Dark Benediction by Walter M. Miller

(New York: Gollancz, 2015-08-13), 496

An alien parasite that enhances its victims has come to Earth. Society is in disarray, as dermie's try to infect nonhypers. Paul rescues a dermie from extermination and escapes with her to an island of dermies to get her medical attention, where he learns about the disease and plans his escape.

"What's the good o' being healthy if yer alone?"
"Civilization wasn't truly wrecked; it had simply been discarded during the crazed flight of the individual away from the herd. Industry lay idle and unmanned, but still intact. Man was fleeing from Man. Fear had destroyed the integration of his society, and had left him powerless before any hypothetical invaders."
"Life, above all else, was an avoidance of other human beings. For no dermie had the grace to cry "unclean!" to the unsuspecting."
Paul Harris Oberlin
"He chided himself again for worrying about her. Saving her life didn't make him responsible for her...did it? After all, it she lived, and the leg healed, she would only prowl in search of healthy victims again."
"Paul fought down a crazy urge to pick her up and carry her; plague be damned. But he had already left himself dangerously open to contagion. Still, he felt the drumming charges of conscience...depart from me, ye accursed, for was sick and you visited me not..." (cf. Mt-25)
"I won't infect you, a l though I don't understand why you nonhypers fight so hard. You're bound to catch it sooner or later. And the world can't get back to normal until everybody has it."
"The priest straightened his shoulders. His eyes went chilly. "I have taken certain vows, young man. Sometimes when I see a beautiful woman, I feel desire. When I see a man eating a thick steak on a fast-day, I feel envy and hunger. When I see a doctor earning large fees,I chafe under the vow of poverty. But by denying desire's demands, one learns to make desire useful in other ways. Sublimation, some call it. A priest can use it and do more useful work thereby. I am a priest."
"But strange it was the most peaceful, the sanest place he'd seen in months. The religious orders simply accepted the plague—with masochistic complacency perhaps—but calmly. A cross, or a penance, or something. But no, they seemed to accept it almost gladly."
"But if people would just want to understand events for the understanding's sake, we wouldn't be in such a pickle."
"They've left their last mark—a dark and uncertain benediction to the cosmos."
"If Man has the capacity to work together, then the parasites will help him shape his environment. If Man intends to keep fighting with his fellows, the parasite will help him do a better job of that, too."

Topic: Short Stories

Source

Marc L'Heureux

Created: 2024-07-24-Wed
Updated: 2024-08-06-Tue