Now entertain conjecture of a time when two infinitesimal forces of men—one half-forgotten outpost garrison, one small scouting fleet—spend the night in readying themselves against the unknown, in preparing to meet on the morrow to determine, perhaps, the course of centuries for a galaxy.
Two men are feeding sample range-finding problems into the computer.
“That God-damned Fassbander,” says one. “I heard him talking to our commander. ‘You and your men who have never understood the meaning of discipline . . . !’ ”
“Prussians,” the other grunts. He has an Irish face and an American accent. “Think they own the earth. When we get through here, let’s dump all the Prussians into Texas and let ’em fight it out. Then we can call the state Kilkenny.”
“What did you get on that last?. . . Check. Fassbander’s ‘discipline’ is for peace— spit-and-polish to look pretty here in our sandy pink nowhere. What’s the pay-off? Fassbander’s great-grandfathers were losing two world wars while mine were creating a new nation out of nothing. Ask the Arabs if have no discipline. Ask the British . . .”
“Ah, the British. Now my great-grandfather was in the IRA . . .”
Two men are integrating the electrodes of the wave-hurler.
“It isn’t bad enough we get drafted for this expedition to nowhere; we have to have an egg-eating Nangurian in command.”
“And a Tryldian scout to bring the first report. What’s your reading there? . . . Check.”
“ ‘A Tryldian to tell a lie and a Nangurian to force it into truth,’ ” the first quotes.
“Now, brothers,” says the man adjusting the microvernier on the telelens, “the Goodman assures us these monsters are true. We must unite in love for each other, even Tryldians and Nangurians, and wipe them out. The Goodman has promised us his blessing before battle . . .”
“The Goodman,” says the first, “can eat the egg he was hatched from.”
“The rabbi,” says a man checking the oxyhelms, “can take his blessing and shove it up Fassbander. I’m no Jew in his sense. I’m a sensible, rational atheist who happens to be an Israeli.”
“And I,” says his companion, “am a Romanian who believes in the God of my fathers and therefore gives allegiance to His state of Israel. What is a Jew who denies the God of Moses? To call him still a Jew is to think like Fassbander.”
“They’ve got an edge on us,” says the first. “ They can breathe here. These oxyhelms run out in three hours. What do we do then? Rely on the rabbi’s blessing?”
“I said the God of my fathers, and yet my great-grandfather thought as you do and still fought to make Israel live anew. It was his son who, like so many others, learned that he must return to Jerusalem in spirit as well as body.”
“Sure, we had the Great Revival of orthodox religion. So what did it get us? Troops that need a rabbi’s blessing before a commander’s orders.”
“Many men have died from orders. How many from blessings?”
“I fear that few die well who die in battle . . .” the man reads in Valkram’s great epic of the siege of Tolnishri.
“. . . for how [the man is reading of the eve of Agincourt in his micro-Shakespeare] can they charitably dispose of anything when blood is their argument?”
“. . . and if these do not die well [so Valkram wrote] how grievously must their bad deaths be charged against the Goodman who blesses them into battle . . .”
“And why not?” Chaim Acosta flicked the question away with a wave of his long fingers.
The bleep (even Acosta was not so linguistically formal as to call it a bubble jeep) bounced along over the sand toward the rise which overlooked the invaders’ ship. Mule Malloy handled the wheel with solid efficiency and said nothing.
“I did pray for guidance last night,” the rabbi asserted, almost as if in self-defense. “I . . . I had some strange thoughts for a while; but they make very little sense this morning. After all, I am an officer in the army. I do have a certain obligation to my superior officer and to my men. And when I became a rabbi, a teacher, I was specifically ordained to decide questions of law and ritual. Surely this case falls within that authority of mine.”
Abruptly the bleep stopped.
“What’s the matter, Mule?”
“Nothing . . . Wanted to rest my eyes a minute . . . Why did you become ordained, Chaim?”
“Why did you? Which of us understands all the infinite factors of heredity and environment which lead us to such a choice? Or even, if you will, to such a being chosen? Twenty years ago it seemed the only road I could possibly take; now . . . We’d better get going, Mule.”
The bleep started up again.
“A curse sounds so melodramatic and medieval; but is it in essence any different from a prayer for victory, which chaplains offer up regularly? As I imagine you did in your field Mass. Certainly all of your communicants are praying for victory to the Lord of Hosts—and as Captain Fassbander would point out, it makes them better fighting men. I will confess that even as a teacher of the law, I have no marked doctrinal confidence in the efficacy of a curse. I do not expect the spaceship of the invaders to be blasted by the forked lightning of Yahveh. But my men have an exaggerated sort of faith in me, and I owe it to them to do anything possible to strengthen their morale. Which is all the legion or any other army expects of chaplains anyway; we are no longer priests of the Lord, but boosters of morale—a type of sublimated YMCA secretary. Well, in my case, say YMHA.”
The bleep stopped again.
“I never knew your eyes to be so sensitive before,” Acosta observed tartly.
“I thought you might want a little time to think it over,”
