Nectar of Heaven dot-20

by E. C. Tubb

  "Why?" Carmodyne, big, bluff, impetuous, had snorted his impatience. "Why to summon the worshipers, of course."

  "To summon?" Brave in his annoyance, Tobol had shaken his head. "We do not issue orders, my lord. We do not demand suppliants to come to us. The Church of Universal Brotherhood wields no compulsion."

  "But how else can they tell when to come to worship?"

  "To worship what? Stones? Glass? Metal? Faith is not housed in buildings, my lord. It lives in the heart."

  Carmodyne had been hurt. "Are you saying you don't like the building? That you object to my having given it to you?"

  The last, at least Tobol could answer with inoffensive truth.

  "My lord we are grateful for all you do. For all you give. For your generosity and kindness and concern. If I have offended I crave forgiveness." A trained psychologist, Tobol knew how to play on emotion. Knew also when to be humble, when to sooth and, despite his misapplied generosity, Carmodyne had meant well.

  A man now dead but the building he had left remained a burden to the church as it did to his heiress. Looking up at the soaring tower, Fiona Velen pursed her lips with barely disguised anger.

  "The fool! To have spent so much for so little! Typical of my uncle but now I have to meet the cost. How much do you think it would bring at auction?"

  "Very little, my lady." Brother Tobol, now older by a year, shrugged thin shoulders beneath the brown homespun of his robe. "The adornments are built into the fabric and removing them would cost more than they are worth. The design is hardly suited to commercial purposes nor does it lend itself to regular habitation. Your uncle, I fear, was poorly advised."

  By romantic notions culled from old books and legends.

  Tales of an age which had never been illustrated by cities and towers of the imagination. Castles, strongholds, places of ancient worship-what had made the fool spend so much?

  Watching the play of emotion over her strongly boned face the monk said quietly, "There will be no protest at any decision you choose to make. In the meantime, may it be used as your uncle intended?"

  A memorial if nothing else, and a living one; despite her anger she had to admit that. If only the charges had been settled she would have been able to look at it with greater pleasure for, in its way, it was a masterpiece. But who could use beauty as collateral? Buy shares with artistic appreciation?

  The land it stood on could be sold, of course, and the new owner would be responsible for upkeep and charges due. Arment? A moment and she rejected the idea; the man was too busy building his holdings. Judd? Attracted to her as he was he could be less than cautious but she knew him too well not to guess at the price. One she was reluctant to pay. Prador? Hurt by the recent attack he was in no condition to do other than lick his wounds. Helm? If he bought it at all it would be to convert it to rubble.

  The problem annoyed her. Deals were made in the comfort of detachment; lands and properties bought, sold, offered at auction in an endless flow of manipulation. To see the place, to talk to the monk, to imagine her uncle standing where she was standing now, remembering his voice, his manner, his infectious laughter-what had made him do it?

  "Some wine, my lady?" Tobol glanced at the ruby sun now low in the green-hazed sky. "Some food, perhaps? We have cakes and bread spiced with various flavors. A hobby," he confessed. "To mix and knead and bake. Had I not joined the church I think I would have been happy as a baker."

  And he would have made a good one, she decided after tasting the proffered delicacies. As Samuel would have made a good vintner if the wine was of his making. As Jeld, the youngest, a good attendant. He had been both deft and silent, not even the sandals covering the bareness of his feet audible on the tessellated floor. Only the burning intensity of his eyes had spoiled the image of the perfect servitor.

  The eyes of a fanatic-but all monks had to be that. Why else did they choose to live as they did?

  "Some more cake, my lady?" Tobol gestured to a plate heaped with elaborate confections of sugar and nuts crusting convoluted pastry. "A little more wine?" He signaled for the table to be cleared as, again, she shook her head. "Would you care to see more of the church? There is an interesting carving in the northeast corner which may amuse you and the pattern of light thrown on the paving from the clerestory is at its best this time of day."

