A Case of Conscience is a science fiction novel by James Blish, first published in 1958. It is the story of a Jesuit who investigates an alien race that has no religion; they are completely without any concept of God, an afterlife, or the idea of sin; and the species evolves through several forms through the course of its life cycle. The story was originally published as a novella in 1953, and later extended to novel-length, of which the first part is the original novella. The novel is the first part of Blish's thematic "After Such Knowledge" trilogy, followed by Black Easter/The Day After Judgment and Dr Mirabilis.The story is unusual in several respects. Few science fiction stories of the time attempted religious themes, and still fewer did this with Catholicism. Some of the first part is taken up with the Jesuit's attempt to solve a puzzle, a long description of scandalous intrigue between various pseudonymous characters. As he is about to leave for Earth, he realizes the puzzle is soluble. The puzzle is contained within the pages of Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce.Many reacted negatively to the story, but surprisingly few educated Catholics were among them. One even sent James Blish a copy of the actual Church guidelines for dealing with extraterrestrials. These are not detailed, but merely suggest overall strategy based on whether the beings have souls or not, and if they have them, whether they are fallen like humans, or exist in a state of grace.Won Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1959.
I schal declare the disposcioun of rome fro hys first making… and the seconde part schal
declar ye holynesse of ye same place fro his first crystendom; I schal not write but that i fynde in auctores or ellis that I sey with eye.
to LARRY SHAW
For any reader who cares, the Lithian words and names he will encounter here and there in this story are to be pronounced as follows:
Xoredeshch: "X" as English "K" or Greek chi, hard; "shch" contains two separate sounds, as in Russian, or in English "fish-church."
Sfath: As in English, with a broad "a."
Gton: Guttural "G," against the hard palate, like hawking.
Chtexa: Like German "Stuka," but with the flat "e."
gchteht: Guttural "g" followed by the soft "sh" sound, a flat "e," and the "h" serving as equivalent of the Old Russian mute sign; thus, a four-syllable word, with a palatal tick at the end, but sounded as one syllable.
Gleshchtehk: As indicated, with the guttural "G," the "fish-church" middle consonants, and the mute "h" throwing the "k" back against the soft palate.
THE RULE is that "ch" is always English "sh" in the initial position, always English "ch" as in "chip" elsewhere in the word; and "h" in isolation is an accented rest which always precedes, never follows, a consonant. As Agronski somewhere remarks, anybody who can spit can speak Lithian.
The stone door slammed. It was Cleaver's trade-mark: there had never been a door too heavy, complex, or cleverly tracked to prevent him from closing it with a sound like a clap of doom. And no planet in the universe could possess an air sufficiently thick and curtained with damp to muffle that sound — not even Lithia.
Father Ramon Ruiz-Sanchez, late of Peru , and always Clerk Regular of the Society of Jesus, professed father of the four vows, continued to read. It would take Paul Cleaver's impatient fingers quite a while to free him from his jungle suit, and in the meantime the problem remained. It was a century-old problem, first propounded in 1939, but the Church had never cracked it And it was diabolically complex (that adverb was official, precisely chosen, and intended to be taken literally.) Even the novel which had proposed the case was on the Index Expurgatorius, and Father Ruiz-Sanchez had spiritual access to it only by virtue of his Order.
He turned the page, scarcely hearing the stamping and muttering in the hall. On and on the text ran, becoming more tangled, more evil, more insoluble with every word:
"…Magravius threatens to have Anita molested by Sulla, an orthodox savage (and leader of a band of twelve mercenaries, the Sullivani,) who desires to procure Felicia for Gregorius, Leo Vitellius and Macdugalius, four excavators, if she will not yield to him and also deceive Honuphrius by rendering conjugal duty when demanded. Anita who claims to have discovered incestuous temptations from Jeremias and Eugenius- There now, he was lost again. Jeremias and Eugenius were-? Oh, yes, the "philadelphians" or, brotherly lovers (another crime hidden there, no doubt) at the beginning of the case, consanguineous to the lowest degree with both Felicia and Honuphrius-the latter the apparent prime villain and husband of Anita. It was Magravius, who seemed to admire Honuphrius, who had been urged by the slave Mauritius to solicit Anita, seemingly under the aegis of Honuphrius himself. This, however, had come to Anita through her tirewoman Fortissa, who was or at one time had been the common-law wife of Mauritius and had borne him children-so that the whole story had to be weighed with the utmost caution. And that entire initial confession of Honuphrius had come out under torture-voluntarily consented to, to be sure, but still torture. The Fortissa-Mauritius relationship was even more dubious, really only a supposition of the commentator Father Ware -
"Ramon, give me a hand, will you?" Cleaver shouted suddenly. "I'm stuck, and-and I don't feel well."
The Jesuit biologist arose in alarm, putting the novel aside. Such an admission from Cleaver was unprecedented.
The physicist was sitting on a pouf of woven rushes, stuffed with a sphagnumlike moss, which was bulging at the equator under his weight. He was half-way out of his glass-fiber jungle suit, and his face was white and beaded with sweat, although his helmet was already off. His uncertain, stubby fingers tore at a jammed zipper.
"Paul! Why didn't you say you were ill in the first place? Here, let go of that; you're only making things worse. What happened?"
