Captain Sir Henry Quill opened the door of the late Lieutenant Mellon’s and in, by Mike the Angel. The man’s had to be packed away so that it be to his nearest of when the officers and of the Brainchild returned to Earth. Regulations provided that two officers must his personal and those to the Space Service.
“Does Chief Pasteur know what killed him yet, Captain?” Mike asked.
Quill his head. “No. He wants my permission to perform an autopsy.”
“Are you going to let him?”
“I think not. We’ll put the in the and have the performed on Earth.” He looked around the room, it for the time.
“If you don’t,” said Mike, “you’ve got three on your hands.”
Quill was unperturbed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Golden Wings.”
“I’m not,” Mike said. “I him in the of his stomach. Chief Pasteur him full of sedative. Mister Vaneski him with a beam. He died. Which one of us did it?”
“Probably no single one of them, but a of all three,” said Captain Quill. “Each action was performed in the line of and without aforethought—without to permanently, much less to kill. There will have to be a court-martial, of course—or, at the very least, a of will be appointed. But I am you’ll all come through any such scatheless.” He up a book from Mellon’s desk. “Let’s about our business, Mister Gabriel. Mark down: Bible, one.”
Mike put it on the list.
“International Encyclopedia, English edition. Thirty and index.”
Mike put it down.
“The Oxford-Webster Dictionary of the English Language—
“Hallbert’s Dictionary of Medical Terms—
“The Canterbury Theological Dictionary—
“The Christian Religion and Symbolic Logic, by Bishop K. F. Costin—
“The Handbook of Space Medicine—”
As Captain Quill called out the names of the books and put them into the packing case he’d brought, Mike marked them down—while something in the of his mind.
“Item,” said Captain Quill, “one crucifix.” He paused. “Beautifully carved, too.” He put it into the packing case.
“Excuse me, Captain,” said Mike suddenly. “Let me take a look at something, will you?” Excitedly, he over and took some of the books out, looking at the pages of each one.
“I’ll be damned,” he said after a moment. “Or I should be—for being such a idiot!”
Captain Quill his eyes. “What are you talking about, Mister Gabriel?”
“I’m not sure yet, Captain,” Mike hedged. “May I borrow these three books?” He them up in his hands.
“May I be so as to ask why, Mister Gabriel?”
“I just want to look at them, sir,” Mike said. “I’ll return them a hours.”
“Mister Gabriel,” Captain Quill said, “after what last night, I am of that goes on this ship. But—yes. You may take them. However, I want them returned we land tomorrow morning.”
Mike blinked. Neither he anyone else—with the of Captain Quill and Lieutenant Commander Liegnitz, the navigator, the of the ship. Mike hadn’t they were that close to their goal. “I’ll have them by then,” he promised.
“Very well. Now let’s on about our work.”
The job was forty-five minutes. A man can’t a great with him on a spaceship. When they were through, Mike the Angel himself and to his quarters. Two hours after that he to the officers’ to look up Pete Jeffers. Pete hadn’t been in his quarters, and Mike he wasn’t on by that time. Sure enough, Jeffers was coffee all by himself in the wardroom. He looked up when Mike came in.
“Hullo, Mike,” he said listlessly. “Come sit. Have some coffee.”
There was a in the air which that there was more in the cup than just coffee. “No, thanks, Pete. I’ll this one out. I wanted to talk to you.”
“Sit. I am a toast to Mister Lew Mellon.” He pointed at the coffee. “Sure you won’t have a mite? It’s from the grape.”
“No, thanks again.” Mike sat down. “It’s Mellon I wanted to talk about. Did you know him well, Pete?”
“Purty well,” Pete said, nodding. “Yeah, well. I always him for a great little bloke. Can’t what got into him.”
“Me either. Pete, you told me he was an Anglo-Catholic—a good one, you said.”
“’At’s right.”
“Well, how did you that?”
Pete frowned. “Just what I said. He his religion, he to Mass regularly, said his prayers—that of thing. And he was, I will say, a Christian in every of the word.” There was in his voice, as though Mike had the memory of a friend.
“Don’t huffy, Pete; he me as a person, too—”
“Until he his lid,” said Pete. “But that might to anybody.”
“Sure. But what I want to know—and don’t sore—is, did he any of—well, this last outbreak?”
“Like what?”
“I mean, was he a religious nut? Did he act ‘holier than thou’ or—well, was he a fanatic, would you say?”
“No, I wouldn’t say so. He didn’t talk much about it. I you noticed that. I mean, he didn’t preach. He some and had his of now and then—even had a or two on occasion. His views on were orthodox, I reckon—I mean, as as I know. He’d tell an off-color story, if it wasn’t too bad. But he’d up and if the boys started tellin’ about the they’d made. Fornication and just weren’t his meat, I’d say.”
“I know he wasn’t married,” Mike said. “Did he date much?”
“Some. He liked to dance. Women to like him.”
“How about men?”
“Most of the boys liked him.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh. Was he queer?” Pete frowned. “I’d near my life that he wasn’t.”
“You he didn’t it?”
“I don’t he about it,” Pete said. “Course, you can’t tell what’s goin’ on in a man’s mind, but—” His a scowl. “Damn it, Mike, just a man isn’t married by the time he’s thirty-five and Christian while he’s single don’t necessarily he’s a fairy!”
“I didn’t say it did. I just if you’d anything.”
“No more’n I’ve about you—who are in the same position!”
“Exactly,” Mike agreed. “That’s what I wanted to know. Pete, if you’ve got it to spare, I’ll join you in that toast.”
Pete Jeffers grinned. “Comin’ right up, buddy-boy.”
