He lay there panting, face contorted. My heart went out to the fallen giant, defending his people, his religion, following his orders. I cursed myself as I had never cursed before, for walking over him, instead of around.
I staggered across the room to my little heap of possessions. I sat on the projector case and lit a cigarette.
I couldn't go into the Temple until I got my breath back, until I thought of something to say.
How do you talk a race out of killing itself?
Suddenly—
—Could it happen? Would it work that way? If I read them the Book of Ecclesiastes—if I read them a greater piece of literature than any Locar ever wrote—
and as somber—and as pessimistic—and showed them that our race had gone on despite one man's condemning all of life in the highest poetry—showed them that the vanity he had mocked had borne us to the Heavens—would they believe it—would they change their minds?
I ground out my cigarette on the beautiful floor, and found my notebook. A strange fury rose within me as I stood.
And I walked into the Temple to preach the Black Gospel according to Gallinger, from the Book of Life.
There was silence all about me.
M'Cwyie had been reading Locar, the rose set at her right hand, target of all eyes.
Until I entered.
Hundreds of people were seated on the floor, barefoot. The few men were as small as the women, I noted.
I had my boots on.
Go all the way, I figured. You either lose or you win—everything!
A dozen crones sat in a semicircle behind M'Cwyie. The Mothers.
The barren earth, the dry wombs, the fire-touched.
I moved to the table.
"Dying yourselves, you would condemn your people," I addressed them, "that they may not know the life you have known—the joys, the sorrows, the fullness. —
But it is not true that you all must die." I addressed the multitude now. "Those who say this lie. Braxa knows, for she will bear a child—"
They sat there, like rows of Buddhas. M'Cwyie drew back into the semicircle.
"—my child!" I continued, wondering what my father would have thought of this sermon.
"... And all the women young enough may bear children. It is only your men who are sterile. —And if you permit the doctors of the next expedition to examine you, perhaps even the men may be helped. But if they cannot, you can mate with the men of Earth.
"And ours is not an insignificant people, an insignificant place," I went on.
"Thousands of years ago, the Locar of our world wrote a book saying that it was. He spoke as Locar did, but we did not lie down, despite plagues, wars, and famines. We did not die. One by one we beat down the diseases, we fed the hungry, we fought the wars, and, recently, have gone a long time without them. We may finally have conquered them. I do not know.
"But we have crossed millions of miles of nothingness. We have visited another world. And our Locar had said, 'Why bother? What is the worth of it? It is all vanity, anyhow.'
“And the secret is," I lowered my voice, as at a poetry reading,' 'he was right! It is vanity; it is pride! It is the hybris of rationalism to always attack the prophet, the mystic, the god. It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us. —All the truly sacred names of God are blasphemous things to speak!"
I was working up a sweat. I paused dizzily.
"Here is the Book of Ecclesiastes," I announced, and began:
" 'Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man ...' "
I spotted Braxa in the back, mute, rapt.
I wondered what she was thinking.
And I wound the hours of night about me, like black thread on a spool.
Oh it was late! I had spoken till day came, and still I spoke. I finished Ecclesiastes and continued Gallinger.
And when I finished there was still only a silence.
The Buddhas, all in a row, had not stirred through the night. And after a long while M'Cwyie raised her right hand. One by one the Mothers did the same.
And I knew what that meant.
It meant no, do not, cease, and stop.
It meant that I had failed.
I walked slowly from the room and slumped beside my baggage.
Ontro was gone. Good that I had not killed him....
After a thousand years M'Cwyie entered.
She said, "Your job is finished."
I did not move.
"The prophecy is fulfilled," she said. "My people are rejoicing. You have won, holy man. Now leave us quickly."
My mind was a deflated balloon. I pumped a little air back into it.
"I'm not a holy man," I said, "just a second-rate poet with a bad case of hybris."
I lit my last cigarette.
Finally, "All right, what prophecy?"