That heart would be the subterranean quarters of the Hierarch himself, far below the angel-spiked towers and protected by half a mile of earth and stone from all possible harm. The Hierophants of exalted degrees occupy apartments nearby. The machines are above that, and then the chapels, and only then the terminus and reception area. In the lowest rooms of the towers are the suites of the servitors and clergy of moderate status. The farther up one is assigned to live, the lower down the organizational ladder one finds himself, or such is the conventional wisdom. The higher up, the longer it takes one to get down to the chapels and the tunnels where the ritual work of Sanctity is conducted. The higher up one lives, the less valued one is. At the top, communing with the clouds, are the eager converts with too little intellect to be good for anything much; the old, their anonymity fading into forgetfulness; the pledged acolytes, serving out their unwilling terms.
And it is there, in the highest floor of the highest tower, that Rillibee Chime spends his undutied hours, squatting in purported meditation in cloud-surrounded silence, sprawling through papery, celibate nights on his narrow bed, untinted by happy dream. It is here he rises in the morning and washes himself, here he dons his soft slippers, here he puts on a clean, colorless suit with its tight, anonymous hood and touches his face with powder to remove any unseemly color. As he does this, he watches birds going by in long, purposeful V-shaped lines, headed southward toward the warm lands, toward Rillibee's home. Sanctity is set upon the edge of the waste, both to separate itself from the humdrum daily affairs of the world and to avoid taking up room which nature needs for other things. Behind the glittering towers lie the arctic tundra and the ice and a cold uninterrupted for many centuries.
Though cold has no meaning in Sanctity. Within the towers the temperature never changes. Rain does not fall, nor snow intrude upon these quiet corridors. Nothing grows. Nothing is acknowledged to die. If Rillibee were to fall seriously ill, he would be spirited away and another acolyte would occupy his room, do his work, attend to his services. No one would care that one had gone and another had come. A message might be sent to his parents or guardians, if he had any such, but that is the only notice that would be taken. Though doctrine teaches that the immortality of the person is the sole reason for Sanctity's edificial existence, there is no personality allowed in its service – at least not at Rillibee's level. There are few names known in Sanctity: the Hierarch, Carlos Yrarier; the division chief for Missions, Sender O'Neil; the name of the Hierarch Elect. Rillibee's name will never be among them.
Sometimes he says his name to himself, over and over, silently, reminding himself who he is, clinging to himself, the self he had known, the self with memories and a past and people he loved once. Sometimes he stares out at a neighboring tower, trying to see through the sparkling surface to any person there, to someone else, someone with another name, fighting down the cries that threaten to break loose in his rigid throat.
"I am Rillibee Chime," he whispers to himself. "Born among the cactus of the deserts. Companion of birds and lizards." He summons up the memory of birds, lizards, of the lines of ducks overhead, of flat corncakes cooked on a hot griddle, the taste of savory beans, the memory of Miriam, Joshua, Songbird as they were, once, long ago. "Two more years," he whispers to himself. "Two more years."
Two more years of his term of service. Not that he had been pledged by his parents as the sons of the Sanctified were pledged. Not that he had been promised in order for his mother to receive permission to bear a son. It was only among the Sanctified that women had to pledge their boy children to years of service in Sanctity itself, and Rillibee's people had not been Sanctified. No, Rillibee had been taken, taken in, adopted, assigned to service because there had been no one left to keep the grasping minions of Sanctity at bay.
Two more years, Rillibee says to himself, if he can last that long. And if he cannot? Sometimes he asks himself that question, fearing what the answer is. What happens to those who cannot last out their terms? What happens to those who cannot choke the screams down, who gibber or shout or curse, as he wants to curse … ?
"Damn," the parrot had said, long ago, making Miriam laugh. "Damn. Shit."
"Damn," Rillibee whispers now.
"Let me die," the parrot had said. No one had laughed then.
"Let me die," Rillibee agrees, hands outstretched to the glowing six-winged seraphim on the towers.
Nothing happens. The angels, though constantly solicited, do not strike him down.