  The food and wine had soothed her and she had spent too much time not to waste a little more. The carving lived up to its promise and she was entranced by the cunning pattern of light which threw the interior into a cavern dusted with rainbows. Carmodyne's work? Had he ordered the placing of the tinted glass as he must have commissioned the carving?

  She remembered the face, the unmistakable parody of his own, the lips curved in laughter, the eyes crinkled with smiles. A gross, almost grotesque image, and yet it held a certain magic. As did the flowing pattern of light, the combination of hues, shadows, striations. Again she wondered why he had done it. Why build such an edifice? A question she put bluntly to Tobol.

  For a moment he hesitated then said, "I believe it was because he loved beauty, my lady. Not, perhaps, the frail and delicate beauty of a flower but something on a grander scale. It had to be big and bright and splendid so he built something high and wide and filled it with light."

  Light and space and hope for the afflicted. She wondered why the monk had neglected to mention that, and had failed, also, to stress the comfort given to those who came to receive it. These questions were an irritation-why was she so concerned? Carmodyne was dead and his dream should die with him.

  Watching the raft as it carried her back to the city and her home, Brother Jeld said bitterly, "Well, there she goes. How long now before the church is in ruins?"

  "A building is not the Church," said Tobol firmly. "We can do without it if we must."

  "To use the one you started with? The tent set up at the edge of the field? Small accomplishment for two decades of labor, Brother."

  A score of years during which Jeld had grown from boy into man. Time to be accepted as a novice, to be tested, trained, to become a fully fledged monk and to be sent to Sacaweena on his first mission.

  Tobol wished he had been sent elsewhere.

  This was an uncharitable thought and he did his best to crush it but, as at the present, it returned to disturb his equilibrium. Was it pride which made him chafe at the younger man? If so it was a sin and must be eradicated, but it was a sin which Jeld more than shared. Pride in position and attainment led to the pain of others; servants, those less high, those needing support. Pride in possessions warped the basic fabric of human nature, for to love things more than living creatures was to invite evil.

  Did Jeld hold the building in higher regard than his sworn purpose in life?

  Watching him, Tobol was reluctant to believe it. The face, limned by the dying light of the sun now resting on the watery horizon, held the firm resolution of youthful dedication, but that was to be expected. As was the fire in the eyes, the impatience, the fretting at what must have seemed illogical barriers. As, too, was the yearning for power, the ability to sweep aside all the obstructions which hindered the final glory of Man.

  The moment when each could look at the other and realize the basic truth. There, but for the grace of God, go I.

  The millennium which he would never see. As Jeld would never see or any monk now living. Men bred too fast and traveled too far for that but even while accepting that he would never see the culmination of his work, Tobol was content to do what he could-to alleviate suffering, to feed the starving, to comfort those in need. To set the example he wished others to follow.

  A point he emphasized as he walked with Jeld across the sward surrounding the church.

  "Of all dangers men face when dealing with their fellows pride is the most insidious. It seems so natural to display success, to show the world we have gained an advantage or achieved a measure of gratification. A man will boast of a new raft, a boat, his promotion. A woman of her new gown, her new home,
a better situation. Small things, harmless it would appear, but that appearance is deceptive. For such things feed envy and envy can destroy."

  "The church," said Jeld. "You are talking about the church."

  This time Tobol made no play on the word. "Yes, Brother, this church. I was against it from the first and I thought you knew why. How many faiths have foundered because the original intention became lost in a desire for pomp and possessions? That danger we must avoid above all others, for to display wealth would set us apart from those we are dedicated to serve. Pride can have no place in our existence."

  Which was why all monks, even the highest, wore the same brown robe, the same sandals on bare feet, had the same look of deprivation.

  Food was for the starving and to wear a gem was to insult those to whom the bauble would mean food and warmth and medicine. To preach was to offend with its assumption of superiority and was itself a display of pride. To serve. To help the afflicted. To tend the sick and ill and to ease the hearts and souls of the troubled-the life of a monk.

