“All right, lieutenant, you tell me.”
The policeman sighed, but he pulled a little book from his beltbag and leafed through it. “606.”
Carmody spoke the number, and a second later the face of a young priest appeared on the tiny screen. Carmody rotated the movable upper part of the disc, and the face seemed to spring out of the screen and to hang, much enlarged, sixteen centimeters in front of the disc.
“Father Carmody of Wildenwooly speaking. I must speak to the bishop. At once. It’s an emergency.”
The face thinned away; the screen became blank, although it still glowed. Abruptly, the features of a mulatto danced before Carmody. The shimmering face scowled, and the deep voice was harsh. “Carmody? What kind of a mess are you in now?”
“One not entirely my own fault, Your Lordship,” Carmody said. “As a matter of fact, I was merely trying to effect some Christian action, not to mention Christian charity. But I failed. And here I am, on my way to the police station, about to be charged and booked.”
“I heard about the action at the spaceport and about your being involved,” Embaza said. “I’ve already started some action of my own. It may not be Christian, but it’s a matter of utmost necessity.”
Carmody turned the phone so that the bishop could see Bakeling.
Emzaba’s scowl deepened. “Bakeling! Is it true you were fighting with another priest? And that you were leading a mob of your own parishioners against the Boontist converts?”
Bakeling stuttered for a moment, then said, “I was merely trying to make Father Gideon and his people see the error of their ways, Your Lordship! But this, this Needlenose here, stood up for them! He actually attacked me, a brother priest, a member of his own order, to protect the Boontist heretics!”
“Is that true?” Embaza said. “Carmody, turn the phone so I can see your face!”
Carmody twisted the phone and said, “It’s a long story, Your Lordship, and it would take a long time to separate the various threads of truth from those of passion. But I don’t have time to explain. I must be on my way to Kareen! Immediately! I am on a mission of the gravest importance, authorized by the Holy Father himself!”
Embaza said, “Yes, I know. A courier came yesterday to inform me I must help to speed you on your way, no matter how unreasonable or strange the demands you might make. I understand something of your mission, and I am prepared to aid you. But, Carmody, a brawl! You should realize more than anybody how necessary it is that you get involved in nothing which will delay you!”
“I do, and I’m sorry. But here I am. Now, how do I get back to the port in time to catch the White Mule before it takes off? Or do I?”
Embaza asked to speak to the lieutenant. Carmody swiveled the phone so that the policeman and bishop could talk face to face. The lieutenant listed the charges that were to be made against Carmody. At these, the bishop frowned so fiercely that he looked like one of the ebony idols fashioned by his ancestors in the long ago.
“I’ll speak to you again, lieutenant. Or someone will,” Embaza said.
His face dissolved, but the ghost of his anger hung in the air. Bakeling shifted, uneasily, glancing sideways now and then at Carmody. “If you get out of this, you slimy little rat, and I’m unjustly placed in the wrong... if I have to suffer because of you... so help me, I’ll—“
“You’ll what?” Carmody said. “Refuse to learn your lesson and go charging off like a bull in rut and batter your thick head against the wall again?”
“You’re filthy, Carmody, a reproach to your sacred office.”
“Strong situations demand strong language,” Carmody said. “But didn’t you know that the bishop would be very angry with you because you were making martyrs of the Boontists? That is the one thing the Church does not want to do, and that was the one thing you were doing.”
“I was acting by the dictates of my conscience,” Bakeling said stiffly.
“You better take your conscience out and polish it up a little,” Carmody said. “Make it shine like a mirror, and take a good look at yourself in it. I’ll admit the sight will be nauseating, but sometimes it takes sickness to make a man well.”
“You mealy-mouthed little hypocrite!” Carmody’s only reply was a shrug. He was beginning to get depressed again, for he knew that the bishop was right.
The car stopped before the precinct headquarters. This was in one of the beavite cones taken over by the early settlers, a structure grayish-white on the outside, with a diameter of one hundred meters at the base and towering to four hundred at the apex. Once the cone had housed the entire central police organization of the planet. But in the fifty years of its colonization, Springboard had gained such a population that the building now was only the base for the first precinct. The planetary base had been shifted to a new structure twenty kilometers away, a skyscraper built by men.
The original entrance, once just large enough for two beavites to pass through shoulder to shoulder, had been cut away to make a huge arch. Carmody went through the arch with the lieutenant and Bakeling into a long and high-ceilinged hall, the white nakedness of which had been covered with green formite. The hall led them to a big room. There was a curious smell, compounded of the fifty-year-old traces of beavite odor and the immemorial effluvium of police buildings and courthouses: cigar smoke and urine. Under the green paint, Carmody knew, were splotches and streaks of blood, for the beavites had refused to be dispossessed peacefully.
Carmody and Bakeling sat down on a bench while the lieutenant left to talk to his superiors. Five minutes later, he returned, his face pale and lips tight.
“The bishop has interfered with police procedure!” he said. “He must really be swinging his weight around. I just got word to drop all charges and release you two. And as if that isn’t bad enough, I’m to escort you, Carmody, back to the port.”
The two priests, silent, rose and followed him out of the building. This time, Carmody was put into an aircar. The craft rose upward and then rushed toward the spires of the port, its sirens wailing and its yellow lights flashing.
The lieutenant, sitting in the seat before Carmody, suddenly turned and handed him the phone. “The bishop,” he said, and turned his back.
Emzaba’s face shot up from the screen, and stopped only a few centimeters from Carmody’s. He was so close that the priest could perceive the writhing lines that formed the projection. They added to the wrathful thunder of the bishop’s words.
Afterward, Carmody, thoroughly chastened and contrite, apologized. He said nothing about the death of his wife. But the bishop must have heard of it, for, immediately after his lecture, he softened.
“I know that you are carrying a grievous burden, John. Under ordinary circumstances, I would have withheld a tongue-lashing. But nothing should have diverted you from your mission.”
“Things have a way of getting out of hand,” Carmody said. “Well, I’ll be on Kareen soon and fully engaged in my task.”
The bishop was silent for a minute, then he said, “Would it be presumptuous to ask for more details of your mission? I have a general idea, but I was not given any specifics. However, don’t feel that you have to tell me anything just because I’m curious. Regard me as a fellow religionist who’s gravely concerned and who can keep his mouth shut.”
Carmody delayed to light a cigarette, then said, “I can tell Your Lordship that my mission is twofold. One, I’m to try to talk Yess out of sending his missionaries to extra- Kareenan planets. Two, I will also try to talk Yess out of forcing the entire population of Kareen into going through the Night of Light.”