A Case of Conscience by James Blish Extract

8/12/2019 A Case of Conscience by James Blish Extract

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A CASE OF CONSCIENCE

James Blish

www.sfgateway.com


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BOOK ONE

I

THEstone door slammed. It was Cleavers trade-markthere had never been a door too heavy, complex, or

cleverly tracked to prevent him from closing it with asound like a clap of doom. And no planet in theuniverse could possess an air sufficiently thick an

curtained with damp to muffle that soundnot eveLithia.

Father Ramon Ruiz-Sanchez, late of Peru, an

always Clerk Regular of the Society of Jesus, professefather of the four vows, continued to read. It woultake Paul Cleavers impatient fingers quite a while tofree him from his jungle suit, and in the meantime theproblem remained. It was a century-old problem, firs

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literally). Even the novel which had proposed the casewas on the Index Expurgatorius, and Father Ruiz-

Sanchez had spiritual access to it only by virtue of hisOrder.He turned the page, scarcely hearing the stampin

and muttering in the hall. On and on the text ran,becoming more tangled, more evil, more insoluble witevery word:

Magravius threatens to have Anita molested by

Sulla, an orthodox savage (and leader of a band otwelve mercenaries, the Sullivani), who desires toprocure Felicia for Gregorius, Leo Vitellius and

Macdugalius, four excavators, if she will not yield to hiand also deceive Honuphrius by rendering conjugal dutwhen demanded. Anita who claims to have discovered

incestuous temptations from Jeremias and EugeniusThere now, he was lost again. Jeremias and

Eugenius were ? Oh, yes, the philadelphians obrotherly lovers (another crime hidden there, no doubt)

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was Magravius, who seemed to admire Honuphrius,who had been urged by the slave Mauritius to solici

Anita, seemingly under the aegis of Honuphrius himself.This, however, had come to Anita through hertirewoman Fortissa, who was or at one time had beethe common-law wife of Mauritius and had borne hichildrenso that the whole story had to be weighewith the utmost caution. And that entire initial confessioof Honuphrius had come out under torturevoluntaril

consented to, to be sure, but still torture. The Fortissa-Mauritius relationship was even more dubious, reallonly a supposition of the commentator Father Ware

Ramon, give me a hand, will you? Cleaver shoutesuddenly. Im stuck, andand I dont feel well.

The Jesuit biologist arose in alarm, putting the nove

aside. Such an admission from Cleaver wasunprecedented. The physicist was sitting on a pouffe owoven rushes, stuffed with a sphagnum-like moss,which was bulging at the equator under his weight. Hewas half-way out of his glass-fibre jungle suit, and hisf hi d b d d i h l h h hi


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Paul! Why didnt you say you were ill in the firsplace? Here, let go of that; youre only making things

worse. What happened?Dont know exactly, Cleaver said, breathinheavily but relinquishing the zipper. Ruiz-Sanchez kneltbeside him and began to work it carefully back on to itstracks. Went a ways into the jungle to see if I couldspot more pegmatite lies. Its been in the back of mymind that a pilot-plant for turning out tritium might locate

here eventuallyought to be able to produce on aprodigious scale.

God forbid, Ruiz-Sanchez said under his breath.

Hm? Anyhow, I didnt see anything. A few lizards,hoppers, the usual thing. Then I ran up against a planthat looked a little like a pineapple, and one of the

spines jabbed right through my suit and nicked me.Didnt seem serious, butBut we dont have the suits for nothing. Lets look

at it. Here, put up your feet and well haul those bootsoff. Where did you get theoh. Well, its angry-l ki Ill i i h A h ?


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complied, it became evident that his complaint had beethe understatement of the year. The mucosa inside his

mouth was nearly covered with ugly and undoubtedlpainful ulcers, their edges as sharply defined as thougthey had been cut with a biscuit cutter.

Ruiz-Sanchez made no comment, however, anddeliberately changed his expression to one of carefullcalculated dismissal. If the physicist needed to minimizehis ailments, that was all right with Ruiz-Sanchez. A

alien planet is not a good place to strip a man of hisinner defences.

