The Compleat Boucher Read online

He never knew whether or not a mouth had touched his lips, but there was no question that many solid fists had found them. He never knew whether his fingers had touched breasts, but they had certainly been trampled by heavy heels. He remembered a face that laughed aloud while its owner swung the chair that broke two ribs. He remembered another face with red wine dripping over it from an upheld bottle, and he remembered the gleam of the candlelight on the bottle as it swung down.

  The next he remembered was the ditch and the morning and the cold. It was particularly cold because all of his clothes were gone, along with much of his skin. He could not move. He could only lie there and look.

  He saw them walk by, the ones he had spoken with yesterday, the ones who had been friendly. He saw them glance at him and turn their eyes quickly away. He saw the waitress pass by. She did not even glance; she knew what was in the ditch.

  The robass was nowhere in sight. He tried to project his thoughts, tried desperately to hope in the psi factor.

  A man whom Thomas had not seen before was coming along fingering the buttons of his coat. There were ten small buttons and one large one and the man’s lips were moving silently.

  This man looked into the ditch. He paused a moment and looked around him. There was a shout of loud laughter somewhere in the near distance.

  The Christian hastily walked on down the pathway, devoutly saying his button-rosary.

  Thomas closed his eyes.

  He opened them on a small neat room. They moved from the rough wooden walls to the rough but clean and warm blankets that covered him. Then they moved to the lean dark face that was smiling over him.

  “You feel better now?” a deep voice asked. “I know. You want to say ‘Where am I?’ and you think it will sound foolish. You are at the inn. It is the only good room.”

  “I can’t afford—” Thomas started to say. Then he remembered that he could afford literally nothing. Even his few emergency credits had vanished when he was stripped.

  “It’s all right. For the time being, I’m paying,” said the deep voice. “You feel like maybe a little food?”

  “Perhaps a little herring,” said Thomas . . . and was asleep within the next minute.

  When he next awoke there was a cup of hot coffee beside him. The real thing, too, he promptly discovered. Then the deep voice said apologetically, “Sandwiches. It is all they have in the inn today.”

  Only on the second sandwich did Thomas pause long enough to notice that it was smoked swamphog, one of his favorite meats. He ate the second with greater leisure, and was reaching for a third when the dark man said, “Maybe that is enough for now. The rest later.”

  Thomas gestured at the plate. “Won’t you have one?”

  “No, thank you. They are all swamphog.”

  Confused thoughts went through Thomas’ mind. The Venusian swamphog is a ruminant. Its hoofs are not cloven. He tried to remember what he had once known of Mosaic dietary law. Someplace in Leviticus, wasn’t it?

  The dark man followed his thoughts. “Treff,”he said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Not kosher.”

  Thomas frowned. “You admit to me that you’re an Orthodox Jew? How can you trust me? How do you know I’m not a Checker?”

  “Believe me, I trust you. You were very sick when I brought you here. I sent everybody away because I did not trust them to hear things you said . . . Father,” he added lightly.

  Thomas struggled with words. “I . . . I didn’t deserve you. I was drunk and disgraced myself and my office. And when I was lying there in the ditch I didn’t even think to pray. I put my trust in . . . God help me, in the modified psi factor of a robass!”

  “And He did help you,” the Jew reminded him. “Or He allowed me to.”

  “And they all walked by,” Thomas groaned. “Even one that was saying his rosary. He went right on by. And then you come along—the good Samaritan.”

  “Believe me,” said the Jew wryly, “if there is one thing I’m not, it’s a Samaritan. Now go to sleep again. I will try to find your robass . . . and the other thing.”

  He had left: the room before Thomas could ask him what he meant.

  Later that day the Jew—Abraham, his name was—reported that the robass was safely sheltered from the weather behind the inn. Apparently it had been wise enough not to startle him by engaging in conversation.

  It was not until the next day that he reported on “the other thing.”

