Mindbridge (24 page)

Although this transcript has been reprinted often, it does seem a fitting way to end this collection.

I came in and sat down by his bed. He looked so old, I’d never seen anybody looked so old. I thought he was asleep but he wasn’t. He just had trouble opening his eyes all the way. He smiled at me and said “Tania, you make me wish I was a century younger,” but the nurses told me he says that to any woman not in a wheelchair. And maybe he means it. He seems so good and pure, it’s the Power he got from the Creepies, the L’vrai. It made him a little like a Creepy himself. He asked me how my mother was and all that relative drik, but I could see he couldn’t keep his eyes off my box. The box I had the Groombridge Creepy in. Finally he asked me if we otta go ahead and do it, and I had to ask him did he really know he was going to die if he did? He said, “Child, I died thirty-seven years ago, and some months. Once I could tell you to the day, she was that much.” Well, the nurses had warned me about that, too; all he ever talks about is my great-grandmother. Talked. Anyhow, he warned me not to touch the thing first, just open the box and let him touch it, and then get right in there with him because he didn’t know how long it’d last.

Do you have that recorder on? Now most of this is what he said, but some of it’s me bouncing off him. It’s so important. You just listen and you can tell.

There you are child. O your mind is so clean so new, may you never grow old and crowded. This is fun, I hope it doesn’t give me a goddamn stroke; I’ve been inside woman’s body Carol’s, but never a little girl, so strange to feel the bones wanting to grow. You were little once too it’s not so much fun when you’re caught I know child in it, nothing ever fits once you get used to it I know I had a daughter why didn’t you ever bridge her then. Well it seemed like a sexual thing and I guess it is but I don’t really know what you’re talking about but I don’t feel shame, just that glow-say don’t call me Jacque I’m as old as a goddamn planet call me Pop or Grandpop or I didn’t call you Jacque or anything even, hey, you can’t lie in bridge-there you did it again I DIDN’T CALL YOU NOTHING Jacque. No? . . . . . . I’m just a senile old fool Jacque I know that sound anywhere you have a special voice in bridge O shit it’s sad to Jacque get so old you start Jacque kidding yourself Grandpop I hear it too don’t humor me child angel bitch Jacque Jacque O God could they be right

Now I know that I’m just a little child and he was just an old man so nobody’s gonna believe either of us. But I was there and I’ll swear on anything you want that the voice was there, a woman’s voice, soft, and if he said it was my great-grandmother then it was. Now I know you said that nobody else ever heard nothing like that but I don’t care, I heard it, and if you don’t want to believe me you can just go do yourself. Mom will believe me.

In 2281 there was founded a planet (and splinter sect of Catholicism) named Nuovo Vaticano. They wanted to start their hagiographic calendar over clean: keeping such old saints as still had appeal, naming new ones as they saw fit.

The planet had to have a patron saint, and of course they didn’t want it to be one of the old ones. Someone suggested Jacque Lefavre. All anybody knew was that he’d done good works in connection with the New Saviors, and that on his deathbed he’d offered some highly disputed proof of an afterlife.

Their small, practical library didn’t have a copy of peacemaker, so they had one sent on the next jump.

After reading the book thoroughly they decided Lefavre would be a bad example for their children.