by John Boyd
“They were. They weren’t monitored. Even now, he can’t read them aloud. He’s quoting from memory.”
The old man was rambling on. “You don’t talk about a state hero like that, unless you feel you’re his equal…”
“I warned you about Jesus,” Flaxon groaned. “I couldn’t warn you about every damned thing.”
“… That electronic Shakespeare he was talking about putting together in his spare time would have reproduced a brain more complex than any pope’s, and he’d have had to do it in eight years if he was going to jump his fence to get to that filly by foaling time, and it took Fairweather thirty years to build the pope.
“I think he could have done it! Judge, now I’ve got to be excused, but I say this young jasper’s got a mind where practiced amorality coupled with potential immortality could get my and your jobs, and I recommend putting that mind in the deep freeze.”
As Gurlick hurdle-hobbled from the stand, heading for the wings, Father Kelly swept forward, set his profile for the cameras, and delivered testimony far less damaging than his predecessors’. He quibbled only over Haldane’s assertion that God was love.
“In this bit of sophistry,” the priest said, “the defendant struck at the cornerstone of the Church. Without a concept of God as justice, and the concomitant sternness which the Holy Spirit reveals in administering his order, Freud would be revived, Darwin preached, and Darrow would be nipping at our robes.”
He even closed on a note of leniency. He would pray that justice be granted the soul of Haldane IV.
Glandis, the boy department member, strode into the arena as purposefully as a gladiator.
“Your honor, before interviewing the defendant I made extensive preparations to establish empathy. Under the assumption that the subject was possibly atavistic, I read the standard text on the personality aberrations which the ancients called ‘being in love,’ Booth Tarkington’s Seventeen.
“Assuming that the object of the subject’s libidinal fixation might throw light on the subject’s personality, I interviewed the object. She gave me a veiled message for the subject which was, in essence, that he should read for comfort the sonnets of one E. Browning, a poetess who was noted for her excess of sentimentality in an era renown for an excess of sentimentality. When the message was conveyed, the subject’s eyes lighted and his whole demeanor expressed happiness.
“With acute insight, I knew that I had established empathy and uncovered atavism.
“Following techniques of ingratiation laid down by the psychology of police interrogation, I expressed the view that the penalty for miscegenation might be unduly harsh since the possibility existed that the products of antisocial births might be socially useful.
“Sensing an ally, the subject demonstrated that the theory of selective eugenics was mathematically unsound and that environmental factors might cause its success.
“I would like to point out to the court that the theory of environmental psychology has been pronounced heretical.”
Flaxon responded automatically. “Objection!”
“Sustained,” Malak ruled. “Heresy immaterial.”
“After initial ingratiation,” Glandis continued, “I selected anger-stimuli and aroused subject’s ideo-aggressions by deriding his category. His response was to deride my category for failing to develop individual personality, thus subconsciously championing egoism over conditioned reaction or individualism over the greatest good for the greatest number. It is valid to point out to the court that this concept is non-Aristotelian, anti-Pavlovian. It is sheer Freud!
“During this period of the interview, I glimpsed the malfunctions of a social psychopath. In reviewing reports of other jurors, I noted his preoccupation with the personality of our noble hero, Fairweather I.
“His interest in the ideas of Fairweather I were consistent with a youth in his category; but his antipathy toward the state hero indicated a sadomasochistic love-hate relationship.
“This man sought a personal god! He rejected the socially approved worship of Jesus merely because it was socially acceptable. He rejected Fairweather I merely because he was a state hero. This man wanted a nonintegrated, nonvictorious, nonconformist, non-state-approved god.”
Listening, Haldane felt a chilled fury howl across the icescape of his mind. No police conspiracy this, but vile entrapment by state officers. He had been baited. Even the most casual side remarks of his jurors had been lures for a trap, and this moist-fleshed, fish-lipped lad, seemingly so innocuous, was a master baiter.
