{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_67455/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_67455","id":"gutenberg_67455","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67455","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy","Christian life -- Fiction","Diseases -- Fiction","Physicians -- Fiction","Priests -- Fiction","Science fiction","Short stories","Space travelers -- Fiction","Star of Bethlehem -- Fiction"],"text":"Rebuttal\n\nBy BETSY CURTIS\n\nIllustrated by GIUNTA\n\n_Immortality? Like anything else, it may be a\nmatter of definition, or just of the point of view...._\n\n\"THE STAR\" _by Arthur C. Clarke was by all odds the most\npopular story in the first issue of_ INFINITY, _and probably\none of the most popular science-fiction stories to be published\nanywhere in 1955. It was also highly controversial, and in \"Rebuttal\"\nBetsy Curtis presents the other side of the question--plus an idea that\nseems to be totally new. The result, we think you'll agree, is one of\nthe outstanding science-fictional events of 1956._\n\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\nInfinity Science Fiction, June 1956.\nExtensive research did not uncover any evidence that\nthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\n\n\nThey brought Father Phillip Burt to St. Luke's as our \"share\" of the\nresearch project on the mysterious disease which afflicted most of\nthe crew of the recently returned Phoenix Nebula expedition. News of\nthe disease, of course, was not spread beyond the research teams, as\nthe public seems to fear a plague worse than damnation itself. And it\ndidn't seem to be a very serious disease: Father Phillip was easily the\nworst case of all; and although several members of the expedition had\ndied, their deaths could be evaluated as due to secondary infections\nof common enough earth origin. Very few of the crew members were in\nactual pain; but Father Phillip was in constant agony which no amount\nof sedation seemed to calm.\n\nI ran the customary tissue cultures and biopsies, including those on\ninternal organs not customarily available. We were given an excuse\nfor getting internal samples of tissue when Father Phillip's appendix\nflamed into infection. And although I did not find a general infecting\norganism, what I did find was enough to send me trotting up to his room\non the double.\n\nI suppose I should explain here that I, Father Niccolo Molina, am head\nresearch pathologist for St. Luke's and that I don't, therefore, meet\nthe patients personally very often. But Father Phillip I had to meet.\n\nHis day nurse, Sister Mary Felicia, met me at the door in her crisp\nwhite teflon overall.\n\n\"Father is very uncomfortable today,\" she told me. \"The incision is not\nhealing at all and he keeps trying to talk and then breaking off in the\nmiddle of a sentence with the pain.\"\n\n\"Talking about anything in particular?\" I asked suspiciously.\n\n\"The merest chit-chat. The weather ... pleasantries about the\nhospital ... jokes about doctors in particular. He doesn't have a very\nhigh regard for doctors, it seems. Thinks they are notable atheists, I\ngather.\" She smiled.\n\n\"Many thanks for the diagnosis, Sister,\" I told her gravely. Then I\nadded, \"I suppose you are having to maintain a considerable quarantine\nand decontamination routine as Father's nurse?\"\n\n\"Oh yes. In this wing, you know, we are all in solitary, approaching\nno persons other than our patient and the doctors ... sometimes for as\nmuch as three months after the end of a case. It provides excellent\ntime for a retreat, which is why most of us apply for such duty.\" She\npointed to the small _prie-dieu_ in her tiny cubicle, which stood as a\nbuffer between the contagion room and the hallway of the ward.\n\n\"If I am right about the nature of Father Burt's disease,\" I told her,\n\"you will soon see the end of this case, and without any three months'\ndecontamination, either.\"\n\nShe smiled again. \"You couldn't say a happier thing,\" she said, \"even\nthough I shall probably apply for a leprosy case if I am relieved of\nthis one. I've become very concerned about Father Phillip.\"\n\n\"Good. He needs your prayers as no man probably ever needed them\nbefore. I'll see him now.\" I crossed her small room and opened the\ninner door and went in.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFather Phillip was lying flat in the narrow white bed, his arms lying\nlistlessly on either side of the slight hump of his body under the\nsheet. The big bulge halfway down was his knees over a pillow, the\nusual position for post-operative appendectomies.\n\nHe squeezed out a smile with an effort. \"Morning, doctor,\" he said.\n\n\"Father Nick,\" I smiled back. \"Father Nick Molina of Pathology, Father.\"\n\nHis wasted body jerked as if with a knife thrust. Then he said, \"Excuse\nme. I had forgotten that there were doctors who were not laymen. I'm\nsorry.