‘What could there be in the way of new sins?’
Father Peregrine leaned heavily forward. ‘Adam alone did not sin. Add Eve and you add temptation. Add a second man and you make adultery possible. With the addition of sex or people, you add sin. If men were armless they could not strangle with their hands. You would not have that particular sin of murder. Add arms, and you add the possibility of a new violence. Amoebas cannot sin because they reproduce by fission. They do not covet wives or murder each other. Add sex to amoebas, add arms and legs, and you would have murder and adultery. Add an arm or leg or person, or take away each, and you add or subtract possible evil. On Mars, what if there are five new senses, organs, invisible limbs we can’t conceive of – then mightn’t there be five new sins?’
Father Stone gasped. ‘I think you enjoy this sort of thing!’
‘I keep my mind alive, Father; just alive, is all.’
‘Your mind’s always juggling, isn’t it? – mirrors, torches, plates.’
‘Yes. Because sometimes the Church seems like those posed circus tableaus where the curtain lifts and men, white, zinc-oxide, talcum-powder statues, freeze to represent abstract Beauty. Very wonderful. But I hope there will always be room for me to dart about among the statues, don’t you, Father Stone?’
Father Stone had moved away. ‘I think we’d better go to bed. In a few hours we’ll be jumping up to see your new sins, Father Peregrine.’
The rocket stood ready for the firing.
The Fathers walked from their devotions in the chilly morning, many a fine priest from New York or Chicago or Los Angeles – the Church was sending its best – walking across town to the frosty field. Walking, Father Peregrine remembered the Bishop’s words:
‘Father Peregrine, you will captain the missionaries, with Father Stone at your side. Having chosen you for this serious task, I find my reasons deplorably obscure, Father, but your pamphlet on planetary sin did not go unread. You are a flexible man. And Mars is like that uncleaned closet we have neglected for millenniums. Sin has collected there like bric-a-brac. Mars is twice Earth’s age and has had double the number of Saturday nights, liquor baths, and eye-poppings at women as naked as white seals. When we open that closet door, things will fall on us. We need a quick, flexible man – one whose mind can dodge. Anyone a little too dogmatic might break in two. I feel you’ll be resilient. Father, the job is yours.’
The Bishop and the Fathers knelt.
The blessing was said and the rocket given a little shower of holy water. Arising, the Bishop addressed them:
‘I know you will go with God, to prepare the Martians for the reception of His Truth. I wish you all a thoughtful journey.’
They filed past the Bishop, twenty men, robes whispering, to deliver their hands into his kind hands before passing into the cleansed projectile.
‘I wonder,’ said Father Peregrine, at the last moment, ‘if Mars is Hell? Only waiting for our arrival before it bursts into brimstone and fire.’
‘Lord, be with us,’ said Father Stone.
The rocket moved.
Coming out of space was like coming out of the most beautiful cathedral they had ever seen. Touching Mars was like touching the ordinary pavement outside the church five minutes after having really known your love for God.
The Fathers stepped gingerly from the steaming rocket and knelt upon Martian sand while Father Peregrine gave thanks.
‘Lord, we thank Thee for the journey through Thy rooms. And, Lord, we have reached a new land, so we must have new eyes. We shall hear new sounds and must needs have new ears. And there will be new sins, for which we ask the gift of better and firmer and purer hearts. Amen.’
They arose.
And here was Mars like a sea under which they trudged in the guise of submarine biologists, seeking life. Here the territory of hidden sin. Oh, how carefully they must all balance, like gray feathers, in this new element, afraid that walking itself might be sinful; or breathing, or simple fasting!
And here was the mayor of First Town come to meet them with outstretched hand. ‘What can I do for you, Father Peregrine?’
‘We’d like to know about the Martians. For only if we know about them can we plan our church intelligently. Are they ten feet tall? We will build large doors. Are their skins blue or red or green? We must know when we put human figures in the stained glass so we may use the right skin color. Are they heavy? We will build sturdy seats for them.’
‘Father,’ said the mayor, ‘I don’t think you should worry about the Martians. There are two races. One of them is pretty well dead. A few are in hiding. And the second race – well, they’re not quite human.’
‘Oh?’ Father Peregrine’s heart quickened.
‘They’re round luminous globes of light, Father, living in those hills. Man or beast, who can say? But they act intelligently, I hear.’ The mayor shrugged. ‘Of course, they’re not men, so I don’t think you’ll care—’
‘On the contrary,’ said Father Peregrine swiftly. ‘Intelligent, you say?’
‘There’s a story. A prospector broke his leg in those hills and would have died there. The blue spheres of light came at him. When he woke, he was down on a highway and didn’t know how he got there.’
‘Drunk,’ said Father Stone.
‘That’s the story,’ said the mayor. ‘Father Peregrine, with most of the Martians dead, and only these blue spheres, I frankly think you’d be better off in First City. Mars is opening up. It’s a frontier now, like in the old days on Earth, out West, and in Alaska. Men are pouring up here. There’s a couple thousand black Irish mechanics and miners and day laborers in First Town who need saving, because there’re too many wicked women came with them, and too much ten-century-old Martian wine—’
Father Peregrine was gazing into the soft blue hills.
Father Stone cleared his throat. ‘Well, Father?’
Father Peregrine did not hear. ‘Spheres of blue fire?’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘Ah,’ Father Peregrine sighed.
‘Blue balloons.’ Father Stone shook his head. ‘A circus!’
Father Peregrine felt his wrists pounding. He saw the little frontier town with raw, fresh-built sin, and he saw the hills, old with the oldest and yet perhaps an even newer (to him) sin.
‘Mayor, could your black Irish laborers cook one more day in hellfire?’
‘I’d turn and baste them for you, Father.’
Father Peregrine nodded to the hills. ‘Then that’s where we’ll go.’
There was a murmur from everyone.
‘It would be so simple,’ explained Father Peregrine, ‘to go into town. I prefer to think that if the Lord walked here and people said, “Here is the beaten path,” He would reply, “Show me the weeds. I will make a path.”’
‘But—’
‘Father Stone, think how it would weigh upon us if we passed sinners by and did not extend our hands.’
‘But globes of fire!’
‘I imagine man looked funny to other animals when we first appeared. Yet he has a soul, for all his homeliness. Until we prove otherwise, let us assume that these fiery spheres have souls.’
‘All right,’ agreed the mayor, ‘but you’ll be back to town.’
‘We’ll see. First, some breakfast. Then you