Each day he goes out of his cubicle to the drop chute and stands looking at it for a moment, wondering if he has the courage to leap into it. When he first came to Sanctity he was pushed into it, pushed into it time after time, feeling himself falling forever while his skin crawled and his stomach fought to get out through his nose. Ten years now, and he still screams mentally each time he thinks of dropping into the chute. He has found an acceptable alternative. Inside the bottomless well of the chutes are fat metal staple-shaped rungs, set there for men to climb upon when the chutes must be cleaned or repaired. A thousand feet down. A thousand feet up. Rillibee climbs them twice each day, rising early to be sure he has time.
After the climb, mess hall. He has come to mess hall for ten years now, every day since he was twelve, but he still fights down the urge to cough at the smell of breakfast. Mess hall. Full of the forever stink of nasty-tasting stuff. He does not stay to eat.
He goes climbing, down once more to duty hall, searching out his number from among a thousand others on the lighted board. RC-15-18809. Clerical duties for the Hierarch. Cleric-all required. Guide duty. Level three minus, Room 409, 1000 hours.
The Hierarch. Strange that they should appoint someone so young and uncommitted as Rillibee to attend the Hierarch. Or, perhaps, not strange. So far as Sanctity is concerned, he is merely a part, interchangeable with any other part. It takes no commitment to guide a visitor or operate a cleric-all.
His body will not be required for two hours. Time to do something. Time to go to Supply and check out a cleric-all. Time to go up to commissary level and buy something to eat that tastes like real food. Time to go to the library and pick out something for recreation. He is afraid to go where people are. Cries of loneliness and frustration are too close to the roots of his tongue He swallows, trying to drive them down, but they stay there, rough greasy lumps of unswallowed and habitual grief.
Better to go where almost no one goes. One more climb down to chapel level and a slow walk along the corridor, passing chapel after chapel, hearing the mosquito whine of the speakers over each altar. Picking a chapel at random, Rillibee goes in and sits down, putting on the earphones which slow the mosquito whine to an understandable speed. A ponderous bass voice is chanting. "Artemus Jones. Favorella Biskop. Janice Pittorney." Rillibee slips the earphones off and watches the altar instead.
Each day an elder sits behind the altar, waiting for the anonymous acolyte to present a list of new enrollees. The elder nods his head and the acolyte begins, "On the world of Semling, a womanchild born to Martha and Henry Spike who has been named Alevia Spike. On Victory, a boychild born to Brown Brittle and Hard Lost Blue who has been named Broken Sound. On Repentance, a boychild to Domal and Susan Crasmere who has been named Domal Vincente II."
To each such intelligence the elder bows low, intoning words made nonsensical by overuse, words none of them in the towers hear any longer. "Sanctity. Unity. Immortality." Meaning doesn't matter. The mere utterance of these words opens the holy door. The mere syllabic mutter enters the name into the rolls of humanity. When the words have been intoned, the robed acolyte holds his forms and tissue samples for a moment in the sacred smoke before thrusting them into slots where they plunge down slanted surfaces of polished stone into a place this acolyte, like most short-term acolytes, will never see. There the name is put into the files and the cell sample is put into the tissue banks, both making an immortal place in the holy history for little red-wrinkled Alevia, for screaming infant Broke, for drow
sy Dom.
Rillibee has been down in the clucking depths once or twice on records duty. The genealogy machines are down there, muttering to themselves as they assign numbers and make note of the genetic information in the cell samples, information which will serve, should the occasion arise, to resurrect the body of Alevia or Broke or Dom or this one or that one or anyone who has ever lived, uniquely himself or herself, distinguishable from all their human brethren alive or dead, emerging newborn from the clone machines. In body only, of course. No one has found a way yet to record memory or personality. Still, better body than nothing, so the Sanctified say as they drop their samples down. If the body lives, it will accumulate memory, and in time there will be a new creation not unlike the old. Who is to say the new Alevia will not, on strange occasions and with a sense of deja vu, relive her former life? Who is to say that Dom will not look into the mirror and see there the ghost of a former self?
