Free The warlock unlocked by Christopher Stasheff Page B

away. “I’ll tell His Holiness.”
    “Come on, Brother Anson.” Father Vidicon advanced on the backup transmitter, catching up his toolkit.
    “Let’s get this beast back on line!”

    “Five minutes till air!” the Monsignor’s voice rasped over the intercom. “Make it good, reverend gentlemen! Morning shows all over the world are giving us fifteen minutes—but not a second longer! And Reverend Sun’s coming right behind us, live from the U.N.!”
    Father Vidicon and Brother Anson were on their knees, hands clasped. Father Vidicon intoned, “Saint Clare, patron of television…”
    “…pray for us,” finished Brother Anson.
    “Saint Genesius, patron of showmen…”
    “One minute!” snapped the Monsignor. “Roll and record!”
    “…pray for us,” murmured Brother Anson.
    “Rolling and recording,” responded the recording engineer.
    “Saint Jude, patron of lost causes…”
    “…pray for us,” Brother Anson finished fervently.
    “Slate it!” Then, “Bars and tone!”
    They could hear the thousand-cycle test tone in the background, whining. Then it began beeping at one-second intervals.
    “Ready mike and cue, ready up on one!”
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    “Five!” called the assistant director. “Four! Three!”
    “Black! Clip tone!” the Monsignor cried. “Mike him! Cue him! Up on One!”
    Television screens all over the world lit up with the grave but faintly-smiling image of the Pope. “Dearly beloved in Christ…”
    The picture flickered.
    Father Vidicon darted a glance at the converter. Its tally light was dead. Beside it, the light glowed atop the back-up converter.
    “Quick! The big one died!” Father Vidicon yanked open the top of the long gray box and wrenched out the burned-out resistor.
    “There are a few points of theology on which we can’t agree with Reverend Sun,” His Holiness was saying. “Foremost among these is his concept of the Trinity. We just can’t agree that Reverend Sun is himself the third Person, the ‘younger son’ of God…”
    Brother Anson slapped the spare resistor into Father Vidicon’s palm.
    “…nor is the sharing of a marijuana cigarette a valid form of worship, in the Church’s eyes,” the Pope went on. “But the Council does agree that…”
    The screen went dark.
    Father Vidicon shoved the spare into its clips and threw the routing switch. The screen glowed again. “…have always been implicit in Catholic doctrine,” His Holiness was saying,
    “but the time has come to state their implications. First among these is the notion of ‘levels of reality.’
    Everything that exists is real; but God is the Source of reality, as He is the Source of everything. And the metaphor of ‘the breath of God’ for the human soul means that…”
    “Yes, it’s gone.” Father Vidicon yanked the burned-out resistor out of the back-up. “The manufacturers must think they can foist off all their defectives on the Church.” Brother Anson took the lump of char and gave him a new resistor. “That’s our last spare, Father Vidicon.”
    Father Vidicon shoved it into its clips. “What’re the odds against three of these blowing in a space of ten minutes?”
    “Gunderson’s Corollary,” Brother Anson agreed.
    Father Vidicon slapped, down the cover. “We’re up against perversity, Brother Anson.”
    The tally blinked out on the main converter as the little red light on the back-up glowed into life.
    “We’re out of spares,” Brother Anson groaned.
    “Maybe it’s just a connection!” Father Vidicon yanked open the cover. “Only four minutes left!”
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    “Is it the resistor, Father?”
    “You mean this piece of slag?”
    “…the oneness, the unity of the cosmos, has always been recognized byHoly Mother Church ,” the Pope was saying. “Christ’s parable about the ‘lilies of the