Starwater Strains

by Gene Wolfe

  Father Joseph nodded. “Most people do.”

  “My name’s Anthony Brook, by the way.” Somewhat belatedly, Brook extended a sweating hand.

  The priest accepted it. “Joe Krska.” Together they stood looking down at the apparently unpatterned network of stairs that crossed and recrossed the steep defile.

  “I ought to give you a card, I suppose,” Brook added. He fished in a big shirt pocket for one and at last produced it, a stiff, tissue-thin flake printed in bold black capitals.

  A slight smile tugged at Father Joseph’s sun-browned face. “You have a great many letters after your name.”

  “You can put it in—”

  “Oh, I can read. F.X.A.S. This last one. What does it mean?”

  “Fellow of the Exsolar Archeological Society. That’s why I’m here, actually.”

  Father Joseph sighed. “I hoped it had something to do with Francis Xavier. But you would like to sit down, Dr. Brook, and you won’t want to climb more steps. Why don’t we go in?”

  The interior of the mission seemed cool, almost cold, and dark after the pounding sunlight of Mirzam. There were no pews for worshippers, Brook noticed, but two old wooden chairs stood just inside the heavy door, which Father Joseph wedged expertly with a small stone until it stood half open. When it had been fixed in place to his satisfaction, he motioned toward one and seated himself in the other.

  “They built this under human supervision,” Brook said, looking around.

  Father Joseph shook his head. “They had seen our buildings and perhaps even studied them—if they needed to study anything so simple. But they built this themselves and presented it to the diocese. It was something of an embarrassment at the time, from what I’ve read. To some degree it still is.”

  Brook nodded, studying the airy columns and leaping arches of grainy, lion-colored stone. The arches traced a curve that appeared mathematical, though surely no parabola. The columns, he decided, were neither round nor ribbed; pierced by strangely shaped apertures like those in the cliffs outside, they seemed to breathe, sighing in the faint, hot breeze from the open door.

  “As I am,” concluded the priest. “How may I help you?”

  “Just let me look around for a few days,” Brook said. “I want to find out as much as possible about the Seraphs. I came here from the Motherworld to do that.”

  “It must have been extremely expensive.”

  “It was, but not for me—I’ve got a grant. I’ll stay five or six years, visit every site I can, and dig when I have to.”

  “I see.” The priest scratched his chin. In appearance at least, he was older than Brook; silver stubble gleamed beneath his fingers.

  “When was this built, Father?”

  “A hundred years ago.”

  Brook hesitated. “I’ve read that the last Seraph died in twenty-two ten.”

  “I saw a few as a boy.” The sentence hung in the dry shade of the nave, at once an invitation and a challenge: Credit this and I shall recount wonders that will be more to you than gold; credit this and you are twice a fool, a dupe and a fraud.

  “I don’t know,” Brook said slowly. “You must understand that I know them only from study.” Footsore and legweary though he was, he rose and walked to the head of the tangled stairways. “They could fly. It’s a point upon which all my sources agree, and some holostats show them winged. Why did they build this?”

  Father Joseph joined him. “They were winged for at least one stage of their lives, but they flew only on certain well-defined occasions. There was a nuptial flight, for example.”

  “You’ve studied them, too, haven’t you? And living here, you’ve had access to materials I’ve never seen.” Brook paused. “Or did you learn that firsthand?”

  “No, I read it in a book. In several, actually.”

  “You don’t mind if I look around and shoot some holostats of my own?”

  The priest did not answer, and after a moment Brook turned away. “If there’s anything you don’t want me to stat, just tell me. We’ll discuss it, and if you won’t agree I won’t do it.”

  “It’s all right,” the priest said. “There’s nothing here—Do you plan to leave today? Descend the stairs?”

  Brook nodded. “I’ll have to. My camping gear’s down there on my roller. I saw your sign.”

  “Thank you. You’d have driven up them otherwise?”

  “Of course. Oh, I realize that if enough people drove up and down, they’d destroy the stairs. But enough walkers, enough wear from enough boots, would do the same thing.”

