A Choice of Gods

7

Half the afternoon the thick cloud bank had piled up in the sky and Hezekiah, watching as it climbed, had told himself that it were as if there were a ladder in the sky and the clouds had kept climbing it, growing taller and higher and more threatening and impressive as they climbed. Then, almost immediately, he had rebuked himself for thinking so—for there was no ladder, it was God's will that the clouds came climbing. He was puzzled and ashamed at these flights of fancy, at this romanticism, which he should have conquered long ago, but which, in the last few years (or so it seemed) had come welling more often to the surface. Or was it, he wondered, that only in the last few years he had directed his attention the more to these flights of fancy, aghast that there could linger in him such foolish notions, so far afield from the serious considerations to which he should be dedicated.

In the study the other brothers were bent above the books. They had sat thus for years, dedicated to the task of collating and condensing down to elemental truths all that the creature, man, had written, all that he had thought and reasoned and speculated in the spiritual sense. Of the four of them only he, Hezekiah, had not tied himself to the written or the printed word, and that had been according to the agreement they had made, in that time long centuries past when they had planned their search of truth. Three of them studying all that had been written— rewriting it, reassembling it, reassessing it, as if one man, and one man alone, had thought it all and written all of it as a single body, not many men who strove to understand, but one man who had truly understood. Three of them to do their work and the fourth who read their evaluations and assessments and, from this basis, try to puzzle out the meaning that had escaped the grasp of man. It had been a glorious idea, Hezekiah reassured himself; it had seemed so sound and it still was sound, but the way to truth was longer and more difficult than they had imagined and they still held no real inkling of the truth. Faith was something else; through the years their faith had deepened and been strengthened by their work, but the deepening of faith had not led the way to truth. Could it be possible, Hezekiah asked himself, that there was no room for both the faith and truth, that they were mutually exclusive qualities that could not coexist? He shuddered as he thought of it, for if this should be the case, they had spent their centuries of devotion to but little purpose, pursuing a will-o'-the-wisp. Must faith be exactly that, the willingness and ability to believe in the face of a lack of evidence? If one could find the evidence, would then the faith be dead? If that were the situation, then which one did they want? Had it been, he wondered, that men had tried what they even now were trying and had realized that there was no such thing as truth, but only faith, and being unable to accept the faith without its evidence, had dropped the faith as well? There was nothing in the books to make one think this might be so, but while they had thousands of books, they did not have them all. Was there somewhere in the world, moldering away, or perhaps already moldered, a book (or several books) that would make it clear what man had really done, or had tried to do and failed.

He had been pacing in the garden all the afternoon and this was not unusual, for he often walked there. Pacing helped him think and, besides, he loved the garden for the beauty that was in it—the changing of the leaves and the flowering of the blooms in season, the miracle of life and death, the singing of the birds and the pattern of their flight, the haze of the river hills, and at times, the orchestration of the music trees—although he was not sure he approved entirely of the music trees. But now he went to the door of the chapter house and as he reached it, the storm broke, great sheets of rain sweeping across the garden, pounding on the roofs, filling the gutters, the walks almost instantly transformed into brimming creeks.

He opened the door and ducked inside, but stood within the entryway a moment, holding the door partly open to gaze out across the garden, swept by the torrents of rain that came down hissing against the grass and flowers. The ancient willow tree that stood beside the bench strained in the direction of the wind, as if it were trying to tug free of the roots that anchored it.

Somewhere something was banging and as he listened, he finally made out what it was. The great metal gate that stood in the outer wall had been forced open by the wind and was banging back and forth against the field stone wall. If it were not shut and fastened, it might beat itself to pieces.

Hezekiah stepped out of the door and closed it behind him. As he went down the brimming walk, the wind and water beat at him, sluicing off his body in streaming sheets. The walk turned the corner of the building and now he walked into the wind and it was as if a great hand had been placed against his metal chest and pushed to hold him back. His brown robe trailed behind him, snapping in the wind.

