Capitol - By Orson Scott Card Page 0,80

he let himself wish that he could have saved him, could have protected him, could have let him live.

No, I'm living for him.

The hell I am. I'm living for me.

They came and put the needle into his buttocks, not for the cold sleep of death, but for the burning sleep of life. And as the hot agony of somec swept over him, he writhed into a ball on the table and cried out, "Mother! I love you!"
WHEN NO ONE REMEMBERS HIS NAME, DOES GOD RETIRE?
Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled.

This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sbrrow.

-- Isaiah 50:11

The prophet, Amblick, lay dying on a bed they had laid out on the floor of the room the government had provided rent-free for their meetings. He was more than a century old, and since the Church of the Undying Voice had only a few dozen members left, and none of them had professed to hear the Voice, it was plain that the church was also dying; that there would be no prophet to tell them the Way any longer.

Amblick knew it. The congregation knew it. There was little to say as Amblick lay on the bed, looking up at the ceiling with its hidden lights and aging acoustic tiles. His century had been long; he had heard the Voice first when he was fifteen, and had been prophet for ninety-four years. If he had been a better servant of the Voice, he knew, the church would not have shrunk to such straits. He felt guilty and ashamed, but more than that he felt tired. A relentless century in which society had been mockingly indifferent. Preach all you like, the government seemed to say, we'll even give you a meeting place, but you'll make no converts, change no lives. Speak on and publish as you will, the world of Capitol seemed to urge, we'll tolerate you, we'll smile kindly, and for amusement some of us will invite you to visit with us during a waking, but we will not repent and give up somec or give up sex or give up lifeloops or games or war or politics or the petty murders of competitive business.

"So much to be done," said Amblick, "but the ocean of sin sweeps over me, and I have done nothing."

No, murmured his followers. You have been a great man.

But one person watching did not murmur comfort. He did not understand that the dying old man might need comfort. Nor did he see or understand that the death of one man was the death of a faith. Garol Stipock was seven. And Amblick was his great-grandfather, a relation so distant that Garol had always confused references to God or the Voice with his great-grandfather, whose voice seemed to come from everywhere when he spoke and whose eyes hinted at the wisdom that knew all things, had created all things, and could, eventually, accomplish all things.

So it did not occur to Garol that Amblick needed help to go peacefully out of life; it was Garol who needed help.

"Old Father," Garol said, and Amblick and the others looked at him. "Old Father, if you die, who will tell us the words of the Voice?"

Old Father looked sad, and the adults there were embarrassed that a child should bring up the one question they were all trying to avoid. "The Voice chooses his own vessel," Amblick answered softly, his voice bubbling with the liquid in his lungs.

"But Old Father," Garol persisted, and the, adults longed for a way to silence him (but they could not, because children were pure tools of God's hand, and it was fitting, anyway, that Amblick's life should end with the hard questions, and not dodge them), "Old Father, what if the Voice chooses no one? What if no one is worthy?"

"Then," said Amblick, "No one will hear the Voice."

Garol had known this was the answer, and it was a thought too terrible for him to face. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and he said, "Old Father, can't you then give us the last words of the Voice so we'll know how to live after you're gone?"

And Amblick sighed and sank into the, pillows and wondered if the Voice had ever really existed after all. Certainly there had been no words lately, nothing but a feeling of despair and impending doom.