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IGNORE EARLIER MESSAGE OF THIS DATE. “QUO PEREGRINATUR” TO BE REACTIVATED IMMEDIATELY BY BEQUEST OF HOLY FATHER. PREPARE CADRE TO LEAVE WITHIN THREE DAYS. WAIT FOR CONFIRMING WIRE BEFORE DEPARTURE. REPORT ANY VACANCIES IN CADRE ORGANIZATION. BEGIN CONDITIONAL IMPLEMENTATION OF PLAN. ERIC CARDINAL HOFFSTRAFF, VICAR APOST. EXTRATERR. PROVINCIAE.
The monk’s face lost color. He replaced the telegram on the desk and sat back in his chair, lips tight together.
“You know what Quo peregrinatur is?”
“I know what it is, Domne, but not in detail.”
“Well, it started as a plan to send a few priests along with a colony group heading for Alpha Centauri. But that didn’t work out, because it takes bishops to ordain priests, and after the first generation of colonists, more priests would have to be sent, and so on. The question boiled down to an argument about whether the colonies would last, and if so, should provision be made to insure the apostolic succession on colony planets without recourse to Earth? You know what that would mean?”
“Sending at least three bishops, I imagine.”
“Yes, and that seemed a little silly. The colony groups have all been rather small. But during the last world crisis, Quo peregrinatur became an emergency plan for perpetuating the Church on the colony planets if the worst came to pass on Earth. We have a ship.”
“A starship?”
“No less. And we have a crew capable of managing it.”
“Where?”
“We have the crew right here.”
“Here at the abbey? But who — ?” Joshua stopped. His face grew even grayer than before. “But, Domne, my experience in space has been entirely in orbital vehicles, not in starships! Before Nancy died and I went to the Cisterc—”
“I know all about that. There are others with starship experience. You know who they are. There are even jokes about the number of ex-spacers that seem to feel a vocation to our Order. It’s no accident, of course. And you remember when you were a postulant, how you were quizzed about your experience in space?”
Joshua nodded.
“You must also remember being asked about your willingness to go to space again, if the Order asked it of you.”
“Yes.”
“Then you were not wholly unaware that you were conditionally assigned to Quo peregrinatur, if it ever came to pass?”
“I — I guess I was afraid it was so, m’Lord.”
“Afraid?”
“Suspected, rather. Afraid too, a little, because I’ve always hoped to spend the rest of my life in the Order.”
“As a priest?”
“That — well, I haven’t yet decided.”
“Quo peregrinatur will not involve releasing you from your vows or mean abandoning the Order.”
“The Order goes too?”
Zerchi smiled. “And the Memorabilia with it.”
“The whole kit-and — Oh, you mean on microfilm. Where to?”
“`The Centaurus Colony.”
“How long would we be gone, Domne?”
“If you go, you’ll never come back.”
The monk breathed heavily and stared at the second telegram without seeming to see it He scratched his beard and appeared bemused.
“Three questions,” said the abbot. “Don’t answer now, but start thinking about them, and think hard. First are you willing to go? Second, do you have a vocation to the priesthood? Third, are you willing to lead the group? And by willing, I don’t mean ‘willing under obedience’; I mean enthusiastic, or willing to get that way. Think it over; you have three days to think — maybe less.”
Modern change had made but few incursions upon the buildings and the grounds of the ancient monastery. To protect the old buildings against the encroachment of a more impatient architecture, new additions had been made outside the walls and even across the highway — sometimes at the expense of convenience. The old refectory had been condemned because of a buckling roof, and it was necessary to cross the highway in order to reach the new refectory. The inconvenience was somewhat mitigated by the culvert walkunder through which the brothers marched daily to meals.
Centuries old, but recently widened, the highway was the same road used by pagan armies, pilgrims, peasants, donkey carts, nomads, wild horsemen out of the East, artillery, tanks, and ten-ton trucks. Its traffic had gushed or trickled or dripped, according to the age and season. Once before, long ago, there had been six lanes and robot traffic. Then the traffic had stopped, the paving had cracked, and sparse grass grew in the cracks after an occasional rain. Dust had covered it. Desert dwellers had dug up its broken concrete for the building of hovels and barricades. Erosion made it a desert trail, crossing wilderness. But now there were six lanes and robot traffic, as before.
“Traffic’s light tonight,” the abbot observed as they left the old main gate. “Let’s hike across. That tu
“Let’s go,” Brother Joshua agreed.
Low-slung trucks with feeble headlights (useful only for warning purposes) sped mindlessly past them with whining tires and moaning turbines. With dish ante
“This was a mistake,” Joshua said as they reached the center island and paused for breath. “Look who’s standing over there.”
The abbot peered for a moment, then clapped his forehead. “Mrs. Grales! I clean forgot: it’s her night to prowl me down. She’s sold her tomatoes to the sisters’ refectory, and now she’s after me again.”
“After you? She was there last night, and the night before, too. I thought she was waiting for a ride. What does she want from you?”
“Oh, nothing really. She’s finished gypping the sisters on the price of tomatoes, and now she’ll donate the surplus profit to me for the poor box. It’s a little ritual. I don’t mind the ritual. It’s what comes afterwards that’s bad. You’ll see.”
“Shall we go back?”
“And hurt her feelings? Nonsense. She’s seen us by now. Come on.”
They plunged into the thin stream of trucks again.
The two-headed woman and her six-legged dog waited with an empty vegetable basket by the new gate; the woman crooned softly to the dog. Four of the dog’s legs were healthy legs, but an extra pair dangled uselessly at its sides. As for the woman, one head was as useless as the extra legs of the dog. It was a small head, a cherubic head, but it never opened its eyes. It gave no evidence of sharing in her breathing or her understanding. It lolled uselessly on one shoulder, blind, deaf, mute, and only vegetatively alive. Perhaps it lacked a brain, for it showed no sign of independent consciousness or personality. Her other face had aged, grown wrinkled, but the superfluous head retained the features of infancy, although it had been toughened by the gritty wind and darkened by the desert sun.
The old woman curtsied at their approach, and her dog drew back with a snarl. “Evenin’, Father Zerchi,” she drawled, “a most pleasant evenin’ to yer — and to yer, Brother.”
“Why, hello, Mrs. Grales—”
The dog barked, bristled, and began a frenzied dance, feinting toward the abbot’s ankles with fangs bared for slashing. Mrs. Grales promptly struck her pet with the vegetable basket. The dog’s teeth slashed the basket; the dog turned on its mistress. Mrs. Grales kept it away with the basket; and after receiving a few resounding whacks, the dog retired to sit growling in the gateway.