The springtime for mankind had arrived, and the blooms of the lilac bowers outside Redwine's church hung fatly, heavy as Concord grapes.
Redwine listened to the rain, and imagined that it spoke Chaucerian English. He spoke aloud the words he imagined the rain to be speaking, spoke harmoniously, at just the noise level of the rain.
Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote
The droughte of Marche hath perced to the rote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendered is the flour--
A droplet fell twinkling from the rafter overhead, wet the left lens of Redwine's spectacles and his apple cheek.
Time had been kind to Redwine. Standing there in the pulpit, he looked like a ruddy, bespectacled country newsboy, though he was forty-nine. He raised his hand to brush away the wetness on his cheek, and rattled the blue canvas bag of lead shot that was strapped around his wrist.
There were similar bags of shot around his ankles and his other wrist, and two heavy slabs of iron hung on shoulder straps--one slab on his chest and one on his back.
These weights were his handicaps in the race of life.
He carried forty-eight pounds--carried them gladly. A stronger person would have carried more, a weaker person would have carried less. Every strong member of Redwine's faith accepted handicaps gladly, wore them proudly everywhere.
The weakest and meekest were bound to admit, at last, that the race of life was fair.
The liquid melodies of the rain made such lovely backgrounds for any sort of recitation in the empty church that Redwine recited some more. This time he recited something that Winston Niles Rumfoord, the Master of Newport, had written.
The thing that Redwine was about to recite with the rain chorus was a thing that the Master of Newport had written to define the position of himself with respect to his ministers, the position of his ministers with respect to their flocks, and the position of everybody with respect to God. Redwine read it to his flock on the first Sunday of every month.
"'I am not your father,'" said Redwine. "'Rather call me brother. But I am not your brother. Rather call me son. But I am not your son. Rather call me a dog. But I am not your dog. Rather call me a flea on your dog. But I am not a flea. Rather call me a germ on a flea on your dog. As a germ on a flea on your dog, I am eager to serve you in any way I can, just as you are willing to serve God Almighty, Creator of the Universe.'"
Redwine slapped his hands together, killing the imaginary germ-infested flea. On Sundays, the entire congregation slapped the flea in unison.
Another droplet fell shivering from the rafter, wet Redwine's cheek again. Redwine nodded his sweet thanks for the droplet, for the church, for peace, for the Master of Newport, for Earth, for a God Who didn't care, for everything.
He stepped down from the pulpit, making the lead balls in his handicap bags shift back and forth with a stately swish.
He went down the aisle and through the arch under the steeple. He paused by the puddle under the bell rope, looked up to divine the course the water had taken down. It was a lovely way, he decided, for spring rain to come in. If ever he were in charge of remodeling the church, he would make sure that enterprising drops of rain could still come in that way.
Just beyond the arch under the steeple was another arch, a leafy arch of lilacs.
Redwine now stepped under that second arch, saw the space ship like a great blister in the woods, saw the naked, bearded Space Wanderer in his churchyard.
Redwine cried out for joy. He ran back into his church and jerked and swung on the bell rope like a drunken chimpanzee. In the clanging bedlam of the bells, Redwine heard the words that the Master of Newport said all bells spoke.
"NO HELL!" whang-clanged the bell-
"NO HELL,
"NO HELL,
"NO HELL!"
Unk was terrified by the bell. It sounded like an angry, frightened bell to Unk, and he ran back to his ship, gashing his shin badly as he scrambled over a stone wall. As he was closing the airlock, he heard a siren wailing answers to the bell.
Unk thought Earth was still at war with Mars, and that the siren and the bell were calling sudden death down on him. He pressed the on button.
The automatic navigator did not respond instantly, but engaged in a fuzzy, ineffectual argument with itself. The argument ended with the navigator's shutting itself off.
Unk pressed the on button again. This time he kept it down by jamming his heel against it.
Again the navigator argued stupidly with itself, tried to shut itself off. When it found that it could not shut itself off, it made dirty yellow smoke.
