Sheri Tepper - Grass

In a little while he will pick up the cleric-all and report for duty to Room 409, level three minus. In a moment. For now, he will sit here very quietly, choking down his loneliness as he says Rillibee Chime to himself, carefully listening to the sound of it, words spoken aloud in a human voice in this empty hell where no one speaks his name.

As Rigo Yrarier stepped out of the conveyance pod in the reception area deep underground, he was not entirely surprised to find his skin crawling with superstitious revulsion. He hadn’t wanted to come here. Uncle Carlos had sent a message begging him to come. Uncle Carlos, the family scandal. Carlos, a skeleton in the confessional, as it were. Apostate Uncle Carlos, long ago lapsed from the Old Catholic religion of his birth and now Hierarch of all this… this. Rigo looked around himself trying to define this. This hive. This unholy ant’s nest. Outside the glass room in which he stood, identically suited and powdered figures scurried like so many anonymous insects.

Rigo had not wanted to come, not even on a mission of mercy, which is what Uncle Carlos had called it in his message. Missions of mercy were Marjorie’s business, not Rigo’s, and he was not even sympathetic with hers. Useless, all of it. One could not save people who were too stupid to save themselves, and the same thing applied to Sanctity, so far as Rigo was concerned. Then, surprisingly, Father Sandoval had urged Rigo to answer the plea. No doubt Father had reasons of his own. He would probably want a report; he would want to know all about Sanctity, what it looked like, what went on there. Old Catholic clergy were allowed to take tours of Sanctity about as often as Old Catholic clergy allowed the devil to assist at mass.

The superstitious revulsion Rigo felt was only part of his reluctance. There was a good deal of anger and hostility in him as well, which he recognized and tried to guard against showing as he looked about for someone who would tell him where to go next. The ghostly aspect of the suited and powdered nonentity who came through the hissing door and bowed in greeting did nothing to alleviate Rigo’s sense that something was crawling on him. Neither did the long walk as he followed his guide down ramified corridors, past chapel after chapel, all of them empty, all of them buzzing with the shrill telling of names, endless lists of names.

It would be better, he thought, if they invented machines to listen as well as machines to speak, or simply let one machine rehearse the names quietly and eternally to itself. As much would be achieved, certainly, without this mosquito howl which made his skin itch and his head hurt. His own name was undoubtedly in that noise somewhere. His own and Marjorie’s and the children’s. There was no escaping it, even though their families had filed the exemption forms saying they were of another faith, did not wish to be listed in Sanctity, did not wish their children to be listed, did not believe in the mechanical immortality and the hope of physical resurrection which was the best Sanctity could offer. Despite his father’s passionate outbursts against Sanctity’s arrogance and its pretensions, despite his mother’s hysteria and Father Sandoval’s gentle resentment, Sanctity would have done as it pleased. Everyone knew the exemption forms were a travesty. Filing them was merely a signal for one of the Sanctified missionaries to track the exempted ones down, to haunt them until the missionary could obtain a few living cells. Any crowded street or walkway would do. A quick punch was all it took. Like a pinch, a nip, a needle touch. They were like rats, those missionaries, a secret multitude, sneaking and prodding, bringing names and tissue samples here to become part of this… this.

This. Sanctity/Unity/lmmortality. The words were on all sides of him, engraved in the floors, set into the walls, cast into the surfaces of doorknobs. Where there was not room for the words, the initial letters pocked every surface, S/U/I, S/U/I, S/U/l.

“Blasphemous fiction,” Rigo muttered to himself, quoting Father Sandoval. He tried to take shorter steps so that he would not tread on the heels of his guide, wishing with every step that he hadn’t come. Not for Uncle Carlos. Carlos the traitor. Bad enough he had been a heretic without having become Hierarch, a source of embarrassment for all Old Catholics everywhere.

The hooded escort stopped, gave Rigo a quick look as though to see if he was properly dressed, then knocked at a deeply recessed door before opening it and gesturing for Rigo to enter. It was a small, featureless room furnished with three chairs. The hooded acolyte came in to perch on one of them, anonymous as a new nail, fingers poised over a cleric-all. In another chair, one set apart near a slightly open door, an old man huddled, a waking corpse with dull, deep-sunk eyes. His bandaged hands shook and his voice quavered.

“Rigo?”

“Uncle?” Rigo asked, not sure. He had not seen the old man for decades. “Uncle Carlos?” There was a stench in the room, like a closed attic where something had died.

The shaking moved from arms to head, and Rigo interpreted this as a nod. The hand motioned slightly toward the empty chair, and Rigo sat down. He saw death before him, death too long delayed.

Despite himself, he felt pity. The acolyte on the other chair was preparing to take notes, already keying his cleric-all to record and transcribe.

“My boy,” came the whisper. “We’re asking you to do something. To go on a journey. For a time. It is important. It is a family matter, Rigo.” He leaned back in the chair, coughing weakly.

“Uncle!” Damned if he would call him Hierarch. “You know we are not among the Sanctified…”

“I am not asking that you do it for Sanctity, Rigo. I am asking for family. For your family. All families. I am dying. I am not important. We are all dying — “ He was shaken by a paroxysm.

The door opened and two robed attendants boiled in, offering a cup, half snarling at one another in their eagerness to help.

Rigo reached out a hand. “Uncle!”

He received glares from fanatical faces, his hand was slapped away.

The aged man beat at them weakly. “Leave me, leave me, fools. Leave me,” until they bubbled away from him and departed, reluctantly. “No strength to explain,” he murmured, eyes almost closed, “O’Neil will explain. Ass. Not you. O’Neil. Ass. Don’t write that down,” this to the acolyte. “Take him to O’Neil.” He turned to his nephew once again. “Please, Rigo.”

“Uncle!”

The man drew himself together and fixed Rigo with a death’s-head glare. “I know you don’t believe in Sanctity. But you believe in God, Rigo. Please, Rigo. You must go. You and your wife and your children. All of you, Rigo. For mankind. Because of the horses.” He began to cough once more.

This time the weak coughing did not stop, and the servitors came back with officious strength to bear the old man away. Rigo was left sitting there, staring at the powdered, anonymous figure across from him. After a moment, the acolyte put the strap of the cleric-all over his shoulder and beckoned for Rigo to follow him out. He led the way down a twisting hall to a wider corridor.

“What’s your name?” Rigo had asked.

The acolyte’s voice was hollow, inattentive. “We don’t have—”

“I don’t care about that. What’s your name?”

“Rillibee Chime.” The words fell softly into quiet, like rainwater into a pool.

“Is he dying?”

A moment’s pause. Then, softly, as though to answer was difficult or forbidden. “The whispers say he is.”

“What is it?”

“Everyone says… plague.” The last word came as bile comes, choking. The anonymous face turned away. The anonymous person panted. It had been a hard word to say. It meant an end to time. It meant two years might not be long enough for him to get out of this place.