n the year 2049, on the biologically inimical alien world known as Lithia, a visiting
investigative commission of four humans lives temporarily among the natives,
12-foot-tall intelligent lizardoids derisively called "Snakes." The humans
consist of Father Ramon Ruiz-Sanchez, a Jesuit priest who is also an expert
biologist; Cleaver, their physicist; Agronski, their geologist; and Michelis,
their chemist. All are equals, without any nominal leader. Their main native
contact is named Chtexa.
As the novel opens, the humans are about to correlate their professional
findings, just short of departure for Earth, and take a vote on the fate of
Lithia, the first world ever encountered that hosts an intelligent species.
Should Lithia become an equal partner with Earth, be exploited in secrecy by
the world government, or be quarantined forever? Each judge states his case.
Michelis is for an equal partnership, while
Cleaver wants restricted exploitation--actually, the conversion of Lithia to a global
bomb factory for the benefit of humanity. Agronski straddles the fence. But then
the priest drops his bombshell: Lithia, he has determined, is literally a construct
of Satan, a metaphysical trap to damn every human soul. Every living Lithian is a
limb of the devil. Naturally, the other three men, all rationalists, are disbelieving.
The meeting adjourns without any firm joint decision.
Upon departure, Father Ruiz-Sanchez is approached by Chtexa, who offers a gift:
a ceremonial vase containing a living Lithian embryo. With grim trust in the
powers of God to protect him and his race, the priest accepts the Trojan horse
gift, and the satanic embryo embarks with them for Earth.
Once back home, Michelis and Liu Meid,
Ruiz-Sanchez's beautiful young female assistant, oversee
the birth of the exiled Lithian, a male named Egtverchi, thus becoming his human
"parents." The priest, meanwhile, must journey to Rome to face an inquisition
for his heretical interpretation of Lithia. Meanwhile, Egtverchi quickly grows
to adulthood and, as a figure of intense media interest, begins to wreak havoc
with Earth's unstable, war-obsessed "Shelter" society.
The snake gets all the good lines
Book One of Blish's Hugo-winning novel appeared as a novella in If
magazine some years prior to autonomous publication in tandem with Book Two.
Somehow, it is this first half of the book that always sticks in the mind years
after reading. The portrayal of Ruiz-Sanchez--who, amusingly, like Blish himself,
is a fan of James Joyce--is deep and affecting. His moral and spiritual quandary--to
betray the Lithians, who are outwardly admirable and actually embody Edenic virtues,
but only as a lure for their devilish hook of pure rationalism --is examined with
sensitivity. And the nonhuman culture and technology of the Lithians is fascinatingly
detailed. A memorable SF scenario, mostly unprecedented at the time.
Book Two is the ignored satiric counterweight to this C.S. Lewis-style meditation.
Much like Alfred Bester's contemporaneous classic novels, this portion of A Case of
Conscience is very much a product of the intellectual, engaged, New York scene,
rather like a Mort Sahl riff. Comparisons to Gore Vidal's Visit to a Small
Planet and Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land (with Egtverchi a
scaly Michael Valentine Smith) are not out of line. And surely, just as Bester
echoed down to the cyberpunk era and beyond, so younger writers such as Samuel R. Delany
owe a debt to Blish for such scenes as the decadent party at which Egtverchia first
shows his true colors.
But this fine book's twin defects (aside perhaps from the outmoded
atomic-war-paranoia motif, which can still be appreciated on a historical basis,
however)
are the static nature of the first part, and the overall coolness of affect.
Half the book covers only a few hours, during which not much happens except
for an excessive amount of talking; intriguing as the conversation might be,
it's a stretch. And Blish's own rational approach to life and art imparts
to the book a glacial chill, even during scenes of carnage. All in all, though,
this minor masterpiece still delivers its punch nearly 50 years after
creation by SF's own clever demiurge.
