Sixth Column

by Robert A. Heinlein

  “No doubt you’re right. We certainly must be careful not to underestimate them.”

  “I hadn’t quite finished. Another escort picked me up on the way out of the palace and stayed with me. I walked along, paying no attention to them. My route out of town took me through the central market. There were hundreds of whites there, lined up in queues, waiting for a chance to buy food on their ration cards. I got an idea and decided to find out just how far my immunity extended. I stopped and climbed up on a box and started to preach to them.”

  Ardmore whistled. “Cripes, Jeff, you shouldn’t have taken a chance like that!”

  “But, Major, we needed to know, and I was fairly certain that the worst that could happen would be that they would make me stop.”

  “Well…yes, I suppose so. Anyhow the job requires that we take chances and you have to use your own judgment. Boldness may be the safest policy. Sorry I spoke—what happened?”

  “My escort seemed dumbfounded at first, and not certain what to do. I went right ahead, watching them out of the corner of my eye. Pretty soon they were joined by a chappie who seemed to be senior to them. They held a confab, and the senior cop went away. He came back in about five minutes, and just stood there, watching me. I gathered that he had phoned in and had received instructions to let me alone.”

  “How did the crowd take it?”

  “I think they were most impressed by the apparent fact that a white man was breaking one of the rules of the overlords and getting away with it. I didn’t try to tell them much. I took as my text, ‘The Disciple is coming!’ and embroidered it with a lot of glittering generalities. I told them to be good boys and girls and not to be afraid, for the Disciple was coming to feed the hungry and heal the sick and console the bereaved.”

  “H-m-m-m. Now that you’ve started making promises, we had better get set to deliver.”

  “I was coming to that. Chief, I think that we had better set up a branch church in Denver right away.”

  “We’ve hardly got the personnel yet to start branching out.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t like to set my opinion up against yours, but I don’t see how we can gain many recruits unless we go where the recruits are. They’re all set for it now; you may be sure that every white man in Denver is talking about the old beezer in the halo—in a halo, mind you!—who preached in the market place and the Asiatics didn’t dare stop him. We’ll pack ’em in!”

  “Well…maybe you’re right—”

  “I think I am. Admitting that you can’t spare the regular personnel from the Citadel, here’s how we can work it; I’ll go down to the city with Alec, locate a building that we can turn into a temple and start holding services. We can get along with the power units in the staffs at first, and Scheer can follow along and rebuild the interior of the temple and set up a proper unit in the altar. Once things are rolling I can turn the routine over to Alec. He’ll be the local priest for Denver.”

  The others had drifted in one by one while Ardmore and Thomas were talking. Ardmore turned now to Alec Howe.

  “How about it, Alec? Do you think you can make a noise like a priest, preach ’em sermons, organize charities, and that sort of thing?”

  The mountain guide was slow to answer. “I think, Major, that I would rather stay on the job I have now.”

  “It won’t be so hard,” Ardmore reassured him. “Thomas or I can write your sermons for you. The rest of it would consist largely in keeping your mouth shut and your eyes open, and in shooing likely prospects up here to be enlisted.”

  “It’s not the sermons, Major. I can preach a sermon—I used to be a lay preacher in my youth. It’s just that I can’t reconcile this false religion with my conscience. I know you are working toward a worthy purpose and I’ve agreed to serve, but I’d rather stay in the kitchen.”

  Ardmore considered his words before replying. “Alec,” he said at length, in a grave voice, “I think I can appreciate your viewpoint. I wouldn’t want to ask any man to do anything against his own conscience. As a matter of fact, we would not have adopted the cloak of a religion had we seen any other practical way to fight for the United States. Does your faith forbid you to fight for your country?”

  “No, it does not.”

  “Most of your work as a priest of this church would be to help the helpless. Doesn’t that fit into your creed?”

  “Naturally it does. That is exactly why I cannot do it in the name of a false God.”

