The Past Through Tomorrow Page 64

  Again I could not take my eyes away if my eternal soul had depended on it. What is it about the body of a human woman that makes it the most terribly beautiful sight on earth? Is it, as some claim, simply a necessary instinct to make sure that we comply with God’s will and replenish the earth? Or is it some stranger, more wonderful thing?

  I found myself quoting: “How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights!

  “This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.”

  Then I broke off, ashamed, remembering that the Song of Songs which is Solomon’s was a chaste and holy allegory having nothing to do with such things.

  I sat down on the sand and tried to compose my soul. After a while I felt better and my heart stopped pounding so hard. When they all came swimming back with Zeb in the lead, racing Miriam, I even managed to throw them a smile. It no longer seemed quite so terrible and as long as they stayed in the water the women were not shockingly exposed. Perhaps evil was truly in the eye of the beholder—in which case the idea was to keep it out of mine.

  Zeb called out, “Ready to be relieved?”

  I answered firmly, “No. Go ahead and have your fun.”

  “Okay.” He turned like a dolphin and started back the other way. Miriam followed him. Maggie came in to where it was shallow, rested her finger tips on the bottom, and held facing me, with just her head and her ivory shoulders out of the inky water, while her waist-length mane of hair floated around her.

  “Poor John,” she said softly. “I’ll come out and spell you.”

  “Oh, no, really!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure.”

  “All right.” She turned, flipped herself over, and started after the others. For one ghostly, magic instant she was partly out of the water.

  Maggie came back to my end of the cavern about ten minutes later. “I’m cold,” she said briefly, climbed out and strode quickly to the protection of the boulder. Somehow she was not naked, but merely unclothed, like Mother Eve. There is a difference—Miriam had been naked.

  With Maggie out of the water and neither one of us speaking I noticed for the first time that there was no other sound. Now there is nothing so quiet as a cave; anywhere else at all there is noise, but the complete zero decibel which obtains underground if one holds still and says nothing is very different.

  The point is that I should have been able to hear Zeb and Miriam swimming. Swimming need not be noisy but it can’t be as quiet as a cave. I sat up suddenly and started forward—then stopped with equal suddenness as I did not want to invade Maggie’s dressing room, which another dozen steps would have accomplished.

  But I was really worried and did not know what to do. Throw a line? Where? Peel down and search for them? If necessary. I called out softly, “Maggie!”

  “What is it, John?”

  “Maggie, I’m worried.”

  She came at once from behind the rock. She had already pulled on her trousers, but held her towel so that it covered her from the waist up; I had the impression she had been drying her hair. “Why, John?”

  “Keep very quiet and listen.”

  She did so. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “That’s just it. We should. I could hear you all swimming even when you were down at the far end, out of my sight. Now there isn’t a sound, not a splash. Do you suppose they possibly could both have hit their heads on the bottom at the same time?”

  “Oh. Stop worrying, John. They’re all right.”

  “But I am worried.”

  “They’re just resting, I’m sure. There is another little beach down there, about half as big as this. That’s where they are. I climbed up on it with them, then I came back. I was cold.”

  I made up my mind, realizing that I had let my modesty hold me back from my plain duty. “Turn your back. No, go behind the boulder—I want to undress.”

  “What? I tell you it’s not necessary.” She did not budge.

  I opened my mouth to shout. Before I got it out Maggie had a hand over my mouth, which caused her towel to be disarranged and flustered us both. “Oh, heavens!” she said sharply. “Keep your big mouth shut.” She turned suddenly and flipped the towel; when she turned back she had it about her like a stole, covering her front well enough, I suppose, without the need to hold it.

  “John Lyle, come here and sit down. Sit down by me.” She sat on the sand and patted the place by her—and such was the firmness with which she spoke that I did as I was told.

  “By me,” she insisted. “Come closer. I don’t want to shout.” I inched gingerly closer until my sleeve brushed her bare arm. “That’s better,” she agreed, keeping her voice low so that it did not resound around the cavern. “Now listen to me. There are two people down there, of their own free will. They are entirely safe—I saw them. And they are both excellent swimmers. The thing for you to do, John Lyle, is to mind your own business and restrain that nasty itch to interfere.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand you.” Truthfully, I was afraid I did.

  “Oh, goodness me! See here, does Miriam mean anything to you?”

  “Why, no, not especially.”

  “I should think not, since you haven’t addressed six words to her since we started out. Very well, then—since you have no cause to be jealous, if two people choose to be alone, why should you stick your nose in? Understand me now?”

  “Uh, I guess so.”

  “Then just be quiet.”

  I was quiet. She didn’t move. I was acutely aware of her nakedness—for now she was naked, though covered—and I hoped that she was not aware that I was aware.‘ Besides that I was acutely aware of being almost a participant in—well, I don’t know what. I told myself angrily that I had no right to assume the worst, like a morals proctor.

  Presently I said, “Maggie…”

  “Yes, John?”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  “Why not, John? Not that it is really needful.”

  “Uh, you don’t seem to give a hoot that Zeb is down there, with Miriam —alone.”

  “Should I give a hoot?”