  “You’ll fall,” the priest told him. “You’re tired already. You’ll be still more tired when you’ve examined and statted this church, and in places the steps are very steep. People have fallen before.” He hesitated. “I’ll sleep in my study tonight. I can lend you soap, a towel, and so forth.”

  “I couldn’t take your bed.”

  “I’d much rather sleep in my study than have you sleep there.”

  “If you think I’d poke—”

  The priest waved the objection aside. “Among my files? Of course not, and it wouldn’t matter if you did. There’s only one document—no, two—of any importance, and I’ll show them to you when you come up to the rectory.”

  “All right,” Brook said, “and thank you, Father. Thank you very much. I’d like to make a donation, if I may. Something in recognition of your hospitality.”

  “If you wish. I’ll have need of it very soon, I’m afraid. You’re not Catholic, Dr. Brook?”

  Brook shook his head.

  “Then you may not know what a sacristy is. Here, it’s the small room to the left of the altar. You’ll see my vestments hanging there. Go through the sacristy and out the door to your right; the steps lead up to my rectory. I’ll have supper on the stove before you’re through here, I’m sure.”

  Brook watched the priest’s retreating back until it faded to near invisibility among the shadows. For the first time he realized that there were no lights in the mission except for a single candle, remote and golden as some faraway sun beside the altar. Holography would be unsatisfactory in an hour or less. He went to work quickly, creating images more permanent and in a certain sense more real than the stone.

  “Stew,” Father Joseph said. “I hope you don’t mind. It’s what I usually eat in the evening, and right now it’s all I have ingredients for.”

  “Smells delicious.” Without waiting to be asked, Brook dropped into a chair. “You’re here all by yourself?”

  The priest stirred and sniffed. “More onions—for my taste at least. I like to think that God and his holy angels are with me, Dr. Brook.”

  “I mean—”

  “And the desert fathers, at least in spirit; Saint John of Damascus is a particular favorite of mine. But to answer your question as you intended it, yes. There’s no one like yourself or myself here, except you and me. And save for a few visitors like yourself, there never is.”

  “How do you get your supplies?”

  “I carry them on my back from Clear Springs. It’s nearly all dehydrated stuff, of course. My little dewdripper cracks as much water as I require out of the atmosphere, though it has to work very hard here to do it.”

  Brook remained silent while the priest ladled stew into two bowls. When they were on the table, he said bluntly, “I’d think you’d go mad.”

  “Possibly I have.” Father Joseph smiled. “Certainly my superiors thought I had when I asked them to send me here. I said I’d show you my only documents of any importance, didn’t I? I will, after grace.” He crossed himself and murmured a prayer Brook was too shy to join.

  After the amen, the priest rose and stepped into the next room, returning with an outer and two of the flimsy sheets old-fashioned people still called paper.

  The telltale flashed, and they were joined by an elderly man in black. “Dear Father Joseph Krska,” this newcomer began, “I have good news for you. We want you to return here to Saint Ardalion’s immediately. W
e require you for Senior Composition, Modern History, and Moral Theology. I feel sure it will be a great relief to you to leave such an isolated pastorate, and I congratulate you upon your new appointment.” The elderly man’s features tightened. “Don’t wait for a replacement, Father. No one will be coming. Lock up, and leave at once. I am Monsignor Augustine A. Nealy, Dean. Today is Wednesday, the twenty-third of August, twenty-three seventy-three.”

  Monsignor Nealy flickered. “Dear Father Joseph Krska, for the time being please disregard my last. A certain Dr. Brook, a distinguished scholar from the Motherworld, desires to holostat your mission; please render him all possible assistance. Remain there at Saint Seraphiel’s, please, for as long as you can be of help to him.” Monsignor Nearly’s eyes narrowed. “Father Graffe will have to take your classes temporarily. See to it, Father, that it’s not for more than a few days. And don’t write me any more of your letters! Simply come here as soon as you possibly can. I am Monsignor Augustine A. Nealy, Dean. This is Thursday, the twenty-fourth of August, twenty-three seventy-three.” Monsignor Nealy vanished.

