Young Bleys - Childe Cycle 09

  They went up to the front of the church and around a small corner. Behind a fretted wooden screen there, they found a middle-aged, rather plump man with, by contrast, a remarkably thin face, washing his hands. He had evidently just taken off and hung up the black robe he had put on for the service.

  "Teacher," said the man who still had his hand on Bleys' arm, "I want you to meet a new member of our congregation. Bleys MacLean. He saw the bright light of our Arise! Church as a result of listening to our Great Teacher Darrel McKae, himself, speak. Teacher, this is Bleys MacLean. Bleys, this is Teacher Samuel Godsarm."

  With his hand on Bleys' arm he literally pulled Bleys forward to confront the church-leader.

  "I'm very honored to make your acquaintance, Bleys MacLean," said Samuel Godsarm. He offered his hand to Bleys' clasp, and Bleys took it briefly, hesitantly, as if he did not want to hold the other's hand too long in his long-fingered grasp, or press too hard. "This is your first time here?"

  "No, no," put in the woman, who was still among the group behind Bleys. "He's been here once before, but he sat in the back, by himself; and he's been a little bit shy about coming forward to make friends. We thought the best thing was for him to meet you, and know mat this Arise! Church is his religious home."

  "Well said, Martha Aino," replied Samuel Godsarm. He smiled up at Bleys. "We're all your friends here, Bleys MacLean. Just take that for granted."

  "Thanks. Thanks a lot," mumbled Bleys.

  "What is your occupation, Brother Bleys?"

  Before Bleys could answer, the people he had just been talking to in the group around him began to answer for him, telling the church-leader of how Bleys had found a pass, wandered into the visitors' gallery of the Chamber, and heard Darrel McKae speak about the Core Tap.

  "Well, well, well," said Godsarm, "you may not believe it, Brother Bleys, being new among us, but many of us have not had the good fortune you've had of hearing the Great Leader directly. I have, myself, of course. It was the reason I was inspired to found this particular church. But many of our people who've come to us from other, false, churches, have merely heard the message of the Leader, and at once known that they wanted to follow him."

  "Have you preached?" asked the woman who had followed diem up to this point.

  Bleys had considered the chance of being asked this, but only briefly. He was familiar with the fact that most of the sects on both Friendly Worlds expected all their members to be ready to preach at a moment's notice. It was assumed that if they were truly in touch with the Lord, that the words would come to them from the Lord, as needed. This was a matter of belief and not to be set aside.

  "I have ..." said Bleys, sounding only a little more unwilling than he actually felt. It was not mat he could not preach if he had to. It merely went against his grain to do something for which he had not prepared.

  "Most of the members are still in the church yet, Samuel," said the woman who had come along and spoken up before. "Do you suppose that our new Brother Bleys here could preach us a short sermon; and perhaps tell us about his experience in listening to the Great Leader from the visitors' gallery?"

  "A very good idea, Martha," answered Godsarm. He stepped back from the sink, turning to Bleys. "If you will oblige us, Bleys?" he asked.

  "Of course," said Bleys, a little hesitantly. In truth, he was not hesitant. He had no doubt of his own capability to give them a short sermon or tell them about McKae's speech.

  Seeing that Godsarm was still standing back from the sink, obviously inviting Bleys to use it, Bleys realized that the Arise! Church must be one of those in which the practice of the preacher washing his hands before his sermon and again afterwards was adhered to. He stepped to the sink, laved his long hands in the stream of water from the tap, rubbed on some of the rough homemade soap from the soap shelf, and rinsed the hands off. Turning off the tap he dried his hands on the loop of toweling that hung nearby, and turned back to Godsarm.

  "I'm ready," he said.

  Everyone else except Godsarm, Bleys saw, had left; undoubtedly they had gone back into the body of the church.

  "Come with me then, Bleys," said Godsarm. "I'll introduce you to our members."