\" He drew up a shoulder against his cheek in a curious gesture,\nthen shivered.\n\n\"Sorry for what?\" I asked.\n\n\"Just sorry, I guess....\" He winced and was silent.\n\n\"Sorry for me?\"\n\n\"Well, yes.\"\n\n\"That I'm not a layman?\"\n\n\"You could put it that way.\"\n\n\"That's a very interesting statement, Father, and one about which\nI want to know a good deal more after I've asked you some other\nquestions. You see, I think I know what's the matter with you, and it's\ndefinitely curable.\"\n\n\"It is not curable.\" His voice had a flat finality, and his lips drew\ninto a thin firm line.\n\n\"Let me ask you the questions anyway, Father,\" I said. He gave no other\nsign, \"Have you ever looked through a microscope?\"\n\n\"At the little beasties? Yes, in college.\"\n\n\"Well, that's what I have just finished doing with a number of slivers\nof living tissue from your body. Do you know what I saw that would\nbring me up here?\"\n\n\"I might,\" he answered warily.\n\n\"What do you think?\"\n\n\"Cancer, maybe.\"\n\n\"No, cancer cells have their own pattern of behavior which is very\npretty and, of course, no longer at all deadly. You do not have cancer;\nbut the cells of your kidneys, for instance, are doing something I've\nnever seen live kidney cells doing.\"\n\n\"And what is that?\" he said, as if he really couldn't care less.\n\n\"Nothing in particular. This is unheard of indeed. Kidney cells are\nbusy little widgets doing a tremendous job night and day. Like the\nindividual muscle fibers of the heart, they work on year after year\nwith no vacations, no coffee breaks, secure in the knowledge of their\npurpose.\"\n\n\"No pseudo-sermons, please, Father!\" Father Phillip's voice was stern.\n\"You don't have to Peter Rabbit up biology for me.\"\n\n\"A scholar indeed to have heard of Peter Rabbit,\" I laughed but he\ndid not smile. Then I asked, \"Do you want to see how real kidney\ncells--yours---are behaving? I have a projecting microscope in the\nbasement. Do you want to see what's going on?\"\n\n\"Not particularly. If you think you can cure me, go ahead and try.\"\n\n\"Are you willing to pray for your own recovery?\"\n\n\"No!\" He spat out the word with a ferocity that seemed to surprise even\nhimself.\n\n\"Then I am going to sermonize indeed. And you are going to listen, my\ndear little kidney cell.\"\n\n\"Oh, go ahead. But I warn you that I know something that will cancel it\nall in advance.\" He had developed more force of personality than he had\nshowed since I came in.\n\n\"Oh? Then suppose you tell me about that. I always do better in\nrebuttal.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd he blurted it out ... the whole story of the Phoenix Nebula\nexpedition and its discovery of the memorials of that beautiful\nrace which was destroyed utterly in the explosion of its star ...\nthe supernova which was our own Star of Bethlehem. \"So you see,\" he\nconcluded, \"we found out that ultimate dreadful secret of the cosmos,\nthat there is no plan, no purpose, no good God who watches the fall of\nthe sparrows with tender concern. To whom could I pray for my recovery?\nTo the random spin of electrons or planets? To a petty tribal totem? To\nnothing!\"\n\n\"_We_ found out? You _and_ the crew?\"\n\n\"I gave them what answers I could.\"\n\n\"They asked _you_ ... and for a fish you gave them a stone, is that it?\"\n\n\"Scold away,\" he said tonelessly. \"I would not lie to them.\"\n\n\"The poet Dante,\" I began.\n\n\"Spare me the poets,\" he said bitterly.\n\n\"The poet Dante,\" I repeated firmly, \"in his recounting of the vision\nof Paradise, came at last to the Outside. He had pressed on just as\nyou of the expedition had pressed on, ever outwards, looking for The\nPurpose. He was fortunate, of course, in not actually making his\nexpedition physically, in spite of pretending that he did so. Because\nspace seems to be too big for man to make anything of while he's in the\nflesh. Anyhow, when Dante got Outside, the whole universe did a strange\nflip-flop. If you can imagine a tennis ball really turning inside-out\nand every other atom of the universe being compacted at the center and\nthe atoms of the original ball rarefying outwards, you may have his\nRosa Mystica. At any rate, you can understand that the further out you\ngo, the more you look at the same thing no matter in which direction\nyou look ... like every direction being South from the North Pole ...\nso you might as well say that you are looking at a Center when you have\nreached the periphery and look farther out.\"\n\n\"For the purposes of analogy, I suppose?\" He was still bitter.\n\n\"For the purposes of making it clear what I want you to do. I want\nyou to turn inside-out. I want you to be God, so to speak, for a few\nminutes.