  “But is it a false God? Do you believe that God cares very much what name you call Him as long as the work you perform is acceptable to Him? Now mind you,” he added hastily, “I don’t say that this so-called temple we have erected here is necessarily a House of the Lord, but isn’t the worship of God a matter of how you feel in your heart rather than the verbal forms and the ceremonials used?”

  “That’s true, Major, every word you’ve said is gospel—but I just don’t feel right about it.”

  Ardmore could see that Calhoun had been listening to this discussion with poorly concealed impatience. He decided to terminate it. “Alec, I want you to go now and think this over by yourself. Come see me tomorrow. If you can’t reconcile this work to your conscience, I’ll give you an unprejudiced discharge as a conscientious objector. It won’t even be necessary for you to serve in the kitchen.”

  “I wouldn’t want to go that far, Major. It seems to me—”

  “No, really. If one is wrong, so is the other. I don’t want to be responsible for requiring a man to do anything that might be a sin against his faith. Now you get along and think about it.”

  Ardmore hustled him out without giving him a chance to talk further.

  Calhoun could contain himself no longer. “Well, really, Major, I must say! Is it your policy to compromise with superstition in the face of military necessity?”

  “No, Colonel, it is not—but that superstition, as you call it, is in this case a military fact. Howe’s case is the first example of something we are going to have to deal with—the attitude of the orthodox religions to the one we have trumped up.”

  “Maybe,” suggested Wilkie, “we should have imitated the more usual religions.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps. I thought of that, but somehow I couldn’t see it. I can’t picture one of us standing up and pretending to be a minister, say, of one of the regular protestant churches. I’m not much of a churchgoer, but I didn’t think I could stomach it. Maybe when it comes right down to it, I’m bothered by the same thing that bothers Howe. But we’ve got to deal with it. We’ve got to consider the attitude of the other churches. We mustn’t tread on their toes in any way we can help.”

  “Maybe this would help,” Thomas suggested. “It could be one of the tenets of our church that we included and tolerated, even encouraged, any other form of worship that a man might favor. Besides that, every church, especially these days, has more social work than it can afford. We’ll give the others financial assistance with no strings attached.”

  “Both of those things will help,” Ardmore decided, “but it will be ticklish business. Whenever possible, we’ll enlist the regular ministers and priests themselves. You can bet that every American will be for us, if he understands what we are aiming toward. The problem will be to decide which ones can be trusted with the whole secret. Now about Denver, Jeff, do you want to start back right away, tomorrow, maybe?”

  “How about Howe?”

  “He’ll come around, I think.”

  “Just a moment, Major.” It was Dr. Brooks, who had been sitting quietly, as usual, while the others talked. “I think it would be a good idea if we waited a day or two, until Scheer can make certain changes in the power units of the staffs.”

  “What sort of changes?”

  “You will remember that we established experimentally that the Ledbetter effect could be used as a sterilizing agent?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “That is why we felt safe in predicting that we would help the sick. As a matter of fa
ct we underestimated the potentialities of the method. I infected myself with anthrax earlier this week—”

  “Anthrax! For God’s sake, Doctor, what in the world do you mean by taking a chance like that?”

  Brooks turned his mild eyes on Ardmore. “But it was obviously necessary,” he explained patiently. “The guinea pig tests were positive, it is true, but human experimentation was necessary to establish the method. As I was saying, I infected myself with anthrax and permitted the disease to establish itself, then exposed myself to the Ledbetter effect in all wave lengths except that band of frequencies fatal to warm-blooded vertebrates. The disease disappeared. In less than an hour the natural balance of anabolism over catabolism had cleared up the residue of pathological symptoms. I was well.”

  “I’ll be a cross-eyed intern! Do you think it will work on other diseases just as quickly?”

