards about you always. Two at all times.” He gestured and two of the guards who had brought him here stepped away from the wall. “Now go. Leave me. And do not try my patience further.”
Outside in the corridor, the two chosen closed in beside him. Father Simon gestured at the Colonists. The guard on his right moved threateningly.
“Why did you do that?” he demanded.
“I blessed you,” Father Simon told the alien.
The guard waited a long time for the translation, then cocked his head to one side as if studying the priest.
“Shall we go?” Father Simon asked.
“You need not ask permission,” the other said. “You have authority to go anywhere the common prisoners go.”
“It is politeness to wait until one’s companions are ready, is it not?”
“We are not your companions,” the alien bellowed. “We are your guards!”
“We go about together, do we not?” asked the priest and set off down the tunnel. The guards followed after, obviously fuming.
Most of the time he got the same pair of guards. One was large, unyielding and gave the impression that he was looking for an excuse to rip the priest apart. The other was smaller, more slender and less threatening. Privately, he nicknamed them the Grim One and the Young One—although he had no way of knowing which guard was actually older.
The presence of the guards largely cut Father Simon off from his fellow human prisoners. They were uncomfortable around the aliens and tended to avoid his company because of them.
Oddly, the guards seemed to increase his stature with the Colonists. Although they kept clear of them just as they did for other guards, they didn’t shrink away from the priest any more. Somehow the guards gave him a legitimacy he had lacked before.
Except for the guards and the isolation from the other humans, life went on largely as before. Every day Father Simon went to s
ee the sick, the hopeless and the dying, to sit with them and talk to them and perhaps bring them water from the communal tap if they were too weak to get it themselves. If guards always at his back made him less welcome, they also brought him more respect from the prisoners.
Most of those he visited died within a day or two. But sometimes a prisoner would turn away from the wall after the priest’s visits. Father Simon was always careful to point out that he personally had nothing to do with what happened, but his stature increased even more. Even his guards began to treat him more respectfully and to hang back when he talked to the prisoners.
The little alcove where he had talked with Jawbone and One-Eye became crowded with Colonists who wanted to meet with him. Some simply wanted his blessing, some wanted to discuss philosophy and some had questions. Father Simon sat on the ledge with the Young One and the Grim One on either side. True to his word, he did not discuss religion.
It made for long days. Where the other humans spent most of their time asleep, Father Simon was out with the aliens fourteen to sixteen hours a day.
“If you can’t teach Christianity why do you keep talking to the aliens?” Sharon asked him one evening as he sat alone at the table eating the cold porridge the other humans had saved for him.
“Remember One-Eye? I don’t want that to happen again. Besides, I can perform acts of corporal mercy, even if they are small.”
Sharon eyed him. “You’re a remarkable man, Father. Most of us can’t stand the sight of the Owlies and you’re wearing yourself out trying to help them.”
“I think I got involved with them differently,” Father Simon told her. “I was the first one to speak to them and I spent more time talking to them—before—than any of the rest of you.”
“So you love them in spite of what they do?”
He stopped eating and frowned. “No, I can’t say that I love them, though I know I should. But there is something in them that is worthwhile.”