  Confound the woman! She was deliberately misunderstanding me. “Well… look, somehow I had gotten the impression that you and Zeb—I mean… well, I suppose I sort of expected that you two meant to get married, when you could.”

  She laughed a low chuckle that had little mirth in it. “I suppose you could have gotten that impression. But, believe me, the matter is all settled and for the best.”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t misunderstand me. I am very fond of Zebadiah and I know he is equally fond of me. But we are both dominant types psychologically—you should see my profile chart; it looks like the Rocky Mountains! Two such people should not marry. Such marriages are not made in Heaven, believe me! Fortunately we found it out in time.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh, indeed.”

  Now I don’t know just how the next thing happened. I was thinking that she seemed rather forlorn—and the next thing I knew I was kissing her. She lay back in my arms and returned the kiss with a fervor I would not have believed possible. As for me, my head was buzzing and my eyeballs were knocking together and I couldn’t have told you whether I was a thousand feet underground or on dress parade.

  Then it was over. She looked up for a bare moment into my eyes and whispered, “Dear John…” Then she got suddenly to her feet, leaned over me, careless of the towel, and patted my cheek. “Judith is a very lucky girl. I wonder if she knows it.”

  “Maggie!” I said.

  She turned away and said, without looking back, “I really must finish dressing. I’m cold.”

  She had not felt cold to me.

  She came out shortly, fully dressed and towelling her hair vigorously. I got my dry towel and helped her. I don’t believe I suggested it; the idea just took care of itself. Her hair was thick and lovely and I enjoyed doing it. It sent goose pimples over me.

>   Zeb and Miriam came back while I was doing so, not racing but swimming slowly; we could hear them laughing long before they were in sight. Miriam climbed out of the water as shamelessly as any harlot of Gomorrah, but I hardly noticed her. Zeb looked me in the eye and said aggressively, “Ready for your swim, chum?”

  I started to say that I did not believe that I would bother and was going to make some excuse about my towel already being wet—when I noticed Maggie watching me… not saying anything but watching. I answered, “Why, surely! You two took long enough.” I called out, “Miriam! Get out from behind that rock! I want to use it.”

  She squealed and giggled and came out, still arranging her clothes. I went behind it with quiet dignity.

  I hope I still had quiet dignity when I came out. In any case I set my teeth, walked out and straight into the water. It was bitingly cold at first, but only for a moment. I was never varsity but I swam on my class team and I’ve even been in the Hudson on New Year’s Day. I liked that black pool, once I was in.

  I just had to swim down to the other end. Sure enough, there was a little shelf beach there. I did not go up on it.

  On the way back I tried to swim down to the bottom. I could not find . it, but it must have been over twenty feet down. I liked it down there—black and utterly still. Had I the breath for it, or gills, it seemed to me that it would have been a good place to stay, away from Prophets, away from Cabals, and paperwork, and worries, and problems too subtle for me.

  I came up gasping, then struck out hard for our picnic beach. The girls already had the food laid out and Zeb shouted for me to hurry. Zeb and Maggie did not look up as I got out of the water, but I caught Miriam eyeing me. I don’t think I blushed. I never did like blondes anyhow. I think Lilith must have been a blonde.

  11

  THE SUPREME COUNCIL, consisting of heads of departments, General Huxley, and a few others, met weekly or oftener to advise the General, exchange views, and consider the field reports. About a month after our rather silly escapade in the underground pool they were in session and I was with them, not as a member but as recorder. My own girl was ill and I had borrowed Maggie from G-2 to operate the voicewriter, since she was cleared for top secret. We were always terribly shorthanded of competent personnel. My nominal boss, for example, was Wing General Penoyer, who carried the title of Chief of Staff. But I hardly ever saw him, as he was also Chief of Ordnance. Huxley was his own chief of staff and I was sort of a glorified aide —“midshipmite, and bosun tite, and crew of the captain’s gig.” I even tried to see to it that Huxley took his stomach medicine regularly.

  This meeting was bigger than usual. The regional commanders of Gath, Canaan, Jericho, Babylon, and Egypt were present in person; Nod and Damascus were represented by deputies—every Cabal district of the United States except Eden and we were holding a sensitive hook-up to Louisville for that command, using idea code that the sensitives themselves would not understand. I could feel the pressure of something big coming up, although Huxley had not taken me into his confidence. The place was tyled so that a mouse couldn’t have got in.

  We droned through the usual routine reports. It was duly recorded that we now had eighty-seven hundred and nine accepted members, either lodge brethren or tested and bound members of the parallel military organization. There were listed as recruited and instructed more than ten times that number of fellow travelers who could be counted on to rise against the Prophet, but who had not been intrusted with knowledge of the actual conspiracy.

  The figures themselves were not encouraging. We were always in the jaws of a dilemma; a hundred thousand men was a handful to conquer a continent-wide country whereas the less than nine thousand party to the conspiracy itself were ‘way too many to keep a secret. We necessarily relied on the ancient cell system wherein no man knew more than he had to know and could not give away too much no matter what an inquisitor did to him— no, not even if he had been a spy. But we had our weekly losses even at this passive stage.

