A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller [114]
DEFENSE MINISTER (with forced patience): I recognize the journalistic requirement of objectivity. But to suggest that His Supremacy’s government would deliberately violate-
LADY REPORTER: His Supremacy is an eleven-year-old boy, and to call it his government is not only archaic, but a highly dishonorable-even cheap!-attempt to shift the responsibility for a full denial from your own-
MODERATOR: Madam! Please restrain the tenor of your-
DEFENSE MINISTER: Overlook it, overlook it! Madam, you have my full denial if you must dignify the fantastic charges. The so-called Itu Wan disaster was not the result of a weapon test by us. Nor do I have any knowledge of any other recent nuclear detonation.
LADY REPORTER: Thank you.
MODERATOR: I believe the editor of the Texarkana Star-Insight has been trying to speak.
EDITOR: Thank you. I should like to ask, Your Lordship: What did happen in Itu Wan?
DEFENSE MINISTER: We have no nationals in that area; we have had no observers there since diplomatic relations were broken during the last world crisis. I can, therefore, only rely upon indirect evidence, and the somewhat conflicting neutralist accounts.
EDITOR: That is to be understood.
DEFENSE MINISTER: Very well, then, I gather there was a sub-surface nuclear detonation-in the megaton range-and it got out of hand. It was rather obviously a test of some sort. Whether it was a weapon or, as some Asia-fringe “neutrals” claim, an attempt to divert an underground river-it was dearly illegal, and adjoining countries are preparing a protest to the World Court.
EDITOR: Is there any risk of war?
DEFENSE MINISTER: I foresee none. But as you know, we have certain detachments of our armed forces which are subject to conscription by the World Court to enforce its decisions, if needed. I foresee no such need, but I cannot speak for the court.
FIRST REPORTER: But the Asian coalition has threatened an immediate all-out strike against our space installations if the court does not take action against us. What if the court is slow in acting?
DEFENSE MINISTER: No ultimatum has been delivered. The threat was for Asian home consumption, as I see it; to cover their blunder in Itu Wan.
LADY REPORTER: How is your abiding faith in Motherhood today, Lord Ragelle?
DEFENSE MINISTER: I hope Motherhood has at least as much abiding faith in me as I have in Motherhood.
LADY REPORTER: You deserve at least that much, I’m sure.
The news conference, radiated from the relay satellite twenty-two thousand miles from Earth, bathed most of the Western Hemisphere with the flickering VHF signal which carried such intelligence to the panelescent wall screens of the multitudes. One among the multitudes, Abbot Dom Zerchi switched off the set.
He paced for a while, waiting for Joshua, trying not to think. But “not thinking” proved impossible.
Listen, are we helpless? Are we doomed to do it again and again and again? Have we no choice but to play the Phoenix in an unending sequence of rise and fall? Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Carthage, Rome, the Empires of Charlemagne and the Turk: Ground to dust and plowed with salt. Spain, France, Britain, America-burned into the oblivion of the centuries. And again and again and again.
Are we doomed to it, Lord, chained to the pendulum of our own mad clockwork, helpless to halt its swing?
This time, it will swing us clean to oblivion, he thought.
The feeling of desperation passed abruptly when Brother Pat brought him the second telegram. The abbot ripped it open, read it at a glance and chuckled. “Brother Joshua here yet, Brother?”
“Waiting outside, Reverend Father.”
“Send him in.”
“Ho, Brother, shut the door and turn on the silencer. Then read this.