  "Is there nothing we can do?" Jeld halted to look beyond the church at the ocean below the high ground on which it stood. The light from the sun painted the spire with ruby, turning it into a glowing pillar of flame. "If she decides against us-what can we do?"

  "We can hope," said Tobol quietly. "And pray."

  There was nothing else and the younger man knew it. Even so, Tobol saw the sudden clenching of his hand, the tension made manifest in the jaw, the throat, signs obvious to the trained eye, even though the face had remained impassive in the frame of the thrown-back cowl. Impatience controlled but present, and the old monk could feel sympathy. How often, when young, had he felt the same frustration?

  Too often and too long ago but the time which had seamed his face and taken his hair had also curbed his impatience. As it would curb Jeld's. As it would teach him that, while a monk needed to feel, yet that feeling must not be too narrow, too intense. It was right to care for the sick-but all the sick. To be concerned over the poor-but all the poor. That to burn yourself out over one individual was to rob the rest. To care too much about one building to diminish the importance of all other churches.

  Yet the one Carmodyne had built would be missed.

  He let his eyes run over the structure as they made their way back. A computer had determined stress levels and tolerances, the optimum spans and arches, but an artist had placed his own imprint on the whole and the man finally responsible had sealed that with his own peccadilloes.

  The carving, for instance, had he ordered the mason to be so outrageous? The mosaic in the south transept-had he planned the transfiguration when light struck it at certain times of the day? Curtains had shielded the area and nullified the original intention-if intention it had been-but could the subtle depiction of interwound figures have been anything else? The explicit activity in which they were engaged?

  A scene not likely to appeal to the new owner with her reputation for fastidious modesty. One probably exaggerated but built on a foundation of truth. He had been right not to have mentioned it, the carving had been enough, but Tobol didn't think he had made a mistake. The woman was grown, adult, a person of experience and one who must know something of the basic facts of life. Sex, of course, but more than that; the humor which lurked in unsuspected places as did farce and tragedy, pleasure and pain.

  Would she sell?

  Tobol recalled the way she had looked when examining the exterior of the church. Her eyes had held contempt if not for the building then for the man who had ordered it. The reason he had shown her the carving; if bad blood had existed between them the depiction may have shown a side of her uncle she hadn't known.

  By contrast the interior of the church was dark; the light which had illuminated the tessellated floor now touching the upper reaches, casting smoke-like shadows on the groins, the vaulted spaces. In the dusk the suppliants waited with their usual patience. As he took his place one came to kneel in the cubicle before him; a man with a pale, tormented face, thin, knotted hands which clenched and clenched again as if they were animals beyond his control.

  A man in need and Tobol listened to his litany of petty sins, studying the pale face now illuminated by the swirling colors of the benediction light.

  "… neighbor's wife and we did wrong when he was kept late at the factory. A good man and I can't look into his eyes now and I'm sure he must suspect something because he used to wait for me to walk home with him and now he doesn't and…"

  Suspicion and terror of punishment coupled with an inner guilt and sense of shame to create a situation verging on the borders of insanity. A less sensitive man would have suffered less, a more brutal one not at all, but they too had their fears and guilts and terrors which haunted their lives.

  "Look into the light," said Tobol as the litany came to an end. "Look into the light of forgiveness. Bathe in the flame of righteousness and be cleansed of all sin. Be freed of pain. Of suffering. Yield to the benediction of the Universal Brotherhood."

  The light was hypnotic, the suppliant responsive, the monk skilled in his application. The pale face relaxed, the hands, the body, as he slipped into a trance, in which he would suffer subjective penance later to receive the bread of forgiveness.

  And if some came only for the wafer of concentrate it didn't matter. Each, while under the light, was conditioned never to kill. Potential murder prevented for the cost of a little food-it was a fair exchange.