He two more cups of coffee, them from a small of brandy, and one to Mike. They in silence.
Fifteen minutes later, Mike the Angel was in the little office that Leda Crannon with Dr. Fitzhugh. She was alone.
“How’s the girl today?” he asked.
“Beat,” she said with a smile.
“You look beautiful,” he said. He wasn’t lying. She looked and tired, but she still looked beautiful.
“Thanks, Mike. What can I do for you?”
Mike the Angel up a chair and sat down. “Where’s Doc Fitz?”
“He’s still trying to out of Snookums. It’s a thing, Mike—a with a soul.”
“You don’t mind talking about it?”
“No; go ahead if you want.”
“All right, answer me a question,” he said. “Can Snookums read English?”
“Certainly. And Russian, and German, French, Chinese, and most of the other major of Earth.”
“He read a book, then?”
“Yes. But not unless it was to him and he was told to use its as data.”
“Good,” said Mike. “Now, Snookums was complete data on a of knowledge. Suppose that this is logical, coherent, self-consistent. Suppose it be to a series of and in logic.”
“All right,” she said. “So?”
“Now, that this system, this of knowledge is, right now, in use by millions of beings, though most of them are of the of the entire field. Could Snookums work with such a of knowledge?”
“Sure,” said Leda. “Why not?”
“What if there was no way for Snookums to with this knowledge? What if he did not have the necessary?”
“You mean,” she asked, “something like astrophysics?”
“No. That’s what I don’t mean. I’m perfectly well aware that it isn’t possible to test directly. Nobody has been able to a star in the so far.
“But it is possible to test the of by on data that can be in a lab.
“What I’m talking about is a that Snookums, he is what he is, cannot test or upon, in any way whatsoever. A that has, in short, no with the physical world whatsoever.”
Leda Crannon it over. “Well, all that, I that it would Snookums. He’s to experiment, and if he’s from for too long, he’ll the of his circuits.” She swallowed. “If he hasn’t already.”
“I so. And so did someone else,” said Mike thoughtfully.
“Well, for Heaven’s sake! What is this system?” Leda asked in exasperation.
“You’re close,” said Mike the Angel.
“What are you talking about?”
“Theology,” said Mike. “He was full of Christian theology, that’s all. Good, solid, Catholic theology. Bishop Costin’s mathematical of it is a result of the logic that had been out the previous two thousand years. Snookums it to and equations, anyway, if we didn’t have Bishop Costin’s work.”
He her the book from Mellon’s room.
“It doesn’t the of a to make it up a robot’s works. He doesn’t have any emotions, either. And he can’t something that he can’t with. It would have him insane, all right. But he isn’t insane.”
Leda looked puzzled. “But—”
“Do you know why?” Mike interrupted.
“No.”
“Because he something that he with. He a material for experimentation.”
She looked still more puzzled. “What that be?”
“Me,” said Mike the Angel. “Me. Michael Raphael Gabriel. I’m an angel—an archangel. As a of fact, I’m three archangels. For all I know, Snookums has me with the Trinity.”
“But—how did he that idea?”
“Mostly from the Book of Tobit,” said Mike. “That’s where an takes the of a being and around with Tobit the Younger, remember? And, too, he got more from the part of Luke’s Gospel, where Gabriel tells the Blessed Virgin that she’s about to a mother.”
“But would he have that out for himself?”
“Possibly,” said Mike, “but I it. He was told that I was an angel—literally.”
“Let me see that book,” she said, taking The Christian Religion and Symbolic Logic from Mike’s hand. She opened it to the center. “I didn’t know anyone had done this of work,” she said.
“Oh, there was a great over the book when it came out. There were those who said that the had the truth of the Christian had been proved mathematically, and therefore all people would have to accept it.”
She through the book. “I’ll there are still some who still that, just like there are some people who still think Euclidian must necessarily be true it can be ‘proved’ mathematically.”
Mike nodded. “All Bishop Costin did—all he was trying to do—was to prove that the of the Christian are self-consistent. That’s all he to have done, and he did a job of it.”
“But—how do you know this is what Snookums was given?”
“Look at the pages. Snookums’ the pages that way. Those aren’t the marks of fingers. Only two of Mellon’s other books were that way.”
She her up from the book, startled. “What? This is Lew Mellon’s book?”
“That’s right. So are the other two. A Bible and a dictionary. They’re the same way.”
Her were wide, sapphires. “But why? Why would he do such a thing, for goodness’ sake?”
“I don’t know why it was done,” Mike said slowly, “but I if it was for goodness’ sake. We haven’t to the of this hanky-panky yet, I don’t think.
“Leda, if I’m right—if this is what has been Snookums’ odd behavior—can you him?”
She looked at the book again and nodded. “I think so. But it will take a of work. I’ll have to talk to Fitz about it. We’ll have to keep this book—and the other two.”
Mike his head. “No can do. Can you them?”
“Certainly. But it’ll take—oh, two or three hours book.”
“Then you’d busy. We’re landing in the morning.”
She nodded. “I know. Captain Quill has already told us.”
“Fine, then.” He up. “What will you do? Simply tell Snookums to all this stuff?”
“Good Heavens no! It’s too with every other of data he has! You might be able to take one single of data out that way, but to out a whole of knowledge like this would his circuits. You can out a tooth by with a pair of forceps, but if you try to take out a man’s that way, you’ll a patient.”
“I catch,” Mike said with a grin. “Okay. I’ll the other two books and you can to work them. Take care.”
“Thanks, Mike.”
As he walked the companionway, he himself for being a fool. If he’d let go on the way they were, Leda might have herself away from Snookums. Now she was again. But there have been no other way, of course.
