We lowered Bill Stuckey into the grave, and I recited the words, "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," and turned away to leave the others to cluster round the open grave. Kathleen Ryecroft was there. She held no handkerchief to her eyes. She was completely composed.
No one asked what had become of her father and Joan Stuckey.
* * *
That evening I saw Dr Faber and his wife again. I felt vaguely uneasy, in case somehow religion was trying to get in among us by the back door. But the doctor was again insistent that it was sensible to accept survival without having to believe in God. He said that he could not feel that his essential self could ever cease to exist, yet he didn't believe in God. Moreover, he didn't like to think that all he had tried to do as a doctor, which in a sense was part of himself, could be wasted in nothingness. He couldn't put it into words, but it meant a lot to him.
Then he turned an argument on me. "You've told me you and your boss are trying to demonstrate that a community can flourish without God. Who are you going to demonstrate it to? Are we all going to be taken back to earth to show what good boys and girls we are? Or is your boss the only one who will see the results?"
I told him to be patient.
The doctor shook his head. "So far as I can see, we'll all go one by one, and in a hundred years there won't be many children and children's children left to see the results. But if we all pass on, and meet people from earth again, we'll be able to demonstrate what we've done. So your demonstration, if it means anything, must mean survival."
"Survival for ever and ever?" I asked.
"Who can say? In the end we may just fade out in the beyond. That may seem to contradict what I've said, but I don't think it does. Our thoughts and feelings take us so far, but we're going to need a revelation now to take us further."
I went home with my thoughts going round and round. I picked up a sheet of paper and a pencil. While I looked at the clock to see the time, my hand wrote, A good speech. Stick to realities, and leave religious faith alone.
CHAPTER 15
Shortly after this, I was puzzled by a strange message from Satan. He told me to go to the centre of the wood where I would meet one of his servants. I've already described my visit to the edge of that dark wood, how I somehow disliked it, and I had not been since. Yet I had kept telling myself that I would go back one day, and now it seemed I would have to go, whether I wanted to or not.
The sun shone as I started out, with blue sky, like late spring in England. Flowers covered the banks on each side of me, as I followed the path to the wood. At first the trees were few, but gradually they became more crowded and the branches began to close overhead. Now I was surrounded by thick shrubs, twice my height, pressing in on me. At times I had to push them aside to get through.
All I could follow were the marks of a track. How it came to be there, I couldn't tell. Maybe animals regularly passed that way, and indeed several times I heard rustlings in the bushes, and once the crashing of some larger animal running away from me.
Presently I heard the chattering of water. The ground began to slope to the left, and I came to a gully across the track, with a stream and small waterfall running down it. The track led to a piece of rock, with another rock on the other side. If I wanted to go down to cross the stream, I would have to climb down a steep and slippery bank, with an equally steep bank to climb on the other side, so I decided I would jump across from rock to rock.
I suppose the distance was no more than four feet, an easy distance if I kept my head, but I admit I stared at the gap for two or three minutes before plucking up my courage to take a running jump. It turned out to be easier than I had thought, and I continued to follow the track on the other side.
I had no idea how far I had to go. Satan had said the centre of the wood, and I assumed that I would be given some sign when I got there. I was not mistaken.
The track suddenly ran out in a clearing. A circle of trees stood back, letting the bright sun come slanting in. To my fancy they seemed like a ring of giants, waiting to watch what would happen.
As my eyes became used to the brightness after the gloom of the wood, I saw a large fallen tree lying across the grass. And on the log sat a girl, dressed in dark blue, with her hair hanging down over her face. I stopped still, and stared. So this was Satan's servant, whom he said I must meet. As I watched, she tossed her head back so as to throw her hair off her face. I gasped, it was Kathleen Ryecroft, and she was staring at me.
I was angry, very angry. Satan had been deceiving me all along. He had given me to understand that I was to be his agent, the only agent on Priam. And now there was this young woman whom he wanted me to meet as his servant. Who knows what he had been doing through her without my knowing!
I was in two minds whether to turn back, but since this person was evidently my rival I didn't care to risk losing such influence as I still had. So I walked slowly forward.
Kathleen jumped off the trunk and walked to meet me, with a smile on her face. "I'm glad you've come," she said. "Oh, I'm so glad. I've been terribly scared. I willed you to come, and now you're here."
Her words took me by surprise. This didn't sound like Satan's servant.
"How do you mean you willed me?" I replied.
"Oh, come off it. Don't pretend you don't know we're both psychic."
"Should I have known?"
She repeated solemnly the words I had heard in my dream. "Ask Kathleen Ryecroft."
"So it was your voice."
"Of course it was. It was one of the few occasions when I've travelled out of my body at night."
"You mean astral projection."
"I found myself in your house and I sensed your restlessness, although I didn't go up to your bedroom. You seemed to be asking, 'Who was it?' over and over again. So I answered, 'Ask Kathleen Ryecroft', and you heard me."
"So that's what happened. You seem all right now, but you said a moment ago you were scared."
