Джек Макдевитт - Cryptic - The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt

“It’ll be easy to get it downstairs,” he said, trying to laugh. He leaned it against the wall while I rattled first one doorknob and then the other.

“What’s the matter now ?” he demanded.

“It must have locked behind us.”

Sweat was pouring into his eyes. “I’d like to kill this guy Rankowski.” He threw his shoulder against the doors and bounced off. We tried it together, while I thought what would happen to us if the doors came open. But they didn’t. They had a little bit of give, and that was all. Smoke was becoming a problem, and I suspected we would smother beforewe burned.

“Wait a minute.” I went back and retrieved the staff with the snakes. I jammed it between the doors and tried to lever them open. Hatch put his weight behind mine, but it wasn’t working. I had never seen Hatch scared before. His eyes were wide with terror and I wasn’t feeling so good myself. “We need something more,” he grunted. He ran back into the roiling clouds and returned with the hammer. This was the big mallet with the flat rock attached to its business end.

He waved me out of the way, and I had this bad feeling and bolted for the far end of the room. He wound up with both hands, took careful aim, and swung it in a long arc.

Monitors as far away as Los Angeles picked up the shock wave. CNN reported a Richter scale reading of five point seven. The epicenter was pinpointed as being just outside Pemberton. That was almost right. I suspect, if the sensors had been a little more precise, they would have baffled the watch officers by putting it on the third floor at 511 S. Eddy.

The lights went out. Permanently, as it happened, for Hatch. They never found him, and he was declared simply missing. But I know what really happened because I heard the explosion and anyhow I knew he would not have gone off without a word and left his wife and kids and his many friends.

I woke up on a table with a sheet over my face. What brought me around, apparently, was the cops trying to pry the staff with the snakes loose from my fingers. They told me later I had a death grip on it.

They also told me my heart had been stopped for two hours. I’d been dead when brought in, dead when found. Shows you what cops know.

The newspapers never reported any of the strange stuff that turned up on that third floor. I guess the cops kept it for themselves.

Next time I saw the silver staff, it was in evidence at my trial. I don’t know what happened to it after that. In a pre-sentencing statement to the court, I suggested they take it down to the Briarson Memorial Hospital and hang it in the emergency room. The judge thought I was trying to make him look silly and gave me eighteen years.

Which meant, of course, that I was out by Christmas.

Monsignor Chesley’s first confrontation with Saint Augustine came during the unseasonably cold October afternoon of his return to St. Michael’s. It was a wind-whipped day, hard and bitter. The half-dozen ancient campus buildings clung together beneath morose skies. There was a hint of rain in the air, and the threat of a long winter to come.

His guide, Father Akins, chatted amiably. Weather, outstanding character of the current group of seminarians (all nineteen of them), new roof on the library. You must be happy to be back, Monsignor. Et cetera.

The winding, cobbled walkways had not changed. Stands of oak and spruce still thrived.

The wind blew through the campus.

“Where is everybody?”

Not understanding, Father Akins glanced at his watch. “In class. They’ll be finished in another half hour.”

“Yes,” said Chesley. “Of course.”

They turned aside into St. Mary’s Glade, sat down on one of its stone benches, and listened to its fountain. Years before, when Christ had still seemed very real, it was easy to imagine Him strolling through these grounds. Touching this elm. Looking west across the rim of hills toward the Susquehanna. Chesley had come here often, stealing away from the chattering dormitories, to listen for footsteps.

“Would you like to visit one of the classes, Monsignor?”

“Yes,” he said. “I believe I would enjoy that.”

Four seminarians and a priest were seated around a polished hardwood table, notebooks open. The priest, whom Chesley did not know, glanced up and smiled politely as they entered. One of the students, a dark-eyed, handsome boy, was speaking, although to whom, Chesley could not determine. The boy was staring at his notes. “—And what,” he asked, raising his eyes self-consciously to Chesley, “would you say to a man who has lost his faith?” The boy shifted his gaze to a portrait of Saint Augustine, mounted over the fireplace. “What do you tell a man who just flat out doesn’t believe anymore?”

The saint, armed with a quill, stared back. A manuscript bearing the title City of God lay open before him.

“Shake his hand.” The voice came from the general direction of a bookcase. Its tone was a trifle abrasive. More than that: imperial . It grated Chesley’s sensibilities. “Under no circumstance should you contribute to his distress. Wish him well.”

A wiry, intense young man whose hair had already grown thin threw down his pen. “Do you mean,” he demanded, “we simply stand aside? Do nothing?”

“Simulation of Saint Augustine,” whispered Father Atkins. “It’s quite clever.”

“Jerry,” said the hidden voice, “if God does not speak to him through the world in which he lives, through the wonders of daily existence, then what chance have you? Your role is to avoid adding to the damage.”

The students glanced at one another. The two who had spoken appeared disconcerted. All four looked skeptical. Thank God for that.

“Anyone else wish to comment?” The question came from the priest-moderator. “If not—”

“Just a moment.” Chesley unbuttoned his coat and stepped forward. “Surely,” he said to the seminarians, “you will not allow that sort of nonsense to stand unchallenged.” He threw the coat across a chair and addressed the bookcase. “A priest does not have the option to stand aside. If we cannot act at such a time, then of what value are we?”

“Indeed,” replied the voice, without missing a beat. “I suggest that our value lies in the example we set, in the lives we lead. Exhortation to the unwilling is worthless. Less than worthless: it drives men from the truth.”

“And,” asked Chesley, “if they do not learn from our example?”

“Then they will be cast into darkness.”

Simple as that. Next question. The students looked at Chesley. “Computer,” he said, “I understand you speak for Augustine.”

“I am Augustine. Who are you ?”

“I am Monsignor Matthew Chesley,” he said, for the benefit of the students. “The new Director of Ecclesiastical Affairs.” It came out sounding pompous.

“I’m pleased to meet you,” said the voice. And then, placidly, “Faith is a gift of the Almighty. It is not ours to summon, or to recall.”

Chesley looked around the table. Locked eyes, one by one, with the students. He was relieved to see they were not laughing at him. But he felt absurd, arguing with a machine. “We are His instruments,” he said, “one of the means by which He works. We are required to do the best we can, and not simply leave everything to direct intervention. If we take your tack, we might as well go home, get jobs with insurance companies and law firms, and live like everyone else.”

“Good intentions,” the system replied, “are admirable. Nonetheless, our obligation to our Maker is to save souls, and not to justify our careers.”