Do you have that recorder on? Now most of this is what he said, but some of it’s me bouncing off him. It’s so important. You just listen and you can tell.
There you are child. O your mind is so clean so new, may you never grow old and crowded. This is fun, I hope it doesn’t give me a goddamn stroke; I’ve been inside woman’s body Carol’s, but never a little girl, so strange to feel the bones wanting to grow. You were little once too it’s not so much fun when you’re caught I know child in it, nothing ever fits once you get used to it I know I had a daughter why didn’t you ever bridge her then. Well it seemed like a sexual thing and I guess it is but I don’t really know what you’re talking about but I don’t feel shame, just that glow-say don’t call me Jacque I’m as old as a goddamn planet call me Pop or Grandpop or I didn’t call you Jacque or anything even, hey, you can’t lie in bridge-there you did it again I DIDN’T CALL YOU NOTHING Jacque. No? . . . . . . I’m just a senile old fool Jacque I know that sound anywhere you have a special voice in bridge O shit it’s sad to Jacque get so old you start Jacque kidding yourself Grandpop I hear it too don’t humor me child angel bitch Jacque Jacque O God could they be right
Now I know that I’m just a little child and he was just an old man so nobody’s gonna believe either of us. But I was there and I’ll swear on anything you want that the voice was there, a woman’s voice, soft, and if he said it was my great-grandmother then it was. Now I know you said that nobody else ever heard nothing like that but I don’t care, I heard it, and if you don’t want to believe me you can just go do yourself. Mom will believe me.
53 – For They Shall Be Called the Children of God
In 2281 there was founded a planet (and splinter sect of Catholicism) named Nuovo Vaticano. They wanted to start their hagiographic calendar over clean: keeping such old saints as still had appeal, naming new ones as they saw fit.
The planet had to have a patron saint, and of course they didn’t want it to be one of the old ones. Someone suggested Jacque Lefavre. All anybody knew was that he’d done good works in connection with the New Saviors, and that on his deathbed he’d offered some highly disputed proof of an afterlife.
Their small, practical library didn’t have a copy of peacemaker, so they had one sent on the next jump.
After reading the book thoroughly they decided Lefavre would be a bad example for their children.