Stasheff, Christopher Warlock 03 The Warlock Unlocked

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when he looked at the signature. He folded the letter and handed it back to
Father Al, clearing his throat. "Yes. Well& certainly, Father. Whatever you'd
like."
"All I need is the altar, for half an hour." Father Al smiled. "I don't think there'll
be any need for a sermon."
But he was wrong. As he began to say Mass, passersby glanced in, stopped,
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looking startled, then came quietly in, found a pew, and knelt down. When
Father Al looked up to begin the Creed, he stared in amazement at a couple
dozen people in front of him, most of them well-dressed travellers, but with a
good sprinkling of spaceport mechanics and dirtside crew and a few gentlemen
with three-day beards, whose coveralls were patched, greasy, and baggy at the
knees. It was curious how any major spaceport always seemed to develop its
own skid row, even if it was millions of AU's from any habitable planet. It was
even more surprising how many Catholics cropped up out of the plastic-work at
the drop of an altar bell.
Under the circumstances, he felt obliged to say something and there was one
sermon he always had ready. "My brothers and sisters, though we are in a
Chapel of St. Francis, allow me to call to your minds the priest in whose honor
my own Order was founded St. Vidicon of Cathode, martyr for the faith. In the
seminary, he had a problem he kept thinking in terms of what did work, instead
of what should work. He was a Jesuit, of course.
"He also had a rather strange sense of humor. When he was teaching, his
students began to wonder whether he believed more firmly in Finagle than in
Christ. Too many young men were taking his jokes seriously, and going into
Holy Orders as a result. His bishop was delighted with all the vocations, but was
a bit leery of the reasons so the Vatican got wind of it. The Curia had its doubts
about his sense of humor, too, so they transferred him to Rome, where they
could keep an eye on him. As an excuse for this surveillance, they made him
Chief Engineer of Television Vatican.
"The term is confusing today, of course; 'television' was like 3DT, but with a flat
picture; 3DT was originally an abbreviation for 'three-dimensional television.'
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Yes, this was quite a few centuries ago the Year of Our Lord 2020.
"Well. Father Vidicon was sad to leave-off teaching, but he was overjoyed at
actually being able to work with television equipment again& and he didn't let
his nearness to the Pope dampen his enthusiasm; he still insisted on referring to
the Creator as 'the Cosmic Cathode& ' "
"Praise God, from Whom electrons flow! Praise Him, the Source of all we
know! Whose order's in the stellar host! For in machines, He is the Ghost!"
"Father Vidicon," Monsignor reproved, "that air has a blasphemous ring."
"Merely irreverent, Monsignor." Father Vidicon peered at the oscilloscope and
adjusted the pedestal on Camera Two. "But then, you're a Dominican."
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
"Simply that what you hear may not be what I said." Father Vidicon leaned over
to the switcher and punched up color bars.
"He has a point." Brother Anson looked up from the TBC
circuit board he was diagnosing. "I thought it quite reverent."
"You would; it was sung." Monsignor knew that Brother Anson was a
Franciscan. "How much longer must I delay my rehearsal, Father Vidicon? I've
an Archbishop and two Cardinals waiting!"
"You can begin when the camera tube decides to work, Monsignor." Father
Vidicon punched up Camera Two again, satisfied that the oscilloscope was
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reading correctly. "If you insist on bringing in Cardinals, you must be prepared
for a breakdown."
"I really don't see why a red cassock would cause so much trouble," Monsignor
grumbled.
"You wouldn't; you're a director. But these old plumbi-con tubes just don't like
red." Father Vidicon adjusted the chrominance. "Of course, if you could talk His
Holiness into affording a few digital-plate cameras& "
"Father Vidicon, you know what they cost! And we've been the Church of the
Poor for a century!"
"Four centuries, more likely, Monsignor ever since Calvin lured the
bourgeoisie away from us."
"We've as many Catholics as we had in 1390," Brother Anson maintained stoutly.
"Yes, that was right after the Black Death, wasn't it? And the population of the
world's grown a bit since then. I hate to be a naysayer, Brother Anson, bnt we've
only a tenth as many of the faithful as we had in 1960. And from the attraction
Reverend Sun is showing, we'll be lucky if we have a tenth of that by the end of
the year."
"We've a crisis in cameras at the moment," the Monsignor reminded. "Could you
refrain from discussing the Crisis of Faith until the cameras are fixed?"
"Oh, they're working now." Father Vidicon threw the capping switch and
shoved himself away from the camera control unit. "They'll work excellently for
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you now, Monsignor, until you start recording
Monsignor reddened. "And why should they break down then?"
"Because that's when you'll need them most." Father Vidicon grinned.
"Television equipment is subject to Murphy's Law, Monsignor."
"I wish you were a bit less concerned with Murphy's Law, and a bit more with
Christ's!"
Father Vidicon shrugged. "If it suits the Lord's purpose to give authority over
entropy into the hands of the Imp of the Perverse, who am I to question Him?"
"For the sake of Heaven, Father, what has the Imp of the Perverse to do with
Murphy's Law?" Monsignor cried.
Father Vidicon shrugged. "Entropy is loss of energy within a system, which is [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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