The Prayer Machine

by Christopher Hodder-Williams

‘The words Schuber wrote before she was burned to death in that fire were these: Neil now knows what the effects of the re-engineered chromosome will be. He knows much more about G Block than he admits. What chromosome, Mr Prentice?’

  Neil sat absolutely still. He repeated, ‘ “… now knows what the effects of the re-engineered chromosome will be.” Will be! Can’t you understand?’

  ‘The way I read it, it clearly means that you knew what you were doing, made a prediction, then went and told her. Interschizoid thinking-God’s Printout. You knew!’

  ‘I’ve never been inside G Block. Not yet.’

  ‘But —’

  ‘Kin, it’s staring you in the face and you can’t see it. Why does she write in the future tense? “Will be”. If what you accused me of made any sense she would have put “have been”! She was writing from the standpoint of someone who had been informed via the future — via me! — of what was destined to happen! She wasn’t guessing: she was stating a proven fact!’

  ‘What fact?’

  ‘Something you’re about to tell me. I know it sounds impossible; but that’s the way it is.’

  Krister had been gripping the edge of the table till his knuckles had turned white. He managed to release his fingers and to talk more rationally. ‘We found something called the split chromosome. What was unique about it was that it didn’t replicate across the double helix in a predictable way. We tested it at the clinic. In one configuration the split in the chemical chain didn’t show. In the other it did. When it did, the intelligence of the resulting embryo was enormously increased. We tried it on rats. The rats whose genes were assembled in the suplex form were astounding. They could solve maze problems first time, and remember them indefinitely. They could be trained by Pavlovian means so effectively that the conditioned reflex only needed two experiences of very complicated stimuli to become fixed. They could even add and subtract — as long as the numbers were less than nine. But —’

  ‘But?’

  ‘They lived no longer than two weeks. In that time, they went through each phase of life in supermotion. Females exhibited menopause after ten days. Their entire life cycle was condensed.’

  ‘And the explanation of Dr Schuber’s last comment?’

  ‘I dread to think. I leave you to guess. We can’t know yet. Can we? Only, get this: I love Juls as if he were my own son. Penta lives for him. He is why she has so much feeling for the crippled. She feels she owes something … to fate … to God, if you like. Are we to take that away from her? Does the key to Dr Schuber’s comment lie in Juls himself?’

  Neil said, ‘You could probably find out. Your Puter may not answer the questions. But that isn’t the same as saying it doesn’t know. By this time it must have worked out the whole pattern of the recessive gene.’

  Krister said, ‘Then why does it allow matings which could turn out so disastrous?’

  ‘Because of the two possible ways the gene replicates — as we discussed before. Your modern society needs brilliant people. People like Penta. To stifle the breed by cutting off the chances of producing someone like her would seem illogical — and computers only deal in logic. Since they are also inhuman and therefore inhumane, the only course open to a Logic Machine is to do exactly what farmers do before the Cattle Show. They don’t stifle the lambs prior to their birth. What they do is to sort them afterwards. The inferior stock is slaughtered and the superior stock is placed on show. The farmer can only detect the failures when he swings the sorting gate at the sheep pen. The computer can only do it when the symptoms appear. What we don’t know about young Juls is whether or not those symptoms have appeared. You certainly can’t tell this for certain from comparing two photographs.’

  Krister said shakily, ‘Until we do know for certain you must decommunicon any breath you breathe to Penta over this.’

  ‘Kin, I’ll try. But my honest opinion is that she has been half-suspecting it herself. I think that she unknowingly absorbed herself with the Samaritans to take her mind off it.’

  ‘She’s never shown any sign of worry.’

  ‘Because the worry is too great for her. If she allows the thoughts through she is faced with the certain knowledge that there is no known cure. People act for their own purposes. I’ve studied that proposition at the Institute of Metapsychology and I know it’s true.’

  ‘I accept that.’

