The Warlock Unlocked

by Christopher Stasheff

  “I know thou dost not.” The Abbot looked troubled. “And there is the cause of it. We do not feel we should eat off gold plate, if our people go hungry. Yet they do go in hunger, for there’s simply not enough coin flowing to the Crown, for us to be able to channel back more than we do.”

  “Thou couldst levy greater taxes,” the Abbot offered, half-heartedly.

  Tuan shook his head. “Firstly, an’ we did, the barons upon whom we levy it would simply wrench it out of their villeins, who are the same poor we speak of here; and secondly, because, if the barons did not, the villeins would rise in rebellion. No, Milord Abbot—the taxes are already as high as we may push them.”

  “For example,” said Catharine sweetly, “thou thyself, Lord Abbot, would be first to protest if we levied a tax on all the vast lands of the Church!”

  “And little would you gain thereby,” the Abbot declared stiffly. “The Order’s holdings are scarcely a fortieth part of thy whole kingdom!”

  “Datum correct,” Fess immediately hummed behind Rod’s ear. And if Fess said it, it had to be right—statistics were his hobby.

  But it struck Rod as anomalous, that a medieval administrator could be so accurate, without being able to consult the State’s records.

  “Many of thy barons hold more!” the Abbot went on. “And of our income from those lands, the bulk is already given out to the poor—so thou wouldst gain quite little by taxing us! Excepting, mayhap,” he amended, “that thou mightest, thereby, take even more from the poor!”

  “You see?” Rod threw up his hands. “The well’s dry; you’ve said it yourself.”

  The Abbot looked up, startled, then realized that he had.

  “And if both Church and State are already giving all they can,” Rod pursued, “what more can we do?”

  “Put the administration of what funds there are under one single exchequer,” the Abbot said promptly; and Rod’s stomach sank as he realized he’d lost the initiative. “Two whole trains of people are currently employed in the disbursing of these funds, and the upshot is, a village I know has two poorhouses, one a hospice of our Order, one paid by the Crown—and there are scarcely twenty souls who need either! Such doubling is costly. Moreover, if only one staff worked at this task, the others’ pay could go to the poor—and since the Brothers of St. Vidicon do this work for only meager bed and board, assuredly ours would be the less expensive staff to maintain!”

  Rod sat, dumfounded. Of course, it was possible that the Lord Abbot had hit on this idea by himself—but Rod doubted it.

  “Subject refers to duplication of effort,” Fess murmured behind his ear, “a concept in systems analysis. Such concepts are far too sophisticated for a medieval society. Off-planet influence must be suspected.”

  Or time-traveller influence. Who was sticking a finger in the Gramarye pie this time, Rod wondered—the future Anarchists, or the Totalitarians?

  Probably the Anarchists; they tended to work on highly-placed officials. Though there was a proletarian issue here…

  He’d paused too long. Catharine was saying, caustically, “Aye, leave an hundred or so loyal servants without employment, and their wives and families without bread! Thou wilt thus assure thyself of good custom at thine almshouses, Lord Abbot!”

  The Lord Abbot’s face reddened; it was time for Rod to get back in. “Surely neither system is perfect, Lord Abbot. But, with two operating, what the one misses, the other catches.” Had he heard of redundancy? “For example, does the Church still divide its charity-money equally, between all the parishes?”

  “Aye.” The Abbot nodded, frowning. “That which the parish itself doth not raise.”

  “But parishes in Runnymede have a much greater proportion of desperately needy than the rural parishes,” Rod explained.

  The Abbot blinked, and stared, wide-eyed.

  “I don’t think the parish priests have even had time to notice it, they’re so overworked.” Rod was a great one for saving the other guy’s face. “But the King’s almshouses are there, giving these poor parishioners at least enough for bare subsistence. That’s the advantage to having two systems—and the disadvantage to only having one. Who then would catch what the officers missed?”

  He’d gone on long enough for the Abbot to recover. “There’s some truth in that,” he admitted. “But surely, if there are to be two systems, at least each one should be self-governing. Would it not work at its best that way?”

  Rod glanced at the Queen and King. Catharine was considering it—and didn’t seem disposed to commit herself.

