“Ah.” Father Sandoval had already heard of this from Marjorie and he now saw where Mainoa was leading.
“The hounds, some say, are thinking beings. Certainly they are capable of some thought. I believe they are self-aware. Whether they are or not, they undergo a further metamorphosis and become something else….”
“Mounts.” Marjorie nodded. “I have seen them.”
“Of course. And as Lady Westriding knows in her heart, as we all know in our hearts, the Hippae are thinking beings. You and I have discussed this before, have we not? So, when foxen eat the peepers, they are killing the young of a thinking race.”
“But if they know this, why—“
“What else can they eat? The mounts? The Hippae themselves? There are a few other creatures, all of them too fleet or too small to be of any use. The grazers are too huge. No, the foxen eat the peepers because they are available and abundant. There are many more peepers than the world could hold if all of them went through metamorphosis, and history upon Terra tells us what horrors follow upon religious mandates of unlimited reproduction. That is not the point, however. The point is that foxen eat and relish peepers, but let us suppose that in recent years, since being exposed to the thoughts of man, the foxen have acquired pudency. They have learned to feel guilt.”
“They had no guilt until man came?”
“Let us suppose not. Let us suppose that they had reason, but no sense of shame. They have acquired it from men.”
“They must have acquired it from the commoners, then,” said Tony. “I’ve seen little enough among the bons.”
Brother Mainoa laughed. “From the commoners. Surely. Let us say they have learned it from the commoners.”
“Those of our faith,” said Marjorie with a frown, “seem to agree that the original sin of humankind was ah … an amatory one.”
“And the foxen, who have learned of this doctrine from someone, heaven knows who, wonder if it is not as valid to have one that was and is gustatory. Let us suppose they have come to me with this matter. ‘Brother Mainoa,’ they have said, ‘we wish to know if we are guilty of original sin.’
“Well, I have told them I do not understand the doctrine of original sin, that it is not a doctrine Sanctity has ever concerned itself about. ‘I know someone who knows, however.’ I have told them. ‘Father Sandoval, being an Old Catholic, should know all about it,’ and so they want to discuss the matter.”
“Discuss the matter?”
“Well, in a manner of speaking. Let us postulate that they have found some way to communicate.”
Father Sandoval’s brow creased and he sat back in his chair, fingertips of his hands pressed together to make a cage, staring at it for a time as though it held his thoughts captive. “I would tell them,” he said after a considerable pause, “that their sense of guilt does not arise from original sin at all. It is not their first parents who have committed the sin,ifit is a sin, but they themselves.”
“Does this make a difference?”
“Oh, yes. A sin that they themselves have committed, if it is a sin, can be remedied by their own penitence and forgiven by God. If they are penitent. If they believe in God.”
If God believes in them, amended Marjorie, silently. If God did not know the names of his human viruses, would he care about foxen?
Brother Mainoa shifted the utensils before him, frowning in concentration. “But suppose it had been a sin of their.. .their ancestors.”
“It is not simply a matter of who committed the sin, whether the creatures themselves or their ancestors or their associates with or without their connivance or acquiescence. We would have to ask how God sees it. In order to have been the equivalent of original sin, then it would be necessary to determine whether the foxen had ever existed in a state of divine grace. Was there a time when they were sinless? Did they fall from grace as our religion teaches us that our first parents fell?”
Brother Mainoa nodded. “Let us suppose they did not. Let us suppose things have always been this way, so far back as anyone can remember.”