Most appropriate," added the Italian priest, "for the s.p.a.ce Age."

Father Brian stared at the outrageous man.

"I'll thank you not to quote our Blake at us."

"Your Blake?" said the slender pale man with the softly glowing dark hair. "Strange, I'd always thought him English."

"The poetry of Blake," said Father Brian, "was always a great comfort to my mother. It was she told me there was Irish blood on his maternal side."

"I will graciously accept that," said Father Vittorini. "But back to the newspaper story. Now that we've found it, it seems a good time to do some research on Pius the Twelfth's encyclical."

Father Brian's wariness, which was a second set of nerves under his skin, p.r.i.c.kled alert.

"What encyclical is that?"

"Why, the one on s.p.a.ce travel."

"He didn't do that?"

"He did."

"On s.p.a.ce travel, a special encyclical?"

"A special one."

Both Irish priests were near onto being flung back in their chairs by the blast.

Father Vittorini made the picky motions of a man cleaning up after a detonation, finding lint on his coat sleeve, a crumb or two of toast on the tablecloth.

"Wasn't it enough," said Brian, in a dying voice, "he shook hands with the astronaut bunch and told them well done and all that, but he had to go on and write at length about it?"

"It was not enough," said Father Vittorini. "He wished, I hear, to comment further on the problems of life on other worlds, and its effect on Christian thinking."

Each of these words, precisely spoken, drove the two other men farther back in their chairs.

"You hear?" said Father Brian. "You haven't read it yourself yet?"

"No, but I intend-"

"You intend everything and mean worse. Sometimes, Father Vittorini, you do not talk, and I hate to say this, like a priest of the Mother Church at all."

"I talk," replied Vittorini, "like an Italian priest somehow caught and trying to preserve surface tension treading an ecclesiastical bog where I am outnumbered by a great herd of clerics named Shaughnessy and Nulty and Flannery that mill and stampede like caribou or bison every time I so much as whisper 'papal bull.'"

"There is no doubt in my mind"-and here Father Brian squinted off in the general direction of the Vatican, itself-"that it was you, if you could've been there, might've put the Holy Father up to this whole s.p.a.ce-travel monkeyshines."

"I?"

"You! It's you, is it not, certainly not us, that lugs in the magazines by the carload with the rocket ships on the shiny covers and the filthy green monsters with six eyes and seventeen gadgets chasing after half-draped females on some moon or other? You I hear late nights doing the countdowns from ten, nine, eight on down to one, in tandem with the beast TV, so we lie aching for the dread concussions to knock the fillings from our teeth. Between one Italian here and another at Castel Gandolfo, may G.o.d forgive me, you've managed to depress the entire Irish clergy!"

"Peace," said Father Kelly at last, "both of you."

"And peace it is, one way or another I'll have it," said Father Brian, taking the envelope from his pocket.

"Put that away," said Father Kelly, sensing what must be in the envelope.

"Please give this to Pastor Sheldon for me."

Father Brian rose heavily and peered about to find the door and some way out of the room. He was suddenly gone.

"Now see what you've done!" said Father Kelly.

Father Vittorini, truly shocked, had stopped eating. "But, Father, all along I thought it was an amiable squabble, with him putting on and me putting on, him playing it loud and me soft."

"Well, you've played it too long, and the blasted fun turned serious!" said Kelly. "Ah, you don't know William like I do. You've really torn him."

"I'll do my best to mend-"

"You'll mend the seat of your pants! Get out of the way, this is my job now." Father Kelly grabbed the envelope off the table and held it up to the light, "The X ray of a poor man's soul. Ah, G.o.d."

He hurried upstairs. "Father Brian?" he called. He slowed. "Father?" He tapped at the door. "William?"

In the breakfast room, alone once more, Father Vittorini remembered the last few flakes in his mouth. They now had no taste. It took him a long slow while to get them down.

It was only after lunch that Father Kelly cornered Father Brian in the dreary little garden behind the rectory and handed back the envelope.

"w.i.l.l.y, I want you to tear this up. I won't have you quitting in the middle of the game. How long has all this gone on between you two?"

