Authors: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fiction, #Science fiction, #General, #Fiction - Science Fiction, #Science Fiction - General, #Adventure
He almost had it then. What was it?
"So `There'll be pie in the sky by and by,' " quoted Calhoun. "You should
have been a preacher, Major Ardmore. We prefer action."
That was it! That was it!
"You're almost right," Ardmore answered. "Have you listened to Thomas'
report?"
"I listened to the play-back."
"Do you recall the one respect in which white men are still permitted to
organize?"
"Why, no, I don't recall that there was one."
"None? Nowhere that they were permitted to assemble?"
"I know!" Thomas burst in. "Churches!"
Ardmore waited a moment for it to sink in, then he said very softly, "Has
it ever occurred to any of you to think of the possibilities in founding a new
religion?"
There was a short and startled silence. Calhoun broke it.
"The man's gone mad!"
"Take it easy, Colonel," Ardmore said mildly. "I don't blame you for
thinking that I've gone crazy. It does sound crazy to talk about founding a
new religion when what we want is military action against the PanAsians. But
consider-what we need is an organization that can be trained and armed to
fight. That and a communication system which will enable us to coordinate
the whole activity. And we have to do the whole thing under the eyes of the
PanAsians without arousing their suspicions. If we were a religious sect
instead of a military organization, all that would be possible."
"It's preposterous! I'll have nothing to do with it."
"Please, Colonel. We need you badly. On that matter of a
communication system now-Imagine temples in every city in the country
hooking together with a communication system and the whole thing hooked
in here at the Citadel."
Calhoun snorted. "Yes, and the Asiatics listening in to everything you
say!"
"That's why we need you, Colonel. Couldn't you devise a system that
they couldn't trap? Something like a radio, maybe, but operating in one of the
additional spectra so that their instruments could not detect it? Or couldn't
you?"
Calhoun snorted again but with a different intonation. "Why, certainly I
could. The problem is elementary."
"That's exactly why we have to have you, Colonel-to solve problems that
are elementary to a man of your genius", Ardmore felt slightly nauseated
inside: this was worse than writing advertising copy
"but which are miracles for the rest of us. That's what a religion needsmiracles! You'll be called on to produce effects that will strain even your
genius, things that the PanAsians cannot possibly understand, and will think
supernatural." Seeing Calhoun still hesitate, he added, "You can do it, can't
you?"
"Certainly, I can, my dear Major."
"Fine. How soon can you let me have a communication method which
can't be compromised or detecte d?"
"Impossible to say, but it won't take long. I still don't see the sense to
your scheme, Major, but I will turn my attention to the research you say you
require." He got up and went out, a procession of one.
"Major?" Wilkie asked for attention.
"What? Oh, yes, Wilkie."
"I can design such a communication system for you."
"I don't doubt it a damn bit, but we are going to need all the talent we
can stir up for this job. There will be plenty for you to do, too. Now as to the
rest of the scheme, here's what I have in mind just a rough idea, and I want
you all to kick it around as much as possible until we get it as nearly foolproof
as possible.
"We'll go through all the motions of setting up an evangelical religion,
and try to get people to come to our services. Once we get 'em in where we
can talk to 'em, we can pick out the ones that can be trusted and enlist them
in the army. We'll make them deacons, or something, in the church. Our big
angle will be charity-you come in on that, Wilkie with the transmutation
process. You will turn out a lot of precious metal, gold mostly, so that we will
have ready cash to work with. We feed the poor and the hungry-the
PanAsians have provided us with plenty of those! and pretty soon we'll have
'em coming to us in droves.
"But that isn't the half of it. We really will go in for miracles in a big way.
Not only to impress the white population-that's secondary but to confuse our
lords and masters. We'll do things they can't understand, make them uneasy,
uncertain of themselves. Never anything against them, you understand. We'll
be loyal subjects of the Empire in every possible way, but we'll be able to do
things that they can't. That will upset them and make them nervous."
It was taking shape in his mind like a well-thoughtout advertising
campaign. "By the time we are ready to strike in force, we should have them
demoralized, afraid of us, half hysterical."
They were beginning to be infected with some of his enthusiasm; but the
scheme was conceived from a viewpoint more or less foreign to their habits
of thought. "Maybe this will work, Chief," objected Thomas, " I don't say that it
won't, but how do you propose to get it underway? Won't the Asiatic
administrators smell a rat in the sudden appearance of a new religion?"
"Maybe so, but I don't think it likely. All Western religions look equally
screwy to them. They know we have dozens of religions and they don't know
anything about most of them. That's one respect in which the Era of
Nonintercourse will be useful to us. They don't know much about our
institutions since the Nonintercourse Act. This will just look like any one of
half a dozen cockeyed cults of the sort that spring up overnight in Southern
California."
"But about that springing-up business, Chief-How do we start out? We
can't just walk out of the Citadel, buttonhole one of the yellow boys, and say,
Ì'm John the Baptist.' "
"No, we can't. That's a point that has to be worked out. Has anybody any
ideas?"
The silence that followed was thick with intense concentration. Finally
Graham proposed, "Why not just set up in business, and wait to be noticed?"
"How do you mean?"
"Well, we've got enough people right here to operate on a small scale. If
we had a temple somewhere, one of us could be the priest, and the others
could be disciples or something. Then just wait to be noticed. "
"H-m-m-m. You've got something there, Graham. But we'll open up on
the biggest scale we can manage. We'll all be priests and altar attendants
and so forth, and I'll send Thomas out to stir up a congregation for us among
his pals. No, wait. Let 'em come in as pilgrims. We'll start this off with a
whispering campaign among the hobos, send it over the grapevine. We'll
have 'em say, `The Disciple is coming!"'