  One entire lodge had been surprised in session and arrested in Seattle four days earlier; it was a serious loss but only three of the chairs had possessed critical knowledge and all three had suicided successfully. Prayers would be said for all of them at a grand session that night, but here it was a routine report. We had lost four hatchet men that week but twenty-three assassinations had been accomplished—one of them the Elder Inquisitor for the entire lower Mississippi Valley.

  The Chief of Communications reported that the brethren were prepared to disable 91% (figured on population coverage) of the radio & TV stations in the country, and that with the aid of assault groups we could reasonably hope to account for the rest—with the exception of the Voice of God station at New Jerusalem, which was a special problem.

  The Chief of Combat Engineering reported readiness to sabotage the power supply of the forty-six largest cities, again with the exception of New Jerusalem, the supply of which was self-contained with the pile located under the Temple. Even there major interruption could be accomplished at distribution stations if the operation warranted the expenditure of sufficient men. Major surface transportation and freight routes could be sabotaged sufficiently with present plans and personnel to reduce traffic to 12% of normal.

  The reports went on and on—newspapers, student action groups, rocket field seizure or sabotage, miracles, rumor propagation, water supply, incident incitement, counter-espionage, long-range weather prediction, weapons distribution. War is a simple matter compared with revolution. War is an applied science, with well-defined principles tested in history; analogous solutions may be found from ballista to H-bomb. But every revolution is a freak, a mutant, a monstrosity, its conditions never to be repeated and its operations carried out by amateurs and individualists.

  While Maggie recorded the data I was arranging it and transmitting it to the calculator room for analysis. I was much too busy even to attempt a horse-back evaluation in my head. There was a short wait while the analysts finished programming and let the “brain” have it—then the remote-printer in front of me chattered briefly and stopped. Huxley leaned across me and tore off the tape before I could reach it.

  He glanced at it, then cleared his throat and waited for dead silence. “Brethren,” he began, “comrades—we agreed long ago on our doctrine of procedure. When every predictable factor, calculated, discounted for probable error, weighted and correlated with all other significant factors, gave a calculated risk of two to one in our favor, we would strike. Today’s solution of the probability equation, substituting this week’s data for the variables, gives an answer of two point one three. I propose to set the hour of execution. How say you?”

  It was a delayed shock; no one said anything. Hope delayed too long makes reality hard to believe—and all of these men had waited for years, some for most of a lifetime. Then they were on their feet, shouting, sobbing, cursing, pounding each others’ backs.

  Huxley sat still until they quieted, an odd little smile on his face. Then he stood up and said quietly, “I don’t think we need poll the sentiment. I will set the hour after I have—”

  “General! If you please! I do not agree.” It was Zeb’s boss, Sector General Novak, Chief of Psych. Huxley stopped speaking and the silence fairly ached. I was as stunned as the rest.

  Then Huxley said quietly, “This council usually acts by unanimous consent. We have long since arrived at the method for setting the date… but I know that you would not disagree without good reason. We will listen now to Brother Novak.”

  Novak came slowly forward and faced them. “Brethren,” he began, running his eyes over bewildered and hostile faces, “you know me, and you know I want this thing as much as you do. I have devoted the last seventeen years to it—it has cost me my family and my home. But I can’t let you go ahead without warning you, when I am sure that the time is not yet. I think—no, I know with mathematical certainty that we are not ready for revolution.” He had to wait and hold up both hands for silence; they did
not want to hear him. “Hear me out! I concede that all military plans are ready. I admit that if we strike now we have a strong probability of being able to seize the country. Nevertheless we are not ready—”

  “Why not?”

  “—because a majority of the people still believe in the established religion, they believe in the Divine authority of the Prophet. We can seize power but we can’t hold it.”

  “The Devil we won’t!”

  “Listen to me! No people was ever held in subjection long except through their own consent. For three generations the American people have been conditioned from cradle to grave by the cleverest and most thorough psycho-technicians in the world. They believe! If you turn them loose now, without adequate psychological preparation, they will go back to their chains… like a horse returning to a burning barn. We can win the revolution but it will be followed by a long and bloody civil war—which we will lose!”

  He stopped, ran a trembling hand across his eyes, then said to Huxley, “That’s all.”

  Several were on their feet at once. Huxley pounded for order, then recognized Wing General Penoyer.

  Penoyer said, “I’d like to ask Brother Novak a few questions.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Can his department tell us what percentage of the population is sincerely devout?”

  Zebadiah, present to assist his chief, looked up; Novak nodded and he answered, “Sixty-two per cent, plus-or-minus three per cent.”

  “And the percentage who secretly oppose the government whether we have enlisted them or not?”

  “Twenty-one per cent plus, proportional error. The balance can be classed as conformists, not devout but reasonably contented.”

  “By what means were the data obtained?”

  “Surprise hypnosis of representative types.”

  “Can you state the trend?”

  “Yes, sir. The government lost ground rapidly during the first years of the present depression, then the curve flattened out. The new tithing law and to some extent the vagrancy decrees were unpopular and the government again lost ground before the curve again flattened at a lower level. About that time business picked up a little but we simultaneously started our present intensified propaganda campaign; the government has been losing ground slowly but steadily the past fifteen months.”