  “Aye,” Tuan said slowly, “I confess there’s reason to that.”

  “But mine cannot be so!” The Abbot slapped the tabletop and sat back with an air of triumph, obviously pleased with himself for having gotten them back to the topic they hadn’t wanted to discuss—and with such a good case for it, too.

  “No—it really can’t, I suppose.” As far as Rod was concerned, the timing was just right.

  “Nay. While the Crown appoints priests to parishes, I cannot set the man I deem best for the task, to the doing of that task. Does this not lessen the excellence of this double-chain thou speakest of?”

  “At least our appointments are better than those of the barons, whose choices obtained ere I was crowned,” Catharine retorted; but her tone lacked vehemence.

  “For which, I must thank Your Majesties.” The Abbot inclined his head. “Yet is it not now time to take a further step on the upward road?”

  “Mayhap,” Tuan said judiciously, “though it’s surely not to the Crown’s advantage to lessen any further its hold over the roots of government…”

  “But is it to the interests of thy people?” the Abbot murmured.

  Tuan fairly winced. “There, good Milord, thou touchest the quick. Yet thou wilt understand, I trust, that the Queen and I must discuss these matters you have so kindly brought to our attention, at some length.”

  “That,” Catharine warned, “will be a fulsome talk, and hot.”

  Tuan grinned. “Why, then, here I stand.” Suiting the action to the word, he stood. “Wilt thou, then, hold us excused, Lord Abbot? For indeed, we should begin this while we’re fresh to it.”

  “But of course, Your Majesties.” The Abbot scrambled to his feet, and even inclined his head a little. “Thou wilt, then, summon me, when thou dost feel further need of, ah, converse, on this matter?”

  “Be assured, we shall,” Tuan said grandly, “and so, good e’en.”

  “God be with thee,” the Abbot muttered, sketching a quick cross in the air. Then the doors boomed wide as the two monarchs turned away, arm in arm, and paced out, in a hurry—but more, Rod suspected, to get to a chess game with a small boy, than to discuss affairs of state.

  Still, he couldn’t let the Abbot suspect that—and he had a curiosity bump to scratch. “Now, Milord—about your founder…”

  “Eh?” The Abbot looked up, startled. “Oh, aye! I did say, when there would be time.”

  “All the time in the world,” Rod assured him. “The wife doesn’t expect me home till late.”

  Air rang with a small thunderclap, and Toby stood there, pale and wide-eyed. “Lord Warlock, go quickly! Gwendylon hath sent for thee—thy son Geoffrey hath gone into air!”

  Rod fought down a surge of panic. “Uh—he does that all the time, Toby—especially after you’ve just been there. Just lost, right?”

  “Would she send for thee if he were?”

  “No, hang it, she wouldn’t!” Rod swung back to the Abbot. “You must excuse me, Milord—but this’s got to be a genuine emergency! My wife’s a woman of very sound judgement!”

  “Why, certes, be on thy way, and do not stay to ask leave of a garrulous old man! And the blessings of God go with thee, Lord Warlock!”

  “Thank you, Milord!” Rod whirled away, out the door, with Toby beside him. “Try not to pop in like that, when there’s a priest around, Toby,” he advised. “It makes them nervous.”

  CHAPTER FOUR<
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  Someone’s out to get me,” Father Al muttered, as he flew through an underground tube in a pneumatic car, along with a dozen of his fellow passengers from Terra. They had just filed out of the liner from Luna and up to the datawall. Father Al had found his entry, and seen that the ship to Beta Cassiopeia was leaving at 17:23 GST, from Gate 11 of the North Forty terminal. Then he’d looked up at the digital clock and seen, to his horror, that it was 17:11, and he was in the South 220 terminal. That meant he was 180 degrees away from his next ship in both horizontal and vertical planes—which meant that he was exactly on the opposite side of the two-and-a-half-mile-wide planetoid that was Proxima Station!

  So down, and into the tube. The only saving grace was that he didn’t have to pass through Customs, as long as he stayed within the Station. That, and the speed of the pneumatic car—it could cross the two-and-a-half kilometers in three minutes. It could’ve done the trip in less than a minute, if the computer didn’t limit it to 1.5 G acceleration and deceleration at the beginning and end of the trip. Under the circumstances, Father Al would’ve settled for the quicker time, and taken his chances on ending his existence as a thin paste on the front of the car. It had taken him five minutes to find the tube, and a four-minute wait before the car came.