“In the routine National-American League question, his reaction, naturally, was negative. He was indifferent to group sports and equivocal about group recreation, a finding amply supported by the data collected without in-depth analysis by the Department of Sociology. But he was very interested in the individualistic, competitive, self-aggrandizing sport of judo.
“Your honor, the full extent of the subject’s antisocial orientation came in his answer to the job placement question: he wanted a job in the Hell ships!
“Sir, millions have been spent to create in the subject’s mind a neuropsychotic Hellophobia, and that horse… the subject has balked.” Glandis throbbed with incredulous indignation, and his fishface was lifted to the god of mackerels to witness this abomination.
“Then I asked myself, your honor, if the state has failed in this major area of his indoctrination, in how many minor areas must it have failed?
“Here was no mere atavism. I assembled the profile and fed the data into the department’s personality analyzer.
“Your honor, out of 153 items indicating a Fairweather Syndrome, the subject scored on 151. A simple majority is enough to carry.
“The time bomb has not exploded, but it is ticking away. There is no psychosis because there has been no overt action, but there,” he pointed his finger at Haldane, “sits a fully ripened Fairweather Syndrome. The department of psychology is to be complimented for this discovery.”
He turned and faced the judge. “Superficially, the defendant was charming, candid, and persuasive; had it not been for the training given to me by my department, this sociopsychopathic genius would be roaming the solar system unchecked. My initial suspicion was alerted by an idle gesture all others overlooked, the indication of sublimated aggressiveness in his practice of swinging a clenched fist into an open palm.
“May my claim for the department be so entered on the records of the court.”
As the judge pronounced, “Clerk, so enter.” And as the victorious Glandis walked back to resume his seat beside the remaining jurors, Haldane turned to Flaxon. “A question, Counselor. If Fairweather’s such a pariah, why was he permitted to build the pope?”
“The syndrome was not named for the mathematician,” Flaxon said. “It was named after his son, Fairweather II.”
“Who was Fairweather II?”
“A wild-eyed revolutionary who organized an army of dissident professionals and prols to overthrow the state. You can see what a feat that was! You got no further than one girl and one stupid lawyer before you were caught.”
“I never read about it in history books.”
“Do you think the state would publish a manual for revolutionaries? The only people who know about it are those who have to be on guard to detect it, people like lawyers, sociologists, psychologists… some lawyers, that is!
“This case ends the Flaxons. You don’t defend a Fairweather Syndrome, you report it!” He lowered his head to his hands. “Ninety-nine per cent of the lawyers go their lifetime without even hearing about one, and I get one on my fifth pleading.”
One segment of his mind sympathized with the abject man beside him, but curiosity brushed aside his concern not only for Flaxon but for himself as Haldane asked, “What happened to the army?”
“Crushed! Fairweather’s father found out and told the police. They were waiting for him when he struck. The uprisers took over Moscow for a week, blew up a few power stations in America, sacked Buenos Aires,
but it was all over in three days.
“One good came of it. They analyzed Fairweather’s personality before they carted him off to Hell, so the state’s been on guard ever since… everybody but me, that is.”
The voice of the bailiff cut across Haldane’s thoughts. “Will the defendant stand?”
Haldane stood.
Judge Malak leaned forward and studied Haldane with curiosity, as if he wanted to impress on his mind the features of one who possessed the dread syndrome.
When he spoke, the judge seemed detached. “In view of the findings of the court, Haldane IV, it is mandatory that judgment be held against you. However, I am suspending sentence pending your appeal until 2 P.M. tomorrow afternoon, remanding you to the custody of the Church, and may God show justice toward your plea.”
Haldane sat down as the rustle of departing spectators rose around him, the camera lights flicked off, and the deputies closed in. Turning to the wooden-faced Flaxon, he asked, “What court are we appealing to?”
Flaxon rose, put his folio under his arm, and said, “It isn’t us. It’s you, though heaven knows it’s my last chance too. And you aren’t appealing to a court. You’re appealing straight to God.”
