Maybe they killed him, Pete said to himself.
“I’ll give you a reward if you tell me,” he said, reaching into his coat pocket. “Here—hard rock candy made only from pure white sugar.” He held the candy out to the gang of kids surrounding him, but no one accepted it. Their dark faces turned upward, they silently watched him, as if curious to know what he intended to do.
At last a very small child reached up for the candy. Pete gave it to him; the boy accepted it wordlessly, then pushed his way backward out of the ring. Gone—and with him the candy.
“I’m his friend,” Pete said, gesturing. “I’m trying to find him so I can help him. There’s rough terrain around here; he could get hired down or his cow could fall … he may be lying by the side of the path, dead or dying.”
Several of the children grinned. “We know who you are,” they piped. “You’re a puppet of old Dr. Abernathy; you believe in the Old God. An’ the inc, he refreshed us in our catechism.”
“To the God of Wrath?” Pete said.
“You better believe it,” two older boys squawked. “This is where he live, not that Old Man on the cross.”
“That’s your opinion,” Pete said. “I differ. I’ve known the Old God, as you put it, for many years.”
“But he didn’t bring the war.” The boys continued to grin.
“He did more,” Pete said. “He created the universe and everything in it. We all owe our existences to him. And from time to time he intervenes in our lives, to help us. He can save any of us and all of us… or if he feels like it, he can let us all remain in a graceless state, the condition of sin. Is that your preference? I hope not, for the sake of your eternal souls.” He felt irritable about it; the children annoyed him. On the other hand, they were the only people who could tell him if Tibor had passed this way.
“We worship he who can do anything he wants,” a boy shrilled. The others at once took up the utterance. “Yeah, we worship he who can do anything, anything at all he wants.”
“You’re philothanes,” Pete said.
“What’s that, Mr. Man?”
“Lovers of death. You worship one who tried to end our lives. The great heresy of the modern world. Thanks anyhow.” He stormed off, weighed down by the pack on his shoulders; he put as much distance between the children and himself as possible.
The jeers of the children dimmed behind him, then died entirely.
Good. He was alone.
Squatting down, he opened his pack, rummaged about in it until he came upon his battery-operated radio gear; he lifted it out, set it up on its stiltlike legs, pushed the earphone into place, and cranked up the transmitter. “Dr. Abernathy,” he said into the microphone. “This is Pete Sands reporting.”
“Go ahead, Pete,” Dr. Abernathy’s voice sounded in his ear.
Pete said, “I’m pretty certain I’ve picked up his trail.” He told Dr. Abernathy about the SOWer children. “If they hadn’t seen him,” he pointed out, “then there would be nothing for them to protect. And they were protecting. I’m going to continue on this path.”
“Good luck to you,” Dr. Abernathy said, dryly. “Listen, Pete; if you do find him, don’t do anything to him.”
“Why not?” Pete said. “In our conversation a day or so ago, when you and I—”
“I never told you to follow McMasters. And I never told you to stop him or harm him.”
“No, you didn’t,” Pete admitted. “But you did say, ‘When the inc returns with a photograph of the Deus Irae and begins on his murch, it will constitute a decided gain for the SOWers and for Father Handy in particular.’ It’s not difficult to deduce from that what you really want, and what would be best for the Old Church.”
“It is the greatest sin,” Dr. Abernathy said, “to kill. The commandment reads, ‘Do not kill.’ “
“It reads, ‘Do not murder,’” Pete answered. “There are three Hebrew verbs that mean kill or something like kill; in this case the word meaning murder is ‘employed.’ I checked the Hebrew source myself. And I know what I’m talking about.”
“Nevertheless—”
Pete interrupted, “I won’t hurt him. I have no intention of doing him any harm.” But, he thought, if Tibor McMasters does lead me to the God of Wrath—so—called—I will… what will I do? he asked himself.
We’ll see, he decided. “How’s Lurine?” he said, changing the subject.
“Fine.”
“I know what it is I’m doing,” Pete said. “Just let me do what I have to, Father. It’s my own responsibility, not yours, if you don’t mind my speaking so directly.”
“And you,” Dr. Abernathy said, “are my responsibility.”
A short silence.
“I’ll report to you twice a day,” Pete said. “I’m sure we can come to an agreement. And of course Tibor McMasters may never find Carl Lufteufel, so probably what we’re saying is academic.”
“I will pray for you,” Dr. Abernathy said.
The circuit fell apart; Dr. Abernathy had hung up. Pete, shaking his head and grunting, placed the radio gear back in his shoulder-pack. He sat crouched down for a time, then got out a pack of Pall Malls and lit up one of his few precious cigarettes.
Why am I here? he asked himself. Have I been sent here by my superior? Was I supposed to derive this assertion from the conversation he and I had back in town… or did I read something into what the doctor was saying? Hard to be sure, he thought. If I do commit a crime, or a sin, Dr. Abernathy can disavow it. He “won’t know,” the way the old-time gangsters used to say about a rubout. Churches and the Cosa Nostra have something in common: a sort of pristine indifference at the very top levels. All the malignant chores fall to the smallfries down at the bottom.
Of which I am one, he informed himself.
He did not like such thoughts; he sought to thrust them away. However, they refused to go.
“Father in Heaven,” he prayed as he carefully smoked his cigarette, “let me know what to do. Should I continue to follow Tibor McMasters or should I give up on moral grounds? But there’s another point: I can help Tibor—he shouldn’t be going so far in his cow cart. I would of course help him, were he to get stuck or damaged or injured; that goes without saying. So my trip is not patently malign; it could be in a good cause, a humanitarian search to find an inc who, in point of fact, may be already dead. Aw, the hell with it.” He abandoned his prayer and sat brooding.
The day had become warm. In a thousand thickets around him, insects and birds scuttled, and on the ground itself several small animals could be seen, each following the sacred drive within that Jehovah had instilled in it to cherish and protect it. He finished his cigarette, tossed the butt into a tangled growth of bindweed and wild oats.
Now, where would he have gone from here? Pete asked himself. He got out his map and studied it. I’m about here, he told himself as he marked a spot. Close to the Great C… I don’t want to get near that damn thing. But suppose it snatched up Tibor McMasters? I may have to go there after all.
“Damn it,” he snarled, aloud. He did not feel very Christian, while meditating about that feral electronic entity left over from prewar days. Why didn’t it just wear out and die? he wondered. What is God’s purpose that He lets it continue, as it does? A menace to every organic creature in a five-mile radius.
I’ll be damned if I’m going that way, he informed himself. If Tiber’s in there, well, then I am just out of luck. And so is he—after all, I’m trying to help him. Or am I? He felt utterly confused. I won’t know either way until the time comes, he realized. Like an existentialist, I will infer my state from the actions I perform. Thought follows deed, as Mussolini taught. In Anfang war die Tat, as Goethe says in Faust. In the beginning was the deed, not the word, as John taught, John and his Logos doctrine. The Greekization of theology.