The Day After Judgement by James Blish Read Free Book Online Page B

do – that is, I think I could; after all, I saw them all, and that’s an experience which does not pass lightly
     from the memory. In any event, if I’ve blanked out on a few – which isn’t unlikely either – they can doubtless be recovered
     under hypnosis. Why does that matter, may I ask, Father Atheling?’
    ‘Simply because it is always useful to know the natures as well as the numbers, of the forces arrayed against one.’
    ‘Not after the countryside is already overrun.’ said Father Anson. ‘If the battle and the war have been already lost, we must
     have the whole crew to contend with now – not just all seventy-two princes, but every single one of the fallen angels. The
     number is closer to seven and a half million than it is to forty-eight.’.
    ‘Seven million, four hundred and fifty thousand, nine hundred and twenty-six,’ Father Atheling said, ‘to be exact.’
    ‘Though the wicked may hide, the claws of crabs are dangerous people in bridges,’ Father Selahny intoned abruptly. As was
     the case with all his utterances, the group would doubtless find out what this one meant only after sorting out its mixed
     mythologies and folklores, and long after it was too late to doanything about it. Nor did it do any good to ask him to explain; these things simply came to him, and he no more understood
     them than did his hearers. If God was indeed dead, Father Domenico wondered suddenly: Who could be dictating them now? But
     he put the thought aside as non-contributory.
    ‘There is a vast concentration of new evil on the other side of the world,’ Father Uccello said in his courtly, hesitant old
     man’s voice. ‘The feeling is one of intense oppression, quite different from that which was common in New York, or Moscow,
     but one such as I would expect of a massing of demons upon a huge scale. Forgive me, brothers, but I can be no more specific.’
    ‘We know you are doing the best you can,’ said the director soothingly.
    ‘I can feel it myself,’ said Father Monteith, who although not a Sensitive had had some experience with the herding of rebellious
     spirits. ‘But even supposing that we do not have to cope with so large an advance, as I certainly hope we do not, it seems
     to me that forty-eight is too large a sum for us if the Covenant has been voided. It leaves us without even an option.’
    Father Domenico saw that Joannes was trying to attract the director’s attention, although too hesitantly to make any impression.
     Father Umberto was not yet used to thinking of Joannes as a person at all. Capturing the boy’s eyes. Father Domenico nodded.
    ‘I never did understand the Covenant,’ the ex-apprentice said, thus encouraged. ‘That is. I didn’t understand why God would
     compromise Himself in such a manner. Even with Job. He didn’t make a deal with Satan, but only allowed him to act unchecked
     for a certain period of time. And I’ve never found any mention of the Covenant in the grimoires. What are its terms, anyhow?’
    Father Domenico thought the question well asked, if a trifle irrelevant, but an embarrassed and slightly pitying silence showed
     that his opinion was not shared. In the end it was broken by Father Monteith, whose monumental patience was a byword in the
     chapter.
    ‘I’m certainly not well versed in canon law, let alone inspiritual compacts,’ he said, with more modesty than exactness. ‘But, in principle, the Covenant is no more than a special
     case of the option of free will. The assumption appears to be that even in dealing with devilry, on the one hand, no man shall
     be subjected to a temptation beyond his ability to resist, and on the other, no man shall slide into Heaven without having
     been tempted up to that point. In situations involving Transcendental or Ceremonial Magic, the Covenant is the line drawn
     in between. Where you would find its exact terms. I’m sure I don’t know; I doubt that they have ever been written down. One
     thinks of