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A Canticle for Liebowitz 1981-10-11 Part 1
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A Canticle for Liebowitz 1981-10-11 Part 1
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- [00:06]
Narrator
A Canticle for Leibowitz Part one of a series in 15 parts, adapted from a novel by Walter Miller Jr. A canticle for Leibowitz Here begins the chronicle, made and kept, each in his generation, by the monks of Blessed Isaac Edward Leibowitz in their abbey in the desert of the southwest. Now it came to pass that mankind, as in the time of Noah, was swollen with pride. And the wise men of that age, among them, blessed Leibowitz placed great engines of war in the hands of princes. And the princes thought each to himself, if I but strike swiftly enough and in secret, I shall destroy those others in their sleep, and there will be none to fight back. The earth shall be mine. Such was the folly of princes. And there followed the flame deluge. Nations vanished from the earth. Great clouds of wrath engulfed the forests and fields. And in those places of the earth where men still lived, all were sickened by the poisoned air. So that while some escaped death, none was left untouched. In all parts of the world, much wrath was kindled against the princes and the magi who devised the weapons. And the wrathful said, let us stone and disembowel and burn the ones who did this thing, together with their hirelings and their wise men burning. Let them perish and all their works, their names and even their memories. Let us make a great simplification, and then the world shall begin again. And so it was that after the flame deluge and the fallout, there began the bloodletting of the simplification. And the perished in it. Rulers over empires and kingdoms, men of authority and wisdom, teachers of skills and sorceries, yea, even artisans. For the people were greatly wroth that the place of their habitation was become a slaughterhouse and a wasteland and a breeding ground of monsters. And they said, let those who have dealt this destruction themselves be destroyed. And so it was. But there were some that perished, not that fled for sanctuary to holy church. And among them there survived our founder, the Blessed Leibowitz. And this was in the days before he entered religion, who, while he was yet in the world, was wedded to a wife whose name was Emily. And by mischance, she was not with him on the day of the flame deluge. Accordingly thereafter, he searched for her long and zealously, but he found her not, neither alive nor dead. So he entered religion as a monk and was ordained priest. And many years passed, and in the fullness of time he searched his heart. And it seemed good to him that there should be instituted a new community of religious given over to the preservation of learning. And he sent messages to New Rome, for old Rome was a heap of ashes and a desolation. And New Rome gave answer and said yes. So a monastery was builded in the desert of the southwest. And the brethren were robed in a habit made of burlap. And they were sent forth across the land, charged to bring back to the abbey secretly whatever books there might yet be that had escaped burning. And these brethren were called book leggers. And other brethren there were, who were charged with burying the books in great sealed casks, lest they be found and destroyed by vandals. And these same brethren were charged also to learn the books by rote, that the words might live, even though the books themselves be found and destroyed. And these brethren were called memorizers. Now it came to pass that our blessed founder himself, journeying as a booklegger, fell into an ambush. For he was betrayed by a traitor artisan known to him, who gave out. Alas, truly, that Leibowitz was not only a man of learning skill to read, but more a maker and deviser of the great engines of war. This Judas, our founder, swiftly forgave. But the multitude, not so forgiving, gave our founder over to death, nay, to two deaths in one. For some would that he were burned, others that he were hanged so not to make great divisions. Thereupon they strangled him in a noose, depending over a fire. Thus came our blessed Leibowitz to his martyrdom. And since that day, six centuries have passed. Nor in that time hath the world changed its ways. For there is still a great darkness abroad, and only within Holy church doth the light of learning yet shine. And that chiefly here in this abbey. For here alone do the words of the ancient wisdom live on. We do not comprehend them, yet we do preserve them. Nor shall we ever forsake that duty. For this is our charge, that these our memorabilia, endure to live on into a new age of light. Yea, even though the darkness in the world last 10 more centuries, or even 10,000 years. For we, though born in the darkest of ages, are still the very bookleggers and memorizers of the Beatus Leibowitz.