Father Brian sighed and held but did not rip the envelope. "It sort of crept upon us. It was me at first spelling the Irish writers and him p.r.o.nouncing the Italian operas. Then me describing the Book of Kells in Dublin and him touring me through the Renaissance. Thank G.o.d for small favors, he didn't discover the papal encyclical on the blasted s.p.a.ce traveling sooner, or I'd have transferred my self to a monkery where the fathers keep silence as a vow. But even there, I fear, he'd follow and count down the Canaveral blastoffs in sign language. What a Devil's advocate that man would make!"

"Father!"

"I'll do penance for that later. It's just this dark otter, this seal, he frolics with Church dogma as if it was a candy-striped bouncy ball. It's all very well to have seals cavorting, but I say don't mix them with the true fanatics, such as you and me! Excuse the pride, Father, but there does seem to be a variation on the true theme every time you get them piccolo players in among us harpers, and don't you agree?"

"What an enigma, Will. We of the Church should be examples for others on how to get along."

"Has anyone told Father Vittorini that? Let's face it, the Italians are the Rotary of the Church. You couldn't have trusted one of them to stay sober during the Last Supper."

"I wonder if we Irish could?" mused Father Kelly.

"We'd wait until it was over, at least!"

"Well, now, are we priests or barbers? Do we stand here splitting hairs, or do we shave Vittorini close with his own razor? William, have you no plan?"

"Perhaps to call in a Baptist to mediate."

"Be off with your Baptist! Have you researched the encyclical?"

"The encyclical?"

"Have you let gra.s.s grow since breakfast between your toes? You have! Let's read that s.p.a.ce-travel edict! Memorize it, get it pat, then counterattack the rocket man in his own territory! This way, to the library. What is it the youngsters cry these days? Five, four, three, two, one, blast off?"

"Or the rough equivalent."

"Well, say the rough equivalent, then, man. And follow me!"

They met Pastor Sheldon, going into the library as he was coming out.

"It's no use," said the pastor, smiling, as he examined the fever in their faces. "You won't find it in there."

"Won't find what in there?" Father Brian saw the pastor looking at the letter which was still glued to his fingers, and hid it away, fast. "Won't find what, sir?"

"A rocket ship is a trifle too large for our small quarters," said the pastor in a poor try at the enigmatic.

"Has the Italian bent your ear, then?" cried Father Kelly in dismay.

"No, but echoes have a way of ricocheting about the place. I came to do some checking myself."

"Then," gasped Brian with relief, "you're on our side?"

Pastor Sheldon's eyes became somewhat sad. "Is there a side to this, Fathers?"

They all moved into the little library room, where Father Brian and Father Kelly sat uncomfortably on the edges of the hard chairs. Pastor Sheldon remained standing, watchful of their discomfort.

"Now. Why are you afraid of Father Vittorini?"

"Afraid?" Father Brian seemed surprised at the word and cried softly, "It's more like angry."

"One leads to the other," admitted Kelly. He continued, "You see, Pastor, it's mostly a small town in Tuscany shunting stones at Meynooth, which is, as you know, a few miles out from Dublin."

"I'm Irish," said the pastor, patiently.

"So you are, Pastor, and all the more reason we can't figure your great calm in this disaster," said Father Brian.

"I'm California Irish," said the pastor.

He let this sink in. When it had gone to the bottom, Father Brian groaned miserably. "Ah. We forgot."

And he looked at the pastor and saw there the recent dark, the tan complexion of one who walked with his face like a sunflower to the sky, even here in Chicago, taking what little light and heat he could to sustain his color and being. Here stood a man with the figure, still, of a badminton and tennis player under his tunic, and with the firm lean hands of the handball expert. In the pulpit, by the look of his arms moving in the air, you could see him swimming under warm California skies.

Father Kelly let forth one sound of laughter.

"Oh, the gentle ironies, the simple fates. Father Brian, here is our Baptist!"

"Baptist?" asked Pastor Sheldon.

"No offense, Pastor, but we were off to find a mediator, and here you are, an Irishman from California, who has known the wintry blows of Illinois so short a time, you've still the look of rolled lawns and January sunburn. We, we were born and raised as lumps in Cork and Kilc.o.c.k, Pastor. Twenty years in Hollywood would not thaw us out. And now, well, they do say, don't they, that California is much . . ." here he paused, "like Italy?"

