He peered up again at the dusty stars of morning. Well, there would be no Edens found out there, they said. Yet there were men out there now, men who looked up to strange suns in stranger skies, gasped strange air, tilled strange earth. On worlds of frozen equatorial tundra, worlds of steaming Arctic jungle, a little like Earth perhaps, enough like Earth so that Man might live somehow, by the same sweat of his brow. They were but a handful, these celestial colonists of Homo loquax nonnumquam sapiens, a few harassed colonies of humanity that had had small help from Earth thus far; and now they might expect no help at all, there in their new non-Edens, even less like Paradise than Earth had been. Fortunately for them, perhaps. The closer men came to perfecting for themselves a paradise, the more impatient they seemed to become with it, and with themselves as well. They made a garden of pleasure, and became progressively more miserable with it as it grew in richness and power and beauty; for then, perhaps, it was easier for them to see that something was missing in the garden, some tree or shrub that would not grow. When the world was in darkness and wretchedness, it could believe in perfection and yearn for it. But when the world became bright with reason and riches, it began to sense the narrowness of the needle’s eye, and that rankled for a world no longer willing to believe or yearn. Well, they were going to destroy it again, were they — this garden Earth, civilized and knowing, to be torn apart again that Man might hope again in wretched darkness.
And yet the Memorabilia was to go with the ship! Was it a curse?. . . Discede, Seductor informis! It was no curse, this knowledge, unless perverted by Man, as fire had been, this night…
Why do I have to leave, Lord? he wondered. Must I go? And what am I trying to decide: to go, or to refuse to go? But that was already decided; there had been a summons to that — long ago. Egrediamur tellure, then, for it was commanded by a vow I pledged. So I go. But to lay hands on me and call me a priest, to call me abbas even, to set me to watch over the souls of my brethren? Must Reverend Father insist on that? But he isn’t insisting on that; he is only insisting on knowing whether God insists on that. But he is in such a terrible hurry. Is he really so sure of me as all that? To drop it on me this way, he must be more certain of me than I am of myself.
Speak up, destiny, speak up! Destiny always seems decades away, but suddenly it’s not decades away; it’s right now. But maybe destiny is always right now, right here, right this very instant, maybe.
Isn’t it enough that he’s sure of me? But no, that is not nearly enough. Got to be sure myself, somehow. In half an hour. Less than half, now. Audi me, Domine — please, Lord — It’s only one of your vipers of this generation, begging for something, begging to know, begging a sign, a sign, a portent, an omen. I’ve not enough time to decide.
He started nervously. Something — slithering?
He heard it as a quiet rustling in the dry leaves under the rose bushes behind him. It stopped, rustled, and slithered again. Would a sign from Heaven slither? An omen or a portent might. The Psalmist’s negotium perambulans in tenebris might. A sidewinder might.
A cricket, perhaps. It was only rustling. Brother Hegan had killed a sidewinder in the courtyard once, but…Now it slithered again! — a slow dragging in the leaves. Would it be an appropriate sign if it slithered out and stung him in the backside?
The sound of prayer came from the church again: Reminiscentur et convertentur all Dominum universi fines terrae. Et adorabunt in conspectu universae familiae gentium. Quoniam Domini est regnum; et ipse dominabitur… Strange words for tonight: All the ends of the Earth shall remember and turn unto the Lord…
The slithering stopped suddenly. Was it right behind him? Really, Lord, a sign isn’t absolutely essential. Really, I…
Something nudged at his wrist. He shot upward with a yelp and leaped away from the rose bushes. He seized a loose rock and threw it into the bushes. The crash was louder than he had expected. He scratched at his beard and felt sheepish. He waited. Nothing emerged from the bushes. Nothing slithered. He tossed a pebble. It too rattled offensively in the darkness. He waited, but nothing stirred in the bushes. Ask for an omen, then stone it when it comes — de essentia hominum.
A pink tongue of dawn was beginning to lick the stars from the sky. Soon he would have to go tell the abbot. And tell him what?
Brother Joshua brushed gnats from his beard and started toward the church, because someone had just come to the door and looked out — looking for him?
Unus panis, et unum corpus multi sumus , came the murmur from the church, omnes qui de uno… One bread and one body, though many, are we, and of one bread and one chalice have partaken…
He paused in the doorway to look back toward the rose bushes. It was a trap, wasn’t it? he thought. You’d send it, knowing I’d throw stones at it, wouldn’t you?
A moment later, he slipped inside and went to kneel with the others. His voice joined theirs in the entreaty; for a time he ceased to think, amid the company of monastic spacegoers assembled there. Annuntiabitur Domino generatio ventura… And these shall be declared to the Lord a generation to come; and the heavens shall show forth His justice. To a people that shall be born, which the Lord hath made…
When he became aware again, he saw the abbot motioning to him. Brother Joshua went to kneel next to him.
“Hoc officium, Fili — tibine imponemus oneri?” he whispered.
“If they want me,” the monk answered softly, “honorem accipiam.”
The abbot smiled. “You heard me badly. I said “burden,” not ‘honor.”Crucis autem onus si audisti ut honorem, nihilo errasti auribus.”
“Accipiam,” the monk repeated.
“You’re certain?”
“If they choose me, I shall be certain.”
“Well enough.”
Thus it was settled. While the sun rose, a shepherd was elected to lead the flock.
Afterward, the conventual Mass was a Mass for Pilgrims and Travelers.
It had not been easy to charter a plane for the flight to New Rome. Even harder was the task of winning clearance for the flight after the plane had been chartered. All civil aircraft had come under the jurisdiction of the military for the duration of the emergency, and a military clearance was required. It had been refused by the local ZDI. If Abbot Zerchi had not been aware of the fact that a certain air marshal and a certain cardinal archbishop happened to be friends, the ostensible pilgrimage to New Rome by twenty-seven bookleggers with bindlestiffs might well have proceeded on shank’s mare, for lack of permission to use rapid transport jet. By midafternoon, however, clearance had been granted. Abbot Zerchi boarded the plane briefly before takeoff — for last farewells.
“You are the continuity of the Order,” he told them.
“With you goes the Memorabilia. With you also goes the apostolic succession, and, perhaps — the Chair of Peter.
“No, no,” he added in response to the murmur of surprise from the monks. “Not His Holiness. I had not told you this before, but if the worst comes on Earth, the College of Cardinals — or what’s left of it — will convene. The Centaurus Colony may then be declared a separate patriarchate, with full patriarchal jurisdiction going to the cardinal who will accompany you. If the scourge falls on us here, to him, then, will go the Patrimony of Peter. For though life on Earth may be destroyed — God forbid — as long as Man lives elsewhere, the office of Peter cannot be destroyed. There are many who think that if the curse falls on Earth, the papacy would pass to him by the principle of Epikeia if there were no survivors here. But that is not your direct concern, brothers, sons, although you will be subject to your patriarch under special vows as these which bind the Jesuits to the Pope.