- [06:18]
Brother Francis Gerard
On the horizon, a small figure wiggling in a shimmering haze of heat. It suggested a tiny apparition spawned by the heat demons who tortured the land. It was growing out of the mirror glaze on the broken roadway. It was coming toward him.
- [06:42]
Narrator
Oh, no.
- [06:44]
Brother Francis Gerard
He clutched at his rosary. At high noon, desert creatures lay motionless in burrows or hid beneath rocks from the ferocity of the sun. And the heat of the wind. Only a thing, monstrous, a thing with addled wits, would hike down the trail. At noon he added a prayer to Saint Raul, the Cyclopean patron of the Mistborn, for protection against the saint's unhappy proteges. For who did not then know there were monsters in the earth in those days of the Father and of the.
- [07:22]
Narrator
Son and of the Holy Spirit?
- [07:25]
Brother Francis Gerard
Amen, Francis. Brother Francis Gerard of Utah. On his Lenten vocational fast, he stared at the approaching figure. It squirmed its way out of the heat risers into clear air, where it manifestly became a distant pilgrim. A pilgrim just like that. The pilgrim was a spindly old fellow with a stout staff, a basket hat, a brushy beard, and a water skin slung over one shoulder. He was chewing and spitting with too much relish to be an apparition, and he seemed too frail and lame to be a successful practitioner of ogreism or highwaymanship. Nevertheless, Francis slunk quietly out of the pilgrim's line of sight and crouched behind a heap of wood, rubbled stone, where he could watch without being seen. The pilgrim approached within hailing distance, but the novice stayed behind his mound of rubble. The pilgrim's loins were truly girded with a piece of dirty burlap, his only clothing exempt for hat sandals. Doggedly he plotted ahead with a mechanical limp while assisting his crippled leg with the heavy staff. But now, close by, he broke his stride and paused to reconnoiter. There was no shade, just the ruins of age old buildings, but some of the larger stones could provide cooling refreshment if one was wise in the ways of the desert. The pilgrim found a rock of suitable size. Approvingly, Francis noted he did not grasp the stone and rashly tug, but instead stood at a safe distance from it, and using his staff as a lever and a smaller rock for a fulcrum, he jostled the weightier one until the inevitable buzzing creature crawled forth from below. The pilgrim killed the snake with his staff and flipped the carcass aside. Then he overturned the stone, pulled up the back of his loincloth, and sat his withered behind against the stone's coolness. Thus refreshed, he wriggled his toes, smiled toothlessly, and began to sing again, a kind of crooning chant. While he sang, the pilgrim unwrapped a biscuit and a bit of cheese. Then his singing stopped and he stood up.
- [10:30]
The Pilgrim
Blessed be Adonai Elohim, king of all, who maketh bread, to spring forth from the earth.
- [10:38]
Brother Francis Gerard
He sat down and commenced eating. Who Maketh bread to spring forth. Well, harmless enough. He'd come a long way indeed, thought Francis, who knew of no king with such strange pretensions. The rule of silence for the Lenten fast days did not permit him to talk to the old man voluntarily. So he stood up and loudly cleared his throat. The old man grabbed his staff.
- [11:17]
The Pilgrim
Creep upon me, will you? Stand back there. Now just keep your distance, sport. I've got nothing you're after. Unless it's the cheese.
- [11:25]
Brother Francis Gerard
You can have that.
- [11:26]
The Pilgrim
If it's the meat you want. I'm nothing but gristle and I'll fight to keep it. And I'm back now. Back. Wait.
- [11:35]
Brother Francis Gerard
Courtesy could take precedence over the rule of silence when circumstances demanded speech. He tossed back his hood to show his monastic haircut. The pilgrim studied the novices sun blistered adolescent face.
- [11:51]
The Pilgrim
You're one of them, huh?