  “Believe me, Father,” he said gently, “after nursing you there’s little I don’t know about who you are and why you’re here. Now there are some Christians here I know, and they know me. We trust each other. Jews may still be hated; but no longer, God be praised, by worshipers of the same Lord. So I explained about you. One of them,” he added with a smile, “turned very red.”

  “God has forgiven him,” said Thomas. “There were people near—the same people who attacked me. Could he be expected to risk his life for mine?”

  “I seem to recall that that is precisely what your Messiah did expect. But who’s being particular? Now that they know who you are, they want to help you. See: they gave me this map for you. The trail is steep and tricky; it’s good you have the robass. They ask just one favor of you: When you come back will you hear their confession and say Mass? There’s a cave near here where it’s safe.”

  “Of course. These friends of yours, they’ve told you about Aquin?”

  The Jew hesitated a long time before he said slowly, “Yes . . .”

  “And . . . ?”

  “Believe me, my friend, I don’t know. So it seems a miracle. It helps to keep their faith alive. My own faith . . . nu, it’s lived for a long time on miracles three thousand years old and more. Perhaps if I had heard Aquin himself . . .”

  “You don’t mind,” Thomas asked, “if I pray for you, in my faith?”

  Abraham grinned. “Pray in good health, Father.”

  The not-quite-healed ribs ached agonizingly as he climbed into the foam saddle. The robass stood patiently while he fed in the coordinates from the map. Not until they were well away from the village did it speak.

  “Anyway,” it said, “now you’re safe for good.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “As soon as we get down from the mountain you deliberately look up a Checker. You turn in the Jew. From then on you are down in the books as a faithful servant of the Technarchy and you have not harmed a hair of the head of one of your own flock.”

  Thomas snorted. “You’re slipping, Satan. That one doesn’t even remotely tempt me. It’s inconceivable.”

  “I did best did not I with the breasts. Your God has said it the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak.”

  “And right now,” said Thomas, “the flesh is too weak for even fleshly temptations. Save your breath . . . or whatever it is you use.”

  They climbed the mountain in silence. The trail indicated by the coordinates was a winding and confused one, obviously designed deliberately to baffle any possible Checkers.

  Suddenly Thomas roused himself from his button-rosary (on a coat lent by the Christian who had passed by) with a startled “Hey!” as the robass plunged directly into a heavy thicket of bushes.

  “Coordinates say so,” the robass stated tersely.

  For a moment Thomas felt like the man in the nursery rhyme who fell into a bramble bush and scratched out both his eyes. Then the bushes were gone, and they were plodding along a damp narrow passageway through solid stone, in which even the robass seemed to have some difficulty with his footing.

  Then they were in a rocky chamber some four meters high and ten in diameter, and there on a sort of crude stone catafalque lay the uncorrupted body of a man.

  Thomas slipped from the foam saddle, groaning as his ribs stabbed him, sank to his knees, and offered up a wordless hymn of gratitude. He smiled at the robass and hoped the psi factor could detect the elements of pity and triumph in that smile.

  Then a frown of doubt crossed
his face as he approached the body. “In canonization proceedings in the old time,” he said, as much to himself as to the robass, “they used to have what they called a devil’s advocate, whose duty it was to throw every possible doubt on the evidence.”

  “You would be well cast in such a role Thomas,” said the robass.

  “If I were,” Thomas muttered, “I’d wonder about caves. Some of them have peculiar properties of preserving bodies by a sort of mummification . . .”

  The robass had clumped close to the catafalque. “This body is not mummified,” he said. “Do not worry.”

  “Can the psi factor tell you that much?” Thomas smiled.

  “No,” said the robass. “But I will show you why Aquin could never be mummified.”

  He raised his articulated foreleg and brought its hoof down hard on the hand of the body. Thomas cried out with horror at the sacrilege—then stared hard at the crushed hand.

  There was no blood, no ichor of embalming, no bruised flesh. Nothing but a shredded skin and beneath it an intricate mass of plastic tubes and metal wires.

  The silence was long. Finally the robass said, “It was well that you should know. Only you of course.”

