James Blish - A Case of Conscience

But there remained the hard fact that he had left behind in his house a sick man. There was not much chance that Cleaver would awaken before morning. He had been given nearly fifteen milligrams of sedative per kilogram of body weight. But sick men are like children, whose schedules persistently defy all rules. If Cleaver's burly frame should somehow throw that dose off, driven perhaps by some anaphylactic crisis impossible to rule out this early in his illness, he would need prompt attention. At the very least, he would want badly for the sound of a human voice on this planet which he hated, and which had struck him down almost without noticing that he existed.

Still, the danger to Cleaver was not great. He most certainly did not require a minute-by-minute vigil; he was, after all, not a child, but an almost ostentatiously strong man.

And there was such a thing as an excess of devotion, a form of pride among the pious which the Church had long found peculiarly difficult to make clear to them. At its worst, it produced the hospital saints, whose attraction to noisome-ness so peculiarly resembled the vermin-worship of the Hindi sects-or a St. Simon Stylites, who though undoubtedly acceptable to God had been for centuries very bad public relations for the Church. And had Cleaver really earned the kind of devotion Ruiz-Sanchez had been proposing, up to now, to tender him as a creature of God-or, to come closer to the mark, a godly creature?

And with a whole planet at stake, a whole people-no, more than that, a whole problem in theology, an imminent solution to the vast, tragic riddle of original sin… What a gift to bring to the Holy Father in a jubilee year-a grander and more solemn thing than the proclamation of the conquest of Everest had been at the coronation of Elizabeth II of England ! Always providing, of course, that this would be the ultimate outcome of the study of Lithia. The planet was not lacking in hints that something quite different, and fearful beyond all else, might emerge under Ruiz-Sanchez' prolonged attention. Not even prayer had yet resolved that doubt. But should he sacrifice even the possibility of this, for Cleaver?

A lifetime of meditation over just such cases of conscience had made Ruiz-Sanchez, like most other gifted members of his order, quick to find his way to a decision through all but the most complicated of ethical labyrinths. All Catholics must be devout; but a Jesuit must be, in addition, agile.

“Thank you,” he said to Chtexa, a little shakily. “I will share your house very gladly.”

(A voice): “Cleaver? Cleaver! Wake up, you big slob. Cleaver! Where the hell have you been?”

Cleaver groaned and tried to turn over. At his first motion, the world began to rock, gently, sickeningly. He was awash in fever. His mouth, seemed to be filled with burning pitch.

“Cleaver, turn out. It's me-Agronski. Where's the Father? What's wrong? Why didn't we ever hear from you? Look out, you'll—”

The warning came too late, and Cleaver could not have understood it anyhow. He had been profoundly asleep, and had no notion of his situation in space or time. At his convulsive twist away from the nagging voice, the hammock rotated on its hooks and dumped him.

He struck the floor stunningly, taking the main blow across his right shoulder, though he hardly felt it yet. His feet, not yet part of him at all, still remained far aloft, twisted in the hammock webbing.

“What the hell—”

There was a brief chain of footsteps, like chestnuts dropping on a roof, and then a hollow noise of something hitting the floor near his head.

“Cleaver, are you sick? Here, lie still a minute and let me get your feet free. Mike-Mike, can't you turn the gas up in this jug? Something's wrong back here.”

After a moment, yellow light began to pour from the glistening walls, and then the white glare of the mantles. Cleaver dragged an arm across his eyes, but it did him no good; it tired too quickly. Agronski's mild face, plump and anxious, floated directly above him like a captive balloon. He could not see Michelis anywhere, and at the moment he was just as glad he couldn't. Agronski's presence was hard enough to understand.

“How… the hell…” he said. At the words, his lips split painfully at both corners. He realized for the first time that they had become gummed together, somehow, while he was asleep. He had no idea how long he had been out of the picture.

Agronski seemed to understand the aborted question. “We came in from the Lakes in the 'copter,” he said. “We didn't like the silence down here, and we figured we'd better come in under our own power, instead of registering in on the regular jet liner and tipping the Lithians off-just in case there'd been any dirty work afloat—”

“Stop jawing him,” Michelis said, appearing suddenly, magically in the doorway. “He's got a bug, that's obvious. I don't like to feel pleased about misery, but I'm glad it's that instead of the Lithians.”

The rangy, long-jawed chemist helped Agronski lift Cleaver to his feet. Tentatively, despite the pain, Cleaver got his mouth open again. Nothing came out but a hoarse croak.

“Shut up,” Michelis said, not unkindly. “Let's get him back into the hammock. Where's the Father, I wonder? He's the only one capable of dealing with sickness here.”

“I'll bet he's dead,” Agronski burst out suddenly, his face glistening with alarm. “He'd be here if he could. It must be catching, Mike.”

“I didn't bring my mitt,” Michelis said drily. “Cleaver, lie still or I'll have to clobber you. Agronski, you seem to have dumped his water bottle; better go get him some more, he needs it. And see if the Father left anything in the lab that looks like medicine.”

Agronski went out, and, maddeningly, so did Michelis- at least out of Cleaver's field of vision. Setting his every muscle against the pain, Cleaver pulled his lips apart once more.

“Mike.”

Instantly, Michelis was there. He had a pad of cotton between thumb and forefinger, wet with some solution, with which he gently cleaned Cleaver's lips and chin.

“Easy. Agronski's getting you a drink. We'll let you talk in a little while, Paul. Don't rush it.”

Cleaver relaxed a little. He could trust Michelis. Nevertheless, the vivid and absurd insult of having to be swabbed like a baby was more than he could bear; he felt tears of helpless rage swelling on either side of his nose. With two deft, non-committal swipes, Michelis removed them.

Agronski came back, holding out one hand tentatively, palm up.

“I found these,” he said. “There's more in the lab, and the Father's pill press is still out. So are his mortar and pestle, though they've been cleaned.”

“All right, let's have 'em,” Michelis said. “Anything else?”

“No. Well, there's a syringe cooking in the sterilizer, if that means anything.”

Michelis swore briefly and to the point.

“It means that there's a pertinent antitoxin in the shop someplace,” he added. “But unless Ramon left notes, we'll not have a prayer of figuring out which one it is.”

As he spoke, he lifted Cleaver's head and tipped the pills into his mouth, onto his tongue. The water which followed was cold at the first contact, but a split second later it was liquid fire. Cleaver choked, and at that precise instant Michelis pinched his nostrils shut. The pills went down with a gulp.

“There's no sign of the Father?” Michelis said.

“Not a one, Mike. Everything's in good order, and his gear's still here. Both jungle suits are in the locker.”

“Maybe he went visiting,” Michelis said thoughtfully. “He must have gotten to know quite a few of the Lithians by now. He liked them.”

“With a sick man on his hands? That's not like him, Mike. Not unless there was some kind of emergency. Or maybe he went on a routine errand, expected to be back in just a few minutes, and—”