Come into the lab, he said. Youve got some

inflammation in there.Cleaver arose, a little unsteadily, and followed the

Jesuit into the laboratory. There Ruiz-Sanchez took

smears from several of the ulcers on to microscopeslides, and Gramstained them. He filled the timeconsumed by the staining process with the ritual oaiming the microscopes substage mirror out of thewindow at a brilliant white cloud. When the timersl ff h i d d fl d i d h fi lid


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bacilli and spirochetes which would have indicated acase of ordinary, Earthly, Vincents anginatrench

mouth, which the clinical picture certainly suggested,and which he could have cured overnight with aspectrosigmin pastille. Cleavers oral flora were normal,though on the increase because of all the exposetissue.

Im going to give you a shot, Ruiz-Sanchez saigently. And then I think youd better go to bed.

The hell with that, Cleaver said. Ive got ninetimes as much work to do as I can hope to clean upnow, without any additional handicaps.

Illness is never convenient, Ruiz-Sanchez agreed.But why worry about losing a day or so, since yourein over your head anyhow?

What have I got? Cleaver asked suspiciously.You haventgot anything, Ruiz-Sanchez said,almost regretfully. That is, you arent infected. But youpineapple did you a bad turn. Most plants of thatfamily on Lithia bear thorns or leaves coated wit

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like those of trench mouth, but a lot harder to clear up.How long will that take? Cleaver said. He was stil

baulking, but he was on the defensive now.Several days at leastuntil youve built up aimmunity. The shot Im going to give you is a gammaglobulin specific against squill, and it ought to moderatethe symptoms until youve developed a high antibodtiter of your own. But in the process youre going to ruquite a fever, Paul; and Ill have to keep you wel

stuffed with antipyretics, because even a little fever isdangerous in this climate.

I know it, Cleaver said, mollified. The more I

learn about this place, the less disposed I am to voteaye when the time comes. Well, bring on your shotand your aspirin. I suppose I ought to be glad it isnt a

bacterial infection, or the Snakes would be jabbing mefull of antibiotics.Small chance of that, Ruiz-Sanchez said. I don

doubt that the Lithians have at least a hundred differendrugs well be able to use eventually, butthere, thatsll h i i l b ll h


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youre going to be wishing youd been born dead, that Ipromise you.

Cleaver grinned. His sweaty face under its thatch odirty blond hair was craggy and powerful even in illness.He stood up and deliberately rolled down his sleeve.

Not much doubt about how youll vote, either, hesaid. You like this planet, dont you, Ramon? Its abiologists paradise, as far as I can see.

I do like it, the priest said, smiling back. He

followed Cleaver into the small room which servethem both as sleeping quarters. Except for the window,it strongly resembled the inside of a jug. The walls were

curving and continuous, and were made of someceramic material which never beaded or felt wet, bunever seemed to be quite dry, either. The hammocks

were slung from hooks which projected smoothly frothe walls, as though they had been baked from claalong with the rest of the house. I wish my colleagueDr. Meid were able to see it. She would be even moredelighted with it than I am.

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what kind of name is that, anyhow?Japanese, Ruiz-Sanchez said. Her first name is

Liuthe family follows the Western custom of puttinthe family name last.Oh, Cleaver said, losing interest. We were talkin

about Lithia.Well, dont forget that Lithia is my first extrasolar

planet, Ruiz-Sanchez said. I think Id find anynew,habitable world fascinating. The infinite mutability of life

forms, and the cunning inherent in each of them. Itsall amazing, and quite delightful.

Why shouldnt that be sufficient? Cleaver said.

Why do you have to have the God bit too? It doesnmake sense.

On the contrary, its what gives everything else

meaning, Ruiz-Sanchez said. Belief and science arenmutually exclusivequite the contrary. But if you placescientific standards first, and exclude belief, adminothing thats not proven, then what you have is a seriesof empty gestures. For me, biology isan act of religion,b I k h ll G d h


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A dedicated man, Cleaver said. All right. So aI. To the greater glory of man, thats whatIsay.