The smoke became so dense and poisonous that Unk was obliged to swallow a goofball and practice Schliemann breathing again.
Then the pilot-navigator gave out a deep, throbbing organ note and died forever.
There was no taking off now. When the pilot-navigator died, the whole space ship died.
Unk went through the smoke to a porthole--looked out.
He saw a fire engine. The fire engine was breaking through the brush to the space ship. Men, women, and children were clinging to the engine--drenched by rain and expressing ecstasy.
Going in advance of the fire engine was the Reverend C. Horner Redwine. In one hand he carried a lemon-yellow suit in a transparent plastic bag. In the other hand he held a spray of fresh-cut lilacs.
The women threw kisses to Unk through the portholes, held their children up to see the adorable man inside. The men stayed with the fire engine, cheered Unk, cheered each other, cheered everything. The driver made the mighty motor backfire, blew the siren, rang the bell.
Everyone wore handicaps of some sort. Most handicaps were of an obvious sort--sashweights, bags of shot, old furnace grates--meant to hamper physical advantages. But there were, among Redwine's parishioners, several true believers who had chosen handicaps of a subtler and more telling kind.
There were women who had received by dint of dumb luck the terrific advantage of beauty. They had annihilated that unfair advantage with frumpish clothes, bad posture, chewing gum, and a ghoulish use of cosmetics.
One old man, whose only advantage was excellent eyesight, had spoiled that eyesight by wearing his wife's spectacles.
A dark young man, whose lithe, predaceous sex appeal could not be spoiled by bad clothes and bad manners, had handicapped himself with a wife who was nauseated by sex.
The dark young man's wife, who had reason to be vain about her Phi Beta Kappa key, had handicapped herself with a husband who read nothing but comic books.
Redwine's congregation was not unique. It wasn't especially fanatical. There were literally billions of happily self-handicapped people on Earth.
And what made them all so happy was that nobody took advantage of anybody any more.
Now the firemen thought of another way to express joy. There was a nozzle mounted amidships on the fire engine. It could be swiveled around like a machine gun. They aimed it straight up and turned it on. A shivering, unsure fountain climbed into the sky, was torn to shreds by the winds when it could climb no more. The shreds fell all around, now falling on the space ship with splattering thumps; now soaking the firemen themselves; now soaking women and children, startling them, then making them more full of joy than ever.
That water should have played such an important part in the welcoming of Unk was an enchanting accident. No one had planned it. But it was perfect that everyone should forget himself in a festival of universal wetness.
The Reverend C. Horner Redwine, feeling as naked as a pagan wood sprite in the clinging wetness of his clothes, swished a spray of lilacs over the glass of a porthole, then pressed his adoring face against the glass.
The expression of the face that looked back at Redwine was strikingly like the expression on the face of an intelligent ape in a zoo. Unk's forehead was deeply wrinkled, and his eyes were liquid with a hopeless wish to understand.
Unk had decided not to be afraid
.
Neither was he in any hurry to let Redwine in.
At last he went to the airlock, unlatched both the inner and outer doors. He stepped back, waiting for someone else to push the doors open.
"First let me go in and have him put on the suit!" said Redwine to his congregation. "Then you can have him!"
There in the space ship, the lemon-yellow suit fit Unk like a coat of paint. The orange question marks on his chest and back clung without a wrinkle.
Unk did not yet know that no one else in the world was dressed like him. He assumed that many people had suits like his--question marks and all.
"This--this is Earth?" said Unk to Redwine.
"Yes," said Redwine. "Cape Cod, Massachusetts, United States of America, Brotherhood of Man."
"Thank God!" said Unk.
Redwine raised his eyebrows quizzically. "Why?" he said.
"Pardon me?" said Unk.
"Why thank God?" said Redwine. "He doesn't care what happens to you. He didn't go to any trouble to get you here safe and sound, any more than He would go to the trouble to kill you." He raised his arms, demonstrating the muscularity of his faith. The balls of shot in the handicap bags on his wrists shifted swishingly, drawing Unk's attention. From the handicap bags, Unk's attention made an easy jump to the heavy slab of iron on Redwine's chest. Redwine followed the trend of Unk's gaze, hefted the iron slab on his chest. "Heavy," he said.