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\"\n\n\"Indeed. For those minutes, at least, you have done with searching for\nHim further and further out ... where you must have thought He was\n(and He is, of course) or you'd probably have been a nuclear physicist\nor a cytologist like myself. Consider yourself, then, the deity of\nyourself, your body, of each personality-packed cell within it. Those\ncells respond more or less well to your purposes and your plans. You\nlove them all and they love you, whether or not they know it very well.\nNow think back ... how did you explain it to your baby incisor when\nit first felt the pushing of a second tooth underneath? That it was\nexpendable? That it was no longer part of your purpose?\"\n\n\"I don't suppose I felt that I was accountable to my teeth.\" Grumpily.\n\n\"But at any rate, your purposes had not changed, had they?\"\n\n\"I suppose not.\"\n\n\"Now listen closely, God. Suppose you actually told your teeth that\nyou didn't need them any more ... and your heart cells that had been\ncontracting along so bravely ... and your marrow cells that had been\nmaking blood ... and your stomach and your spleen ... you told each\nand every cell that it was probably a good enough cell but that really\nthere was no purpose in their doing anything as you yourself had no\npurpose and probably didn't exist anyway. Then what?\"\n\n\"They'd go right on working. What a man tells his cells can't affect\nthem. You know that.\" Truculently ... as if to say: _you can't fool me_.\n\n\"They would begin to quit right then and there. A man _might_ not be\nable to tell his cells much, but remember, a god can. Now let's go a\nstep further in. Let a cell be God and let its individual molecules be\nits creatures. And this God tells His creatures that it's all over ...\nno more purposes, no more action because there's no reason for it ...\nwhat then?\"\n\n\"The molecules break down?\" Facetiously.\n\n\"Exactly. And the atoms disperse and the electron shells fall away and\nwhat happens after that, I'm hardly prepared to say.\"\n\n\"Hardly.\" Amusedly now.\n\n\"Now back to man as man, not God, for the next. While you and your\neager predecessors were pushing outward to the stars, I and mine were\nexploring cells. And we found cells dying from simple lack of faith ...\nor, you might say, from an excess of faith in purposes which had been\nabandoned. 'Our God said so and so' they insisted, long after their God\nhad revised his plans to such and such.\"\n\n\"Changeable gods do not interest me.\" Boredly.\n\n\"I'm glad to hear it,\" I told him. \"That's fairly important. The\ndiscovery part of this investigation, however, is that man does act as\na god to his cells, can tell them things and know that they hear his\nstill small voice. And among other things which man has to say to his\ncells is his promise of immortality to each and every one.\"\n\n\"That's going too far, I think,\" Father Phillip objected seriously.\n\"The body dies.\"\n\n\"Man has a Precedent,\" I said quietly. \"But,\" I added, \"you have just\ntold me that it was a number of bodily deaths which destroyed your\nfaith in all pattern and purpose.\"\n\n\"Is that comparable?\"\n\n\"Not only is it comparable ... it is, you might say, one of the myriad\nidentical petals of the Mystic Rose. And it is the one I know something\nimportant about. You see, I have witnessed the immortality of the cell.\nThat's _my_ contribution to the journals, if not to the instruction of\nthe world which doesn't read them.\"\n\n\"Oh, I know ... every cell that's alive is merely a daughter cell of\none original cell, so that cell is immortal.\"\n\n\"I don't mean that at all, even though that's true. You might say that\nI mean I have seen the souls of 'dead' cells in heaven.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIncredulously: \"Through the projecting microscope in the basement?\"\n\n\"No, you don't see them with eyes or hear them with ears,\" I assured\nhim.\n\n\"I thought not.\"\n\n\"But that doesn't mean they're not there. The first time was in a\nplacenta from the garbage can. We had been culturing polio viruses in\nhuman placentas (very interesting personalities viruses are, too) and\nI'd been sent a whole placenta more than I needed. What can a mother\ntell a placenta which has been doing its work and is still in excellent\nshape, just like that civilization in the Phoenix Nebula some two and\na half millennia ago? Does she say, 'There's nothing more for you in\ntime or space; the baby is born, I abandon you to utter nothingness'?\nVery rarely. And even then she doesn't mean it. But the life does go\nout of the cells. And disperses to God, glorifying Him in no uncertain\nterms. This is what I heard and saw, with a God-given perception which\nis not in my eyes and ears.\"\n\n\"You don't mean intuition, surely,\" he objected disgustedly.\n\n\"Let me put it another way with another question. With what ears do you\nhear the music of the spheres?\"\n\n\"You are too much the poet. I don't follow you.\" He was puzzled.\n\n\"To be very prosaic, then, how do you sense the 'turnover' or change in\nenergy level of the lone electron of a hydrogen atom in interstellar\nspace?