The Celestial Blueprint and Others Stories by Philip José Farmer Read Free Book Online Page A

He was eager to tell him his servitor days were over, that he could now take his place in their band as an equal. Subject, of course, to Rastignac’s order.
    Mapfabvisheen was stretched out upon the floor and snoring a sour breath. A grey-haired man was slumped on a nearby table. His head, turned to one side, exhibited the same slack-jawed look that the Ssassaror’s had, and he flung the ill-smelling gauntlet of his breath at the visitors. He held an empty bottle in one loose hand. Two other bottles lay on the stone floor, one shattered.
    Besides the bottles lay the men’s Skins. Rastignac wondered why they had not crawled to the halltree and hung themselves up.
    “What ails them? What is that smell?” said Mapfarity.
    “I don’t know,” replied Archambaud, “but I know the visitor. He is Father Jules, priest of the Guild of Egg-stealers.” Rastignac raised his bracket-shaped eyebrows, picked up a bottle in which there remained a slight residue, and drank. “Mon Dieu, it is the sacrament wine!” he cried.
    Mapfarity said, “Why would they be drinking that?”
    “I don’t know. Wake Mapfabvisheen up, but let the good father sleep. He seems tired after his spiritual labors and doubtless deserves a rest.”
    Doused with a bucket of cold water the little Ssassaror staggered to his feet. Seeing Archambaud, he embraced him. “Ah, Archambaud, old baby-abductor, my sweet goose-bagger, my ears tingle to see you again!”
    They did. Red and blue sparks flew off his ear-feathers. “What is the meaning of this?” sternly interrupted Mapfarity. He pointed at the dirt swept into the corners.
    Mapfabvisheen drew himself up to his full dignity, which wasn’t much. “Good Father Jules was making his circuits," he said. “You know he travels around the country and hears confession and sings Mass for us poor egg-stealers who have been unlucky enough to fall into the clutches of some rich and greedy and anti-social Giant who is too stingy to hire servants, but captures them instead, and who won’t allow us to leave the premises until our servitude is over . . .”
    “Cut it!” thundered Mapfarity. “I can’t stand around all day, listening to the likes of you. My feet hurt too much. Anyway, you know I’ve allowed you to go into town every week-end. Why don’t you see a priest then?”
    Mapfabvisheen said, “You know very well the closest town is ten kilometers away and it’s full of Pantheists. There’s not a priest to be found there.”
    Rastignac groaned inwardly. Always, it was thus. You could never hurry these people or get them to regard anything seriously.
    Take the case they were wasting their breath on now. Everybody knew the Church had been outlawed a long time ago because it opposed the use of the Skins and certain other practices that went along with it. So, no sooner had that been done than the Ssassarors, anxious to establish their check-and-balance system, had made arrangements through the Minister of Ill-Will to give the Church unofficial legal recognizance.
    Then, though the aborigines had belonged to that pantheistical organization known as the Sons of Good And Old Mother Nature, they had all joined the Church of the Terrans. They operated under the theory that the best way to make an institution innocuous was for everybody to sign up for it. Never persecute. That makes it thrive.
    Much to the Church’s chagrin, the theory worked. How can you fight an enemy who insists on joining you and who will also agree to everything you teach him and then still worship at the other service? Supposedly driven underground, the Church counted almost every Landsman among its supporters from the Kings down.
    Every now and then a priest would forget to wear his Skin out-of-doors and be arrested, then released later in an official jail-break. Those who refused to cooperate were forcibly kidnapped, taken to another town and there let loose. Nor did it do the priest any good to proclaim boldly who he was. Everybody