The Past Through Tomorrow (65 page)

“I understand all right. I’m not a child.”

“No, you’re a grown woman…but you haven’t found it out.” She held up a finger. “One—Jeff doesn’t love me.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Two… I don’t love him.”

“I don’t believe that, either.”

“Three…you say you don’t love him—but we’ll take that up when we come to it. Holly, am I beautiful?”

Changing the subject is a female trait but I’ll never learn to do it that fast. “Huh?”

“I said, ‘Am I beautiful?’”

“You know darn well you are!”

“Yes. I can sing a bit and dance, but I would get few parts if I were not, because I’m no better than a third-rate actress. So I have to be beautiful. How old am I?”

I managed not to boggle. “Huh? Older than Jeff thinks you are. Twenty-one, at least. Maybe twenty-two.”

She sighed. “Holly, I’m old enough to be your mother.”

“Huh? I don’t believe that, either.”

“I’m glad it doesn’t show. But that’s why, though Jeff is a dear, there never was a chance that I could fall in love with him. But how I feel about him doesn’t matter; the important thing is that
he
loves
you
.”

“
What
? That’s the silliest thing you’ve said yet! Oh, he
likes
me—or did. But that’s all.” I gulped. “And it’s all I want. Why, you should hear the way he talks to me.”

“I have. But boys that age can’t say what they mean; they get embarrassed.”

“But—”

“Wait, Holly. I saw something you didn’t because you were knocked cold. When you and I bumped, do you know what happened?”

“Uh, no.”

“Jeff arrived like an avenging angel, a split second behind us. He was ripping his wings off as he hit, getting his arms free. He didn’t even look at me. He just stepped across me and picked you up and cradled you in his arms, all the while bawling his eyes out.”

“He
did
?”

“He did.”

I mulled it over. Maybe the big lunk did kind of like me, after all.

Ariel went on, “So you see, Holly, even if you don’t love him, you must be very gentle with him, because he loves you and you can hurt him terribly.”

I tried to think. Romance was still something that a career woman should shun…but if Jeff really did feel that way—well…would it be compromising my ideals to marry him just to keep him happy? To keep the firm together? Eventually, that is?

But if I did, it wouldn’t be Jones & Hardesty; it would be Hardesty & Hardesty.

Ariel was still talking: “—you might even fall in love with him. It does happen, hon, and if it did, you’d be sorry if you had chased him away. Some other girl would grab him; he’s awfully nice.”

“But—” I shut up for I heard Jeff’s step—I can always tell it. He stopped in the door and looked at us, frowning.

“Hi, Ariel.”

“Hi, Jeff.”

“Hi, Fraction.” He looked me over. “My, but you’re a mess.”

“You aren’t pretty yourself. I hear you have flat feet.”

“Permanently. How do you brush your teeth with those things on your arms?”

“I don’t.”

Ariel slid off the bed, balanced on one foot. “Must run. See you later, kids.”

“So long, Ariel.”

“Good-by, Ariel. Uh…thanks.”

Jeff closed the door after she hopped away, came to the bed and said gruffly, “Hold still.”

Then he put his arms around me and kissed me.

Well, I couldn’t stop him, could I? With both arms broken? Besides, it was consonant with the new policy for the firm. I was startled speechless because Jeff never kisses me, except birthday kisses, which don’t count. But I tried to kiss back and show that I appreciated it.

I don’t know what the stuff was they had been giving me but my ears began to ring and I felt dizzy again.

Then he was leaning over me. “Runt,” he said mournfully, “you sure give me a lot of grief.”

“You’re no bargain yourself, flathead,” I answered with dignity.

“I suppose not.” He looked me over sadly. “What are you crying for?”

I didn’t know that I had been. Then I remembered why. “Oh, Jeff—I busted my pretty wings!”

“We’ll get you more. Uh, brace yourself. I’m going to do it again.”

“All right.” He did.

I suppose Hardesty & Hardesty has more rhythm than Jones & Hardesty.

It really sounds better.

IT WAS COLD
on the rampart. I slapped my numbed hands together, then stopped hastily for fear of disturbing the Prophet. My post that night was just outside his personal apartments—a post that I had won by taking more than usual care to be neat and smart at guard mount…but I had no wish to call attention to myself now.

