This Fortress World (28 page)

"You must select your own successor," I said quietly. "You must choose someone who will carry on the work, and he must choose someone after him. If the pretense of legality is necessary, you must replace your bishops with men who will follow your plan, even if you are dead."

Slowly, very slowly, he nodded. It was reluctant and weary. "It shall be done," he said. His gentle words would change the shape of the galaxy. He smiled. "You have fought very hard for humanity, for billions upon billions of people throughout the galaxy. Now, what do you want for yourself? As I said, Laurie has made it difficult for me to refuse you anything."

"I want two things," I said.

Laurie frowned. "You said only one."

I stared at her coldly. "I've changed my mind."

"Speak, my son," said the Archbishop.

"First," I said, "I want to go to Earth."

"What would you do there?"

"I want to see it," I said. "Maybe it's only sentiment, but I'd like to live there where the old telepaths lived, and know the peace that they knew, look on their sky and walk their world, and maybe I would know myself someday as they knew themselves and do a few of the things that they were able to do. There are secrets there; I know where to find them, as Laurie does. I wouldn't disturb them, because they are for others who will come long after I am dead, but my knowing the secrets won't diminish them. I would like to build a village. The telepaths discovered by the Church should be sent to Earth, to develop there as their fathers developed."

"And leave the battle for others?" the Archbishop asked gently.

"If you need me," I said, "you have only to send for me."

He nodded. "It shall be done. And what is the second thing you want."

"I want Laurie," I said.

I heard a gasp, and I knew without looking that Laurie's face was white. But I was watching the Archbishop, and I was unprepared for the expression of pain that crossed his face.

He turned to look at Laurie, holding her hand. "How can I give you up?"

"What claim do you have on her?" I demanded.

He looked back at me. "None, really," he said softly. "Except that she is my daughter."

"Your daughter!" I exclaimed.

"He is the kindest, gentlest man in the galaxy," Laurie said fiercely. "If he sinned a long time ago, he has more than made up for it."

"One can never redeem a sin," he said, still looking at Laurie. One white hand lifted to stroke her dark hair. "I loved her mother. I love Laurie. And this is a sin I have never repented, though I am damned for it."

"Never, father!" Laurie said fiercely.

"And you sent her down into that!" I asked indignantly.

"He didn't send me," Laurie said violently. "I pleaded with him to let me go. And how could he refuse, when he was sending others?"

"You let her go?" I demanded of the Archbishop again.

"Yes," he sighed. "Yes. I let her go. And now if she wishes to go with you, I can't stop her. I wouldn't stop her. Speak, Laurie."

I looked to Laurie now. Her eyes brimmed with tears, and I loved her more than I could ever love anybody or anything.

"But it still makes a difference, doesn't it, Will?" she asked. Her voice quavered.

"Yes," I said. "Yes—"

"Then how can you ask me to go with you? How will I feel, knowing what you are thinking and feeling, knowing that you remember? Knowing, constantly, that you can't forgive?"

"I know," I said though my lips were tight. "I know. Don't you think I've thought about it and thought about it until I don't know what to think. But with me it isn't a question of choosing. I chose a long time ago, and I can't change. Now I can't forget. Maybe someday, when I'm wiser and better, it won't matter. But it makes a difference now, and it may always make a difference, but I—I love you, Laurie, and that's so big that the other may tear me apart but it can't tear that away from me. I'm not asking you to decide now. I'll wait. I'll wait for a long time. I'll wait forever. And every moment I'm waiting will be agony."

I was on my feet. "Forgive," I said. "Who am I to forgive?"

And I stumbled blindly into the corridor, and I found my way to my cubicle, and I waited.

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I walked over the rolling meadows of Earth, my eyes on the low, green, rounded hills on the horizon, for Earth is old and wise and gentle, and the mountains are weathered down. The sky was very blue overhead, and the grass was green under my feet, and peace and quiet were all around me and over me and under me, and I breathed it into my lungs and it seeped into my body.

I had grown a little older and a little wiser along with Earth, but it gave me a pain that was almost physical to see the spaceship sitting in the meadow in a blackened circle of burnt grass.

I walked to the base of the ship, to the foot of the long steps that had been let down from the opening high in the side, and the captain was waiting there to greet me.

"I hate to hurry you, sir," he said respectfully, "but the Council has been waiting for many days now to install their new Archbishop."

I sighed and held out my hand to Laurie to help her up the long, long steps that led back to the stars.…

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