"The visitor recoiled and cried, ‘Do not do that!'
"La Viro withdrew his hand, but his injured feelings showed. His visitor said, ‘I am sorry, sorrier than you can imagine, but please do not touch me. I will say no more of this. But when you have gotten to the point where I may embrace you, then you will understand.'
"And so, my brothers and sisters," Goring said, "the visitor proceeded to tell La Viro why he should found this new religion. The name of our organization was La Viro's idea, nor did the visitor compel La Viro to found it. He merely asked that he should do so. But he must have known his man, for La Viro said he would do as his visitor asked.
"The principles of the Church of the Second Chance and the techniques for enfleshing them are not tonight's subject. It will take too long to propound and defend them. That is for tomorrow night's meeting.
"At the end, La Viro asked the Ethical why he had chosen him, of all people, to become the founder of the Church.
"'I am an ignorant half-breed,' La Viro said. ‘I was raised in the deep Canadian forest. My father was a white trapper, and my mother was an Indian. Both were looked down upon by the British who ruled our land. My mother was almost an outcast in her own tribe because she married a white man. My father was scorned as a squawman, a dirty Frenchie, by the English he worked for.
"'When I was fourteen, very large for my age, I became a lumberjack. At twenty an accident lamed me, and I spent the rest of my life cooking for the lumber camps. My wife was also half-Indian, and she brought in money by washing clothes. We had seven children, four of whom died young, and the others were ashamed of their parents. Yet we sacrificed for them and gave them love and a devout upbringing. My two sons went to Montreal to work and then were killed in France fighting for the English, who despised them. My daughter became a whore and died of a disease—or so I heard. My wife died of a broken heart.
‘"I don't tell you this because I ask for sympathy. I just want you to know who and what I am. How can you ask me to go out and preach when I could not convince my own children that my beliefs were right? And when my own wife died cursing God? How can I go out and talk to men who were scholars and statesmen and priests?'
"The visitor smiled and said, ‘Your wathan tells me that you can.'
"The visitor stood up. He lifted the silver cord from around his neck and past his head, and he placed it around La Viro's neck. The golden helix now lay on La Viro's chest.
‘"This is yours, Jacques Gillot. Do not dishonor it. Farewell. I may or may not see you again on this world.'
"La Viro said, ‘No! Wait! I have so many questions!'
"'You know enough,' the visitor said. ‘God bless you."
"He was gone. The rain and thunder and lightning were still making a tumult. Gillot went out a moment later. He could see no sign of the visitor, and after searching the stormy skies he returned to his hut. There he sat until dawn came up with the thunder of the grailstones. Then he went down to the plains to tell his story. As he had expected, those to whom he told his story thought he was crazy. But in time there were those who came to believe him."
SECTION 8
The Fabulous Riverboats Arrive at Virolando
21
OVER THIRTY-THREE YEARS AGO, HE HAD ARRIVED IN VlROlando. It was his intention to stay only long enough to talk a few times to La Viro, if he were permitted to do so. Then he would go wherever the Church sent him. But La Viro had asked him to settle there, though he had not said why or how long he could remain. After a year there, Goring had adopted the Esperanto name of Fenikso (Phoenix).
Those had been the happiest years of his lives. Nor was there any reason to think he would not spend many more here.
This day would be much like the others, but its sameness was enjoyable and little varieties would garnish it.
After breakfast, he climbed up to a large building built on top of a rock spire on the left bank. Here he lectured his seminary students until a half-hour before noon. He went down swiftly to the ground and joined Kren at a grailstone. Afterward, they went up to another spire and strapped themselves into hang-gliders and launched themselves from the edge of the spire, six hundred feet above the ground.
The air above Virolando glittered with thousands of gliders which slanted up and down, turned, dipped, rose, swooped, danced. Hermann felt like a bird, no, a free spirit. It was an illusion of freedom, all freedom was illusion, but it was the best.
His glider was bright-red, painted so in memory of the squadron he had led after Manfred von Richthofen had died.
Scarlet was also the symbol for the blood of the martyrs of the Church. There were many such in the skies, mingling their color with white, black, yellow, orange, green, blue, and purple craft. This land was blessed in having hematite and other ores from which pigments could be made. It was blessed in many things.
Hermann sped above and below the bridges holding houses, spanning the gap between the spires. He passed closely to the wooden and stone pylons, sometimes too closely. It was sinful to risk his life, but he could not resist it. The old thrill of flight on Earth had returned, doubling in ecstasy. There was no motor roaring in his ears, no fumes of oil in his nostrils, no sensation of being enclosed.
Sometimes he sailed by a balloon and waved at the people in the wickerwork baskets beneath them. During his holidays, he and Kren would board a balloon, rise to a height of a thousand meters, and let the wind carry them down The Valley. On long holidays, they would float for a whole day, talking, eating, making love in the cramped quarters while they rode without a bump, without a touch of the wind, since the balloon rode at the same speed as it did.
Venting the hydrogen at dusk, they would land on the bank, pack the collapsed envelope in the basket, and take a boat back upstream next day.
After half an hour, Hermann swooped down along The River, veered, and came down running on the bank. With hundreds of others, he disassembled the glider, and then walked with a cumbersome bundle on his back to the spire from which he had jumped.
A messenger wearing a chaplet of red and yellow blooms stopped him. "Brother Fenikso, La Viro wishes to see you."
"Thank you," Hermann said, but a small shock traveled through him. Had the chief bishop decided that the time had come to send him out?
The Man waited for him in his private quarters in the red-and-black-stone temple. Hermann was ushered through the high-ceilinged rooms to a small chamber, and the oaken door was closed behind him. The room was simply furnished: a big flat-topped desk; several large chairs of fishskin leather; some small ones of bamboo; two cots; a table with pitchers of water and some flavored alcohol, cups, boxes of cigars, cigarettes, lighters, and matches; a chamberpot; two grails; pegs in the walls from which hung cloths; a table beside a mica mirror on the wall; another table holding the lipsticks, small scissors, and combs which the grails occasionally provided. There were several rugs of bamboo fiber and one star-shaped fishskin on the floor. Four torches burned, their ends thrust into wall-holders. The private door in the outside wall was open now, letting in the air and sunlight. Vents in the ceiling gave additional ventilation.
La Viro rose as Hermann entered. He was huge, about six feet six inches high, and very dark. His nose was the beak of a giant eagle.
"Welcome, Fenikso," he said in a deep voice. "Sit down. Would you like a drink, a cigar?"
"No, thank you, Jacques," Hermann said. He sat down in the easy chair indicated.