"Um," said Unk.
"You should carry about fifty pounds, I would guess--after we build you up," said Redwine. "Fifty pounds?" said Unk.
"You should be glad, not sorry, to carry such a handicap," said Redwine. "No one could then reproach you for taking advantage of the random ways of luck." There crept into his voice a beatifically threatening tone that he had not used much since the earliest days of the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent, since the thrilling mass conversions that had followed the war with Mars. In those days, Redwine and all the other young proselytizers had threatened unbelievers with the righteous displeasure of crowds--righteously displeased crowds that did not then exist.
The righteously displeased crowds existed now in every part of the world. The total membership of Churches of God the Utterly Indifferent was a good, round three billion. The young lions who had first taught the creed could now afford to be lambs, to contemplate such oriental mysteries as water trickling down a bell rope. The disciplinary arm of the Church was in crowds everywhere.
"I must warn you," Redwine said to Unk, "that when you go out among all those people you mustn't say anything that would indicate that God took a special interest in you, or that you could somehow be of help to God. The worst thing you could say, for instance, would be something like, 'Thank God for delivering me from all my troubles. For some reason He singled me out, and now my only wish is to serve Him.'
"The friendly crowd out there," continued Redwine, "could turn quite ugly quite fast, despite the high auspices under which you come."
Unk had been planning to say almost exactly what Redwine had warned him against saying. It had seemed the only proper speech to make. "What--what should I say?" said Unk.
"It has been prophesied what you will say," said Redfield, "word for word. I have thought long and hard about the words you are going to say, and I am convinced they cannot be improved upon."
"But I can't think of any words--except hello-thank you--" said Unk. "What do you want me to say?"
"What you do say," said Redwine. "Those good people out there have been rehearsing this moment for a long time. They will ask you two questions, and you will answer them to the best of your ability."
He led Unk through the airlock to the outside. The fire engine's fountain had been turned off. The shouting and dancing had stopped.
Redwine's congregation now formed a semicircle around Unk and Redwine. The members of the congregation had their lips pressed tightly together and their lungs filled.
Redwine gave a saintly signal.
The congregation spoke as one. "Who are you?" they said.
"I--I don't know my real name," said Unk. "They called me Unk."
"What happened to you?" said the congregation.
Unk shook his head vaguely. He could think of no apt condensation of his adventures for the obviously ritual mood. Something great was plainly expected of him. He was not up to greatness. He exhaled noisily, letting the congregation know that he was sorry to fail them with his colorlessness. "I was a victim of a series of accidents," he said. He shrugged. "As are we all," he said.
The cheering and dancing began again.
Unk was hustled aboard the fire engine, and driven on it to the door of the church.
Redwine pointed amiably to an unfurled wooden scroll over the door. Incised in the scroll and gilded were these words:
I WAS A VICTIM OF A SERIES OF ACCIDENTS, AS ARE WE ALL.
Unk was driven on the fire engine straight from the church to Newport, Rhode Island, where a materialization was due to take place.
According to a plan that had been set up years before, other fire apparatus on Cape Cod was shifted so as to protect West Barnstable, which would be without its pumper for a little while.
Word of the Space Wanderer's coming spread over the Earth like wildfire. In every village, town, and city through which the fire engine passed, Unk was pelted with flowers.
Unk sat high on the fire engine, on a two-by-six fir timber laid across the cockpit amidships. In the cockpit itself was the Reverend C. Horner Redwine.
Redwine had control of the fire engine's bell, which he rang assiduously. Attached to the clapper of the bell was a Malachi made of high-impact plastic The doll was of a special sort that could be bought only in Newport. To display such a Malachi was to proclaim that one had made a pilgrimage to Newport.
The entire Volunteer Fire Department of West Barnstable, with the exception of two non-conformists, had made such a pilgrimage to Newport. The fire engine's Malachi had been bought with Fire Department funds.