  Chapter Five

  Sacaweena was not Earth. Dumarest had known it from the moment of landing, even before, for Earth was a world with empty skies at night and the journey had been too short to have carried them far toward the Rim. The sky, too, was the wrong color, the sun, the lack of a moon. And, at night, there was fire.

  He watched it from the window of the room they had taken in an inexpensive hotel set high against the edge of encircling hills. An oddly built place with a rounded roof and thick copper bars flanking the windows-lightning conductors which graced every building and reared high in every street. A defense against the flickering glows in the north, the electrical fury which sent low rumbles through the air as if gods were waging dreadful war with outmoded cannon.

  "It's normal," said Vardoon as he came to join Dumarest at the window. "The sun charges the atmosphere during the day and we get the discharge at night. There are peaks to the north which act as conductors. Like the ones in the street," he added. "But storms don't often hit the town."

  "How often?"

  "It varies. If the solar wind is strong then the charge builds high and all hell lets loose. Three, four times a year, maybe."

  "And every night?"

  "Usually every night," admitted Vardoon. "But the full impact is far to the north where the rocks have a high mineral content."

  He had neglected to mention these details and Dumarest wondered what else he had left out. Wondered too if he had made a mistake, but if he had it was too late to regret it.

  He turned back to the window as Vardoon busied himself with the equipment he had bought. The shore was rimmed with lights and, as he watched, a couple of small boats pulled in to dock at a jetty. Fishermen coming in to unload their catch. More lights illuminated the field set far to one side but the area was deserted. Facing it across the town rose the mass of the church.

  An odd place to put such a building in such an environment and Dumarest wondered what had motivated the builder. The tower was an invitation to the fury of the elements and must be made of electro-repulsive material strengthened with a conductor inches thick.

  "Earl?" Vardoon looked up from the gear he was examining. "You want to check this?"

  The suit was of thick, ribbed material holding the feel of insulating plastic. Metal strips covered it ending at plates on the boots and a spike topping the helmet. The helmet itself was of spacesuit design as were the air tanks fitted to the shoulders.

  "An adaptation." Vardoon was proud of his work. "The suit is basically scuba gear with a
dditions and the helmet is one used on airless worlds for mining. The whole thing a dielectric, naturally, and the conductors will give added protection."

  Dumarest said, "Did you use one like this the last time you were here?"

  "I-no."

  "Have you ever used one?"

  "On Symile," said Vardoon. "A suit, I mean. One sealed and armored against fragments and poisonous vapor. A hell of an engagement. And I did some underwater work on Aquis."

  Experience enough if the man told the truth and Dumarest, checking, saw the man had made no mistakes. The tanks were placed where they could be reached, the belt held the right equipment, the filters could be changed and cleaned. He removed one, tapped it, looked at Vardoon.

  "To conserve air," the man explained. "We won't need to use the tanks until actually working, but we'll need the suits for protection most of the time we're in the area. The filters will make sure we don't suck in anything we don't want."

  "Supplies? Survival tent? Weapons?"

  Familiar items to them both and again Dumarest had to admit Vardoon had done well. He checked one of the guns, a primitive slug-thrower, the magazine holding a score of stubby cartridges. Cheap, tough, inaccurate at any range but devastating at close quarters.

  Hefting it, he said, "Just what is waiting for us up there?"

  "Nothing, I hope." Vardoon rubbed at his face and scowled. "But I like to be sure. We may never need to use them but I don't want to regret their not being at hand. At times a gun can be a man's best friend."

  Against the things which could lurk in dark places. The beasts waiting to attack, the predators eager for easy prey. Predators which could walk on two legs and carry guns of their own.

  "I was careful," said Vardoon, guessing Dumarest's thoughts. "We're prospectors looking for juscar and heavy oils; rare metals and rich shale. I even got us licenses from the Quale Consortium to cross their land."

  "The right land?"

  "No."

  "Then they aren't worth the paper they're printed on." Dumarest threw down the gun. "What happens if we get caught? A fine for trespass? Imprisonment?"