I was young then and not too bright—a legate fresh out of West Point, and a guardsman in the Angels of the Lord, the personal guard of the Prophet Incarnate. At birth my mother had consecrated me to the Church and at eighteen my Uncle Absolom, a senior lay censor, had prayed an appointment to the Military Academy for me from the Council of Elders.

West Point had suited me. Oh, I had joined in the usual griping among classmates, the almost ritualistic complaining common to all military life, but truthfully I enjoyed the monastic routine—up at five, two hours of prayers and meditation, then classes and lectures in the endless subjects of a military education, strategy and tactics, theology, mob psychology, basic miracles. In the afternoons we practiced with vortex guns and blasters, drilled with tanks, and hardened our bodies with exercise.

I did not stand very high on graduation and had not really expected to be assigned to the Angels of the Lord, even though I had put in for it. But I had always gotten top marks in piety and stood well enough in most of the practical subjects; I was chosen. It made me almost sinfully proud—the holiest regiment of the Prophet’s hosts, even the privates of which were commissioned officers and whose Colonel-in-Chief was the Prophet’s Sword Triumphant, marshal of all the hosts. The day I was invested in the shining buckler and spear worn only by the Angels I vowed to petition to study for the priesthood as soon as promotion to captain made me eligible.

But this night, months later, though my buckler was still shining bright, there was a spot of tarnish in my heart. Somehow, life at New Jerusalem was not as I had imagined it while at West Point. The Palace and Temple were shot through with intrigue and politics; priests and deacons, ministers of state, and Palace functionaries all seemed engaged in a scramble for power and favor at the hand of the Prophet. Even the officers of my own corps seemed corrupted by it. Our proud motto “
Non Sibi, Sed Dei
” now had a wry flavor in my mouth.

Not that I was without sin myself. While I had not joined in the struggle for worldly preference, I had done something which I knew in my heart to be worse: I had looked with longing on a consecrated female.

Please understand me better than I understood myself. I was a grown man in body, an infant in experience. My own mother was the only woman I had ever known well. As a kid in junior seminary before going to the Point I was almost afraid of girls; my interests were divided between my lessons, my mother, and our parish’s troop of Cherubim, in which I was a patrol leader and an assiduous winner of merit badges in everything from woodcraft to memorizing scripture. If there had been a merit badge to be won in the subject of girls—but of course there was not.

At the Military Academy I simply saw no females, nor did I have much to confess in the way of evil thoughts. My human feelings were pretty much still in freeze, and my occasional uneasy dreams I regarded as temptations sent by Old Nick. But New Jerusalem is not West Point and the Angels were neither forbidden to marry nor were we forbidden proper and sedate association with women. True, most of my fellows did not ask permission to marry, as it would have meant transferring to one of the regular regiments and many of them cherished ambitions for the military priesthood—but it was not forbidden.

Nor were the lay deaconesses who kept house around the Temple and the Palace forbidden to marry. But most of them were dowdy old creatures who reminded me of my aunts, hardly subjects for romantic thoughts. I used to chat with them occasionally around the corridors, no harm in that. Nor was I attracted especially by any of the few younger sisters—until I met Sister Judith.

I had been on watch in this very spot more than a month earlier. It was the first time I had stood guard outside the Prophet’s apartments and, while I was nervous when first posted, at that moment I had been no more than alert against the possibility of the warden-of-the-watch making his rounds.

That night a light had shone briefly far down the inner corridor opposite my post and I had heard a sound of people moving; I had glanced at my wrist chrono—yes, that would be the Virgins ministering to the Prophet…no business of mine. Each night at ten o’clock their watch changed—their “guard mount” I called it, though I had never seen the ceremony and never would. All that I actually knew about it was that those coming on duty for the next twenty-four hours drew lots at that time for the privilege of personal attendance in the sacred presence of the Prophet Incarnate.

I had listened briefly and had turned away. Perhaps a quarter of an hour later a slight form engulfed in a dark cloak had slipped past me to the parapet, there to stand and look at the stars. I had had my blaster out at once, then had returned it sheepishly, seeing that it was a deaconess.

