"No, no, of course not! Not directly at any rate. She was due for rotation to a new Station anyway, so your assumption of the office at the familiar Station is appropriate for your first assignment. But since you know her better than I do, I thought it would be appropriate if you spoke to her before she left. I hardly need to stress the importance of persuading her to remain with us. She has been one of the very finest of our young officers, but I am thinking not merely of the welfare of the Order, but of Mary herself. I do not believe she would be happy in another occupation."
"No, she would not," Father Paul agreed. "The Order is her whole life. This—this is not like her!" He shook his head, troubled. "I had looked forward to working with her again. Do you have any hint why she—?"
The Rt. Rev. Crowder frowned. "Her personal file is available to me, of course, as is yours. I am aware of the manner you came to the Holy Order of Vision. I know you were converted by Sister Beth before she—"
"I killed her," Father Paul said. "You know this, yet you promote me—"
"You, like her, were a victim of circumstance. All of us have enough sin on our consciences without exaggerating the significance of events beyond our control. My point is this: we of the Holy Order of Vision know our members rather well, particularly those in whom we see special promise. Most of our people are rather literally from the gutter. 7 am. I have blood on my hands, and a micro-lobotomy scar on my brain. Like you, I failed my final test; but it was society, not Satan, that brought me to justice. It is a cruel world we live in. Hell, in fact. But it is Hell, not Heaven, that most needs social workers. Therefore, your own past history does not surprise or shock me. What matters is your present state—which I believe is the point you made to the Mormon. Mary was a similar convert."
"This I can not believe!"
"Your naivete becomes you, Paul. You have spent all your life in Hell and have hardly seen it. I shall not betray the details of Mary's prior existence or how she came to us. You have seen what a jewel she became. I only want to clarify that had she been allowed to undertake the Planet Tarot mission, the Animations would have been no more comfortable for her than they were for you."
"Allowed? You mean she—"
"Mary volunteered for the mission, yes. We forbade it because we felt she lacked the physical stamina necessary. And so we subjected her to the double indignity of assigning you instead."
"She—she suspected what it would be like?"
"Yes. And I rather think she suffers from guilt for sending you—much as you suffered guilt for releasing Sister Beth to the police. Fortunately you survived, vindicating my judgment—and I think if you were to talk to Mary—"
"Yes! Yes, of course," Father Paul agreed. "She need feel no guilt on my account!"
"I was sure you would understand," the Right Reverend Father Crowder said. But his smile was enigmatic.
Brother Paul's route home differed from his one to the mattermitter so long ago in experience. This too was Order policy: to seek new territory even when only passing through, rather than retrace steps. Thus he found himself one night at the Tribe of the Picts. Whether they really resembled the original Gaelics or Celts of Europe was questionable, but he was too diplomatic to evince skepticism.
Their Chief was naked, his torso stained blue and green and horrendously tattooed: obviously a matter of great pride. "Seldom have I encountered such handsome art," Father Paul said tactfully.
"Welcome to our hospitality," the naked artist said appreciatively. "But Father, if you would—my child is sick—"
"I am not a doctor—" Father Paul said cautiously.
"We have doctors; they have been unable to help. They say she needs a hospital, X-rays, blood transfusion, diagnostics, drugs—" He faced Father Paul. "It is a long ride to civilization. She will die before we can get her to such help!"
"I will look at her," Father Paul said. One problem with this retreating technology was the return of ancient killers, increasing child mortality. Diseases of inattention and malsanitation and ignorance. The Picts were far from civilization—in a number of ways.
The child lay on a cot in a dark hut. As he came to her, Father Paul had another siege of déjà vu. Had he been here before? Not in this century surely!
She was certainly sick. She was about ten, her face wizened by pain, the rind of old vomit at the corners of her mouth. Malnutrition was probably a complicating factor, as it had been in medieval times. He reminded himself again that this was not intentional child neglect; primitives simply didn't know what good diet was or what a healthy environment was. Probably the doctors had tried to tell the Chief—but there was only so much any person could say in such a situation if he wished to keep his own health. Father Paul would make a prescription that might balance her intake somewhat if he were able to help her through this crisis;;/he helped her, her father might pay attention.
Her skin was pale, almost translucent. She needed light and attention—and love. Where was her mother? Someone to hold her and tell her stories and listen to her little joys and tribulations. True primitives centered their lives around their children, but these modern regressed people hadn't put it all together yet. Their families were likely to be destroyed along with their prior livelihoods. Different people regressed at different rates in different ways. It was Hell on marriages. He would have to make a prescription in that area too.
Yet it would all be academic if she were too far gone. First he had to catch his rabbit.
He sat beside her, taking one burning little hand. "Pretty child, I love you. Your father loves you. God loves you. Wake and be well." He put his other hand on her forehead and prayed silently: God, help this child. Bring her out of Hell.