  ‘What you don’t seem to accept is that you must detect the symptoms before the Regime does.’ Neil’s eyes hardened in the candlelight. ‘The State, Kin, is Narbiton. Subconsciously he hates Penta. I believe he therefore hates his son. He’ll get his own back regardless of how much he might regret it afterwards. I know the type. They don’t look ahead. They’re concerned only with their hatred in the present tense — not the appalling outcome of their vindictiveness.’

  Kin was silent for a long time. He got up and squared the candlesticks on the table, until they were exactly aligned and symmetrical. ‘Your logic is all too deadly — interschizoid or not. By all classical laws you’re out of your craze. But if you succeed in reorganizing history —’

  ‘— It might turn out that you never existed and Penta never existed and therefore Juls didn’t have a problem. On the other hand, it might not. It might be that someone thought up a way of anticipating this genetic effect and left Juls his genius without the high price he might be paying for it. How can we know? — It depends on which corridor of Time events actually follow. When do I meet the Forenthorics?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘You learn how to operate the Black Box.’

  ‘No. There isn’t time. I’ll have to find out as I go along. We must start work straight away.’

  ‘Be it on your own head.’

  Neil said, ‘According to the present classical laws of physics, I appear to have two of them.’

  Krister said, ‘Then you’d better sleep on both. Right now we need all the brainpower we can get.’

  Neil returned his look wryly. ‘How many brains does it take to beat a computer?’

  ‘Communicon.’ Krister blew out the candles. ‘I’m going out to switch off the generator. Then I’m for an early night. Morrow, Neil.’

  ‘Morrow.’

  6

  Father Stillwell was so disturbed by his vision that he went straight to the Chapel, lighted the candles, and knelt down to pray. He had hardly been there a minute when he heard someone on the creaky stairs outside. He knew who it was immediately.

  His first thought was that she, too, had come to pray. Convinced as he was that it was quite unnatural for Ann Marie to turn her back on her faith, it seemed logical for her to resume her acts of worship, even if she did decide to remain — for a time — outside the Order. On impulse he hastily blew out the candles and left her to her privacy by taking the side door to the organ loft. But there he stopped in his tracks. To his dismay, he saw Ann Marie go straight to the anteroom and switch on the light. There she quickly disconnected the tape recorder, folded the lid, and made off with it back toward the stairs.

  His first reaction was fury. Anything belonging to the convent was virtually consecrated. What blasphemy was this — the most enlightened — until so recently — of all the nuns, apparently stealing the convent’s equipment?

  ‘Ann Marie!’

  The footsteps stopped dead. He could hear her panicked breathing.

  Then, suddenly, he realized that his attitude to her was becoming close to sadistic. He was enjoying her terror. This must cease.

  He repeated his call more gently, and heard a kind of sigh as the girl exhaled pent-up breath. ‘Yes, father?’

  ‘You mustn’t.’

  ‘I intended to return it before morning.’

  Father Stillwell turned on the altar lights. In his mind this both highlighted the meaning of the Chapel and obviated the brilliant glare you would use on a thief caught red-handed. ‘Let us talk a moment.’

  ‘Time is precious, father.’
/>   ‘So are other things. You should know that.’

  Ann Marie didn’t feel guilty so much as compromized; and it was really the thought of Father Stillwell going straight to Dr Braknell that decided the issue.

  Father Stillwell spoke quietly. ‘Will you come and sit down?’ She placed the machine by the stairs, went back into the body of the chapel, and obeyed mutely. ‘Are we such strangers already, Sister?’

  ‘I cannot cheat you by allowing you to call me “Sister”.’

  ‘But you can cheat me by taking that machine without my consent?’

  ‘I need it desperately.’

  ‘Then couldn’t you have asked me for it?’

  ‘You would have refused.’

  ‘I see. I also note that you are incapable of lying. From what you say it is clear to me what you wanted it for.’

  ‘The reason I do not lie is not an ethical one. It is merely habitual.’

  ‘Isn’t it quite a good habit?’

  ‘Not if it stands in the way of what I believe to be right.’

  ‘The end justifies the means?’

  ‘In this case, yes.’