  Father Joseph said, “You saved me, you see. Doubtless you thought that it was by your own will that you put out from the Motherworld so long ago—that you left to further archaeology, when in point of fact you left in answer to my prayers, though I was not yet born. I’m a thoroughgoing solipsist, you see.”

  Brook grinned. “I suppose we all are, Father, whether we admit it or not. You’re going to do it, aren’t you? Go back to the capital and teach moral theology and so forth?”

  “I’ve sworn obedience.”

  “But you don’t want to.” Brook tested his stew, finding it (as he had anticipated from the steam) still too hot to eat. “I never liked teaching undergrads much either.”

  The priest brought glasses of cool water. “I’d like that better than teaching them little, but I’ll have to teach them no more than they’re willing to learn, I suppose.”

  “You’ve been studying on your own up here?”

  “A bit. And writing a bit. There isn’t much else to do. I say mass every morning, of course, read my breviary and other books, write when I think I’ve learned something worth writing, pray, and wait.”

  “For me?” At his first taste of water, Brook found that he was parched; he drained his glass and set it down.

  “For them, Dr. Brook. This is a mission church, after all. They built it, but built it as a mission to themselves. They wished to become Christians, and some of them did.” The priest fell silent, staring into his untouched bowl. “One’s interred here. Did you find your way into the crypt?”

  “A crypt? No. I want to see it. I must, before you go.”

  “Tomorrow, then,” the priest said. “I’ll show it to you.”

  “And you say there’s a body there, the body of a Seraph? Remains are almost impossible to locate.”

  “I’ll show it to you,” the priest repeated.

  Twilight never came to this high desert. Brook had sponged himself in the shallow basin and was reaching for a towel when the light from the windows deepened to amber. Before he found the antique touchswitch, a host of blue-white, crimson, and Sol-yellow stars hung above the tableland like innumerable torches suspended from so many balloons—close enough, or so it seemed to Brook, for anyone upon a hilltop to touch at will, close enough to sway in the chill, dry night wind that had sprung full-grown from nowhere.

  In this desert, Brook reflected, this fellow Krska (how odd to think that he had been born when Brook’s own voyage to Mirzam was nearly ended!) had lived year after year, hearing only the histrionic rant of the HL and the wordless moanings of the wind. Four rooms, and a church to which nobody ever came.

  And the crypt. Where was it, and how could he have failed to find it, even without his sohner? He dressed again, testing his palmpilot before pulling on his boots.

  Downstairs, the study door stood ajar, and Brook ventured to peer inside. Father Joseph lay on his back on the makeshift pallet he had contrived for himself, a hand on his chest, his eyes open.

  “I thought I’d take another look around,” Brook said. “I haven’t quite been desensitized to the beauty of this corner of your world yet.”

  The priest did not reply.

  “I might go back to my roller and carry a few things up.”

  Without looking at him, Father Joseph murmured, “You were afraid to sleep.”

  “I haven’t tried, actually. I didn’t feel like it.”

  “Do you understand why I painted the stone?”

  “The sign at the bottom?” Brook hesitated. “We talked about that—so the rollers wouldn’t spoil the steps.”

  “Rollers roll too fast,” the priest murmured. And then, “Roll aside the stone.” His eyes closed.

  After a moment it occurred to Brook that Father Joseph had never, perhaps, been truly awake—that he, Brook, had spoken as a phantom in the priest’s dream; for no reason he could justify he shuddered.

  The narrow rear door by which he had left the church stood half open. He pointed a finger at it, letting golden light run down that finger like water to splash against the bare, cracked panels. The door was swinging a little in the wind; now that he saw it, he could distinguish the despairing creak of its hinges. He had neglected to shut it securely when he had left the church. Or perhaps the priest had visited the church afterward to recite some evening prayer before the altar. Or perhaps—

  Brook pushed the thought from his mind as he went down the steps from the rectory. These, unlike the mazed stair that rose from the dry bed of the wadi, had been gouged out of the rock by the machines of men—for beings like himself, with legs shorter than a Seraph’s. His knees ached again, just the same, by the time he had reached the bottom and entered the mission church.