His aura flowed through her body—that aura others said was one of the strongest known. This was not Animation of external appearances, but attempted animation of something more important: the will to live. He had to form a new self-image within her to make her believe that her illness was an illusion to be banished, that she, like the Christian Scientists, could conquer—if she had faith.
And—she healed. Her fever dropped, her tension eased, and she woke. He felt her consciousness rising through her modest aura, drawing strength from his strength, his love. Her eyes opened, bright blue. She smiled.
"From this day forward," the Chief said from behind Father Paul, his voice trembling with emotion, "this Tribe worships your God."
"My God is Love," Father Paul said.
Then the reaction struck him. He had healed her! He had touched her, willed her to live, called on God, and used his aura in a new way to make this child well—just as Herald the Healer had done in the far future and Jesus Christ in the near past.
The ability he had realized in Animation—remained with him in life. He was now a Healer.
The Station was poignantly familiar with its windmill and conservative buildings. Father Paul had to remind himself that he had been away only a fortnight or so, though he had roamed back and forth through some five thousand years in that interim. From the Buddha to the Amoeba!
Brother Peter emerged from the kitchen as he passed. "Congratulations, Father!" he exclaimed. "Go right on to the Reverend's office; she's expecting you."
Father Paul lingered a moment over the handshake. "Brother—how is she? I have heard she is not well."
Brother Peter glanced down at their merged hands. "There is something about you—some power—"
"The power of a renewed faith in God," Father Paul said. He did not care to explain about the aura at this time. "But about the Reverend—"
"Father, I'm sure you can handle it." And that was all Brother Peter would say.
Father Paul went to the office, though he was somewhat grimy from the trek. This was where his mission had started a world and time ago; it was appropriate that it also terminate here. He paused at the door, nervously rehearsing his arguments: how she could do so much more good within the Order than without it; how she had done him no disfavor by sending him to Planet Ta
rot. but instead had greatly facilitated his self-discovery; how the Right Reverend Father had spoken well of her performance in office; and how the Order needed her services now more than ever in this crisis of its expansion. He would not mention what he had learned of her pre-Order past of course; that would not be diplomatic, though it provided her with a human dimension in his mind that she had lacked before. Instead of an angel, she was an angelic woman: a significant distinction. But he would try his best to persuade her to remain. Yes.
He opened the door and stepped into the small office as he had before. She was standing by her desk, facing away from him, a stunningly forlorn figure. What had happened to her?
"Mary," he said, experiencing a rush of strange emotion. That had not been what he meant to say!
"Paul, I know what case you mean to make," she said, her voice partly muffled. "But my decision has been made. I only want to explain the mechanisms of the office and to congratulate you on—"
Something about her—the Animation scene of Dante's Paradiso, where—"Mary, face me," he said gently.
Slowly she turned about, not bothering to dab the tears from her cheeks. "You are safe. God bless you."
God bless you. Father Paul studied her face, recognizing only now what he had been unable to see before. She was the angel he had been questing for all through the Animations! No wonder he had never really acquiesced to Amaranth's advances. Amaranth had been at best a surrogate figure, standing in lieu of the woman he really loved. During his whole adventure in Animation he had been searching for—what he had left behind. The girl next door. Yet he had not dared, even in imagination, to hope that this ideal woman could ever be his.
And what made him suppose anything had changed? She had never given any hint of romantic interest in him; she had always been completely proper as befitted her position. It was difficult to believe that her pre-Order history could have been as checkered as his; she had to be of a higher plane. Now, upset at what she thought had been a bad decision on her part, did she propose to return to that lesser prior life?
He wanted to cry out his suddenly discovered love, but could not. What a fool he would be to suppose that this angel would ever consider his suit! To speak it would be to invite a polite, gentle, half-apologetic demurral: her attempt to set him straight without hurting his feelings. Despite her own pressing problem, she would make this effort out of the decency in her heart. To touch her would be to destroy her as he had destroyed Sister Beth—even if he only touched her with a word. He had no right!
Yet—why was she crying? He had never seen her in such open distress, such loss of equilibrium; he had never known there were tears in her. If it had been concern for him while on the dangerous mission she had been denied, she was now absolved. He had survived, he had grown, he had returned! If it was her sadness at resigning the Order, why was she doing it? There had to be something else.
"Mary, will you tell me what grieves you?" he asked. "If it is the loss of your Station here, I will gladly renounce the office. I know I can not measure up to the standard you have maintained. I will go away from here—"
Her voice was now normal, controlled, in contrast to her eyes. "Do not do that, Paul. I am glad for your success. I apologize for losing control; it ill becomes the occasion." She paused. Then: "You have seen God."
And she had not? She was not the type to envy him that! Still there was something unclear here, yet vital.