"What does that mean?" Scheer inquired.
"Nothing, yet. But it will, when the time comes. Now look-Graham, you're
an artist. You're going to have to get dinner with your left hand for a few days.
Your right will be busy sketching out ideas for robes and altars and props in
general-sacerdotal stuff. Guess the interior and exterior of the temple will be
mostly up to you, too."
"Where will the temple be located?"
"Well, now, that's a question. It shouldn't be too far from here unless we
abandon the Citadel entirely. That doesn't seem expedient; we need it for a
base and a laboratory. But the temple can't be too close, for we can't afford to
attract special attention to this mountainside." Ardmore drummed on the
table. "It's a difficult matter."
"Why not," offered Dr. Brooks, "make this the temple?"
"Huh?"
"I don't mean this room, of course, but why not put the first temple right
on top of the Citadel? It would be very convenient."
"So it would, doctor, but it would certainly draw a lot of unhealthy
attention to-Wait a minute! I think I see what you mean." He turned to Wilkie.
"Bob, how could you use the Ledbetter effect to conceal the existence of the
Citadel, if the Mother Temple sat right on top of it? Could it be done?"
Wilkie looked more puzzled and collie -doggish than ever. "The Ledbetter
effect wouldn't do it. Do you especially want to use the Ledbetter effect?
Because if you don't it wouldn't be hard to rig a type-seven screen in the
magneto-gravitic spectrum so that electromagnetic type instruments would
be completely blanked out. You see-"
"Of course I don't care what you use! I don't even know the names of
the-stuff you laboratory boys use-all I want is the results. O. K.-you take care
of that. We'll completely design the temple here, get all the materials laid out
and ready to assemble down below, then break through to the surface and
run the thing up as fast as possible. Anyone have any idea how long that will
take? I'm afraid my own experience doesn't run to building construction."
Wilkie and Scheer engaged in a whispered consultation. Presently Wilkie
broke off and said, "Don't worry too much about that, Chief. It will be a power
job."
"What sort?"
"You've got a memorandum on your desk about the stuff. The traction
and pressure control we developed from the earlier Ledbetter experiments."
"Yes, Major," Scheer added, "you can forget it; I'll take care of the job.
With tractors and pressors in an aggravitic field, it won't take any longer than
assembling a cardboard model. Matter of fact, I'll practice on a cardboard
model before we run up the main job."
"O.K., troops," Ardmore smilingly agreed, with the lightheartedness that
comes from the prospect of plenty of hard work, "that's the way I like to hear
you talk. The powwow is adjourned for now. Get going! Thomas, come with
me."
"Just a second, Chief," Brooks added as he got up to follow him,
"couldn't we-" They went out the door, still talking.
Despite Scheer's optimism the task of building a temple on the mountain
top above the Citadel developed unexpected headaches. None of the little
band had had any real experience with large construction jobs. Ardmore,
Graham, and Thomas knew nothing at all of such things, although Thomas
had done plenty of work with his hands, some of it carpentry. Calhoun was a
mathematician and by temperament undisposed to trouble himself with such
menial pursuits in any case. Brooks was willing enough but he was a
biologist, not an engineer. Wilkie was a brilliant physicist and, along lines
related to his specialty, a competent engineer; he could design a piece of
new apparatus necessary to his work quite handily.
However, Wilkie had built no bridges, designed no dams, bossed no
gangs of sweating men. Nevertheless the job devolved on him by Hobson's
choice. Scheer was not competent to build a large building; he thought that
he was, but he thought in terms of small things, tools, patterns, and other
items that fitted into a machine shop. He could build a scale model of a large
building, but he simply did not understand heavy construction.
It was up to Wilkie.
He showed up in Ardmore's office a few days later with a roll of drawings
under his arm. "Uh, Chief?"
"Eh? Oh, come in, Bob. Sit down. What's eating on you? When do we
start building the temple? See here-I've been thinking about other ways to
conceal the fact that the Citadel will be under the temple. Do you suppose
you could arrange the altar so that-"
"Excuse me, Chief."
"Eh?
"We can incorporate most any dodge you want into the design, but I've
got to know something more about the design first."
"That's your problem-yours and Graham's."
"Yes, sir. But how big do you want it to be?"
"How big? Oh, I don't know, exactly. It has to be big." Ardmore made a
sweeping motion with both hands that took in floor, walls, and ceiling. "It has
to be impressive."
"How about thirty feet in the largest dimension?"
"Thirty feet? Why, that's ridiculous! You aren't building a soft-drinks
stand; you're building the mother temple of a great religion-of course you
aren't, but you've got to think of it that way. It's got to knock their eyes out.
What's the trouble? Materials?"
Wilkie shook his head. "No, with Ledbetter-type transmutation materials
are not a problem. We can use the mountain itself for materials."
"That's what I thought you intended to do. Carve out big chunks of
granite and use your tractor and pressor beams to lay them up like giant
bricks."
"Oh, no!
"No? Why not?"
"Well, we could, but when we got through it wouldn't look like much-and I
don't know how we would roof it over. What I intended to do was to use the
Ledbetter effect not just for cutting or quarrying, but to make-transmute-the
materials I want. You see, granite is principally oxides of silicon. That
complicates things a little because both elements are fairly near the lower
end of the periodic table. Unless we go to a lot of trouble and get rid of a lot
of excess energy-a tremendous amount; darn near as much as the Memphis
power pile develops-as I say, unless we arrange to bleed off all that power,
and right now I don't see just how we could do it, then-"
"Get to the point, man!"
"I was getting to the point, sir," Wilkie answered in hurt tones.