Night Sessions, The Read Online Free Page A

“Compromises, compromises, compromises! With the secular state, with the Papists, with the enthusiasts and Congregationalists and modernists and dispensationalists, and with”—here his voice took on a particular vehemence—“the sectarians . There is only one congregation left of the one true covenanted reformed Church of Scotland, and that is us. We have no ordained minister, no student for the ministry, no synod or assembly. We have only our members, our adherents, and this Kirk Session. We are the remnant.”
    One by one, the men shook hands with Campbell again, and then left, trekking out of the quarry in different directions. Graham Orr disappeared into the scrub as suddenly as he'd arrived, without another word. Campbell was left alone in the middle of the quarry under the now noonday sun, with a head full of questions unanswered and unasked. The sun had moved the wrong way in the sky. His brain felt like it was running too many applications at once. He found himself wondering if the robots ever felt the same. It was something he should know. He knew more self-aware humanoid robots, more intimately, than anyone else in the world. Perhaps some veteran systems engineers at Sony knew more about such robots than he did, but Campbell was fairly sure that no one else knew so many robots personally. It had been a surprise that they could still surprise him.
    The elders of the Free Congregation had surprised him too. He'd expected, at a minimum, an invitation to lunch at someone's house. He'd looked forward, on the flight across, to attending the Congregation's church services and prayer meetings. He had been isolated too long from the fellowship of other believers. But after welcoming him to their brotherhood and assuring him that they looked forward to a long and fruitful association, and to seeing and hearing his discourses relayed from the eyes of robots in Waimangu to a television screen in front of the congregation, the elders had shown an almost indecent haste to depart. They'd warned him against contacting them, urged him to make good use of the week he had in Edinburgh before his return flight by visiting the many historic Reformation and Covenanting sites in the city and its environs, wished him all the blessings and a safe return home—and said goodbye.
    It all seemed very strange, and not a little disquieting. But, Campbell reminded himself as he trudged across the floor of the quarry, dreading the climb back to the top, they'd already been more than generous with their hospitality. They'd paid his return fare and his hotel bill. And, more significantly, they had good reason not to see him again: they'd already satisfied themselves on his spiritual soundness—for which he was grateful, having often doubted it himself—and in this land, unlike his own, real and even nominal Christians lived under the shadow of an official disapproval that amounted, almost, to persecution.
    Well, he decided as he began the slow and perilous upward scramble, he would indeed make good use of his time. He would spend his week in Edinburgh seeing what life was really like in a state that had been through the Great Rejection.
    Campbell walked along George IV Bridge as far as the side of the National Museum, turned around and walked back as far as the National Library, turned again through the crowd on the pavement and walked back and hesitated for the third time at the steps of the club. The building's spire and arched doorway were the only remaining evidence that it had ever been a church. The front was plastered with posters for Festival and Fringe shows, sample loops flickering, tinny laughter and applause clashing; and with a big static advertisement for this evening's gig. He walked past the building again, then doubled back, pushing through the throng. He was going in. He had to see for himself. It was a duty. He had often condemned depravity, but he'd never seen it close up. Far from home, he now had a chance to do so