\"\n\n\"By deduction from whatever type of recording is made from a\nradiotelescope.\"\n\n\"You have no physical nerve endings to sense this directly?\"\n\n\"Of course not.\"\n\n\"But you are quite sure, nevertheless, that so gross a creature as man\nmay be aware of so slight an emission of energy?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And that what man can be aware of, God is also aware of?\"\n\n\"It follows, if God is aware at all.\"\n\n\"If there is a God, then, there wouldn't be much chance that He didn't\nknow about such gross creatures as the men of the Phoenix? Excuse\nme ... I've gone far afield. You said the radiotelescope. Well, a few\nother doctors and I have been working on an instrument to measure\ncellular action currents--in living cells, of course; and I had added\nan auxiliary component which was supposed to find out what became\nof certain suspected possible energy emissions not accounted for or\nrequired by chemical processes in the cell. Where there's smoke there's\nfire, you know ... and where there's energy there's apt to be more\nenergy. And here was a nice piece of fresh dying tissue in beautiful\ncondition.\n\n\"I put a tiny sliver into the infrascope just as a young child will\nput anything that comes his way into his mouth for analysis ... and I\nsaw the scintillations on the plate which I knew signalled the ascent\nof the souls of the cells, the binding energies ... one flash for\neach dying cell body ... calculated later ... one quantum of binding\nenergy, one soul!\"\n\n\"And so they were gone ... done ... dissipated into your\nmachine ... souls no longer.\" Father Phillip's sigh was one of\ninfinite disappointment.\n\n\"Binding energy to light ... light to mass, maybe ... and mass\nto energy again ... or is there anything but energy in the final\nanalysis? You astronomers profess to know something of this. Why is\nit, then, that when you bump head-on into life you suppose it to be\nmysteriously something else? Something capable of complete extinction,\nof contradicting the laws of the universe?\n\n\"But I digress again. I am sorry. I have not said what you are waiting\nto hear.\"\n\nFather Phillip drew in a long breath.\n\n\"In a frenzy of spirit I worked for months to refine the instrument\nand to make more precise the registering and recording, daily trying\nvarious tissues in the original machine ... getting reacquainted, too,\nwith the personalities of various types of cells in the big projecting\nmike. Today I can show you, or any interested person, the endurance of\npersonality in the energy quanta after the cell body is dead. Does\nthis make a difference?\"\n\nFather Phillip's sigh this time was a relaxation of his whole being.\n\"Somehow it does,\" he said, \"but I don't know why.\"\n\n\"You know,\" I assured him, \"that the crux of the Phoenix matter was the\nquestion of personal immortality. If the souls of the Phoenix folk are\nin the hand of God, what does it matter to you or to me where their\nbodies are? Suppose, just before the end, God told them that He would\nbless their physical passing and set it for a sign to a younger people\nthat their savior was at hand? You have no way of knowing that He did\nnot. You _do_ know that He said: 'Other sheep I have which are not\nof this flock.' And when your own body dies, you may even meet your\nbeloved folk of the Phoenix Nebula and there shall be 'one flock and\none Shepherd.'\"\n\nFather Phillip's hand reached out and I grasped it. He returned the\npressure firmly. \"Thank you, Father,\" he said gravely. \"I have been in\nmortal danger of making a mistake. You have been sent to me.\"\n\n\"As you were sent to the crew of the expedition, and have not yet\nwholly failed them. How do you feel at this moment ... in your body?\"\n\nHis look became abstracted and he seemed to be searching himself\ninternally. Then he looked back at me with a shade of a grin. \"My\nincision itches like fury,\" he said, \"and I need the bedpan.\"\n\n\"So, you are healing already? Now try to tell me a man can say nothing\nto his cells.\" I drew back the sheet and observed the drying of the\nserum at the edges of the incision.\n\n\"How soon can I get out of here?\" he asked eagerly. \"I must go to the\nother members of the crew at once!\"\n\n\"First to confession,\" I reminded him. \"And then, depending on God's\nwill, it may be weeks or even days. I cannot predict the speed of a\nmiracle.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd it was well I did not try. It was a scant ten hours later that\nthe figure of Father Phillip Burt was wheeled in a chair to a waiting\nambulance that was to take him to the first of the hospitals where\na member of the crew lay in desolate quarantine. His body was still\nfrail, but his smile was of radiant health. He waved to me.\n\n\"One flock,\" he called, and was borne away.","title":"Rebuttal","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":3356}