- Taddeo discusses an experiment with Brother Kornhoer, mentioning the brother's gifts for conceiving of practical applications for his abstract theories.
- He then offers Kornhoer an opportunity to work with him at the collegium.
- Kornhoer is flattered, but he decides he's once a religious dude, and always a religious dude.
- Taddeo mentions the collegium paying a stipend of a hundred gold hannegans… which is completely the wrong thing to say, given the current political climate.
- Dom Paulo heads into the guesthouse, where a near-dead Brother Claret is having his wounds tended.
- Claret, it turns out, smuggled a letter out of New Rome.
- The letter is a proclamation by Hannegan calling the Pope a heretic. You know, because this guy collects enemies like Pokemon (gotta catch 'em all).
- In the basement, Taddeo argues with Father Gault and others over the book of Genesis.
- Gault says many of the monks "'feel that Genesis is more or less allegorical'" (22.57).
- But Taddeo has uncovered a document that suggests a pre-Deluge race might have created Man itself. He speculates that maybe the Simplification was a rebellion by Man against this master race. (Someone's an Assassin's Creed fan.)
- Dom Paulo has had enough. He demands to see this amazing reference, only to find that Taddeo didn't read the document closely enough.
- He had merely discovered a fragment of a play.
- Bahaha.
- Trivia Snack: the play is a reference to Karel Čapek's R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots). R.U.R. is the story of a future society that creates robots to do labor, but the robots eventually rebel, causing the extinction of humanity.
- It's a classic.
- Anywho, Taddeo argues that his remarks were only conjecture, and that people must be allowed to speculate.
- Dom Paulo agrees, but believes "'to abuse the intellect for reasons of pride, vanity, or escape from responsibility'" is a problem (22.100).
- Yikes. What's he trying to say, huh?
- Dom Paulo asks why Taddeo wants to "dehumanize[e] the last civilization," but Taddeo yells that the Memorabilia should be in competent hands (22.102).
- Wow. Open mouth; insert foot.
- And with that, the arc lamp is put out, and Brother Kornhoer returns with the crucifix for Dom Paulo to put in its place.
- When he descends the ladder, he tells Taddeo to give a message to the collegium. Anyone who wishes to study at the abbey may do so.
- Later, a knock comes on the abbot's study door. It's Thon Taddeo. He has taken the sketches of the abbey's fortifications and is giving them to Dom Paulo.
- They shake hands, but Dom Paulo "[knows] that it was no token of any truce but only of mutual respect between foes" (22.148).
- That same year, the states of Denver and Texarkana make and break a deal.
- The old hermit resumes his wanderings, and the Leibowitz Abbey buries their abbot.