Free Dirge by Alan Dean Foster Page B

comprehended not a single wave of fingers or hands complicated Shanvordesep’s response. Trying to communicate without gestures was akin to speaking with only half the words at one’s command. Nevertheless, he tried.
    “I assure you,” she replied, smiling, “that I am fully fed. All of my psychological needs are well taken care of.”
    “Then you have completely recovered from and are entirely over the unfortunate deaths of your husband and daughter,” Pyreau said.
    Jaws slightly parted, Lorengau turned to stare sharply and unblinkingly at the unrepentant priest. When next she spoke, her tone was icy and dangerous.
    “How dare you. How
dare
you mention that in my presence.”
    This time Pyreau was not intimidated. “One who stands every day naked before God can dare anything.” Simultaneously relentless and compassionate, he continued. “The accident was eleven years ago. One of your company planes was returning to Gauteng from Harare. To this day no one is sure why it went down into the Zambezi. Everyone on board was killed.”
    “I know what happened.” Slumping slowly back in the great leather chair, Lorengau suddenly seemed in danger of being swallowed by it, of becoming even thinner, until she disappeared into one of the supple ebony tucks. “I wasn’t much of a believer before that. Afterward…” Her gaze rose. “I’m curious. What sort of colossal personal arrogance makes you think your proposed denomination has anything to offer someone like me?”
    “We can’t say for certain that it would,” Pyreau replied without hesitation. “We can be certain that nothing else does. Who knows what revelations may manifest themselves in the commingling of the beliefs of two entirely different species? Different ways of thinking, of looking at the universe, of both approaching and answering abstruse questions.”
    “There will be no restrictions, no constricting internal laws requiring adherence to unprovable dogmas,” Shanvordesep added. “It will be open to all. Not only humans and thranx, but members of any other species who wish to join. It will remain resolutely apolitical, a noted concern of your kind, and as equally accommodating of traditional thranx hierarchical concerns, an interest of my people.”
    There was silence in the room. “What do you hope to achieve with this?” Lorengau finally asked. “Power, wealth? Inner peace? Acclamation within your own vocations?”
    Pyreau looked over at his companion and saw Shanvordesep gesture encouragingly. “We don’t know. That is, we’re not sure. A place where individuals who are in need but who feel unsatisfied by other ideologies can come for succor and assistance. A refuge capable of offering more than words. We know that regardless of the beliefs it propounds, every church is ultimately accountable to a secular bottom line.” He indicated his companion. “Shanvordesep has experience in such matters, far more so than I.”
    Lorengau pursed her lips. “So not only am I being asked to support this dubious, unfocused enterprise, I am also supposed to turn over control of a large sum of credit to an alien. Not even a Pitar, at that.”
    “It is a wonderful thing about mathematics that it responds with equanimity to skilled manipulation regardless of shape.” The thranx calmly ignored the slight.
    If the industrialist was testing him, he evidently passed. “This is a waste of time and money. In that my opinion obviously does not differ from that of everyone else you have contacted in search of support. However…”
    If a divine blessing could be accounted in one word, Father Pyreau thought, the woman seated grandly before them had just intoned it.
    “I have no time to waste—but I do have a lot of money. As you are aware, after the accident I never remarried. Mwithi was the finest man I ever met, and the only one who never expressed the slightest interest in my money. I’ve been looking for someone like him ever since. So far I have been