The gate was straight ahead, swinging through its hinged arc and slamming against the wall, the metal shuddering at each impact with the stone. It was not only the gate that caught his attention. Lying near the gate was a sprawled and huddled shape, half on the walk, half lying on the grass. Even through the blur of rain he could make out that it was a man.

The figure lay upon its face and when he turned it over he saw the jagged cut that started at the temple and ran down across the face, not bleeding, for the ram washed the blood away, but a livid streak of torn flesh.

He got his arms around the body and stood, lifting the man from where he lay, turning and moving back along the path, driving his feet hard against the ground to brake himself against the pressure of the wind which, if he had not fought against it, would have driven him at a headlong pace.

He reached the door of the chapter house and went in. With his heel, he kicked the door shut and went across the room to a bench against the wall and laid the man upon it. He saw that the man still breathed, his chest rising and falling. He was a young man, or seemed a young man, naked except for a breech clout and a necklace of bear claws and a pair of binoculars hung around his neck.

A stranger, Hezekiah thought, a human being who had come out of nowhere and who, by the grace of God, had sought refuge in this place against the breaking storm, only to be caught and knocked unconscious by the wildly swinging gate once he had unlatched it.

This was the first time in all the years the robots had occupied the monastery that a human had ever come to this house for shelter and for aid. And that, he told himself, was mete, for historically such a place as this had stood for many centuries as a place of aid and refuge. He felt a shiver running through him, a shiver of excitement and of dedication. It was a charge they must accept, a duty and an obligation that must be fulfilled. There must be blankets to keep the young man warm, hot food, a fire, a bed—and there was in this place no such things as blankets or hot food or fires. There had not been for many years, for robots did not need them.

"Nicodemus," he shouted. "Nicodemus!"

His shouts boomed between the walls, as if olden echoes had been magically awakened, echoes that had waited for many, many years.

He heard their running feet and a door burst open and they came running through.

"We have a guest," said Hezekiah. "He is hurt and we must care for him. Run, one of you, to the House and find Thatcher. Tell him we need food and blankets and a way of making fire. Another one of you break up some of the furniture and lay it in the fireplace. All the wood we might find outdoors is wet. But try to choose the pieces that have the lesser value. Some old stools, perhaps, a broken table or a chair."

He heard them leave, heard the outer door bang as Nicodemus plunged out into the storm to go up to the House.

Hezekiah hunkered down beside the bench and kept his eyes upon the man. The breathing was regular and the face had lost some of its pallor, which had showed even through the tan. With no rain to wash it off, blood was oozing from the cut and running down the face. Hezekiah gathered up one corner of his rain-soaked robe and gently wiped it off.

Inside himself he sensed a deep, abiding peace, a sense of accomplishment, a compassion for and a dedication to this man who lay upon the bench. Was this, he wondered, the true function of the people— or the robots—who might dwell within this house? Not the vain unraveling of truth, but the succor of one's fellow men? Although that was not entirely true, he knew—not the way he said it. For this was not a fellow man lying on the bench, could not be a fellow man; a robot was not fellow to a man. But if a robot stood in place of man, if he took the place of man, if he followed in man's ways and tried to carry on the task that man had dropped, might he not, in some measure, be fellow to humanity?

And was aghast.

How could he think, even by the most clever argument, that a robot could be fellow to a man?

Vanity, he cried inside himself. An overweening vanity would be the death of him—the damnation of him, and was aghast again, for how could a robot think he was worthy even of damnation?

He was nothing and a nothing and a nothing. And yet he aped a man. He wore a robe, he sat when there was no need of either robe or sitting; he fled a storm and there was no need for such as he to flee the wet and rain. He read the books that man had written and sought an understanding that man had failed to find. He worshiped God—and that, he thought, might be the greatest blasphemy of them all.

He hunkered on the floor, close beside the bench, the sorrow and the horror welling up in him.