  Deceleration pushed him toward the front of the car, then eased off and disappeared. The doors hissed open, and he was on his feet, turning and twisting between other passengers, threading his way toward the platform. “Excuse me… Excuse me… I beg your pardon, madame…Oh, dear! I’m sorry about your foot, sir…”

  Then he was through, and standing, hands clasped on his suitcase handle, glaring at the lift’s readout. The minutes crawled agonizingly by while a discreet, impersonal voice from the ceiling informed him that Chairlady Spaceways’ Flight 110 to Beta Casseiopeia was about to depart from Gate 11; last call for Chairlady Spaceways’ Flight 110…

  The lift doors hissed open. Father Al held himself back by a straining effort of will as the passengers filed out; then he bolted in. That was a mistake; five people crowded in behind him. The doors hissed shut, and he began elbowing his way back to them. “Excuse me…I’m sorry, but this really is imperative… I’m sorry, sir, but my liner’s leaving, and the next one’s apt to be quite a while coming…”

  Then the doors hissed open, and he charged out, with one eye watching to avoid a collision, and the other watching for signs. There it was—Gates 10 through 15, and an arrow pointing to the left! He swerved like a comet reeling around the Sun, leaving a trail of bruised feet, jogged elbows, and shattered tempers behind him.

  Gate 11! He skidded to a halt, leaped toward the door—and realized it was chained shut. With a sinking heart, he looked up at the port-wall—and saw a glowing spot already small and diminishing, the St. Elmo’s-Fire phosphorescence that surrounded a ship under planetary drive, growing smaller and dimmer as his ship moved away.

  For a moment, he sagged with defeat; then his chin came up, and his shoulders squared. Why was he letting it bother him? After all, it wouldn’t be that long before the next flight to Casseiopeia.

  But the datawall said otherwise; the next flight to Beta Cass. wasn’t leaving for a week! He stared at it in disbelief, Yorick’s warning to hurry echoing in his ears. Rod Gallowglass was going to disappear, and Father Al had to make sure he disappeared with him!

  Then a nasty suspicion formed at the back of his mind. Admittedly, it was too soon to say—three times is enemy action, and he’d only been delayed twice; but Rod Gallowglass was about to discover some sort of extraordinary power within himself, and probably had some major flaw in his personality, as almost everyone had—well-hidden and well-rationalized, to be sure, but there nonetheless. That flaw could be a handle to grasp his soul by, and twist him toward evil actions—again, well-hidden and well-rationalized, not recognized as evil; but evil nonetheless. He could be a very powerful tool in the hands of Evil—or a great force for Good, if someone were there to point out the moral pitfalls and help him steer clear of them.

  Definitely, it helped Evil’s chances if Father Al missed contact with Rod Gallowglass.

  And it was so easy to do—just make sure he missed his ship, and arrived on Gramarye too late! All Hell had to do was to help human perversity run a little more than its natural course. Perhaps the captain of the liner had been in a bad mood, and hadn’t been about to wait a second longer than was necessary, even though one of the booked passengers hadn’t arrived yet… Perhaps the spaceport controller had had an argument earlier that day, and had taken it out on the rest of the world by assigning the ship from Terra to the South 220 terminal, instead of the North 40; so Finagle had triumphed, and the perversity of the universe had tended toward maximum.

  Father Al turned on his heel and strode away toward the center of the terminal.

  Father Al arrived in the main concourse and strolled down the row of shops, searching. The Church did all it could to make the Sacraments available to its members, no matter how far from Terra they might be—and especially in places where they might need its comfort and reinforcement most. There was one Order that paid particular attention to this problem; surely they wouldn’t have ignored a major way-station on the space lanes…

  There it was—a curtained window with the legend, “Chapel of St. Francis Assisi” emblazoned on it. Father Al stepped through the double door, gazed around at the rows of hard plastic pews, the burgundy carpet, and the plain, simple altar-table on the low dais, with the crucifix above it on a panelled wall, and felt a huge unseen weight lift from his shoulders. He was home.