In the depths of Sanctity is the name of every man and woman who has ever lived in all of human history. Those for whom no written history could be found have been extrapolated by the humming machines back to the edge of the time when there was no mankind. There are men and women in the machines with names no historic person ever knew, names in languages that were spoken at the dawn of time. Never mind that no one alive can speak the language of Homo habilis; the machines know what it was and the names of those who spoke it. Adam, just down from the trees, is on the list, and Eve, scratching her butt with a splay-thumbed hand. Their genotypes are there as well, designed by the machines and assigned appropriate DNA sequences. Every person ever alive is there, in Sanctity/Unity/Immortality.
And all of it, every machine, every entry, every sample, all of it is guarded. There are guards everywhere, watching, noticing, reporting. Watching for those who may not conform to the ideal of S/U/I. Watching for acolytes who fall apart into gibbering madness. Watching for Moldies, members of that sect that has wearied of troublesome life and desires only the end, the ultimate destruction of Sanctity, of Terra, of a hundred worlds, of life itself – the end of all those men and women on the eternal list.
Every day, in each of a thousand chapels, parts of the list are read by the machines, read aloud, dawn to dusk, dusk to dawn. When the list has been read in its entirety, the machines start over. The mosquito whine of the reading has no end as it rehearses all of humanity from father Adam to little Dom, over and over again.
As it goes on Rillibee sits staring at the elder, half listening to the names put forward by the acolyte, lifting the mechanism back to his ear as the machine recitation goes on. "Violet Wilberforce. Nick En Ching. Herbard Guston." Everyone else who has ever lived, but not Rillibee Chime. He has never heard his name in that mechanical voice. Perhaps he will not be enrolled until he has completed his twelve years and gone. The earpieces are thick with dust. It has been a long time since anyone has come there to listen, a long time since anyone has cared about the litany.
In a little while he will pick up the cleric-all and report for duty to Room 409, level three minus. In a moment. For now, he will sit here very quietly, choking down his loneliness as he says Rillibee Chime to himself, carefully listening to the sound of it, words spoken aloud in a human voice in this empty hell where no one speaks his name.
As Rigo Yrarier stepped out of the conveyance pod in the reception area deep underground, he was not entirely surprised to find his skin crawling with superstitious revulsion. He hadn't wanted to come here. Uncle Carlos had sent a message begging him to come. Uncle Carlos, the family scandal. Carlos, a skeleton in the confessional, as it were. Apostate Uncle Carlos, long ago lapsed from the Old Catholic religion of his birth and now Hierarch of all this … this. Rigo looked around himself trying to define this. This hive. This unholy ant's nest. Outside the glass room in which he stood, identically suited and powdered figures scurried like so many anonymous insects.
Rigo had not wanted to come, not even on a mission of mercy, which is what Uncle Carlos had called it in his message. Missions of mercy were Marjorie's business, not Rigo's, and he was not even sympathetic with hers. Useless, all of it. One could not save people who were too stupid to save themselves, and the same thing applied to Sanctity, so far as Rigo was concerned. Then, surprisingly, Father Sandoval had urged Rigo to answer the plea. No doubt Father had reasons of his own. He would probably want a report; he would want to know all about Sanctity, what it looked like, what went on there. Old Catholic clergy were allowed to take tours of Sanctity about as often as Old Catholic clergy allowed the devil to assist at mass.
The superstitious revulsion Rigo felt was only part of his reluctance. There was a good deal of anger and hostility in him as well, which he recognized and tried to guard against showing as he looked about for someone who would tell him where to go next. The ghostly aspect of the suited and powdered nonentity who came through the hissing door and bowed in greeting did nothing to alleviate Rigo's sense that something was crawling on him. Neither did the long walk as he followed his guide down ramified corridors, past chapel after chapel, all of them empty, all of them buzzing with the shrill telling of names, endless lists of names.