Her face changed. "Yes, I need someone here with me, and as you heard me once, I thought you might hear me again."
"So I'm here. What can I do? Tell me."
"I was exploring in the wood. I'm keen on birds and flowers as you know. Then suddenly I felt terrible pressure in my head -- not a headache or anything like that. It was somehow inward, as though I was being attacked, seized, possessed."
"Are you a medium?" I asked.
"No. Occasionally I'm clairvoyant, but not a medium. The funny thing is, I feel I might be going into a trance and I'd be terrified to pass out without anyone by me."
"You'd better rest. Come back and sit on the fallen tree again."
She said, "Sometimes I've been clairvoyant and I've seen pictures and heard voices coming from someone's mind. They seemed like someone coming back from the dead, but I knew they weren't. This is something different."
We sat in silence for a few seconds. Then she asked me to hold her hand. I had the same feeling as people have from time to time, of becoming aware of myself, almost as though I was somebody else watching. But if I was self-conscious, Kathleen was not. She closed her eyes, gave several deep breaths, and remained still.
Whether or not some power passed through my hand, and into her, I couldn't tell, but all of a sudden she jumped off the log. She seemed taller and grosser. Her expression was changing. If it had not been for her clothes, I would have sworn that a man was standing in front of me -- Bill Stuckey, back from the dead. And when Kathleen opened her mouth, it was Bill's voice that spoke.
"At last I've got you," the voice said. "All of you. You're mine now, though you wouldn't have me on earth. Mine for ever and ever."
I watched helplessly. When Kathleen sprang from the fallen tree, I had let go of her hand. A sense of horror gripped me as I realised what had happened. Kathleen was hopelessly possessed.
The word exorcism flashed into my mind, the casting out of the evil spirit of Bill from his victim. I couldn't use Christian exorcism, but my studies had led me
to believe that a magician could set off one spirit against another, a stronger against a weaker. If Satan was the strongest spirit, he could surely conquer this one.
I held up my right hand and shouted, "In Satan's name, I command you to leave her alone."
Immediately Kathleen dropped to the ground and lay face downwards.
A man's voice from behind me, not Bill's, said, "She'll come round in a few minutes. Leave her alone. I have a message for you from my master."
I turned round, but there was no one in sight. Yet the voice continued from nearby.
"My master has a sense of humour. He told me to impersonate Bill, to see how you'd react. I think I did it very well."
"You certainly did," I replied bitterly. "And I did well too."
"Yes," said the voice. "I might have had the woman longer, but you made me give her up. Now, before she comes round, listen to my message. This woman is psychic enough to have almost discovered our secret. If she finds it on her own, she'll talk about it, and my master's whole plan will be ruined. My master orders you to tell her as much as necessary, but first you must pledge her to secrecy. She may even help you. Indeed you may marry her if that seems best."
I suddenly saw my relation to Satan in a new light. I had thought I was his big man in command. Now he was treating me as a slave whose life had to be entirely directed by him to fit his plans.
"Tell your master," I said, "that I don't intend to marry, and I'll use my discretion about what to tell Kathleen Ryecroft. I'm happy enough single, and she told the council she's not interested in sex. So we'll stay as we are, thank you!"
"So be it," the voice replied, growing fainter.
There was a movement at my feet. Kathleen raised herself on her hands, and I helped her to get up.
"What happened?" she asked, as she looked around.
"A spirit came and claimed to be Bill, but he was an imposter, another sort of spirit."
She shuddered. "You mean I was possessed."
"Yes, I'm afraid so. But he's gone, and I don't think he'll come back."
"I'll resist him. I couldn't stand it again. In fact, I'll close my mind to clairvoyance and things like that for ever. Oh, I'm glad you were here."
She put her face up and kissed me on my cheek, and stepped back blushing. "I'm so sorry. Whatever must you think of me? I can't think what made me do it. I've never kissed a man before, except my father."
"It was a kiss of gratitude," I answered.
"How very formal that sounds. But you're probably right." She looked away, and brushed herself down.
"Now listen," I said, "there's something I must tell you."
Kathleen looked at me again now, as I went on.
"I think you've guessed that the things that have happened aren't just what they seem."
"I've guessed that, but I can't get any further. I know it's more than a matter of psychic teleports."
I first bound Kathleen to secrecy between the two of us. Then I went back to the beginning, and told her all that had happened. I explained that Satan's purpose in forming this community was to demonstrate that men and women could enjoy a good life, and have a prosperous society, without worrying about God. I said that as long as they are on earth, people are always being influenced by ideas of God -- here, Satan ruled absolutely.
"You mean Satan is our god now."
"Exactly. But no one else knows."
"Then why have you told me?"
"Because the message that came just now was that we are to work together."
"I see. As Satanists."
"That's an unpleasant word. We're helping a master with his plan."
"I've promised to keep it a secret, and I will. I can see now why may father was taken away, along with Joan Stuckey. They didn't fit in with Satan's plans after their crime." She sighed. "Now I'm feeling tired and drained out. Let's get home."