  Bleys followed him around to the front of the screen and up to the lectern that stood on the platform three steps above the general floor of the church. Buzzing with interest, the people still there after the regular service, who must have numbered forty or fifty, were sorting themselves out and taking seats in preparation for what they had probably already heard was going to happen. It was quite common for church members to linger in a church like this, not merely for minutes but sometimes for hours. For many of these people it was the one social occasion of the week available. Godsarm stepped up to the lectern.

  "Quiet, everybody," he said.

  The congregation quieted and those who were still on their feet sat down. They sat in expectant silence.

  "I have to introduce to you today," said Godsarm in the rolling tones of a practiced preacher, "a new member of our church, Bleys MacLean. He saw the light of our way, when by chance he found himself in the gallery overlooking the floor of the Chamber; and heard our Great Leader speak words of fire about those from off-world who should work on our new Core Tap, if indeed the Core Tap is voted into being."

  He turned to Bleys.

  "Brother Bleys," he said, "our Brothers and Sisters wait to hear from you."

  Bleys stepped up to the lectern, which came barely to his waist. He had been an actor almost from the time he could toddle, thanks to his life with his mother, and he saw instant advantages in what was happening. For one thing, he could let himself go in the sermon and the telling. The audience would credit it, not to him, but to inspiration by the Lord.

  He gripped the outer edge of the lectern with his hands so that the long, powerful fingers were visible. It was a gesture of strong theatrical effect, and it worked on the congregation. The people in the body of the church were already silent, but now the hush about them became one in which everyone seemed to hold their breaths at the same moment.

  "Brothers and Sisters," he said, with all the power and command of his trained voice; which, following closely on

  Godsarm's announcement, was like the carrying notes of a trumpet, after the notes of a flute.

  "I speak to you with the words the Lord gives me to speak. First, let me remind you of one of the laws of the Lord. When I was a boy, on our farm we had a neighbor. This neighbor had many goats, but after a while they began to sicken, one by one and die; and finally he came to ask my father if he would come and look at these sick goats; and tell him perhaps what was wrong with them, why he could not keep them in good health.

  "My father went and saw the goats. They were in clean quarters, they were warm—for it was wintertime and they liked the shelter of their barn better than the outside and the chilling winds. There was food in front of them but they were not eating.

  "My father turned to his neighbor and said, 'Do you talk to these goats?'

  " 'What do you mean, talk to them?' asked the neighbor.

  " 'Do you know them by name? Do you call them by name? Do you spend a few moments each day perhaps in brushing their coats and speaking to them?'

  " 'I do not,' said the neighbor, ‘I have never heard of such a thing.'

  " 'Do so,' said my father, 'then, after a week come and ask me to see them again.'

  "A week later the neighbor came over and his face was lit as a lantern is lit from inside by a candle.

  " 'Come and see my goats now!' he said.

  "My father went over with him and saw the goats. They were still in the shelter of their shed, but they were entirely changed. Their coats shone, their ears stood up and most of them were eating from the mangers in front of them.

  "'Tell me,' the neighbor asked my father, 'how did you know that what you told me to do would have such a marvelous effect on them?'

  " 'It is one of the laws of the Lord with all his creatures,' said my father. 'Th
ey will sicken and die if they receive no attention from he who controls and directs every moment of their lives. Even as you would not ignore your children, if you had some'—for the neighbor was unmarried and had no progeny—'you must give your beasts some attention, some care and even some love. Do that and your flock will flourish.'

  "Members of this congregation, I have never forgotten that," went on Bleys, "and it is so, what my father said. I have looked all my life for leaders who cared for their flock as my father had said it should be done. The other day, sitting in seats high above the floor of the Chamber where laws are made for all our world, I listened to just such a leader, enunciating just such a law.

  "That leader was our Great Teacher, Darrel McKae. He was speaking about the Core Tap, which we hope to add to those two that already provide power to this hard and hungry planet of ours. His words were better than any I could use to tell you of what I heard, so I will repeat now to you what he said then—word for word—for, from the time I could first talk, I have been blessed with a memory that loses nothing of value in God's eyes."

