“Conscience! You babble of nothingness,” von Höhenheim snarled.
“That’s just silly,” the abbot told him calmly. “It’s one of the most important things in this wide and amazing universe. What was it stopped you killing me? Such a small thing, so easy to do, but you couldn’t do it.”
“I still could, and if you annoy me with this prattle, maybe I will,” von Höhenheim shouted at him.
“Perhaps,” the abbot answered prosaically, as if it hardly mattered. “I think though that you should ask yourself why this so-called prattle is making you angry. Do you think it could be because it’s about a great truth you have been trying to deny for a long time?”
“Nonsense,” von Höhenheim replied.
“Would you like another glass of our liqueur, do you think?” the abbot asked him. “It’s good for the nerves, and I think you could do with some.”
Von Höhenheim made a noise of intense frustration, and the abbot took this as agreement and bustled out. In a moment he returned with an ancient bottle and a single glass. He glugged a healthy quantity into the glass and gave it to von Höhenheim, who was feeling bemused.
“Try that. But don’t drink it too fast, you need to savor it. We went to a lot of trouble to get it right.”
Von Höhenheim sipped the drink and looked at anything but the abbot. The fire was burning nicely. Outside, birds were singing.
“Tell me about it,” the abbot said softly. “It often helps, you know.”
“Since I cannot leave you alive, I suppose I might as well,” von Höhenheim said savagely.
And he told the abbot, “I was a leader of the KzinDiener during the Occupation.”
“Servants of the kzin?” the abbot asked.
“Yes. We all but worshipped them. And they betrayed us in the end.”
“Well, false gods do that, you know. It’s one of their distinguishing characteristics,” the abbot pointed out reasonably. “How did they betray you?”
“They lost the war. They were so strong and so beautiful. But they lost.”
“I see,” the abbot said thoughtfully. “Yes, I can see that might look like betrayal. But I daresay they did their best, you know. The mistake was to worship them; they are only animals, after all. Intelligent, of course, and with souls, no doubt. Much like us, really. I suppose the trouble is that some people need to see their gods in a very human form. A failure of imagination or perhaps perception, don’t you think?”
“What do you mean?” von Höhenheim asked suspiciously.
“Well, the trouble is, God is everywhere you look. So some people don’t see Him at all. I find that amazing, but it’s true. I suppose it’s a bit like an ant not seeing a human being, they’re just too big. The world is so full of wonders, and some poor folk just don’t notice. And we all have a hunger for the transcendent, and if we don’t notice it because it’s everywhere, then when you see a kzin prowling, and you’ve never seen a kzin before, I suppose for those poor people, it must look as if it’s what they’ve been searching for all their lives. A tragic mistake, of course, but one can see how it could be made.”
“I don’t understand you,” von Höhenheim said angrily.
“I think you do, you know. I think you saw the power and the glory and fell for what is really only a poor copy of the real thing. Of course, we are all made in the image of God, all of us, man and kzin alike. But it’s only an image, not the real thing.”
Von Höhenheim’s mind was in turmoil. Yes, he did understand, at least in part.
“Where are all those wonders you speak of?” he asked.
“Oh, my. Haven’t you ever seen a green shoot coming out of the bare brown soil? Isn’t that a miracle? Aren’t you a miracle? That anything should live among this vast whirligig of suns is a miracle, as is the whirligig of suns itself. Just think of the galaxy turning in endless patience, for time beyond comprehension. We can talk glibly of billions of years, but the mind cannot grasp the wonder and the majesty of it. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. And if that were all it would be enough; but it is only a tiny part. There is life, there is intelligence. And you and I are a tiny part of that, and we can see something of the wonder. Well, I can. Maybe you can’t.”
Von Höhenheim was silent. Something inside him was crying. The abbot was right, there was wonder in the universe, as well as atoms and galaxies. And he had never really seen it. Not until he had been shown.
“There was a man named Saul,” the abbot said, looking at him in sympathy. “Very like you, I should guess. Full of certainty. Very competent, very clear in his thinking, but perhaps lacking in humor. And he took the road to Damascus in pursuit of what he thought was important work: making life difficult for people he hated, actually. And on the way, God spoke to him. That sort of conjures up a deep voice speaking out of heaven, but I find that hard to believe. God speaks to me quite often, but he doesn’t do it with sound waves, you know. It’s more commonly a sort of internal niggle, a sort of spiritual itch that you just have to scratch. And sometimes it’s a great warmth that spreads right through me. So I’m inclined to think it was likely that Saul had something similar. He had a sudden insight into what he was doing, and it shocked him so much he went blind for a while. Or so the story goes. It’s a very easy story to believe, for me.”
“What happened to him?” von Höhenheim asked.
“He became someone else. He changed his name because of that. All of a sudden he figured out how to be happy. God asked him why he kept trying to turn against the road, to do the wrong thing, and he suddenly realized he didn’t have to. What had looked the easy road became very hard, and what had looked impossibly hard was suddenly inevitable. So, he became another man. A man who could be happy.”
“I wish I could become another man,” von Höhenheim said, and the abbot heard the yearning in his voice.
“Well, I daresay getting to the point where you want to and see that it’s possible is the hard bit,” the abbot said cheerfully.
Two days later von Höhenheim waved goodbye to the abbot and set out to the east, walking steadily. In his last words, he had asked humbly if the abbot would report his presence.
“No. I am not answerable to man, but to my God and my conscience,” the abbot had replied firmly.
Having waved back, the abbot went into his study and thought. “My goodness, I think I’ve performed a miracle,” he said aloud. “Well, You did it, of course, but You let me be the one it was done through.”
He fell to his knees and looked up to a heaven he saw quite clearly.
“Oh, thank you so much, God,” he said happily. “That was such a wonderful birthday present.”
A long time later…
A solitary figure came slowly through the dark. He was obviously footsore, the gatekeeper thought. Come a long way, and lucky to make it without bumping into a tigrepard.
“Can I rest here the night,” the stranger asked. “I can pay. I have gold.”
“We got more o’ the stuff than we know what t’ do with, but yes, you can stay the night. If you want to stay longer, you’ll have to talk to the judge an’ see if he agrees.”
“You have a judge?”
“Sure we got a judge, an’ a damn good one, too. We even got us a sheriff an’ a couple o’ deputies. An’ you sure better not piss them off, I’m telling ya.”
The stranger was passed inside and directed to Ma Jones, who had a spare room and was prepared to serve food to people who looked reasonably clean. With the traffic they were getting these days, she might find she was running a hotel before long, the gatekeeper thought.
In the morning, the stranger appeared before the judge. No, the Judge, the stranger told himself. The judge was sitting at ease in a chair, smoking something that could pass for a cigar most places. He looked up.