He thought of his new Tarot. Could it help him? No, he had to work this out alone. He had made the wrong decision with Sister Beth, a girl he hardly knew. How much more critical was this decision! Should he risk all by professing his love for Mary openly—or by concealing it? He could not bear to see her this way, so inexplicably tearful—yet he could not afford to aggravate the situation by making another error.
There was only one thing to do. Father Paul dropped to his knees to pray to God for the answer.
Opposite him, the Reverend Mother Mary did the same.
God of Tarot, God of Earth, God of my experience—show me the way! he prayed in silence.
God did not speak to him. God never had—not this way. Should he pray instead to Satan? The Devil was always responsive!
No! God and Satan might be one, and there might be no such thing as Evil—but he had to orient on the aspect he believed in. The God of Good, of Right, of Love. Thy Will be done.
Mary spoke. "I see you are troubled, Paul. It is not right to conceal my concern from you; God tells me that. I will tell it simply. I—had visions relating to you during your absence. It was at times as though I was a—a siren, a harlot, a temptress, as once I was before I found God. An evil creature, luring you into error in thought and action. Your heart and eye were fixed on God, but I was the agent of Satan, leading you to Hell itself, balking at nothing, using strange Tarot cards—" She hesitated, weeping. "I never suspected such depths of depravity remained in me. I must get out of your life forever. May God forgive me my sin against you!"
Father Paul opened his eyes and stared across the gulf that separated him from Mary. Her eyes remained closed, and her face was now in repose, hauntingly familiar in a new way. She had made her confession—without comprehending its true nature. She had suffered a psychic linkage with him during his Animations! She thought Amaranth's mischief and Therion's stemmed from her own imagination and will. She could not know that what was false to her was, paradoxically, true to him. She had seen Satan—and he recognized it as God.
What quirk could have linked their minds across the light years? No known force could explain it, other than God's will—expressed through the force of love.
She loved him!
He studied her face with new understanding. Mary had shared his experience. He would need to keep no secrets from her, hide no shame. She had seen him at his worst—and tried to absorb the evil to herself.
"And did you also stand before the Cross as Jesus was crucified?" he inquired gently. "And in the Tenth Heaven of Paradiso?"
"That too," she agreed, not comprehending. How blessed was her innocence!
In this calm pose she reminded him strangely of—
Like another nova burst, it came to him. Of Carolyn! His daughter of Animation! Not to the child actress, now bound with her fiancee for some distant colony planet where religion would not be so bad a problem and Animation would be no problem at all. Rather, to the one he had accompanied on the airplane, revisiting his old college, ten years hence. To the one he had struggled to save from death in the fourteenth century. His real daughter—or daughter-to-be.
This was the mother of that child.
Father Paul reached across and took Mary's hand, letting his aura heal her.
The God of Tarot had answered.
Appendix:
Animation Tarot
The Animation Tarot deck of concepts as recreated by Brother Paul of the Holy Order of Vision consists of thirty Triumphs roughly equivalent to the twenty-two Trumps of contemporary conventional Tarot decks, together with five variously tilted suits roughly equivalent to the four conventional suits plus Aura. Each suit is numbered from one through ten, with the addition of four "Court" cards. The thirty Triumphs are represented by the table of contents of this novel, and keys to their complex meanings and derivations are to be found within the applicable chapters. For convenience the Triumphs are presented below, followed by a tabular representation of the suits, with their meanings or sets of meanings (for upright and reversed fall of the cards); the symbols are described by the italicized words. Since the suits are more than mere collections of concepts, five essays relating to their fundamental nature follow the chart.
No Animation Tarot deck exists in published form at present. Brother Paul used a pack of three-by-five-inch file cards to represent the one hundred concepts, simply writing the meanings on each card and sketching the symbols himself, together with any other notes he found pertinent. These were not as pretty or convenient as published cards, but were satisfactory for divination
, study, entertainment, business and meditation as required. A full discussion of each card and the special conventions relating to the Animation deck would be too complicated to cover here, but those who wish to make up their own decks and use them should discover revelations of their own. According to Brother Paul's vision of the future, this deck will eventually be published, perhaps in both archaic (Waldens) and future (Cluster) forms, utilizing in the first case medieval images and in the second case images drawn from the myriad cultures of the Galactic Cluster, circa 4500 A.D. It hardly seems worthwhile for interested persons to wait for that.
Suit Cards
NATURE
SCIENCE
FAITH
TRADE
ART
1
Do
Think
Feel
Have
Be
Scepter
Sword
Cup
Coin
Lemniscate
2
Ambition
Health
Quest
Inclusion
Soul
Drive
Sickness
Dream
Exclusion
Self
Torch
Scalpel
Grail
Ring
Aura
3
Grow
Intelligence
Bounty
Gain
Perspective
Shrink
Curiosity
Windfall
Loss
Experience
Tree
Haze
Cornucopia
Wheel
Holograph
4
Leverage
Decision
Joy
Investment
Information