He sprawled heavily in his hammock. After a decentinterval, Ruiz-Sanchez took the liberty of heaving upafter him the foot he seemed to have forgotten. Cleavedidnt notice. The reaction was setting in.

Exactly so, Ruiz-Sanchez said. But thats onlyhalf the story. The other half reads, and to thegreater glory of God.

Read me no tracts, Father, Cleaver said. Then: Ididnt mean that. Im sorry. But for a physicist, thisplace is hell. Youd better get me that aspirin, Im

cold.Surely, Paul.Ruiz-Sanchez went quickly back into the lab, made

up a salicylate-barbiturate paste in one of the Lithianssuperb mortars, and pressed it into a set of pills.(Storing such pills was impossible in Lithias humidatmosphere; they were too hygroscopic.) He wished hecould stamp each pill Bayer before it setiCl l ll i i i ld h

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two of the pills back to Cleaver, with a mug and acarafe of Berkefeld-filtered water.

The big man was already asleep; Ruiz-Sanchewoke him, more or less. Cleaver would sleep longer,and awaken farther along the road to recovery, forhaving been done that small unkindness now. As it was,

he hardly noticed when the pills were put down him,and soon resumed his heavy, troubled breathing.

That done, Ruiz-Sanchez returned to the front roo

of the house, sat down, and began to inspect the junglesuit. The tear which the plant spine had made was nodifficult to find, and would be easy to repair. It would

be much harder to repair Cleavers notion that thedefences of Earthmen on Lithia were invulnerable, anthat plant-spines could be blundered against wit

impunity. Ruiz-Sanchez wondered whether either of theother two members of the Lithian Review Commissiostill shared that notion.

Cleaver had called the thing which had brought hilow a pineapple. Any biologist could have toldCl h E h h i l i lifi

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remembered, the tropical forest was quite impassable toanyone not wearing heavy boots and tough trousers.

Even inside the Dole plantations, the close-packeirrepressible pineapples could tear unprotected legs toribbons.

The Jesuit turned the suit over. The zipper that

Cleaver had jammed was made of a plastic into themolecule of which had been incorporated radicals frovarious terrestrial anti-fungal substances, chiefly the

protoplasmic poison thiolutin. The fungi of Lithiarespected these, all right, but the elaborate molecule othe plastic itself had a tendency, under Lithian humidities

and heats, to undergo polymerization more or lessspontaneously. That was what had happened here. Oneof the teeth of the zipper had changed into somethin

resembling a kernel of popped corn.The air grew dark as Ruiz-Sanchez worked. Therewas a muted puff of sound, and the room wasilluminated with small, soft yellow flames from recessesin every wall. The burning substance was natural gas, o

hi h Li hi h d i h ibl d l

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system. A lime mantle, which worked on a rack andpinion of heatproof glass, could be moved into the flame

to provide a brighter light; but the priest liked the yellolight the Lithians themselves preferred, and used thelimelight only in the laboratory.

For some purposes, of course, the Earthmen had to

have electricity, for which they had been forced tosupply their own generators. The Lithians had a famore advanced science of electrostatics than Earth had,

but of electrodynamics they knew comparatively little.They had discovered magnetism only a few yearsbefore the Commission had arrived, since natura

magnets were unknown on the planet. They had firsobserved the phenomenon, not in iron, of which thehad next to none, but in liquid oxygena difficul

substance from which to make generator cores!The results in terms of Lithian civilization werepeculiar, to an Earthman. The twelve-foot-tall, reptiliapeople had built several huge electrostatic generatorsand scores of little ones, but had nothing even vaguel

bli l h Th k d l h

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them as a technical triumph. They had no electricmotors as an Earthman would understand the term, bumade fast intercontinental flights in jet aircraft powereb ystatic electricity. Cleaver said he understood thisfeat, but Ruiz-Sanchez certainly did not (and afteCleavers description of electron-ion plasmas heated b

radio-frequency induction, he felt more in the dark thaever).

