A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller [12]
Memo, he handled with special reverence, because its title was suggestive of “Memorabilia.” Before opening it, he crossed himself and murmured the Blessing of Texts. But the small book proved a disappointment. He had expected printed matter, but found only a hand-written list of names, places, numbers and dates. The dates ranged through the latter part of the fifth decade, and earlier part of the sixth decade, twentieth century. Again it was affirmed!-the contents of the shelter came from the twilight period of the Age of Enlightenment. An important discovery indeed.
Of the larger folded papers, one was tightly rolled as well, and it began to fall apart when he tried to unroll it; he could make out the words RACING FORM, but nothing more. After returning it to the box for later restorative work, he turned to the second folded document; its creases were so brittle that he dared inspect only a little of it, by parting the folds slightly and peering between them.
A diagram, it seemed, but-a diagram of white lines on dark paper!
Again he felt the thrill of discovery. It was dearly a blueprint!-and there was not a single original blueprint left at the abbey, but only inked facsimiles of several such prints. The originals had faded long ago from overexposure to light. Never before had Francis seen an original, although he had seen enough hand-painted reproductions to recognize it as a blueprint, which, while stained and faded, remained legible after so many centuries because of the total darkness and low humidity in the shelter. He turned the document over-and felt brief fury. What idiot had desecrated the priceless paper? Someone had sketched absent-minded geometrical figures and childish cartoon faces all over the back. What thoughtless vandal-
The anger passed after a moment’s reflection. At the time of the deed, blueprints had probably been as common as weeds, and the owner of the box the probable culprit. He shielded the print from the sun with his own shadow while trying to unfold it further. In the lower right-hand corner was a printed rectangle containing, in simple block letters, various titles, dates, “patent numbers,” reference numbers, and names. His eye traveled down the list until it encountered:
“CIRCUIT DESIGN BY: Leibowitz, I. E.”
He closed his eyes tightly and shook his head until it seemed to rattle. Then he looked again. There it was, quite plainly:
CIRCUIT DESIGN BY: Leibowitz, I. E.
He flipped the paper over again. Among the geometric figures and childish sketches, dearly stamped in purple ink, was the form:
The name was written in a clear feminine hand, not in the hasty scrawl of the other notes. He looked again at the initialed signature of the note in the lid of the box: I. E. L.-and again at “CIRCUIT DESIGN BY…” And the same initials appeared elsewhere throughout the notes.
There had been argument, all highly conjectural, about whether the beatified founder of the Order, if finally canonized, should be addressed as Saint Isaac or as Saint Edward. Some even favored Saint Leibowitz as the proper address, since the Beatus had, until the present, been referred to by his surname.
“Beate Leibowitz, ora pro me!” whispered Brother Francis. His hands were trembling so violently that they threatened to ruin the brittle documents.
He had uncovered relics of the Saint.
Of course, New Rome had not yet proclaimed that Leibowitz was a saint, but Brother Francis was so convinced of it that he made bold to add: “Sancte Leibowitz, ora pro me!” Brother Francis wasted no idle logic in leaping to his immediate conclusion: he had just been granted a token of his vocation by Heaven itself. He had found what he had been sent into the desert to find, as Brother Francis saw it. He was called to be a professed monk of the Order.
Forgetting his abbot’s stem warning against expecting a vocation to come in any spectacular or miraculous form the novice knelt in the sand to pray his thanks and to offer a few decades of the rosary for