"Kreski let you do that." It was a statement of disbelief.
"We threatened to dye the bugger biscuits purple. They're his favorite food and that's the color he hates the most. We got our way."
"I have to say thanks. I mean. . . ."
"No. Just say Mass. For us. We want to give thanks a little. When do I tell them?"
"Tomorrow morning. 0900."
"Thanks, Father. You got some real grit, you know that?"
"No. But I'll take your word for it. Take care of yourself." The door swung closed as the man rolled away.
The Mother of God stretched out her arms to embrace the barren lands. Over her white shoulder had been thrown a sheaf of electric cables. Glued to her crown was a photoelectric sensor.
Sunlight, earthgleam. Life must have its light.
"In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. . . ."
Between shadow-cast crates and ranks of stacked barrels, seven human beings clustered around a slab of scrap synthetic. Over it had been laid a fine linen cloth. One one side of the cloth was the golden cup. On the other, a small plate of dark green biscuits.
Mary stretched out her arms. In each hand, fastened with strap-iron, was a cluster of sodium-mercury lights. Other pseudo-suns grew on stalks all around. The dome sang with light.
I saw a woman, clothed with the sun, and the Moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
Twelve stars. Twelve hundred stars. Twelve thousand stars.
Twelve trillion stars.
Mother, they are yours. We will make them yours.
"Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy."
Seven persons paused, silently, and recalled their faults. Every eight seconds each took a breath. Life was at work there, in their lungs, in their blood, in every cell. Oxygen to carbon dioxide. Energy. Life. God forgive us.
The machines hummed with their own life. About Mary's shoulders the ducts wound, throbbing their own purpose. Speaking their own language. Molecules of gas wafted over tiny shafts of green. A moment ago, a breath. The breath of a priest, of man, of woman, of Catholic and Protestant and Atheist. The breath of six dogs and three hundred white rats. The last breath of a human being. Someday the first breath of a moonborn infant.
Life from life, breath from breath. Death is only the intermediary. Mary stretches out her arms to embrace the tiny fields of green, growing in chemical baths under forty artificial suns. Tiny shoots of green taking the bad air apart with sunlit crowbars, giving back their breath, giving up their food. The new air enters the ducts once more.
The circle is unbroken.
We are all in this together.
"This is my body. . . ."
Mary stretches out her arms to embrace life. All life. Green life, animal life, life that walks on two legs and one leg. She embraces the false life, the buzzing circuits and leaping rockets.
"Give us this day our daily bread. . . ."
For these things are necessary. Man lives not by bread alone. He must have his ecosphere.
"Go, the Mass is ended." Our days are beginning, just beginning.
Thank you, Mother. Help me understand these things.
On her head a crown of twelve trillion stars.
Afterword
When choosing a title for this series of anthologies of original science fiction I hit upon Nova for all the obvious reasons. In one short word it identified the anthology with science, therefore with science fiction, and also indicated that all of the stories were new. That should be enough of a burden of content for a four-letter word but it has since been pointed out to me that there is another meaning as well. It was during a late night session with Bruce McAllister, who assists me with the annual year's best SF anthology, that the conversation came around to the Nova series. I mentioned that I greatly enjoyed finding and printing the works of new writers and he said that fitted, Nova standing for new writers as well.
A nice idea and I checked the record. In Nova 1 there was one first story, none in Nova 2, and two in Nova 3. Not much to hang the "nova" label on there—but things are about to change. In a big way.
This volume of Nova contains the first stories of no less than six writers. In alphabetical order they are:
Michael Addobati
Richard Bireley
Jeff Duntemann
Bill Garnett
Gerard E. Giannattasio
Tom Reamy
The interesting thing is that this crop of nova Nova stories was not obtained by any deliberate effort on my part. I have a single standard for all stories—they must be good. Nor do I seek any publishing bargains by underpaying newcomers; all income from these anthologies is divided equally among all the writers. The explanation must be found elsewhere and is, I feel, a very simple one.
Science fiction has become a respected form of literary endeavor. Not respected everywhere of course, an odor of the pulps must still adhere to it in certain places. The New York literary circles, The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books crowd, either ignore it or scorn it as buck-rogerish nonsense. That's their loss. They will discover SF some day, which fact I look forward to with mixed emotions. It is also true that science fiction, when labeled as science fiction, cannot be a best seller or be taken by a major book club as a selection. That too will change, I am sure. In the meantime more and more people are reading this particular kind of literature, SF courses are taught in universities across the country, while an even greater number of science fiction classes are held in high schools. The teachers find it an invaluable teaching tool because students voluntarily read the stuff. The obvious result of this is a complete acceptance of science fiction by young writers as an established part of literary life. An up and coming writer will consider SF as a viable form of fiction and will work in that medium if he thinks he has an idea worth writing.
With two exceptions the "first" stories published here came over the transom or were found in the slush pile, those none too flattering publishing terms for unsolicited manuscripts. Bill Garnett, who has been writing in other fields for years, had a first science fiction novel that I greatly enjoyed. I wrote and asked him if he had any short stories as well and he sent the one you will find here. Richard Bireley was in my SF course at San Diego State University picking up some credits for his MA. After an entire term of my nit-picking his stories he handed me a manuscript, nostrils flared in anger, and dared me to complain about this one because he had put in everything I had been talking about and had left out all the things I had been complaining over. I read it and gave it back and told him that if I were buying for an anthology at the time I would have bought the story. I thought it a highly marketable piece of fiction and why didn't he send it to Damon Knight who was looking for this kind of material for his series, Orbit Damon Knight bought it. So the Bireley story here is really his second sale, but for publishing and inventory reasons it will appear in print here first. Damon has kindly consented to my taking credit for first publication.