They had a completely marvellous radio network,

which among other things provided a live navigationagrid for the whole planet, zeroed on (and here perhapswas the epitome of the Lithian genius for paradox) a

tree. Yet they had never produced a standardizedvacuum tube, and their atomic theory was not mucmore sophisticated than Democritus had been!

These paradoxes, of course, could be explained ipart by the things that Lithia lacked. Like any largerotating mass, Lithia had a magnetic field of its own, bua planet which almost entirely lacks iron provides itspeople with no easy way to discover magnetism.R di i i h d b i l k h f

Lithians had discovered that friction between silk an


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Lithians had discovered that friction between silk anglass produces one kind of energy or charge, anbetween silk and amber another; they had gone on frothere to van de Graaf generators, electrochemistry, andthe static jetbut without suitable metals they wereunable to make heavy-duty batteries, or to do more

than begin to study electricity in motion.In the fields where they had been given fair clues,

they had made enormous progress. Despite the

constant cloudiness and endemic drizzle, theidescriptive astronomy was excellent, thanks to thefortunate presence of a small moon which had draw

their attention outward early. This in turn made for basicadvances in optics, and thence for a downrighstaggering versatility in the working of glass. Thei

chemistry took full advantage of both the seas and theungles. From the one they took such vital andiversified products as agar, iodine, salt, trace metals,and foods of many kinds. The other provided nearleverything else that they needed: resins, rubbers, woodsf ll d f h d dibl d i l il

forest product which they did not take was game an


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forest product which they did nottake was game, anthe reason for this neglect was hard to find. It seemeto the Jesuit to be religiousyet the Lithians had noreligion, and they certainly ate many of the creatures othe sea without qualms of conscience.

He dropped the jungle suit into his lap with a sigh,

though the popcorned tooth still was not completeltrimmed back into shape. Outside, in the humidarkness, Lithia was in full concert. It was a vital,

somehow fresh, new-sounding drone, covering most othe sound spectrum audible to an Earthman. It camefrom the myriad insects of Lithia. Many of these ha

wiry, trilling songs, almost like birds, in addition to thescrapes and chirrups and wing-case buzzes of theinsects of Earth. In a way this was lucky, for there were

no birds on Lithia.Had Eden sounded like that, before evil had comeinto the world? Ruiz-Sanchez wondered. Certainly hisnative Peru sang no such song

Qualms of consciencethese were, in the long run,hi i l b i h h h i l

come along to add whole new layers of labyrinths fo


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come along to add whole new layers of labyrinths foeach planet, new dimensions of labyrinths for each star.It was only interesting that the Lithians were bipedal,evolved from reptiles, with marsupial-like pouches anpteropsid circulatory systems. But it was vital that thehad qualms of conscienceif they did.

The calendar caught his eye. It was an art calendaCleaver had produced from his luggage back in thebeginning; the girl on it was now unintentionally modes

beneath large patches of brilliant orange mould. Thedate was April 19th, 2049. Almost Easterthe mostpointed of reminders that to the inner life, the body was

only a garment. To Ruiz-Sanchez personally, however,the year date was almost equally significant, for 2050was to be a Holy Year.

The Church had returned to the ancient custom, firsrecognized officially in 1300 by Boniface VIII, oproclaiming the great pardon only once every half-century. If Ruiz-Sanchez was not in Rome next yearwhen the Holy Door was opened, it would never be

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conscience? Were his sins already so burdensome


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conscience? Were his sins already so burdensomeunknown to himselfas to put him in mortal need of thepilgrimage? Or was that, in turn, only a minotemptation, to the sin of pride?

In any event, the work could not be hurried. He anthe other three men were on Lithia to decide whether o

not the planet would be suitable as a port of call foEarth, without risk of damage either to Earthmen or toLithians. The other three men on the commission were

primarily scientists, as was Ruiz-Sanchez; but he knethat his own recommendation would in the long rudepend upon conscience, not upon taxonomy.

And conscience, like creation, cannot be hurried. Icannot even be scheduled.

He looked down at the still-imperfect jungle suit wit

a troubled face until he heard Cleaver moan. Then hearose and left the room to the softly hissing flames.

A Case of Conscience by James Blish Extract

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