If This Goes On Part 11

I was at my desk, trying to cope with the usual spate of papers, when I received a call to see Zeb's boss at my earliest convenience. Since he already had his orders, I left word with Huxley's orderly and hurried over.

He cut short the formalities. 'Major, I have a letter for you which Communications sent over for a.n.a.lysis to determine whether it should be rephrased or simply destroyed. However, on the urgent recommendation of one of my division heads I am taking the responsibility of letting you read it without paraphrasing. You will have to read it here.'

I said, 'Yes, sir,' feeling quite puzzled.

He handed it to me. It was fairly long and I suppose it could have held half a dozen coded messages, even idea codes that could come through paraphrasing. I don't remember much of it-just the impact it had on me. It was from Judith.

'My dear John . . . I shall always think of you fondly and I shall never forget what you have done for me.. . never meant for each other . . . Mr. Mendoza has been most considerate. I know you will forgive me.. . he needs me; it must have been fate that brought us together . . . if you ever visit Mexico City, you must think of our home as yours . . . I will always think of you as my strong and wise older brother and I will always be a sister-' There was more, lots more, all of the same sort-I think the process is known as 'breaking it gently'.

Novak reached out and took the letter from me. 'I didn't intend for you to have time to memorize it,' he said dryly, then dropped it at once into his desk incinerator. He glanced back at me. 'Maybe you had better sit down, Major. Do you smoke?'

I did not sit down, but I was spinning so fast that I accepted the cigarette and let him light it for me. Then I choked on tobacco smoke and the sheer physical discomfort helped to bring me back to reality. I thanked him and got out-went straight to my room, called my office and left word where I could be found if the General really wanted me. But I told my secretary that I was suddenly quite ill and not to disturb me if it could possibly be helped.

I may have been there about an hour-I wouldn't know-lying face down and doing nothing, not even thinking. There came a gentle tap at the door, then it was pushed open; it was Zeb. 'How do you feel?' he said.

'Numb,' I answered. It did not occur to me to wonder how he knew and at the time I had forgotten the 'division head' who had prevailed upon Novak to let me see it in the clear.

He came on in, sprawled in a chair, and looked at me. I rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed. 'Don't let it throw you, Johnnie,' he said quietly. '"Men have died and worms have eaten them-but not for love."'

'You don't know!'

'No, I don't,' he agreed. 'Each man is his own prisoner, in solitary confinement for life. Nevertheless on this particular point the statistics are fairly reliable. Try something for me. Visualize Judith in your mind. See her features. Listen to her voice.'

'Huh?'

'Do it.'

I tried, I really tried-and, do you know, I couldn't. I had never had a picture of her; her face now eluded me.

Zeb was watching me. 'You'll get well,' he said firmly. 'Now look here, Johnnie. . . I could have told you. Judith is a very female sort of woman, all gonads and no brain. And she's quite attractive. Turned loose, she was bound to find a man, as sure as nascent oxygen will recombine. But there is no use in talking to a man in love.'

He stood up. 'Johnnie, I've got to go. I hate like the mischief to walk out and leave you in the shape you are in, but I've already checked out and Grandfather Novak is ready to leave. He'll eat me out as it is, for holding him up this long. But one more word of advice before I go -, I waited. 'I suggest,' he continued, 'that you see a lot of Maggie while I'm away. She's good medicine.'

He started to leave; I said sharply, 'Zeb-what happened to you and Maggie? Something like this?'

He looked back at me sharply. 'Huh? No. Not at all the same thing. It wasn't. . . well, it wasn't similar.'

'I don't understand you-I guess I just don't understand people. You're urging me to see a lot of Maggie-and I thought she was your girl. Uh, wouldn't you be jealous?'

He stared at me, laughed, and clapped me on the shoulder. 'She's a free citizen, Johnnie, believe me. If you ever did anything to hurt Maggie, I'd tear off your head and beat you to death with it. Not that you ever would. But jealous of her? No. It doesn't enter the picture. I think she's the greatest gal that ever trod shoe leather-but I would rather marry a mountain lioness.'