- [11:55]
Brother Francis Gerard
He'd made a natural mistake. Grotesque creatures who prowled the fringes of the desert often wore hoods to hide deformity. Among them were those who sometimes looked on travelers as meat.
- [12:09]
The Pilgrim
What are you doing out here?
- [12:12]
Brother Francis Gerard
Francis picked up a fragment of stone and wrote three words in the sand. Penance, solitude, silence.
- [12:22]
The Pilgrim
Are you still writing things backward?
- [12:27]
Brother Francis Gerard
If the pilgrim understood the words, he did not admit it. He laid aside his staff, sat on the rock again, and picked up his bread and cheese.
- [12:39]
The Pilgrim
Here, have some.
- [12:42]
Brother Francis Gerard
Francis had eaten nothing but cactus fruit and parched corn since Ash Wednesday.
- [12:47]
The Pilgrim
Come on.
- [12:48]
Brother Francis Gerard
The rules of fast and abstinence were rather strict for vocational vigils, so that now his mouth flooded his eyes, refused to move from the hand that offered the food that sandy tidbit of dark bread and cheese. Take it. His hand touched the hand of the pilgrim. His fingers felt the food. They seemed even to taste it. But then he pulled away, ashamed, and turned back to his labors. While the pilgrim cooled his feet, Francis wandered around in the ruins, staggered around with rocks the size of his own chest. The pilgrim watched him select a stone, estimate its dimensions, reject it, select another to be pried free from the rock jam of the rubble, to be hoisted and stumblingly hauled away. He dropped one stone after a few paces and suddenly sitting, placed his head between his knees. After panting a while, he got up and finished by rolling the stone end over end toward its destination. When the pilgrim had washed down the last of his sandy bread and cheese with a few squirts from his water skin, he slipped feet into sandals, arose with a grunt, and hobbled through the rooms toward Francis to inspect the novice's work. Brother Francis had dug A shallow trench. He had roofed it over with a heap of brush and used the trench by night as refuge from the desert's wolves. But on the previous night, something had leaped to the top of his brush pile and howled. So he had, determined to fortify the burrow, had begun to build a wall. The wall tilted inward as it grew. By a careful selection of rock, he would be able to complete a dome.
- [15:05]
The Pilgrim
You'll need a strange shape of a rock to fit that gap.
- [15:10]
Brother Francis Gerard
The youth nodded and looked away.
- [15:17]
The Pilgrim
I'd best be on my way. Tell me, will your brothers at the abbey let an old man rest a bit in their shade?
- [15:30]
Brother Francis Gerard
Yes, for that.
- [15:34]
The Pilgrim
I'll find you a rock to fit that gap before I go.
- [15:41]
Brother Francis Gerard
Francis watched the pilgrim hobble away. He would pause occasionally to inspect a stone or pry at one with his staff. Doubtless, he'd say, soon, exhaust his patience and wander on his way.
- [15:55]
The Pilgrim
Ahoy. Over here.
- [16:00]
Brother Francis Gerard
Francis looked up, saw the pilgrim's staff waving to him, and decided to ignore the old man.
- [16:07]
The Pilgrim
Hey, boy, I found you a stone. I'll mark it and set a stake by it. Try it or not, as you please. God with you.
