A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Page B

night’s sleep on the hard straw pallet in his old familiar cell, plus a small bite of unfamiliar breakfast, had not perhaps done any wonders for starved tissue or entirely cleared the sun-daze from his brain, but these relative luxuries had at least restored him to sufficient clarity of mind to perceive that he had cause to be afraid. He was, in fact, terrified, so that his first tap at the abbot’s door went unheard. Not even Francis could hear it. After several minutes, he mustered the courage to knock again.
    “Benedicamus Domine.”
    “Deo? gratias?” asked Francis.
    “Come in, my boy, come in!” called an affable voice, which, after some seconds of puzzling, he recognized with amazement to have been that of his sovereign abbot.
    “You twist the little knob, my son,” said the same friendly voice after Brother Francis had stood frozen on the spot for some seconds, with his knuckles still in position for knocking.
    “Y-y-yes-” Francis scarcely touched the knob, but it seemed that the accursed door opened anyway; he had hoped that it would he tightly stuck.
    “The Lord Abbot s-s-sent for-me?” squawked the novice.
    Abbot Arkos pursed his lips and nodded slowly. “Mmmm-yes, the Lord Abbot sent for- you . Do come in and shut the door.”
    Brother Francis got the door closed and stood shivering In the center of the room. The abbot was toying with some of the wire-whiskered things from the old toolbox.
    “Or perhaps it would be more fitting,” said Abbot Arkos, “If the Reverend Father Abbot were sent for by you . Now that you have been so favored by Providence and have become so famous, eh?” He smiled soothingly.
    “Heh heh?” Brother Francis laughed inquiringly. “Oh n-n-no, m’Lord.”
    “You do not dispute that you have won overnight fame? That Providence elected you to discover THIS-” he gestured sweepingly at the relics on the desk “-this ]UNK box, as its previous owner no doubt rightly called it?”
    The novice stammered helplessly, and somehow managed to wind up wearing a grin.
    “You are seventeen and plainly an idiot, are you not?”
    “That is undoubtedly true, m’Lord Abbot.”
    “What excuse do you propose for believing yourself called to Religion?”
    “No excuse, Magister meus.”
    “Ah? So? Then you feel that you have no vocation to the Order?”
    “Oh, I do!” the novice gasped.
    “But you propose no excuse?”
    “None.”
    “You little cretin, I am asking your reason. Since you state none, I take it you are prepared to deny that you met anyone in the desert the other day, that you stumbled on this-this JUNK box with no help, and that what I have been hearing from others is only-feverish raving?”
    “Oh, no, Dom Arkos!”
    “Oh, no, what?”
    “I cannot deny what I saw with my own eyes, Reverend Father.”
    “So, you did meet an angel-or was it a saint?-or perhaps not yet a saint?-and he showed you where to look?”
    “I never said he was-”
    “And this is your excuse for believing yourself to have a true vocation, is it not? That this, this-shall we call him a ‘creature’?-spoke to you of finding a voice, and marked a rock with his initials, and told you it was what you were looking for, and when you looked, under it-there THIS was. Eh?”
    “Yes, Dom Arkos.”
    “What is your opinion of your own execrable vanity?”
    “My execrable vanity is unpardonable, m’Lord’n’Teacher.”
    “To imagine yourself important enough to be unpardonable is an even vaster vanity,” roared the sovereign of the abbey.
    “M’Lord, I am indeed a worm.”
    “Very well, you need only deny the part about the pilgrim. No one else saw such a person, you know. I understand he was supposed to have been headed in this direction? That he even said he might stop here? That he inquired about the abbey? Yes? And where would he have disappeared to, if he ever existed? No such person came past here. The brother on duty at that time in the watchtower didn’t see him. Eh? Are you now