He left on that, leaving me again with my mouth open. But I took his advice, or Maggie took it for me. Maggie knew all about it-Judith, I mean-and I a.s.sumed that Zeb had told her. He hadn't; it seemed that Judith had written to her first. In any case I didn't have to look her up; she looked me up right after dinner that night. I talked with her a while and felt much better, so much so that I went back to my office and made up for time lost that afternoon.

Maggie and I made a habit thereafter of taking a walk together after dinner. We went on no more spelling bees; not only was there no time for such during those last days but also neither one of us felt like trying to work up another foursome with Zeb away. Sometimes I could spare only twenty minutes or even less before I would have to be back at my desk-but it was the high point of the day; I looked forward to it.

Even without leaving the floodlighted main cavern, without leaving the marked paths, there were plenty of wonderfully beautiful walks to take. If I could afford to be away as much as an hour, there was one place in particular we liked to go-north in the big room, a good half mile from the buildings. The path meandered among frozen limestone mushrooms, great columns, domes, and fantastic shapes that have no names and looked equally like souls in torment or great exotic flowers, depending on the mood one was in. At a spot nearly a hundred feet higher than the main floor we had found a place only a few feet off the authorized path where nature had contrived a natural stone bench. We could sit there and stare down at the toy village, talk, and Maggie would smoke. I had taken to lighting her cigarettes for her, as I had seen Zeb do. It was a little attention she liked and I had learned to avoid getting smoke caught in my throat.

About six weeks after Zeb had left and only days before M-Hour we were doing this and were talking about what it would be like after the revolution and what we would do with ourselves. I said that I supposed I would stay in the regular army, a.s.suming that there was such and that I was eligible for it. 'What will you do, Maggie?'

She exhaled smoke slowly. 'I haven't thought that far, John. I haven't any profession-that is to say, we are trying our best to make the one I did have obsolete.' She smiled wryly. 'I'm not educated in anything useful. I can cook and I can sew and I can keep house; I suppose I should try to find a job as a housekeeper-competent servants are always scarce, they say.'

The idea of the courageous and resourceful Sister Magdalene, so quick with a vibroblade when the need arose, tramping from one employment bureau to another in search of menial work to keep her body fed was an idea at once distasteful to me-'General Housework & Cooking, live in, Thursday evenings & alternate Sundays off; references required.' Maggie? Maggie who had saved my own probably worthless life at least twice and never hesitated nor counted the cost. Not Maggie!

I blurted out, 'Look, you don't have to do that.'

'It's what I know.'

'Yes, but-well, why don't you cook and keep house for me? I'll be drawing enough to support both of us, even if I have to go back to my permanent rank. Maybe it isn't much but-shucks! you're welcome to it.'

She looked up. 'Why, John, how very generous!' She crushed out the cigarette and threw it aside. 'I do appreciate it-but it wouldn't work. I imagine there will be just as many gossips after we have won as before. Your colonel would not like it.'

I blushed red and almost shouted, 'That wasn't what I meant at all!'

'What? Then what did you mean?'

I had not really known until the words came out. Now I knew but not how to express it. 'I meant-Look, Maggie, you seem to like me well enough . . . and we get along well together. That is, why don't we-' I halted, hung up.

She stood up and faced me. 'John, are you proposing marriage-to me?'

I said gruffly, 'Uh, that was the general idea.' It bothered me to have her standing in front of me, so I stood up, too.

She looked at me gravely, searching my face, then said humbly, 'I'm honored . . - and grateful . . . and I am deeply touched. But-oh, no, John!' The tears started out of her eyes and she started to bawl. She stopped as quickly, wiping her face with her sleeve, and said brokenly, 'Now you've made me cry. I haven't cried in years.'

I started to put my arms around her; she pushed me back. 'No, John! Listen to me first. I'll accept that job as your housekeeper, but I won't marry you.'

'Why not?'

'"Why not?" Oh, my dear, my very dear-Because I am an old, tired woman, that's why.'

'Old? You can't be more than a year or two older than I am-three, at the outside. It doesn't matter.'