"I see where you're driving," mumbled Father Brian.

Pastor Sheldon nodded, his face both warm and gently sad. "My blood is like your own. But the climate I was shaped in is like Rome's. So you see, Father Brian, when I asked are there any sides, I spoke from my heart."

"Irish yet not Irish," mourned Father Brian. "Almost but not quite Italian. Oh, the world's played tricks with our flesh."

"Only if we let it, William, Patrick."

Both men started a bit at the sound of their Christian names.

"You still haven't answered: Why are you afraid?"

Father Brian watched his hands fumble like two bewildered wrestlers for a moment. "Why, it's because just when we get things settled on Earth, just when it looks like victory's in sight, the Church on a good footing, along comes Father Vittorini-"

"Forgive me, Father," said the pastor. "Along comes reality. Along comes s.p.a.ce, time, entropy, progress, along come a million things, always. Father Vittorini didn't invent s.p.a.ce travel."

"No, but he makes a good thing of it. With him 'everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics.' Well, no matter. I'll stash my shillelagh if he'll put away his rockets."

"No, let's leave them out in the open," replied the pastor. "Best not to hide violence or special forms of travel. Best to work with them. Why don't we climb in that rocket, Father, and learn from it?"

"Learn what? That most of the things we've taught in the past on Earth don't fit out there on Mars or Venus or wherever in h.e.l.l Vittorini would push us? Drive Adam and Eve out of some new Garden, on Jupiter, with our very own rocket fires? Or worse, find there's no Eden, no Adam, no Eve, no d.a.m.ned Apple nor Serpent, no Fall, no Original Sin, no Annunciation, no Birth, no Son, you go on with the list, no nothing at all! on one blasted world tailing another? Is that what we must learn, Pastor?"

"If need be, yes," said Pastor Sheldon. "It's the Lord's s.p.a.ce and the Lord's worlds in s.p.a.ce, Father. We must not try to take our cathedrals with us, when all we need is an overnight case. The Church can be packed in a box no larger than is needed for the articles of the Ma.s.s, as much as these hands can carry. Allow Father Vittorini this, the people of the southern climes learned long ago to build in wax which melts and takes its shape in harmony with the motion and need of man. William, William, if you insist on building in hard ice, it will shatter when we break the sound barrier or melt and leave you nothing in the fire of the rocket blast."

"That," said Father Brian, "is a hard thing to learn at fifty years, Pastor."

"But learn, I know you will," said the pastor, touching his shoulder. "I set you a task: to make peace with the Italian priest. Find some way tonight for a meeting of minds. Sweat at it, Father. And, first off, since our library is meager, hunt for and find the s.p.a.ce encyclical, so we'll know what we're yelling about."

A moment later the pastor was gone.

Father Brian listened to the dying sound of those swift feet-as if a white ball were flying high in the sweet blue air and the pastor were hurrying in for a fine volley.

"Irish but not Irish," he said. "Almost but not quite Italian. And now what are we, Patrick?"

"I begin to wonder," was the reply.

And they went away to a larger library wherein might be hid the grander thoughts of a Pope on a bigger s.p.a.ce.

A long while after supper that night, in fact almost at bedtime, Father Kelly, sent on his mission, moved about the rectory tapping on doors and whispering.

Shortly before ten o'clock, Father Vittorini came down the stairs and gasped with surprise.

Father Brian, at the unused fireplace, warming himself at the small gas heater which stood on the hearth, did not turn for a moment.

A s.p.a.ce had been cleared and the brute television set moved forward into a circle of four chairs, among which stood two small taborettes on which stood two bottles and four gla.s.ses. Father Brian had done it all, allowing Kelly to do nothing. Now he turned, for Kelly and Pastor Sheldon were arriving.

The pastor stood in the entryway and surveyed the room. "Splendid." He paused and added, "I think. Let me see now . . ." He read the label on one bottle. "Father Vittorini is to sit here."

"By the Irish Moss?" asked Vittorini.

"The same," said Father Brian.