  “I feel sure of it. Not only has such been the result with other diseases in the animal experimentation that I have conducted, but because of another unanticipated, though experimentally predictable, result. I’ve suffered from a rather severe cold in the head lately, as some of you may have noticed. The exposure not only cured the anthrax, it completely cleared up my cold. The cold virus involves a dozen or more known pathogenic organisms, and probably as many more unknown ones. The exposure killed them all, indiscriminately.”

  “I’m delighted to get this report, Doctor,” Ardmore answered. “In the long run this one development may be of more importance to the human race than any military use we may make of it now. But how does it affect the matter of establishing the branch church in Denver?”

  “Well, sir, perhaps it doesn’t. But I took the liberty of having Scheer modify one of the portable power units in order that healing might be conveniently carried on by any one of our agents even though equipped only with the staff. I thought you might prefer to wait until Scheer could add the same modification to the staffs designed to be used by Thomas and Howe.”

  “I think you are right, if it does not take too long. May I see the modification?”

  Scheer demonstrated the staff he had worked over. Superficially it looked no different from the others. A six-foot rod was surmounted by a capital in the form of an ornate cube about four inches through. The faces of the cube were colored to correspond with the sides of the great temple. The base of the cube and the staff itself were covered with intricate designs in golden scroll-work, formal arabesques, and delicate bas-relief—all of which effectively concealed the controls of the power unit and projector located in the cubical capital.

  Scheer had not changed the superficial appearance of the staff; he had simply added an additional circuit internally to the power unit in the cube which constrained it to oscillate only outside the band of frequencies fatal to vertebrate life. This circuit controlled the action of the power unit and projector whenever a certain leaf in the decorative design of the staff was pressed.

  Scheer and Graham had labored together to create the staff’s designing and redesigning to achieve an integrated whole in which mechanical action would be concealed in artistic camouflage. They made a good team. As a matter of fact their talents were not too far apart; the artist is two-thirds artisan and the artisan has essentially the same creative urge as the artist.

  “I would suggest,” added Brooks, when the new control had been explained and demonstrated, “that this new effect be attributed to Tamar, Lady of Mercy, and that her light be turned on when it is used.”

  “That’s right. That’s the idea,” Ardmore approved. “Never use the staff for any purpose without turning on the color light associated with the particular god whose help you are supposed to be invoking. That’s an invariable rule. Let ’em break their hearts trying to figure out how a simple monochromatic light can perform miracles.”

  “Why bother with the rigmarole?” inquired Calhoun. “The PanAsians can’t possibly detect the effects we use in any case.”

  “There is a double reason, Colonel. By giving them a false lead to follow we hope to insure that they will bend their scientific efforts in the wrong direction. We can’t afford to underestimate their ability. But even more important is the psychological effect on nonscientific minds, both white and yellow. People think things are wonderful that look wonderful. The average American is completely unimpressed by scientific wonders; he expects them, takes them as a matter of course with an attitude of ‘So what? That’s what you guys are paid for.’

  “But add a certain amount of flubdub and hokum and don’t label it ‘scientific’ and he will be impressed. It’s wonderful advertising.”

  “Well,” said Calhoun, dismissing the matter, “no doubt you know best—you have evidently had a great deal of experience in fooling the public. I’ve never turned my attention to such matters; my concern is with pure science. If you no longer need me here, Major, I have work to do.”

  “Certainly, Colonel, certainly! Go right ahead, your work is of prime importance…

  “Still,” he added meditatively, when Calhoun had gone, “I don’t see why mass psychology shouldn’t be a scientific field. If some of the scientists had taken the trouble to formulate some of the things that salesmen and politicians know already, we might never have gotten into the mess we’re in.”

  “I think I can answer that,” Dr. Brooks said diffidently.

  “Huh? Oh, yes, Doctor—what were you going to say?”

  “Psychology is not a science because it is too difficult. The scientific mind is usually orderly, with a natural love for order. It resents and tends to ignore fields in which order is not readily apparent. It gravitates to fields in which order is easily found such as the physical sciences, and leaves the more complex fields to those who play by ear, as it were. Thus we have a rigorous science of thermodynamics but are not likely to have a science of psychodynamics for many years yet to come.”