It would be better, he thought, if they invented machines to listen as well as machines to speak, or simply let one machine rehearse the names quietly and eternally to itself. As much would be achieved, certainly, without this mosquito howl which made his skin itch and his head hurt. His own name was undoubtedly in that noise somewhere. His own and Marjorie's and the children's. There was no escaping it, even though their families had filed the exemption forms saying they were of another faith, did not wish to be listed in Sanctity, did not wish their children to be listed, did not believe in the mechanical immortality and the hope of physical resurrection which was the best Sanctity could offer. Despite his father's passionate outbursts against Sanctity's arrogance and its pretensions, despite his mother's hysteria and Father Sandoval's gentle resentment, Sanctity would have done as it pleased. Everyone knew the exemption forms were a travesty. Filing them was merely a signal for one of the Sanctified missionaries to track the exempted ones down, to haunt them until the missionary could obtain a few living cells. Any crowded street or walkway would do. A quick punch was all it took. Like a pinch, a nip, a needle touch. They were like rats, those missionaries, a secret multitude, sneaking and prodding, bringing names and tissue samples here to become part of this ... this.
This. Sanctity/Unity/lmmortality. The words were on all sides of him, engraved in the floors, set into the walls, cast into the surfaces of doorknobs. Where there was not room for the words, the initial letters pocked every surface, S/U/I, S/U/I, S/U/l.
"Blasphemous fiction," Rigo muttered to himself, quoting Father Sandoval. He tried to take shorter steps so that he would not tread on the heels of his guide, wishing with every step that he hadn't come. Not for Uncle Carlos. Carlos the traitor. Bad enough he had been a heretic without having become Hierarch, a source of embarrassment for all Old Catholics everywhere.
The hooded escort stopped, gave Rigo a quick look as though to see if he was properly dressed, then knocked at a deeply recessed door before opening it and gesturing for Rigo to enter. It was a small, featureless room furnished with three chairs. The hooded acolyte came in to perch on one of them, anonymous as a new nail, fingers poised over a cleric-all. In another chair, one set apart near a slightly open door, an old man huddled, a waking corpse with dull, deep-sunk eyes. His bandaged hands shook and his voice quavered.
"Rigo?"
"Uncle?" Rigo asked, not sure. He had not seen the old man for decades. "Uncle Carlos?" There was a stench in the room, like a closed attic where something had died.
The shaking moved from arms to head, and Rigo interpreted this as a nod. The hand motioned slightly toward the empty chair, and Rigo sat down. He saw death before him, death too long delayed.
Despite himself, he felt pity. The acolyte on the other chair was preparing to take notes, already keying his cleric-all to record and tran
scribe.
"My boy," came the whisper. "We're asking you to do something. To go on a journey. For a time. It is important. It is a family matter, Rigo." He leaned back in the chair, coughing weakly.
"Uncle!" Damned if he would call him Hierarch. "You know we are not among the Sanctified … "
"I am not asking that you do it for Sanctity, Rigo. I am asking for family. For your family. All families. I am dying. I am not important. We are all dying – " He was shaken by a paroxysm.
The door opened and two robed attendants boiled in, offering a cup, half snarling at one another in their eagerness to help.
Rigo reached out a hand. "Uncle!"
He received glares from fanatical faces, his hand was slapped away.
The aged man beat at them weakly. "Leave me, leave me, fools. Leave me," until they bubbled away from him and departed, reluctantly. "No strength to explain," he murmured, eyes almost closed, "O'Neil will explain. Ass. Not you. O'Neil. Ass. Don't write that down," this to the acolyte. "Take him to O'Neil." He turned to his nephew once again. "Please, Rigo."
"Uncle!"
The man drew himself together and fixed Rigo with a death's-head glare. "I know you don't believe in Sanctity. But you believe in God, Rigo. Please, Rigo. You must go. You and your wife and your children. All of you, Rigo. For mankind. Because of the horses." He began to cough once more.
This time the weak coughing did not stop, and the servitors came back with officious strength to bear the old man away. Rigo was left sitting there, staring at the powdered, anonymous figure across from him. After a moment, the acolyte put the strap of the cleric-all over his shoulder and beckoned for Rigo to follow him out. He led the way down a twisting hall to a wider corridor.