He turned and walked away, not briskly, as Haldane looked sadly on the vanishing back of the—first and last of the line of Flaxon.
Franz, he noticed, was already heading through the exit. He’d make the first race at Bay Meadows.
Chapter Eleven
They approached Mount Whitney from the southeast after swinging in a wide arc over Bishop and the western edge of the Inyo Mountains, buttonhooking the arc at Death Valley to soar, almost at right angles, into the massif of the Sierras.
In the front seat of the plane, between Father Kelly and a deputy, Haldane watched the wall of granite before them, vegetation stringing its sides where brooks tumbled from the snow fields. Below them, the moraines of the Panamint and the dunes of Death Valley formed a desolate approach to the City of God.
“There it is,” the priest whispered in awe.
Haldane shared his feeling. They were gliding low enough and close enough to feel the immensity of the mountain atop which perched the cathedral built to house the machine men called the pope.
Drifting toward the cathedral, like still-winged butterflies converging on a single flower, white pilgrim ships began to float beside them, but there was no alteration in the flight path of the black plane carrying Haldane. Petitioners to escape Hell had priority over pilgrims bringing praise; God’s justice was swift.
West of the cathedral was the landing field, shaved from solid granite, on which the ship alighted. It was not much larger than an oversized football field, and it was crowded with pilgrim ships.
Leaving his prisoner to the deputy, Father Kelly jumped from the plane and landed to crouch on his knees, facing the cathedral, his eyes closed, muttering Latin sentences. Haldane and the deputy crawled out as the priest finished his prayer with: “Mea culpa, mea culpa: Haldanus maxima culpas.”
The deputy made a hasty sign of the crossbow but remained standing, his eyes on Haldane. Haldane did nothing. He did not consider the cathedral a house of God but a monument to parental guilt feelings.
Father Kelly rose. “Follow me, my son.”
Together the trio mounted the long flight of steps. They marched past the waiting line of pilgrims who eyed the black uniform of Haldane with hostility because he was going ahead of them in the line.
They were met at the doorway by a gray-cowled monk of the order of Gray Brothers. Father Kelly was greeted respectfully and conversed with the monk in low whispers. All Haldane could catch of their speech was Deus ex machina, but he saw Father Kelly hand the monk a card punched with index holes.
The monk took the card and scampered into the shadows of the building.
Father Kelly turned to Haldane. “Brother Jones has been given your trial transcript which is keyed to your dossier, already on file with the pope. He will have it inserted by the time we reach the altar. Come.”
Inside, it was dim and cool, and the air was heavy with oxygen. Haldane, looking upward, could hardly see the ceiling so lofty was the cathedral.
Slowly, setting the tempo of their progress to the stride of Father Kelly, Haldane and the deputy walked down the long nave toward the apse and the high altar which housed the pope.
At the nave side of the transept, the priest halted. “It is mandatory that you make your plea without my intercession. Kneel. Speak directly toward the altar in a normal tone of voice. Give the pope your name and genealogical designation. Ask him to review the findings in your case. Tell him that you seek only justice. Plead any circumstance that you think may alleviate your crime. It is customary to refer to the pope as ‘your excellency.’
“And be brief,” Father Kelly warned, “for others wait for an audience.”
As he moved forward to the kneeling pad, Haldane felt the awe of intense curiosity. No matter what the background of its designer, this computer was the most perfect machine ever devised. It needed no upkeep because it repaired its own defects. It responded to the spoken word in the language of the speaker, and Haldane had heard the rumor, surely apocryphal, that if you spoke to it in pig Latin, it answered in pig Latin.
Its decision was final. It had been known to free murderers and to permit deviationists to walk away from the cathedral with their records cleared.
He went through the ritual prescribed by Father Kelly and finished with his one plea for clemency. “I ask not for justice but for mercy, and this I submit in the name of Our Savior. I loved another with a love that surpassed the understanding of my brothers in Christ.”
