A Case of Conscience

A Case of Conscience by James Blish is the story of a Jesuit investigating an alien race without religion. They have no concept of god, afterlife or sin. The species evolves thru several forms thru its life cycle. Originally published as a novella in '53, it was expanded to a novel in '58, of which the first part is the novella. The novel is the first part of his thematic "After Such Knowledge" trilogy, followed by Black Easter-The Day After Judgment & Dr Mirabilis. Few sf stories of the time attempted religious themes. Fewer did this with Catholicism. Many reacted negatively to the story, but few educated Catholics were among them. One even sent Blish a copy of the actual guidelines for dealing with extra-terrestrials. These are not detailed, but merely suggest overall strategy based on whether the beings have souls, &, if they have them, whether they are fallen like humans or are in a state of grace. Father Ramon Ruiz-Sanchez, Clerk Regular of the Society of Jesus, is a member of a four-scientist team sent to the planet Lithia to determine if the it can be opened to contact. Ruiz-Sanchez is a biologist, biochemist, doctor & fair cook. As a Jesuit, he has other concerns as well. The planet is inhabited by a race of intelligent bipedal reptilians, the Lithians. Ruiz-Sanchez has learned their language, the better to know them. As the story begins, he is alone in the house given them by the Lithians. Two of the others are on a field trip. The remaining scientist, the physicist Cleaver, is returning from a walking survey. Despite a protective suit, he has managed to pick up some poison from a local plant & is in bad shape. Ruiz-Sanchez treats him, gets him sleeping & leaves the house to send a message to Michelis, a chemist, & Agronski, a geologist. To do this he travels to a tree atop a huge underground quartz crystal. Despite having no knowledge of electric current, Lithians are masters of static electricity & use the crystal as a communicator. He is helped by Chtexa, a befriended Lithian, who then invites him to his house. This is a big opportunity for Ruiz-Sanchez. No member of the team has been invited into their living places before. The Lithians seem to have an ideal society, a Utopia without crime, conflict, ignorance or want. Ruiz-Sanchez is in awe of them. While Ruiz-Sanchez is absent, Michelis & Agronski find Cleaver asleep with a fever. They give him more medicine, a mistake endangering his life. Ruiz-Sanchez returns distressed, but puts his concerns aside to stabilize Cleaver. Then they compare notes. Soon they will have to officially pronounce a verdict. Michelis is sympathetic to the Lithians. He also has learned their language & customs. Agronski is more insular in his outlook, but sees no reason to think them dangerous. Hours pass. Cleaver revives. He asserts he's ready to vote. He has found enough of the element lithium, comparatively rare on terrestrial planets, to turn the place into a tritium factory to supply nuclear weapons. He wants the place exploited, regardless of the Lithians' wishes. Michelis is for open trade. Agronski is indifferent. Ruiz-Sanchez drops a bombshell. He wants maximum quarantine. The things Chtexa revealed to him, added to what he already knew, convinces him that Lithia is nothing less than the work of Satan, a place deliberately constructed to show peace, logic & understanding in the absence of deity. Chtexa has shown him how the Lithians raise young, beginning with eggs hatching in pouches allowed to swim away in the sea, returning as lungfish, then developing through amphibious stages until matured as warm-blooded reptiles. This is ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny, the theory put forward by a real scientist, Ernst Haeckel. Point for point, Ruiz-Sanchez lists facts about Lithia contrary to Catholic teaching. Michelis, mystified, points out that all Lithian science he has learned is perfectly logical but rests on highly questionable assumptions. It's as if it came from nowhere. The team can come to no agreement. Ruiz-Sanchez concludes that Cleaver will probably get his way & Lithian society will be wiped out. Despite his conclusions about the planet, he has deep affection for Lithians themselves. As the team board ship to leave, Chtexa gives Ruiz-Sanchez an egg in a sealed jar. It is his son. He is to be raised to learn the ways of humans. Ruiz-Sanchez handles it like a bomb. The egg hatches & produces the individual Egtverchi. Like all Lithians, he inherits knowledge from Chtexa thru his DNA. Earth society is based around 20th century nuclear shelters, most people living underground. Egtverchi is the firecracker in an anthill. He upends society, precipitating violence. Ruiz-Sanchez must go to Rome for judgment. His conviction about Lithia is Manichaean heresy, since he now believes Satan can create planets. He has an audience with the Pope to explain his beliefs. The Pope, a logical & technically aware Norwegian ruling as Hadrian VIII, points out two things Ruiz-Sanchez missed. First, Lithia could have been a deception, not a creation. Second, Ruiz-Sanchez had the power to do something about it: perform exorcism. Of course, exorcising a planet is not the first thing that comes to mind, especially if you're standing on it. He dismisses Ruiz-Sanchez to purge his own soul & return when he can. A violent mass riot breaks out, fomented by Egtverchi & made possible by the psychosis present in many of the citizens as a result of living in the 'shelter state' (earlier reference to corridor riots indicates this is not the first time violence has burst out in the buried cities). During the riot, Agronski dies as a result of being stung by genetically modified honeybees. Ruiz-Sanchez administers extreme unction despite his almost faithless state. Egtverchi stows away on a ship to Lithia. Michelis & Ruiz-Sanchez go to the Moon where a new telescope has been set up. This scope is used in conjunction with a form of the Haertel overdrive to see Lithia in real-time, bypassing the delay caused by the speed of light. Cleaver is on Lithia setting up his reactors, but the physicist who invented the telescope believes he's found a fault in his reasoning. There's a chance the work will set off a chain reaction in the planet & destroy it. As they watch on the screen, Ruiz-Sanchez pronounces an exorcism. The planet explodes, taking Cleaver, Egtverchi, but also Chtexa & all the things Ruiz-Sanchez admired with it. The others leave him alone grieving. It is left to the reader to decide if the explosion of the planet is a result of the exorcism purging the planet of the evil it contains or the result of faulty scientific reasoning.