  He said calmly, ‘I’m not quite such a fool as you make out. From what I’ve heard it’s not difficult to work out why you want a second machine.’

  ‘Then if you are as astute as that are you going to stand in my way?’

  ‘No. But it is quite evident you are in need of some technical advice. That machine is quite useless for the purpose you have in mind.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You wish to record forwards and play it backwards. Don’t you?’

  She seemed taken aback. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You have not only abandoned the Order, you have abandoned logic. All these machines are twin-track. If you reverse the spools and play it, you’ll merely be playing the other track — forwards. Where will that get you?’ He smiled genuinely. ‘Don’t look so shattered! The job can be done. You need a professional machine using mono — where the full width of the tape is recorded. Then, if you turn it round, it really will play backwards.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘If you cannot come to me about matters of the spirit, you might at least call me in as technical adviser.’

  ‘I am … grateful. But how do I get such a machine?’

  Stillwell’s smile persisted but his tone was laconic, as if there were more attached to the problem than electronics. ‘You can be so cool?’

  ‘Yes. When I need something.’

  ‘I tried not to be angry and I’m still trying not to be angry. But if I’m going to be used I want to feel a bit more convinced.’

  ‘And you are not?’

  ‘Not yet, anyway. And unless you can come up with some sensible conclusion with which to persuade me to go against Dr Braknell’s judgement —’

  ‘I might as well give up.’ Ann Marie shrugged helplessly and made as if to leave. ‘What’s the use? You’ll only go straight to Dr Braknell, whatever I say.’

  Stillwell said flatly, ‘And does your new-found freedom merely give rise to petulance? You feel entitled — quite without any trace of guilt — to raid the convent you have so abruptly abandoned. Yet the moment I forgive it you assume I am to do what I’m told without even a satisfactory explanation. Isn’t that asking rather a lot of me?’

  ‘Perhaps you would prefer that I be burned as a witch.’

  Stillwell’s tone was merely bored and impatient. ‘If you simply want to indulge cheap remarks in the house of God I don’t think we’ll make much headway.’

  ‘I am sorry — I mean that. But I have to be honest. I feel you are being pig-headed. Surely you see that there must be … truth … in what Dr Schuber and I are trying to do?’

  ‘On the contrary. I have not the least doubt that you have taken truth by the scruff of its neck and are gravely risking shaking it to pieces. In so doing, Dr Braknell for one thinks that you could be fragmenting the patient’s mind and very possibly your own. Quack medical practices are dangerous for the very fact that they skate within millimetres of appalling truths — many of them evil. Unfortunately the obsession for probing unknown areas of the human soul becomes much more fascinating than the purpose that was originally intended. Dr Schuber is out on a limb, Ann Marie, and so are you.’

  ‘Father … would it be impertinent for me to ask why you came to the Chapel at this late hour?’

  ‘I came here to pray.’

  ‘You are frightened.’

  ‘Then that is between me and God. How do you resolve your own fears, Ann Marie, now that you have resorted to synthetic prayer?’

  ‘I do not understand you, Father.’

  ‘Suppose the very medium that you use — in your attempts to help the sick — turns round on you and becomes destructive?’

  ‘Father, I can see no difference between that possibility and the so-called wrath of God. Your God angers easily … and out of motives that do not strike me as rational.’

  ‘And yours?’

  ‘I have no god to pray to.’

  ‘I’m glad you realize it. I thought you’d made a god out of a void.’ He gestured toward the tape recorder. ‘You use machines — like that one — as if they can somehow bring you closer to truth.’

  Ann Marie said, ‘I do not recognize that there is an absolute, when it comes to a matter like truth.’

  ‘Not even the absolute of Love?’

  ‘I am only just beginning to learn about love.’

  ‘Which kind?’

  ‘The kind that heals.’

  ‘I’m glad you said that. I thought —’

  ‘— if you thought I was talking about the Flesh I can see no evil in it.’

  ‘Nor can I, Ann Marie, if it endures. But you’re like a child with a new toy. You’ve chucked all your reliable standbys out of the window because you are obsessed with a machine.’