  Bleys began to repeat from memory, for his verbal memory was as good as his visual memory, McKae's speech on the floor of the Chamber. When he had at last ended and stepped back from the platform, there was a long moment of almost frozen silence from his audience. And then everyone began to call out at once, blessing McKae and blessing Bleys.

  "Your memory is a true gift of the Lord," said Godsarm, when he and Bleys were together behind the screen and Bleys was washing his hands again. This time no one had ventured to come up from the floor. They had looked at Bleys, at the end of his speech, in fact, with awe and almost disbelief.

  "Yes," said Bleys, returning to the uncertain voice with which he had talked to everyone before he stepped up to the lectern. "I am indeed thankful to God that I have been so blessed."

  "I think, Brother Bleys," said Godsarm, judiciously, "that perhaps it would not be the Lord's will for you to be wasted here in this small congregation, when our Great Leader might have better uses for you. Accordingly, with your approval, I will send you to him, with a letter—which will be sealed, for it is for his eyes alone—telling him of what you did here and leaving it to him to make such decision as God would want." Bleys looked at him.

  "Thank you," he said. When he left the church, some twenty minutes later, after being thronged about by the members, most of whom would have liked him to stop and talk to them, he headed not for the hotel that was McKae's headquarters in the city and to which Samuel Godsarm had directed him; but only far enough to make sure he had thrown off any secret pursuers. After that, he called on his monitor for an autocab and rode back to his apartment.

  Back at the apartment, he skillfully, with a heated knife, lifted the wax seal of the envelope with its imprint of a lion bowing its head before a cross and took the paper out and unfolded it.

  The message on it was very brief.

  To: Our Great Leader

  From: Samuel Godsarm of the Thirty-second Church of Arise!

  Dear Leader:

  I am sending to you one of our new members, Bleys MacLean, whom you may, in your greater wisdom, see better ways to make use of than our poor, small church deserves.

  He has a perfect memory and has been brought up in a lifetime of hard work, on his father's farm. So both his strength and his memory may prove to be of use. If this is not so, perhaps you, or one of those with you can send him back to us.

  With praise to God, who directs us all, Samuel Godsarm

  Bleys resealed the letter, and took it into his bedroom, where he put it in a small bedside file drawer.

  Returning to the living room, he sat thoughtfully in one of the overstuffed chairs for a long moment; then turned to the phone beside him and punched the stud.

  The screen lit up with the cheerful face of a young man with neatly combed, straight brown hair. He looked almost too young to be working as an information operator.

  "At your service," he said.

  "Your equipment there should show you my address," said Bleys.

  "Yes," answered the operator, glancing down briefly, "it does."

  "Could you find me the number of the nearest college to my address, and the number in particular of their athletic department?"

  "Just a moment," said the operator.

  The screen blanked out. A moment later it lit up with an eight-digit number in large numerals. Behind the numerals the voice of the operator went on.

  "There it is if you wish to copy it down," it said; "would you prefer that I simply connect you with it?"

  "I have it, now," said Bleys, "but why don't you connect me anyway?"

  "It'll be my pleasure."

  The screen blanked out, the soft chime of a phone bell at the far end was heard. After four chimes, the screen lit up again, this time with the white-haired, capable face of a woman in her late fifties or early sixties.

  "This is the Athletic Department," she said. "Can I be of assistance?"

  "Yes," said Bleys, "I'd like to talk to your wrestling instructor, if you have one and he's there at this time."

  "Did you particularly want a male instructor?" asked the woman.

  "It makes no difference," answered Bleys.

  "Well, let me see." She glanced aside from the screen for several seconds. "Professor Antonia Lu is here at the moment. Do you want me to ring her office?"

  "Please," said Bleys.