'I'm a thousand years older than you are. Think who I am where I've been-what I've known. First I was "bride", if you care to call it that, to the Prophet.'

'Not your fault!'

'Perhaps. Then I was mistress to your friend Zebadiah. You knew that?'

'Well . . . I was pretty sure of it.'

'That isn't all. There were other men. Some because it was needful and a woman has few bribes to offer. Some from loneliness, or even boredom. After the Prophet has tired of her, a woman doesn't seem very valuable, even to herself.'

'I don't care. I don't care! It doesn't matter!'

'You say that now. Later it would matter to you, dreadfully. I think I know you, my dear.'

'Then you don't know me. We'll start fresh.'

She sighed deeply. 'You think that you love me, John?'

'Uh? Yes, I guess that's it.'

'You loved Judith. Now you are hurt-so you think you love me.'

'But-Oh, I don't know what love is! I know I want you to marry me and live with me.'

'Neither do I know,' she said so softly that I almost missed it. Then she moved into my arms as easily and naturally as if she had always lived there.

When we had finished kissing each other I said, 'You will marry me, then?'

She threw her head back and stared as if she were frightened. 'Oh, no!'

'Huh? But I thought -'

'No, dear, no! I'll keep your house and cook your food and make your bed-and sleep in it, if you want me to. But you don't need to marry me.'

'But-Sheol! Maggie, I won't have it that way.'

'You won't? We'll see.' She was out of my arms although I had not let go. 'I'll see you tonight. About one-after everyone is asleep. Leave your door unlatched.'

'Maggie!' I shouted.

She was headed down the path, running as if she were flying.

I tried to catch up, tripped on a stalagmite and fell. When I picked myself up she was out of sight.

Here is an odd thing-I had always thought of Maggie as quite tall, stately, almost as tall as I was. But when I held her in my arms, she was short. I had to lean way over to kiss her.

Chapter 12.

On the night of the Miracle all that were left of us gathered in the main communications room-my boss and myself, the chief of communications and his technical crew, a few staff officers. A handful of men and a few dozen women, too many to crowd into the comm shack, were in the main mess-hall where a relay screen had been rigged for them. Our underground city was a ghost town now, with only a skeleton crew to maintain communications for the commanding general; all the rest had gone to battle stations. We few who were left had no combat stations in this phase. Strategy had been settled; the hour of execution was set for us by the Miracle. Tactical decisions for a continent could not be made from headquarters and Huxley was too good a general to try. His troops had been disposed and his subordinate commanders were now on their own; all he could do was wait and pray.

All that we could do, too-I didn't have any fingernails left to bite.

The main screen in front of us showed, in brilliant color and perfect perspective, the interior of the Temple. The services had been going on all day-processional, hymns, prayers and more prayers, sacrifice, genuflexion, chanting, endless monotony of colorful ritual. My old regiment was drawn up in two frozen ranks, helmets s.h.i.+ning, spears aligned like the teeth of a comb, I made out Peter van Eyck, Master of my home lodge, his belly corseted up, motionless before his platoon.

I knew, from having handled the despatch, that Master Peter had stolen a print of the film we had to have. His presence in the ceremonies was rea.s.suring; had his theft even been suspected our plans could not possibly succeed. But there he was.

Around the other three walls of the comm room were a dozen smaller screens, scenes from as many major cities-crowds in Rittenhouse Square, the Hollywood Bowl jam-packed, throngs in local temples. In each case the eyes of all were riveted on a giant television screen showing the same scene in the Great Temple that we were watching. Throughout all America it would be the same-every mortal soul who could possibly manage it was watching some television screen somewhere-waiting, waiting, waiting for the Miracle of the Incarnation.

Behind us a psychoperator bent over a sensitive who worked under hypnosis. The sensitive, a girl about nineteen, stirred and muttered; the operator bent closer.

Then he turned to Huxley and the communications chief. 'The Voice of G.o.d Station has been secured, sir.'

Huxley merely nodded; I felt like turning handsprings, if my knees had not been so weak. This was the key tactic and one that could not possibly be executed until minutes before the Miracle. Since television moves only on line-of-sight or in its own special cable the only possible way to tamper with this nationwide broadcast was at the station of origin. I felt a wild burst of exultation at their success-followed by an equally sudden burst of sorrow, knowing that not one of them could hope to live out the night.