  ‘A black hole is hardly a machine.’

  ‘But a drug? What can TNA be — other than a machine which acts on the brain? The function of all drugs is basically chemical — in other words, mechanical. Do you deny that?’

  ‘No. But even Dr Braknell would concede that such machines are sometimes necessary.’

  ‘As long as they are understood. Do you understand TNA? Do you know what it does — how it works?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And if you accept — as presumably you must — that your black hole is artificially created, again by the use of machines, you surely must see that you are indulging something that seems very close to synthetic prayer?’

  ‘Then I just hope it will be answered … as I hope yours will, too. But there is at least one advantage in my own methods: they tell me exactly what and whom to pray for.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘There is one word — during the half hour or so in which Neil has been in this trance — which has come up over and over again.’

  ‘But doesn’t he speak backwards?’

  ‘I manipulated a short length of the tape by hand. Just pulled it backwards.’ She met Stillwell’s eyes. ‘It was a name: Juls.’

  Father Stillwell stared at her speechlessly. Then he got up, went to the altar, and lighted the candles again.

  When he had done this, he crossed himself. He stood there for a few seconds, looking up at the East Window, then turned. ‘I have a vision. Earlier tonight. A little boy. The music of Brahms. There is a violin. It is played very beautifully. The fingers that stop the strings are deft and agile …

  ‘Then — suddenly — they are gnarled, like claws. The music becomes hideous. And, before my eyes, the child becomes deformed by arthritic pain. His face is wrinkled and shrunken, like a dried up leaf on a dead tree. I see the mother, weeping over him. She is sobbing, and she is young, and she does not know it but she is also holy. She cries out: “Juls! Oh God! Juls!” Like that …’

  ‘But … how could you know?’

  He looked grim and drawn. ‘Perhaps we all share a bit of this … schizophrenia. But in its interpr
etation I am guided by God. That fact is what gives me the strength and resilience I need — not only for Juls, but for my everyday responsibilities.’

  Ann Marie stood immobile. ‘What you mean is, we both care.’

  Gently he said, ‘Kneel down with me, Ann Marie? And pray? Just for a little?’ He seemed close to tears. ‘I need you here beside me. I need the presence of a woman. Please?’

  *

  Because so much foliage had long since dried out, dust clouds eddied on the hot morning wind and coated the cottages with fungus flakes.

  Although the village had earned its name — Clearwater — from the stream that had once irrigated the neighbouring farms, the water had dropped to a mere trickle, like a hot spring, which followed the old riverbed down the centre. Every drop was precious. Krister had spent weeks laying a minor pipeline to a storage tank. If used sparingly, the supply still meant that the village was something of an oasis in an otherwise toxic desert.

  The valley had shallowed through the years, due to unhindered soil erosion; and the terrain comprised mere undulations in an otherwise featureless plain. The unnatural heat baked the cobble arches between road and pavement. Long fissures in cake mud exuded the sour stench of decaying vegetable matter.

  Neil watched the blood-red sunrise and had to remind himself that this really was Dartmoor in January. Only the thatch on the cottage roofs assured him that this was not Colorado but England.

  Krister came down early for breakfast. ‘Morrow. Sleep all right?’

  ‘No complaints.’

  ‘Good. I’ll just nip round to the bakery.’ He grinned. ‘Fresh bread! Does that impress you?’

  ‘It amazes me.’

  ‘Want to come? It’s best that your first meeting with a Forenthoric is … well … casual and joblike.’ He led the way out. ‘Doesn’t hit you so hard and nor will it embarrass them. They know we have a visitor … That stubble must be annoying. Do you want the shaving mirror?’

  Neil said, ‘A razor would be a start.’

  They crossed the cobblestone arch over the gutter. Here the pleasant smell of yeast dominated the odours from beneath. Kin said, ‘Razors went out with the automobile. You’ll find a microwave shaver up in my bathroom. This is the bakery. Real homebody stuff they bake, too.’ He pushed open the door. An ancient bell tinkled overhead. ‘Morrow, Alice. This is Neil.’