  “And all the time,” Thomas gasped, “my sought-for saint was only your dream . . . the one perfect robot in man’s form.”

  “His maker died and his secrets were lost,” the robass said. “No matter we will find them again.”

  “All for nothing. For less than nothing. The ‘miracle’ was wrought by the Technarchy.”

  “When Aquin died,” the robass went on, “and put died in quotation marks it was because he suffered some mechanical defects and did not dare have himself repaired because that would reveal his nature. This is for you only to know. Your report of course will be that you found the body of Aquin it was unimpaired and indeed incorruptible. That is the truth and nothing but the truth if it is not the whole truth who is to care. Let your infallible friend use the report and you will not find him ungrateful I assure you.”

  “Holy Spirit, give me grace and wisdom,” Thomas muttered.

  “Your mission has been successful. We will return now the Church will grow and your God will gain many more worshipers to hymn His praise into His nonexistent ears.”

  “Damn you!” Thomas exclaimed. “And that would be indeed a curse if you had a soul to damn.”

  “You are certain that I have not,” said the robass. “Question mark.”

  “I know what you are. You are in very truth the devil, prowling about the world seeking the ciestruction of men. You are the business that prowls in the dark. You are a purely functional robot constructed and fed to tempt me, and the tape of your data is the tape of Screwtape.”

  “Not to tempt you,” said the robass. “Not to destroy you. To guide and save you. Our best calculators indicate a probability of 51.5 per cent that within twenty years you will be the next Pope. If I can teach you wisdom and practicality in your actions the probability can rise as high as 97.2 or very nearly to certainty. Do not you wish to see the Church governed as you know you can govern it. If you report failure on this mission you will be out of favor with your friend who is as even you admit fallible at most times. You will lose the advantages of position and contact that can lead you to the cardinal’s red hat even though you may never wear it under the Technarchy and from there to—”

  “Stop!” Thomas’ face was alight and his eyes aglow with something the psi factor had never detected there before. “It’s all the other way round, don’t you see? This is the triumph! This is the perfect ending to the quest!”

  The articulated foreleg brushed the injured hand. “This question mark.”

  “This is your dream. This is your perfection. And what came of this perfection? This perfect logical brain—this all-purpose brain, not functionally specialized like yours—knew that it was made by man, and its reason forced it to believe that man was made by God. And it saw that its duty lay to man its maker, and beyond him to his Maker, God. Its duty was to convert man, to augment the glory of God. And it converted by the pure force of its perfect brain!

  “Now I understand the name Aquin,” he went on to himself. “We’ve known of Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, the perfect reasoner of the church. His writings are lost, but surely somewhere in the world we can find a copy. We can train our young men to develop his reasoning still further. We have trusted too long in faith alone; this is not an age of faith. We must call reason into our service—and Aquin has shown us that perfect reason can lead only to God!”

  “Then it is all the more necessary that you increase the probabilities of becoming Pope to carry out this program. Get in the foam saddle we will go back and on the way I will teach you little things that will be useful in making certain—”

  “No,” said Thomas. “I am not so strong as St. Paul, who could glory in his imperfections and rejoice that he had been given an imp of Satan to buffet him. No; I will rather pray with the Saviour, ‘Lead us not into temptation.’ I know myself a little. I am weak and full of uncertainties and you are very clever. Go. I’ll find my way back alone.”

  “You are a sick man. Your ribs are broken and they ache. You can never make the trip by yourself you need my help. If you wish you can order me to be silent. It is most necessary to the Church that you get back safely to the Pope with your report you cannot put yourself before the Church.”

  “Go!” Thomas cried. “Go back to Nicodemus . . . or Judas! That is an order. Obey!”

  “You do not think do you that I was really conditioned to obey your orders. I will wait in the village. If you get that far you will rejoice at the sight of me.”

  The legs of the robass clumped off down the stone passageway. As their sound died away, Thomas fell to his knees beside the body of that which he could hardly help thinking of as St. Aquin the Robot.