  Wilkie swung around so that he faced Brooks. “Do you really believe that, Brooksie?”

  “Certainly, my dear Bob.”

  Ardmore rapped on his desk, “It’s an interesting subject, and I wish we could continue the discussion—but it looks like rain, and the crops still to get in. Now about this matter of founding a church in Denver—anybody got any ideas?”

  Chapter Six

  Wilkie said, “I’m glad I don’t have to tackle it. I wouldn’t have the slightest idea where to start.”

  “Ah, but you may have to tackle it, Bob,” Ardmore countered. “We may all have to tackle it. Damn it—if we only had a few hundred that we could depend on! But we haven’t; there are only nine of us.” He sat still for a moment, drumming the table. “Just nine.”

  “You’ll never get Colonel Calhoun to make noises like a preacher,” commented Brooks.

  “Okay, then—eight. Jeff, how many cities and towns are there in the United States?”

  “And you can’t use Frank Mitsui,” persisted Brooks. “For that matter, while I’m willing enough I don’t see how you can use me. I haven’t any more idea of how to go about setting up a fake church than I have about how to teach ballet dancing.”

  “Don’t fret about it, Doctor, neither have I. We’ll play by ear. Fortunately there aren’t any rules. We can cook it up to suit ourselves.”

  “But how are you going to be convincing?”

  “We don’t have to be convincing—not in the sense of getting converts. Real converts might prove to be a nuisance. We just have to be convincing enough to look like a legitimate religion to our overlords. And that doesn’t have to be very convincing. All religions look equally silly from the outside. Take the—” Ardmore caught a look on Scheer’s face and said, “Sorry! I don’t mean to tread on anybody’s toes. But it’s a fact just the same and one that we will make military use of. Take any religious mystery, any theological proposition: expressed in ordinary terms it will read like sheer nonsense to the outsider, from the ritualistic, symbolic eating of human flesh and blood practiced by all the Christian sects to the outright cannibalism
practiced by some savages.”

  “Wait a minute, now!” he went on. “Don’t throw anything at me. I’m not passing judgments on any religious beliefs or practices; I’m just pointing out that we are free to do anything at all, so long as we call it a religious practice and so long as we don’t tread on the toes of the monkey men. But we have to decide what it is we are going to do and what it is we are going to say.”

  “It’s not the double-talk that worries me,” said Thomas. “I just stuck to saying nothing in big words and it worked out all right. It’s the matter of getting an actual toe hold in the cities. We just haven’t got enough people to do it. Was that what you were thinking about when you asked me how many cities and towns there are in the country?”

  “Mmm, yes. We can’t act—we don’t dare act, until we cover the United States like a blanket. We’ll have to make up our minds to a long war.”

  “Major, why do you want to cover every city and town?”

  Ardmore looked interested. “Keep talking.”

  “Well,” Thomas went on diffidently, “from what we’ve already learned the PanAsians don’t maintain real military force in every hamlet. There are between sixty and seventy-five places that they have garrisoned. Most towns just have a sort of combination tax collector, mayor, and chief of police to see that the orders of the Hand are carried out. The local panjandrum isn’t even a soldier, properly speaking, even though he goes armed and wears a uniform. He’s sort of an M.P., a civil servant acting as a military governor. I think we can afford to ignore him; his power wouldn’t last five minutes if he weren’t backed up by the troops and weapons in the garrisoned cities.”

  Ardmore nodded. “I see your point. You feel that we should concentrate on the garrisoned towns and cities and ignore the rest. But look, Jeff, we mustn’t underestimate the enemy. If the Great God Mota shows up nowhere but in the garrisoned spots it’s going to look mighty funny to some intelligence officer among the PanAsians when he gets to fiddling with the statistics of the occupied country. I think we’ve got to show up elsewhere and anywhere.”