Suddenly a great voice issued from the altar, speaking with tones hollow and mechanically resonant, yet carrying a great burden of gentleness. “This love was for Helix?”
“Yes, your excellency.”
There was a silence underlain by the low purr of dynamos, and in that silence hope exploded in the mind of Haldane, flooding his brain with radiance.
That voice had been too gentle to condemn, too kind to wrest an innocent being from his warm, green mother planet and hurl him onto the frozen wastes of Hell. Haldane leaned forward for the words that would set him free, restore Helix to her profession, and give Flaxon back his dynasty.
Then the words came: “It is the judgment of God that the decision of the court is true and just in every respect.”
There was a whirr and a click, irrevocable, ultimate, final. Haldane was so shocked he could not get off his knees and remained on the prayer pad until the deputy, with the priest, came and wrested him forcibly to his feet.
Even the acoustics of the cathedral had changed when the pope delivered his bull, the words rolling through the vast chamber. Dazed, Haldane walked between the priest and the deputy into the bright sunlight and thin air of the mountain top. Once beyond the hypnotic influence of the pope, Haldane felt betrayed, and raw fury surged inside him. He turned on the unsuspecting priest. “If that agglomeration of transistors concocted by a moral idiot is the voice of God, then I deny God and all his works.”
Aghast, Father Kelly turned to him, his ordinarily pious eyes burning with anger. “That’s blasphemy!”
“Indeed,” Haldane agreed, “and what is the Department of the Church going to do about it, sentence me to Hell?”
Haldane’s ironic logic struck the priest with its truth, and the exultation of the righteous returned to his uptilted face. “Yes, my son, for you there is no God. You will feel His absence in the hour-long minutes, dragging into month-long hours, oozing into eon-long months of the eternity of Godless Hell, and you will suffer, and suffer, and suffer.”
Before noon they were back in San Francisco. After lunch, Haldane was returned to the court, and he was surprised to find the courtroom more crowded than the day before. The red lights glowed above the television cameras, the jury was still present, and an air of expectancy hung over the room.
Only Flaxon was absent.
Off on some new assignment, Haldane figured, perhaps mopping the courthouse corridors.
Haldane thought that the passing of sentence would be an anticlimax, now that it was known his appeal had been denied, but he suddenly remembered that the sentencing was the point of the dagger. Here was the moment that unified the world into one folk at one folk festival. This was the swish of the headman’s ax, the crack of the breaking neck, the height of the trial. They had come to watch him break under the strain, as he himself had often watched when the trial of a deviationist flashed onto the television screen.
Usually, he remembered, the spectacles began with the fawning, obsequious displays of humility from the defendant, who thanked everyone for a fair trial, often shaking hands with individual jurors, and then there was a rising babble of hysteria as the condemned begged for a mercy which could not be granted. Climax was achieved when the felon fell groveling before the bench, kissing the hem of the judge’s robe, whimpering, moaning, or falling into a dead faint. Such was the standard form, and it was usually adhered to; it was not considered good form and was not satisfying to the public when felons fainted prematurely.
These things were bread and circuses for the mob and the most effective object lesson the executive departments of the state had hit upon to communicate to the people the horrors awaiting the deviationist.
Suddenly he remembered Fairweather II. Certainly the mind that in secret and alone had almost toppled the Weird Sisters had not cowered before this ordeal, and he had the same personality traits as Fairweather II. Pride of tradition ignited the powder of his anger, and a resolution exploded in Haldane’s mind.
He would treat the mob to a different exhibition.
Again the bailiff droned the audience to its feet, the judge entered, and there was the theatrical solemnity of Father Kelly intoning the decision of the pope.
Malak said, “Will the prisoner arise?”
Haldane arose.
“If the prisoner wishes, he may speak to the bar before sentence is passed.” Malak’s fatherly tone throbbed with eagerness.