  His ribs hurt more excruciatingly than ever. The trip alone would be a terrible one . . .

  His prayers arose, as the text has it, like clouds of incense, and as shapeless as those clouds. But through all his thoughts ran the cry of the father of the epileptic in Caesarea Philippi:

  I believe, O Lord; help thou mine unbelief.

  The Compleat Werewolf

  The professor glanced at the note:

  Don’t be silly— Gloria.

  Wolfe Wolf crumpled the sheet of paper into a yellow ball and hurled it out the window into the sunshine of the bright campus spring. He made several choice and profane remarks in fluent Middle High German.

  Emily looked up from typing the proposed budget for the departmental library. “I’m afraid I didn’t understand that, Professor Wolf. I’m weak on Middle High.”

  “Just improvising,” said Wolf, and sent a copy of the Journal of English and Germanic Philology to follow the telegram.

  Emily rose from the typewriter. “There’s something the matter. Did the committee reject your monograph on Hager?”

  “That monumental contribution to human knowledge? Oh, no. Nothing so important as that.”

  “But you’re so upset—”

  “The office wife!” Wolf snorted. “And pretty damned polyandrous at that, with the whole department on your hands. Go away.”

  Emily’s dark little face lit up with a flame of righteous anger that removed any trace of plainness. “Don’t talk to me like that, Mr. Wolf. I’m simply trying to help you. And it isn’t the whole department. It’s—”

  Professor Wolf picked up an inkwell, looked after the telegram and the Journal, then set the glass pot down again. “No. There are better ways of going to pieces. Sorrows drown easier than they smash. Get Herbrecht to take my two-o’clock, will you?”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To hell in sectors. So long.”

  “Wait. Maybe I can help you. Remember when the dean jumped you for serving drinks to students? Maybe I can—”

  Wolf stood in the doorway and extended one arm impressively, pointing with that curious index which w
as as long as the middle finger. “Madam, academically you are indispensable. You are the prop and stay of the existence of this department. But at the moment this department can go to hell, where it will doubtless continue to need your invaluable services.”

  “But don’t you see—” Emily’s voice shook. “No. Of course not. You wouldn’t see. You’re just a man—no, not even a man. You’re just Professor Wolf. You’re Woof-woof.”

  Wolf staggered. “I’m what?”

  “Woof-woof. That’s what everybody calls you because your name’s Wolfe Wolf. All your students, everybody. But you wouldn’t notice a thing like that. Oh, no. Woof-woof, that’s what you are.”

  “This,” said Wolfe Wolf, “is the crowning blow. My heart is breaking, my world is shattered, I’ve got to walk a mile from the campus to find a bar; but all this isn’t enough. I’ve got to be called Woof-woof. Goodbye!”

  He turned, and in the doorway caromed into a vast and yielding bulk, which gave out with a noise that might have been either a greeting of “Wolf!” or more probably an inevitable grunt of “Oof!”

  Wolf backed into the room and admitted Professor Fearing, paunch, pince-nez, cane and all. The older man waddled over to his desk, plumped himself down, and exhaled a long breath. “My dear boy,” he gasped. “Such impetuosity.”

  “Sorry, Oscar.”

  “Ah, youth—” Professor Fearing fumbled about for a handkerchief, found none, and proceeded to polish his pince-nez on his somewhat stringy necktie. “But why such haste to depart? And why is Emily crying?”

  “Is she?”

  “You see?” said Emily hopelessly, and muttered “Woof-woof” into her damp handkerchief.

  “And why do copies of the JEGP fly about my head as I harmlessly cross the campus? Do we have teleportation on our hands?”

  “Sorry,” Wolf repeated curtly. “Temper. Couldn’t stand that ridiculous argument of Glocke’s. Goodbye.”

  “One moment.” Professor Fearing fished into one of his unnumbered handkerchiefless pockets and produced a sheet of yellow paper. “I believe this is yours?” Wolf snatched at it and quickly converted it into confetti.