  Once more the screen blanked, the phone-chime was heard. And another young male face, looking remarkably like the telephone operator in some way, even though his hair was black and his face was long and rather thin, appeared on the screen.

  "Professor Lu's office,' he said, "can I be of assistance?"

  "I'm Bleys Ayrens," said Bleys, "and it will be most kind of you if you could ask the Professor if she could take a few moments to speak with me on the phone right now."

  "May I ask—does she know you, Bleys Ahrens?" asked the face. "She's out on the gym floor right now; if she doesn't know you, could I ask the reason for your calling?"

  "She doesn't know me, as a matter of fact," said Bleys. "You might tell her, though, I've had quite a broad grounding in a number of the traditional Japanese disciplines, particularly judo and the judo-based arts. I need to know about the differences between the kind of wrestling you do there at the college and what I studied."

  "I'll take her that message," said the young man at the other end. "It'll probably be a little while yet before she can get back to you. Will you leave your number?"

  Bleys pressed a stud on the control board below the screen, which automatically transmitted his phone number to the screen of the party he was talking to.

  "Thank you, Bleys Ahrens," said the man at the other end; and the screen went blank.

  Bleys resigned himself to waiting several hours, if necessary. But it was actually only a little over ten minutes before his own phone chimed; and when he answered, it lit up with the face of a woman in her late twenties or early thirties, with blue eyes, remarkably matched to nearly black hair; and facial boning that made her, Bleys thought, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her voice was light and cheerful.

  "Bleys Ahrens?" she said. "This is Antonia Lu. Did you have something you wanted to talk to me about?"

  "Yes, I've got a favor to ask," said Bleys.

  She looked puzzled.

  "I believe I know you," she said, "—by reputation, anyway. Bleys Ahrens, aren't you the brother of Dahno Ahrens?"

  "Yes, as a matter of fact I am," said Bleys, "but I don't think we've ever met."

  "No, of course not," she said, "but my brother was James Lu, who was one of the trainees in one of the classes for Others put on by you and your brother. We're both mixed-breeds you know, Friendly and Dorsai. And I always thought what you and your brother are doing is the beginning of a great future. What can I do to help you?"

  "If I could come over and simply watch some of your students wrestling and perhaps even try wrestli
ng one of them myself . . ."He let the sentence trail off.

  "Well, we don't ordinarily let the general public rubberneck around here, let alone get on the mat with one of our students," she said, "but I know from what James has told me that you're not the usual sort of rubbernecker. I've just finished one class and my students are all practicing; it's an ideal time for you to see them at it. How long will it take you to get here?"

  "By autocar," said Bleys, "perhaps . . . fifteen minutes?"

  "That's fine. We usually spend at least a couple of hours in free practice after class," she said. "If you've got gym clothes bring them along. I'll have to decide after you get here just who you might have a chance to wrestle."

  "Of course. I'll be right over," said Bleys.

  He did not, in fact, own the kind of gym clothes she was talking about. The do-gi he wore for martial arts was not appropriate in this situation. But he could easily stop the autocar at an athletic equipment shop along the way, and buy what he needed.

  He did just that. The best gym pants they could find for him were too large in the waist and short in the legs. The body top was far too narrow-shouldered to wear. However, he had anticipated that; and had brought along an undershirt which would do for the top. The pants would be all right even if they did ride a bit high on his legs. They were more than roomy enough in the crotch.

  Luckily, she had given him explicit directions for finding the gym where she held her classes. He arrived only a little late—perhaps eighteen minutes instead of fifteen. He had changed in the autocar on the way over, and came in wearing

  the athletic pants which reached just below mid-calf on his legs, and his own, short-sleeved undershirt above it.

  He left the autocar now and went up the stairs into what seemed to be an office; where he identified himself to a small, bright-eyed female student with an aureole of blond hair, sitting behind a counter and working away at a keyboard, with some papers beside her.

  "Bleys Ahrens?" the student said. "Dr. Lu said you were to go right in."