I had assumed that she was a lay deaconess; I swear that it did not occur to me that she might be a holy deaconess. There was no rule in my order book telling me to forbid them to come outside, but I had never heard of one doing so.

I do not think that she had seen me before I spoke to her. “Peace be unto you, sister.”

She had jumped and suppressed a squeal, then had gathered her dignity to answer, “And to you,
little
brother.”

It was then that I had seen on her forehead the Seal of Solomon, the mark of the personal family of the Prophet. “Your pardon, Elder Sister. I did not see.”

“I am not annoyed.” It had seemed to me that she invited conversation. I knew that it was not proper for us to converse privately; her mortal being was dedicated to the Prophet just as her soul was the Lord’s, but I was young and lonely—and she was young and very pretty.

“Do you attend the Holy One this night, Elder Sister?”

She had shaken her head at that. “No, the honor passed me by. My lot was not drawn.”

“It must be a great and wonderful privilege to serve him directly.”

“No doubt, though I cannot say of my own knowledge. My lot has never yet been drawn.” She had added impulsively, “I’m a little nervous about it. You see, I haven’t been here long.”

Even though she was my senior in rank, her display of feminine weakness had touched me. “I am sure that you will deport yourself with credit.”

“Thank you.”

We had gone on chatting. She had been in New Jerusalem, it developed, even less time than had I. She had been reared on a farm in upper New York State and there she had been sealed to the Prophet at the Albany Seminary. In turn I had told her that I had been born in the middle west, not fifty miles from the Well of Truth, where the First Prophet was incarnated. I then told her that my name was John Lyle and she had answered that she was called Sister Judith.

I had forgotten all about the warden-of-the-watch and his pesky rounds and was ready to chat all night, when my chrono had chimed the quarter hour. “Oh, dear!” Sister Judith had exclaimed. “I should have gone straight back to my cell.” She had started to hurry away, then had checked herself. “You wouldn’t tell on me… John Lyle?”

“Me? Oh, never!”

I had continued to think about her the rest of the watch. When the warden did make rounds I was a shade less than alert.

A mighty little on which to found a course of folly, eh? A single drink is a great amount to a teetotaler; I was not able to get Sister Judith out of my mind. In the month that followed I saw her half a dozen times. Once I passed her on an escalator; she was going down as I was going up. We did not even speak, but she had recognized me and smiled. I rode that escalator all night that night in my dreams, but I could never get off and speak to her. The other encounters were just as trivial. Another time I heard her voice call out to me quietly, “Hello, John Lyle,” and I turned just in time to see a hooded figure go past my elbow through a door. Once I watched her feeding the swans in the moat; I did not dare approach her but I think that she saw me.

The
Temple Herald
printed the duty lists of both my service and hers. I was standing a watch in five; the Virgins drew lots once a week. So it was just over a month later that our watches again matched. I saw her name—and vowed that I would win the guard mount that evening and again be posted at the post of honor before the Prophet’s own apartments. I had no reason to think that Judith would seek me out on the rampart—but I was sure in my heart that she would. Never at West Point had I ever expended more spit-and-polish; I could have used my buckler for a shaving mirror.

But here it was nearly half past ten and no sign of Judith, although I had heard the Virgins gather down the corridor promptly at ten. All I had to show for my efforts was the poor privilege of standing watch at the coldest post in the Palace.

Probably, I thought glumly, she comes out to flirt with the guardsmen on watch everytime she has a chance. I recalled bitterly that all women were vessels of iniquity and had always been so since the Fall of Man. Who was I to think that she had singled me out for special friendship? She had probably considered the night too cold to bother.

I heard a footstep and my heart leaped with joy. But it was only the warden making his rounds. I brought my pistol to the ready and challenged him; his voice came back, “Watchman, what of the night?”

I answered mechanically, “Peace on Earth,” and added, “It is cold, Elder Brother.”

“Autumn in the air,” he agreed. “Chilly even in the Temple.” He passed on by with his pistol and his bandolier of paralysis bombs slapping his armor to his steps. He was a nice old duffer and usually stopped for a few friendly words; tonight he was probably eager to get back to the warmth of the guardroom. I went back to my sour thoughts.