“My dear old friend Nods. By the time you read this, I will be the new Hierarch of Sanctity.” Which was interesting. Cory had always said he would be Hierarch someday. When they had been in seminary together as boys, Cory had said it even then. Jhamlees Zoe nodded. It just went to prove how ruthless Cory really was.
He read further:
The Hierarch past, one Carlos Yrarier, has for some esoteric reason picked his nephew Roderigo to go to Grass and find out whether there is plague or a cure for plague on your world. Pay attention, old friend. Though it is still policy to deny it, there is plague here, as there is everywhere else. If Yrarier finds no help upon Grass, we may have to depend upon the machines to resurrect us after the danger has passed. Some of us, at least. Thee and me, old friend. As you know, it has never been Sanctity’s intention to resurrect many! Why bring all that fodder to life again when it did so little the first time around?
Jhamlees nodded once again. That was sound doctrine, though not doctrine ever shared with the masses. If the machines ever woke them into some new world, it would be a very selective waking. Jhamlees’ cell-sample was in machine “A,” along with a few hundred thousand others. The other billions could be roused if needed, but such need was doubtful.
The letter went on:
However, since there is a chance you have no plague on your world, I plan to come to Grass with such personnel and so equipped as to do all that must be done in the shortest possible time to find a cure. But, we will do it quietly. It is not our desire that either information about the plague or the cure, assuming we find one, be widely disseminated. There are those among the Elders who see in this plague the Hand of God Almighty wiping out the heathen to leave worlds clean for Sanctity alone to populate. Hasten the day. While I am less inclined to see the Hand of God, I am no less willing to take advantage of the chance.
The information Sanctity initially received was that a person or persons had arrived on Grass with the disease and departed without it. In the serene hope that this is true, I am coming to Grass very soon. Too precipitous a move would betray our purpose, therefore I must take more time than I like. Still, I should arrive not long after Yrarier himself, having first taken time to make ritual stops here and there—the putative reason for my journey. If necessary, some of these ceremonial visits may be cut short. At the first inkling that Yrarier has found something, even if only a hint, you are to send word in accordance with the itinerary enclosed.
Jhamlees unfolded the itinerary, then finished the letter.
Needless to say, we want no premature soundings of alarums. All is poised here as on the point of a needle, swinging wildly as a compass does when it finds no pole. As I write this the old Hierarch is dying of plague, Your old friend and cousin is not touched yet, and is determined to come to Grass in order that he may never be touched by any but the hands of friendship. Let me know what is happening!
It was signed by Cory Strange, Nods’ oldest friend, a friend from the time he had been Nods Noddingale, which was many decades before he had become Jhamlees Zoe.
Well, Ambassador Yrarier had been on Grass only a short time. Jhamlees Zoe had heard nothing about plague yet. He thought it unlikely that he would hear anything about plague. Still, he would mention to his subordinate, Noazee Fuasoi, that he wanted to be informed of any unusual rumors. That should be vague enough.
So musing, Jhamlees Zoe wrapped the packet, the letter, and the itinerary once more and hid the resultant bundle in his files.
For a time, Rillibee spent his days in required prayer, in morning song and evening song, in special services now and again, with routine duties taking up all the time between. There was gardening to do in the sun-blessed springs and summers and falls, when crop succeeded crop endlessly under the light-handed benison of rain. Though the long, elliptical orbit of the planet brought it almost under the sun’s eyelids during midsummer, this far north the heat was lessened to an almost tolerable level. There were pigs to care for and slaughter and chickens to feed and kill. There was food to put up for wintertime. They would keep him busy, they told him. Soon he would be assigned to his permanent job.
When that day came, Rillibee in his guise as Brother Lourai sneaked off to hide among the grasses with Brother Mainoa and talk about Rillibee’s future. He had decided again, only that morning, not to die just yet, but that decision was not sufficient for the purposes of the Friary.
“They want to know what I want to do,” Rillibee said in an aggrieved voice. “I have to tell them this afternoon.”
“That’s right,” answered Brother Mainoa comfortably. “Now that you’ve settled down and it’s known that the climbing apes aren’t going to kill you—and that Brother Flumzee that calls himself Highbones has killed a few, though him and his friends always claim it was accidental—those set in authority over us have to decide what to do with you.”
“I don’t know why you think the climbers have given up wanting me dead,” Rillibee objected. “Several of them are still set on killing me. Highbones wants me done with because he says I made a fool of him.
