“We all regret the necessity,” he said at last, “of sometimes disturbing the quiet of contemplative life with news from the outside world. But we must remember too that we are here to pray for the world and its salvation, as for our own. Especially now, the world could use some praying for.” He paused to glance at Zerchi.

The abbot nodded.

“Lucifer is fallen,” said the priest, and stopped. He stood there looking down at the lectern as if suddenly struck dumb.

Zerchi arose. “That is Brother Joshua’s inference, by the way,” he interposed. “The Regency Council of the Atlantic Confederacy has said nothing to speak of. The dynasty has issued no statements. We know little more than we knew yesterday, except that The World Court is meeting in emergency session, and that the Defense Interior people are moving fast. There is a defense alert, and we’ll be affected, but don’t be disturbed. Father — ?”

“Thank you, Dome,” said the prior, seeming to regain his voice as Dom Zerchi was seated again. “Now, Reverend Father Abbot asked me to make the following announcements:

“First, for the next three days we shall sing the Little Office of Our Lady before Matins, asking her intercession for peace.

“Second, general instructions for civil defense in the event of a space-strike or missile-attack alert are available on the table by the entrance. Everybody take one. If you’ve read it, read it again.

“Third, in the event that an attack warning is sounded, the following brothers are to report immediately to Old Abbey courtyard for special instructions. If no attack warning comes, the same brothers will report there anyway day after tomorrow morning right after Matins and Lauds. Names — Brothers Joshua, Christopher, Augustin, James, Samuel—”

The monks listened with quiet tension, betraying no emotion. There were twenty-seven names in all, but no novices were among them. Some were eminent scholars, there were a janitor and a cook as well. At first hearing, one might assume that the names had been drawn from a box. By the time Father Lehy had finished the list, some of the brothers were eying each other curiously.

“And this same group will report to the dispensary for a complete physical examination tomorrow after Prime,” the prior finished. He turned to look questioningly at Dom Zerchi.

“Domne?”

“Yes, just one thing,” said the abbot, approaching the lectern. “Brothers, let us not assume that there is going to be war. Let’s remind ourselves that Lucifer has been with us — this time — for nearly two centuries. And was dropped only twice, in sizes smaller than megaton. We all know what could happen, if there’s war. The genetic festering is still with us from the last time Man tried to eradicate himself. Back then, in the Saint Leibowitz’ time, maybe they didn’t know what would happen. Or perhaps they did know, but could not quite believe it until they tried it — like a child who knows what a loaded pistol is supposed to do, but who never pulled a trigger before. They had not yet seen a billion corpses. They had not seen the still-born, the monstrous, the dehumanized, the blind. They had not yet seen the madness and the murder and the blotting out of reason. Then they did it, and then they saw it.

“Now — now the princes, the presidents, the praesidiums, now they know — with dead certainty. They can know it by the children they beget and send to asylums for the deformed; They know it, and they’ve kept the peace. Not Christ’s peace, certainly, but peace, until lately — with only two warlike incidents in as many centuries. Now they have the bitter certainty. My sons, they cannot do it again. Only a race of madmen could do it again—”

He stopped speaking. Someone was smiling,. It was only a small smile, but in the midst of a sea of grave faces it stood out like a dead fly in a bowl of cream. Dom Zerchi frowned. The old man kept on smiling wryly. He sat at the “beggar’s table” with three other transient tramps — an old fellow with a brushy beard, stained yellow about the chin. As a jacket, he wore a burlap bag with armholes. He continued to smile at Zerchi. He looked old as a rain-worn crag, and a suitable candidate for a Maundy laving. Zerchi wondered if he were about to stand up and make an announcement to his hosts — or blow a ramshorn at them, perhaps? — but that was only an illusion generated by the smile. He quickly dismissed the feeling that he had seen the old man before, somewhere. He concluded his remarks.

On his way back to his place, he paused. The beggar nodded pleasantly at his host. Zerchi came nearer.

“Who are you, if I may ask. Have I seen you somewhere before?”

“What?”

“Latzar shemi,” the beggar repeated.

“I don’t quite—”

“Call me Lazarus, then,” said the old one, and chuckled.

Dom Zerchi shook his head and moved on. Lazarus? There was, in the region, an old wives’ tale to the effect that — but what a shoddy sort of myth that was. Raised up by Christ but still not a Christian, they said. And yet he could not escape the feeling that he had seen the old man somewhere.

“Let the bread be brought for blessing,” he called, and the deferment of supper was at an end.

After the prayers, the abbot glanced toward the beggars’ table again. The old man was merely fanning his soup with a sort of basket hat. Zerchi dismissed it with a shrug, and the meal began in solemn silence.

Compline, the Church’s night prayer, seemed especially profound that night.

But Joshua slept badly afterwards. In a dream he met Mrs. Grales again. There was a surgeon who sharpened a knife, saying, “This deformity must be removed before it becomes malignant.” And the Rachel face opened its eyes and tried to speak to Joshua, but he could hear her only faintly, and understand her not at all.

“Accurate am I the exception,” she seemed to be saying, “I commensurate the deception. Am.”

He could make nothing of it, but he tried to reach through to save her. There seemed to be a rubbery wall of glass in the way. He paused and tried to read her lips. I am the, I am the —

“I am the Immaculate Conception,” came the dream whisper.

He tried to tear his way through the rubbery glass to save her from the knife, but it was too late, and there was a great deal of blood afterwards. He awoke from the blasphemous nightmare with a shudder and prayed for a time; but as soon as he slept, there was Mrs. Grales again.

It was a troubled night, a night that belonged to Lucifer. It was the night of the Atlantic assault against the Asian space installations.

In swift retaliation, an ancient city died.

26

“This is your Emergency Warning Network,” the announcer was saying when Joshua entered the abbot’s study after Matins of the following day, “bringing you the latest bulletin on the pattern of fallout from the enemy missile assault on Texarkana…”

“You sent for me, Domne?”

Zerchi waved him to silence and toward a seat. The priest’s face looked drawn and bloodless, a steel-gray mask of icy self-control. To Joshua, he seemed to have shrunk in size, to have aged since nightfall. They listened gloomily to the voice which waxed and waned at four-second intervals as the broadcasting stations were switched on and off the air as an impediment to enemy direction-finding equipment:

“…but first, an announcement just released by the Supreme Command. The royal family is safe. I repeat: the royal family is known to be safe. The Regency Council is said to have been absent from the city when the enemy struck. Outside of the disaster area, no civil disorders have been reported, and none is expected.

“A cease-fire order has been issued by the World Court of Nations, with a suspended proscription, involving the death sentence, against the responsible heads of government of both nations. Being suspended, the sentence becomes applicable only if the decree is disobeyed. Both governments cabled to the court their immediate acknowledgment of the order, and there is, therefore, a strong probability that the clash is at an end, a few hours after it began as a preventative assault against certain illegal space installations. In a surprise attack, the space forces of the Atlantic Confederacy last night struck at three concealed Asian missile sites located on the far side of the moon, and totally destroyed one enemy space station known to be involved in a guidance system for space-to-earth missiles. It was expected that the enemy would retaliate against our forces in space, but the barbarous assault on our capital city was an act of desperation which no one anticipated.