  His upraised, open hand flooded the sacristy with light. A half step down, and the gritting of wind-driven sand accused him afresh. He closed the door firmly behind him; its latch was of wood, hard brown twigs so oddly and cleverly shaped that he knew at once that it too had been the work of Seraphs.

  A strangely shaped but quite unobstructed arch led from the sacristy to the chancel. There were no other doors save the one through which he had entered. A rough pole held the robes the priest had mentioned—green, scarlet, rose, purple, and white, all plain and rather cheap-looking. A cabinet held transparent vit chalices and corked bottles; it was not fastened down, and was not big enough to be the entrance to anything in any case.

  The cloth-draped altar cast a dense black shadow, ungainly and (Brook felt) almost brutal, down the center of the nave. He pulled aside the altar cloth, and discovered that the altar was a rugged mass of native rock; its top, and presumably its bottom as well, had been cut flat. A twenty centimeter square of some lighter-colored stone had been let into the top; this square was marked with the unbalanced cross he had noticed elsewhere.

  A similar room on the opposite side of the chancel mirrored the sacristy; except for a mop, a pail, and a crude broom—this last clearly made by the priest from native brush—it was bare.

  With little skill but great determination, Brook swept all four rooms. It took him a little over an hour, and when he was finished he had discovered no slightest crevice.

  A reasonable man would return to the rectory now and go to bed, he told himself. On the other hand, a reasonable man would never have left every friend and relative he had to a death now past in order to cross interstellar space at near-light speed to Mirzam. He put away the broom, made sure that the rear door was latched, went out the front, and started down the Seraph-carved stair.

  Descended, it lost most of its maze-like character; there was seldom more than one flight leading downward, and when there were two, either choice proved valid. He halted several times to rest, ruefully rubbing his aching knees and staring up at the stars, musing upon what the Seraphs might have become if only Mirzam had been granted a moon like Luna. Human beings-super-apes whose early evolution had certainly been arboreal—had be
en lured up and out by that yellow sphere, that great, ripe fruit hung in their sky for the plucking. Would the Seraphs (half insect and half pterosaur, wholly unique) have responded in like fashion?

  Perhaps they would, Brook decided. The serpent, after all, was already well up in the tree when it urged Eve to taste the fatal apple. Or at least was always so depicted in art. Had it in cold fact been a mere snake in the grass? The priest would know, of course—ask him in the morning.

  Brook rose and looked back at the mission he had left; it shone almost white in the starlight. After a long moment, he turned away to peer down into the dark cleft of the wadi. He was already more than halfway there, he decided; but climbing up again would be out of the question. He would have to drive the roller, sign or no sign; and if the priest was angry that would not matter, because he would have found the crypt by then without the priest’s help.

  In his dream the priest stood (as he had stood so often in life) before the open sarcophagus. The big kitchen knife was in his hand; but each time he raised it, his fingers grew weak. If he stabbed the Seraph it would, he knew, rise and seize him, a monster at once living and dead. He would awaken trembling, his nightclothes soaked with sweat. But he would awaken, the dream would end, and so he raised the knife.

  His fingers were weak, numb. The heavy, broad-bladed knife nearly slipped from them.

  “You must go,” the Seraph said.

  Its dry, shriveled mouth did not twitch, yet Father Joseph heard its voice. “That’s what I’ve come to tell you,” he said. And then, “I had hoped that if I slept in the study tonight you wouldn’t bring me here—that you would take the man in my bed in my place.” He sensed the Seraph’s amusement. “I think he’ll go tomorrow. I’m to show you to him, and he’ll make pictures and go.” Father Joseph hesitated. “I’d like—I should go with him. He can give me a ride as far as Treaty. That will save a day, possibly more.”

  “Yet you do not wish to go,” the Seraph said. “Perhaps you are afraid that you will not be free of me? You will be free of me, or nearly.”