Kathleen coiled up her hair, brushed herself down once more, and led the way from the patch of bright sunlight along the heavily overshadowed track. When we had jumped the stream, and had come to the edge of the wood, she told me to stay for a few minutes and then take a different way back.
"Otherwise I'll be getting a reputation, after what happened with Bill Stuckey. Everyone knows he tried to be intimate with me. And if you need to see me any time, catch me on my own in the library, or send me a message to come to your house after dark. So, goodbye for now."
"Goodbye!" I called after her, and sat down on the bank until I judged she had reached home.
CHAPTER 16
I had not anticipated that Christmas would produce a crisis. I'd not bothered with dates, but one or two had diaries with them, and knew we had come to December. We had been brought to a planet where the climate was equable all through the year, so there was no obvious change from autumn to winter.
The first indication I had of things to come was when a deputation of four, two men and two women, appeared at my door. I brought them in, and they lost no time in coming to the point.
"Some of us want to be taken back home for Christmas."
"I'm afraid that's impossible," I said.
One of them shouted back. I knew him as Harry Haskins, who in an amateurish way was trying to take on the cobbler's job now that Peter Ryecroft had gone.
"It's not impossible at all! You and your boss got us here, and you can get us back again."
The others murmured assent.
"I don't say we can't get you back to earth, but it's impossible to upset the plan that we all agreed to. Priam is to be our permanent home, and we will never settle if we want to go dashing across the galaxy."
"But we've always spent Christmas with relations," put in one of the women.
"I'm sorry, but from now onwards we will have Christmas together here."
"Is that your last word?" demanded Harry.
"It is."
Harry got up, and the others followed reluctantly. They all went out. I was rather worried about the affair, and was even more worried by a telepathic message from Satan a few days later. This concerned the weekly paper, a folder of four pages which our printer Joe Penny produced on the old machine with removable lead type, something that I had not seen in use for a long time until now.
Joe had wanted a modern offset printing machine, or a simple word processor and printer. Failing that, an old typewriter and a photocopier. But no, none of that technology was allowed on Priam. I had to remind everyone that we were living as though in a period of history when life was simple, because in spite of all its advances, science and technology had done little to promote peace.
I can see now that the failure to supply even something as basic as a typewriter was to do with security. Letters and notices had to be written by hand, which meant that all handwriting could be identified in the event of something subversive being written that might cause problems to Satan.
* * *
Joe Penny relied on contributions from any of us who sent anything in. In particular he was helped by Horace Humpole, who had gained some part-time experience as a journalist, and who produced a leading article each week, adapted in length to fit such space as needed filling.
The old press must have been a deliberate choice, to avoid Joe Penny being able to print too large a newspaper; for the more opportunity there was for the people to submit articles, there more opportunity there was for them to share their grievances with the whole village.
The message that came to me from Satan was that the paper would not be published the following morning, but I would be given a proof of an article that concerned him and myself. I must destroy this as soon as I had read it.
Next morning I was woken up by a loud banging on my front door. While I put on my dressing gown, the banging continued. On opening the door I found Joe Penny dancing with rage on the doorstep.
"What's happened to my papers?" he shouted at me.
"What has happened to them?" I asked.
"You know very well. You've taken them."
"I haven't even seen them," I replied, curious to know why I was being accused.
He grew calmer, and I asked again, "Joe, why do you think I'm responsible, if you mean they've been stolen?"
He hesitated before answering. "Didn't you know there was a leader about you and your boss?"
"No," I said, "but what if there was?"
"You didn't want anyone else to see it, so you stole it."
"You mean it was as bad as that. No, I didn't steal it. Anyway, why couldn't you print off some more copies?"
"I could have done, but whoever stole the copies broke up the typeface, and scattered the type all over the floor. All the letters are jumbled. It will take me a day or two to get them all sorted."
"I would like to express my sympathy, but if the article is an attack on me, I suppose I must be glad. Anyway, let me assure you I've no idea who took the papers."
"I'll find him all right," Joe Penny declared, as he let himself out of the house.
I understood more of the wisdom of Satan's choice of printing press, for it would take Joe and Horace too long to reset the pages for a reprint today.
On my return to my bedroom, I found a sheet of paper on my bed. It was a proof copy of the leading article. I cannot quote it exactly, since I obeyed orders and destroyed it after I had read it. It contained a series of attacks on me and my unknown boss, and as far as I can recollect it made the following complaints:
I was refusing a reasonable request to allow families to return home for Christmas. Since they had been brought here by unknown means, surely they could return with the same means. Why should John Longstone have control of their lives? He was no different from other people. Why should not the community elect another leader, and command Longstone to tell him all they wanted to know? There was far too much secrecy.
There didn't seem much that I could do, though I could see that I might soon have a revolt on my hands. Satan, however, kept me informed of what was going on. Horace Humpole, who had written the leader, was on the warpath and was calling a few sympathisers to a private meeting in his house.
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