Never mind-if they could hold out for a few more minutes their lives would have counted. I commended their souls to the Great Architect. We had men for such jobs where needed, mostly brethren whose wives had faced an inquisitor.

The comm chief touched Huxley's sleeve. 'It's coming, sir.' The scene panned slowly up to the far end of the Temple, pa.s.sed over the altar, and settled in close-up on an ivory archway above and behind the altar-the entrance to the Sanctum Sanctorum. It was closed with heavy cloth-of-gold drapes.

The pick-up camera held steady with the curtained entranceway exactly filling the screen. 'They can take over any time now, sir.'

Huxley turned his head to the psychoperator. 'Is that ours yet? See if you can get a report from the Voice of G.o.d.'

'Nothing, sir. I'll let you know.'

I could not take my eyes off the screen. After an interminable wait, the curtains stirred and slowly parted, drawn up and out on each side-and there, standing before us almost life size and so real that I felt he could step out of the screen, was the Prophet Incarnate!

He turned his head, letting his gaze rove from side to side, then looked right at me, his eyes staring right into mine. I wanted to hide. I gasped and said involuntarily, 'You mean we can duplicate that?'

The comm chief nodded. 'To the millimeter, or I'll eat the difference. Our best impersonator, prepared by our best plastic surgeons. That may be our film already.'

'But it's real.'

Huxley glanced at me. 'A little less talk, please, Lyle.' It was the nearest he had ever come to bawling me out; I shut up and studied the screen. That powerful, totally unscrupulous face, that burning gaze-an actor? No! I knew that face; I had seen it too many times in too many ceremonies. Something had gone wrong and this was the Prophet Incarnate himself. I began to sweat that stinking sweat of fear. I very much believe that had he called me by name out of that screen I would have confessed my treasons and thrown myself on his mercy.

Huxley said crossly, 'Can't you raise New Jerusalem?'

The psychoperator answered, 'No, sir. I'm sorry, sir.'

The Prophet started his invocation.

His compelling, organlike voice rolled through magnificent periods. Then he asked the blessing of Eternal G.o.d for the people this coming year. He paused, looked at me again, then rolled his eyes up to Heaven, lifted his hands and commenced his pet.i.tion to the First Prophet, asking him to confer on his people the priceless bounty of seeing and hearing him in the flesh, and offering for that purpose the flesh of the present prophet as an instrument. He waited.

The transformation started-and my hackles stood up. I knew now that we had lost; something had gone wrong. . - and G.o.d alone knew how many men had died through the error.

The features of the Prophet began to change; he stretched an inch or two in height; his rich robes darkened-and there standing in his place, dressed in a frock coat of a bygone era, was the Reverend Nehemiah Scudder, First Prophet and founder of the New Crusade. I felt my stomach tighten with fear and dread and I was a little boy again, watching it for the first time in my parish church.

He spoke to us first with his usual yearly greeting of love and concern for his people. Gradually he worked himself up, his face sweating and his hand clutching in the style that had called down the Spirit in a thousand Mississippi Valley camp meetings: my heart began to beat faster. He was preaching against sin in all its forms-the harlot whose mouth is like honey, the sins of the flesh, the sins of the spirit, the money changers.

At the height of his pa.s.sion he led into a new subject in a fas.h.i.+on that caught me by surprise: 'But I did not return to you this day to speak to you of the little sins of little people. No! I come to tell you of a truly h.e.l.lish thing and to bid you to gird on your armor and fight. Armageddon is upon you! Rise up, mine hosts, and fight you the Battle of the Lord! For Satan is upon you! He is here! Here among you! Here tonight in the fles.h.!.+ With the guile of the serpent he has come among you, taking on the form of the Vicar of the Lord! Yea! He has disguised himself falsely, taken on the shape of the Prophet Incarnate!

'Smite him! Smite his hirelings! In the Name of G.o.d destroy them all!'

Chapter 13.