  The Franciscans were very hospitable, as they always were. But there was a bit of a problem when he explained what he wanted.

  “Say Mass? Now? With respect, Father, it’s six o’clock in the evening.”

  “But surely you have evening Masses.”

  “Only on Saturday evenings, and the vigils of holy days.”

  “I’m afraid it really is necessary, Father.” Father Al handed the Franciscan his letter from the Pope. “Perhaps this will make the situation more clear.”

  He hated to pull rank—but it was satisfying to watch the Franciscan’s eyes widen when he looked at the signature. He folded the letter and handed it back to Father Al, clearing his throat. “Yes. Well… certainly, Father. Whatever you’d like.”

  “All I need is the altar, for half an hour.” Father Al smiled. “I don’t think there’ll be any need for a sermon.”

  But he was wrong. As he began to say Mass, passersby glanced in, stopped, looking startled, then came quietly in, found a pew, and knelt down. When Father Al looked up to begin the Creed, he stared in amazement at a couple dozen people in front of him, most of them well-dressed travellers, but with a good sprinkling of spaceport mechanics and dirtside crew—and a few gentlemen with three-day beards, whose coveralls were patched, greasy, and baggy at the knees. It was curious how any major spaceport always seemed to develop its own skid row, even if it was millions of AU’s from any habitable planet. It was even more surprising how many Catholics cropped up out of the plastic-work at the drop of an altar bell.

  Under the circumstances, he felt obliged to say something—and there was one sermon he always had ready. “My brothers and sisters, though we are in a Chapel of St. Francis, allow me to call to your minds the priest in whose honor my own Order was founded—St. Vidicon of Cathode, martyr for the faith. In the seminary, he had a problem—he kept thinking in terms of what did work, instead of what should work. He was a Jesuit, of course.

  “He also had a rather strange sense of humor. When he was teaching, his students began to wonder whether he believed more firmly in Finagle than in Christ. Too many young men were taking his jokes seriously, and going into Holy Orders as a result. His bishop was delighted with all the vocations, but was a bit leery of the reasons—so the Vatican got wind of it. The Curia had its doubts about his sense of humor, too, so they transferred him to Rome, where they could keep an eye on him. As an excuse for
this surveillance, they made him Chief Engineer of Television Vatican.

  “The term is confusing today, of course; ‘television’ was like 3DT, but with a flat picture; 3DT was originally an abbreviation for ‘three-dimensional television.’ Yes, this was quite a few centuries ago—the Year of Our Lord 2020.

  “Well. Father Vidicon was sad to leave-off teaching, but he was overjoyed at actually being able to work with television equipment again… and he didn’t let his nearness to the Pope dampen his enthusiasm; he still insisted on referring to the Creator as ‘the Cosmic Cathode…’ ”

  “Praise God, from Whom electrons flow!

  Praise Him, the Source of all we know!

  Whose order’s in the stellar host!

  For in machines, He is the Ghost!”

  “Father Vidicon,” Monsignor reproved, “that air has a blasphemous ring.”

  “Merely irreverent, Monsignor.” Father Vidicon peered at the oscilloscope and adjusted the pedestal on Camera Two. “But then, you’re a Dominican.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “Simply that what you hear may not be what I said.” Father Vidicon leaned over to the switcher and punched up color bars.

  “He has a point.” Brother Anson looked up from the TBC circuit board he was diagnosing. “I thought it quite reverent.”

  “You would; it was sung.” Monsignor knew that Brother Anson was a Franciscan. “How much longer must I delay my rehearsal, Father Vidicon? I’ve an Archbishop and two Cardinals waiting!”

  “You can begin when the camera tube decides to work, Monsignor.” Father Vidicon punched up Camera Two again, satisfied that the oscilloscope was reading correctly. “If you insist on bringing in Cardinals, you must be prepared for a breakdown.”

  “I really don’t see why a red cassock would cause so much trouble,” Monsignor grumbled.

  “You wouldn’t; you’re a director. But these old plumbicon tubes just don’t like red.” Father Vidicon adjusted the chrominance. “Of course, if you could talk His Holiness into affording a few digital-plate cameras…”