- [16:32]
Brother Francis Gerard
Later, by accident, he found the pilgrim's stone wandering around. He stumbled on the stake and found himself on his hands and knees, staring at a pair of marks freshly chalked on an ancient stone. The marks were carefully drawn. Symbols. They must be symbols. The symbols of a witch. But no. The old man had called out, God with you. A witch wouldn't have done that. He pried the stone free from the rubble and rolled it over. In the place where the rock had been wedged, there now appeared a small black hole. Something in there. Holes are often inhabited. He found a stick, poked it into the opening. No resistance. He released it. The stick slid into the hole and vanished. Nothing slithered out. He sniffed at the hole. No animal odor. No hint of brimstone. He dropped a small rock into the hole. It bounced once, a few feet below the opening and then kept rattling its way downward, struck something metallic in passing, and finally came to rest far below. Echoes suggested an underground opening the size of a room. He climbed to his feet and looked around. He seemed alone as usual, except for his companion Buzzard, soaring on high, watching him with interest. The pilgrim had long since vanished. But he'd been right. The stone's size and shape did suggest a probable fit. Francis hoisted it and staggered back to his burrow. The stone slipped neatly into place. The pilgrim's marks, though blurred by Francis handling of the stone, were still clear enough to be copied. He redrew them on another rock, using a charred stick as a stylus so he could show the symbols when the Prior came on his next visitation. He worked on his burrow through the heat of the afternoon, but a corner of his mind kept reminding him of the hole. The interesting yet fearsome little hole, and the faint echoes from somewhere below ground. How could anything of interest have been missed by several centuries of stonemasons? Still, he'd never heard anyone mention buildings with basements or underground rooms. So he went back to the Hope and stood looking at it, unable to put off the desert dweller's conviction that wherever a place exists to hide from the sun, something is already hiding in it. But no tracks except his and the old man's and the tracks of wolves. And what if there's something for the memorabilia down there? He began clearing rubble and sand from the hole. Suddenly the rocks under his feet gave way and caved in. He fell gasping, down into the widening hole. His belly hit solid ground and he hugged it. Blinded by dust, he lay gasping for breath and wondering whether he dared to move the soft beating of wings. He glanced up to see the buzzard landing at the edge of the hole. But Francis moved and the bird took wing again at once. Francis rolled over and climbed to his feet. In front of him, a square opening yawned in the earth. Stairs led downward. On one wall of the stairwell, a half buried sign Fallout Survival shelter Maximum Maximum Occupancy 15. Fallout Survival Shelter Maximum Occupancy 15. The words of the litany flashed in his mind. He'd never seen a fallout, but he'd heard the legend. He crossed himself and backed away. Tradition told the Beatus Leibowitz himself in the Flame Deluge, had encountered a fallout, had been possessed by it for many months. He stared at the sign. Surely the meaning was plain. He had broken into the place of not just one, but 15 of the dreadful beings. Brother Francis lowered himself gingerly into the ancient fallout shelter. He saw battered metal lockers leaning awry, waist deep in rubble. At the far end of the room was a metal door, hinged to swing toward him, but tightly sealed by the ancient disaster, still legible. Inflaking paint on the door were the stenciled words Inner Hatch Sealed Environment Warning. This hatch must not be sealed before all personnel have been admitted or before all steps of safety procedure prescribed BY Technical Manual 83A have been accomplished. He found himself confused by the warning, but he intended to heed it by not touching the hatch at all. He began to explore whatever might remain uncovered by debris. The ruins above ground had been worked over by generations of scavengers, but this underground ruin had been touched by no hand but the hand of personal disaster. To find a bit of the past which had escaped both the bonfires and the leading scavengers was a rare struggle these days. He prided the doers of the rusty lockers, tugged at the drawers of a battered metal desk. They might prove to be priceless finds. Documents maybe, or even a small book.
- [24:17]
The Pilgrim
There might.
- [24:21]
Brother Francis Gerard
Oh. He stopped. There was a skull lying among the rocks in a darker corner with a gold tooth in its grin. The gold incisor flickered in the half light. He picked his way across the debris for a closer look. Clearly the person had died on the spot, struck down by a torrent of stones and half buried by debris. Only the skull and the bones of one leg had not been covered. The femur was broken, the back of the skull crushed. According to the memorabilia, the founder's wife, Emily Leibowitz, had had a gold tooth.
- [25:09]
The Pilgrim
From the curse of the fault O Lord, deliver us. From the beginning of Lord conscience, O Lord, deliver us. From the curse of the.
- [25:41]
Brother Francis Gerard
O Lord, deliver us.
- [26:15]
Narrator
Sam.