In the parlance of the souvenir hawkers in Newport, the Fire Department's high-impact plastic Malachi was a "genuwine, authorized, official Malachi."
Unk was happy, because it was so good to be among people again, and to be breathing air again. And everybody seemed to adore him so.
There was so much good noise. There was so much good everything. Unk hoped the good everything would go on forever.
"What happened to you?" the people all yelled to him, and they laughed.
For the purposes of mass communications, Unk shortened the answer that had pleased the little crowd so much at the Church of the Space Wanderer. "Accidents!" he yelled.
He laughed.
Oh boy.
What the hell. He laughed.
In Newport, the Rumfoord estate had been packed to the walls for eight hours. Guards turned thousands away from the little door in the wall. The guards were hardly necessary, since the crowd inside was monolithic.
A greased eel couldn't have squeezed in.
The thousands of pilgrims outside the walls now jostled one another piously for positions close to the loudspeakers mounted at the corners of the walls.
From the speakers would come Rumfoord's voice.
The crowd was the largest yet and the most excited yet, for the day was the long-promised Great Day of the Space Wanderer.
Handicaps of the most imaginative and effective sort were displayed everywhere. The crowd was wonderfully drab and hampered.
Bee, who had been Unk's mate on Mars, was in Newport, too. So was Bee's and Unk's son, Chrono.
"Hey!--getcher genuwine, authorized, official Malachis here," said Bee hoarsely. "Hey!--getcher Malachis here. Gotta have a Malachi to wave at the Space Wanderer," said Bee. "Get a Malachi, so the Space Wanderer can bless it when he comes by."
She was in a booth facing the little iron door in the wall of the Rumfoord estate in Newport. Bee's booth was the first in the line of twenty booths that faced the door. The twenty booths were under one continu
ous shed roof, and were separated from one another by waist-high partitions.
The Malachis she was hawking were plastic dolls with movable joints and rhinestone eyes. Bee bought them from a religious supply house for twenty-seven cents apiece and sold them for three dollars. She was an excellent businesswoman.
And while Bee showed the world an efficient and flashy exterior, it was the grandeur within her that sold more merchandise than anything. The carnival flash of Bee caught the pilgrims' eyes. But what brought the pilgrims to her booth and made them buy was her aura. The aura said unmistakably that Bee was meant for a far nobler station in life, that she was being an awfully good sport about being stuck where she was.
"Hey!--getcher Malachi while there's still time," said Bee. "Can't get a Malachi while a materialization's going on!"
That was true. The rule was that the concessionaires had to close their shutters five minutes before Winston Niles Rumfoord and his dog materialized. And they had to keep their shutters closed until ten minutes after the last trace of Rumfoord and Kazak had disappeared.
Bee turned to her son, Chrono, who was opening a fresh case of Malachis. "How long before the whistle?" she said. The whistle was a great steam whistle inside the estate. It was blown five minutes in advance of materializations.
Materializations themselves were announced by the firing of a three-inch cannon.
Dematerializations were announced by the release of a thousand toy balloons.
"Eight minutes," said Chrono, looking at his watch. He was eleven Earthling years old now. He was dark and smoldering. He was an expert short-changer, and was clever with cards. He was foul-mouthed, and carried a switch-knife with a six-inch blade. Chrono would not socialize well with other children, and his reputation for dealing with life courageously and directly was so bad that only a few very foolish and very pretty little girls were attracted to him.
Chrono was classified by the Newport Police Department and by the Rhode Island State Police as a juvenile delinquent. He knew at least fifty law-enforcement officers by their first names, and was a veteran of fourteen lie-detector tests.
All that prevented Chrono's being placed in an institution was the finest legal staff on Earth, the legal staff of the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent. Under the direction of Rumfoord, the staff defended Chrono against all charges.
The commonest charges brought against Chrono were larceny by sleight of hand, carrying concealed weapons, possessing unregistered pistols, discharging firearms within the city limits, selling obscene prints and articles, and being a wayward child.