The Prayer Machine

by Christopher Hodder-Williams

  ‘That is exactly it. For the first time I am able to analyse. I can make God believe that I analyse honestly.’

  ‘And does God have to love you only on your terms?’

  ‘They are terms of reference only. He is another word for love.’

  ‘Pure love?’

  She nodded. ‘Absolutely. I know of no other kind.’

  ‘I can think of another kind.’ He watched her eyes; but they betrayed only a puzzling sort of happiness. ‘What about the love of Neil Prentice?’

  ‘He is not in love with me, nor I with him. But we must not throw the dictionary at each other.’

  Father Stillwell seemed abstracted. Through the rain, he was watching human activity below, down in the Bowl. He commented without looking at her, ‘I am sure we both understand what love is about. Does either of us need a dictionary for that?’

  ‘The dictionary is needed, Father, by Dr Braknell. He sees evil in all the wrong places, but fails to notice it when evil is done.’

  ‘As you said.’

  ‘And now you yourself are interested in what goes on down there in G Block.’

  ‘Go on about dictionaries.’

  ‘Schizophrenia is only a word. For all I know, God has schizophrenia. That is not the thing which is important. One has to define this word. I see Neil Prentice as someone who wishes to make a great sacrifice. He wishes many people to be prayed for. This is so evil? This is a good enough reason for Dr Braknell to be so angry? What does this anger conceal? His pride is hurt, Father, because he knows that he is deaf and dumb and blind. Dr Braknell could cure a medical dictionary of every disease there is, simply by tearing out the pages that described them. That’s just as bad as believing every word in the Bible. And it is as meaningless. The Bible, surely, is a living thing? — not a dead thing … finished two thousand years ago! All the time it is being written; and all the time there are sufferings and people who try and end them.’

  Stillwell said, ‘What outsize philosopher have I so unwittingly been harbouring? How dare you speak of God as if you understood Him!’

  ‘I’ll go further. I claim He understands me!’

  ‘And so you are demanding that I do also?’

  ‘ “Demanding” is a strong word, Father. And I think you do understand me, which is why you are so often angry.’

  ‘Youth is an infuriating thing, Ann Marie. It challenges. And yet, if one does not give way in time, youth can also shrivel; and the wisdom one has gained through the years dries up and dies. So if I am prepared to make terms with you, Ann Marie, it is because we neither of us wish to be virtually geriatric before our time.’

  ‘Listen to the thunder! It makes a full stop after the things you say.’

  ‘Then I’ll fight the sense of importance it seems to lend my utterances … What are they up to, down in the Bowl?’

  ‘Something I have watched several times before … They leave G Block at night — like now — and go into the computer room.’

  ‘It’s because they can get cheap computer time at night.’

  ‘That man looks furtive, Father.’

  ‘He just looks wet to me.’ Stillwell watched as the man way below in the Bowl ran through the rain to reach the glass doors of the computer room. ‘Even scientists involved in genetic engineering must do their sums.’

  ‘Suppose they don’t come out right?’

  ‘Then they would say so.’

  ‘Or would they go on and on and on, Father, until it was too late to go back to the sum they started off with?’

  ‘It could happen. But I’m only an ecclesiastic. My knowledge of genetics is very limited. I doubt whether those people down there could make me understand in a hundred years what they are really up to.’

  Ann Marie said, ‘A hundred years. Perhaps that is the time they need before the sums come out right. Perhaps then they do not go to the altar of the computer and blaspheme about a split chromosome.’

  He seemed taken aback. ‘Where did you get that from?’

  She frowned a little herself. ‘I do not know. I think perhaps Neil mentioned it to me.’

  Father Stillwell said, ‘Ann Marie, since you are not — at any rate technically — a nun, would you enter into a conspiracy with me? I need a cigarette badly. Priests don’t smoke.’

  ‘I’ll get you one from Neil’s coat pocket.’

  Stillwell watched as the man entered the computer room. Slightly curious was the fact that the intruder did not switch the main lights on. From up there on the podium, Stillwell could only see the dim glimmer of the console light.

  ‘Here, Father.’

  ‘Thank you, Sister. Should I call you that?’

  ‘Yes, please!’

  ‘I should not confide this. But it has been worrying me. And I’ve never mentioned it to anyone. But really Dr Braknell is in a state of almost intolerable conflict.’

  ‘Is that why he overreacts to anything that isn’t quite classical?’

  ‘To be frank I think he would anyway. If you’re talking about schizophrenia Braknell is no lover of the theories of Dr Laing … What I mean is that he’s in dire conflict with himself. It was he who told me what little he knew about the split chromosome; and although he condones anything that smacks of the establishment he nevertheless fears what is being done in G Block.’

  ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘Something no one quite admits. You hear it more at the main hospital in Exeter than you do around Norton. Something about using beam radiography on the foetus — or even before.’

  ‘Surely it is most dangerous to X-ray the uterus at such times?’

  Father Stillwell looked dead ahead. ‘I have heard something which I must insist you tell nobody.’

  ‘I think you can trust me, Father.’

  ‘I have heard indirectly that they irradiate people while they’re actually mating.’

  ‘To split a chromosome?’

  ‘Yes, perhaps. It would help if one of us knew what that really meant.’

  She tilted her head up to him. ‘Perhaps Dr Braknell’s problem is that he does know what it really means.’

  ‘Then why doesn’t he stop it?’

  ‘Possibly there is no law against it. But on the law Dr Braknell is most inconsistent. There is no law against using TNA. He did his best to stop that. Which, I wonder, is the more dangerous?’

  Stillwell gazed at her. ‘Or which comes first — the chicken or the egg?’

  ‘I do not understand. Perhaps I am stupid?’

  ‘You’re certainly not that … No, I mean this: if they were not splitting chromosomes, would Neil Prentice have chosen to go on a schizophrenic trip?’

  Jane Schuber appeared on the balcony. ‘Might I interrupt?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘The patient said something. A long speech, but in a dead monotone. Could you play the tape in reverse — on the other machine?’

  Ann Marie said, ‘I stay here. I am very much interested in the computer room. I will watch.’

  *

  Jane Schuber had typed it out. And although she could see that in some weird context it might seem to make sense, she was equally sure that there was something fraudulent about it. She bit her lip and showed it again to Father Stillwell.

  He said, ‘Why have you typed it like that?’

  ‘Because that’s the way it seems to come over.’

  ‘In block capitals? How can someone speak in block capitals?’

  Jane said, ‘I simply don’t know. It just felt right.’

  He said, ‘This is the bit that’s worrying you — where it says PONEM SHUTDOWN?’

  ‘Yes. That’s why I’ve marked it in red.’

  ‘Why?’

  She blushed. ‘I don’t want to gabble on about psychiatry.’

  ‘If it’s relevant, gabble away.’

  ‘The word PONEM implies to the patient his means of communicating. It’s a kind of cue word which permits him to cross the barrier of psychosis for short periods and pass
what he regards as messages to our world. That — at any rate — would be the classical way of looking at it. And in this context it serves us well enough.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So: if, in his mind, PONEM SHUTDOWN is valid —’

  Father Stillwell picked it up instantly. ‘How would he be able to tell us that it had — if the PONEM is his medium?’

  ‘Precisely. Furthermore, how could anything follow? But quite a lot does follow … typical schizoid stuff, too. Look at this: ANY UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY TO PONEM SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE LASER DE-LIMBING.’

  ‘Do schizophrenics go in for all this carry-on about lasers and things?’

  ‘Yes, it’s quite typical. And here you get the paranoid-schizophrenic in full cry: … IMMEDIATE LASER DE-LIMBING. It’s the classic syndrome. Schizophrenics always latch on to some mystique like laser technology or — for that matter — travelling through time and space. And note the concept of intense persecution.’

  Stillwell was staring at the typewriter. ‘But wait a minute. If he’s talking backwards — as it clearly shows when we have to play the tapes back-to-front, nothing precedes the phrase PONEM SHUT DOWN.’

  ‘How do you mean? — That’s the beginning of —’

  ‘From a backwards point of view it’s the end of the message, NWOD TUHS MENOP. Right — or wrong?’

  Jane felt cornered. To go any further with the analysis she had to admit that there was more to this than just plain schizophrenia.

  Stillwell seemed to guess at the reason for her blush. ‘I’m not in Dr Braknell’s pocket, you know.’

  A look passed between them. Jane cleared her throat. ‘From Neil Prentice’s point of view — from his end of … the fantasy, he is speaking forwards. The PONEM — by this reasoning, is his and — not ours. Therefore PONEM SHUT DOWN is the beginning of the message, not the end.’

  ‘So you half-believe all this alleged … quackery?’

  Jane felt the blood even hotter on her cheeks. ‘All I’m saying —’

  ‘— is that you have to believe both explanations of his dilemma at once?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, if such a fantastic paradox is to be believed, where does it leave us?’

  ‘With the notion,’ she said, ‘that Neil Prentice has reached a point where he has been led to believe that the PONFM has been shut down, when in fact it is still working.’

  ‘A red herring across the trail?’

  ‘Yes. But going back to psychosis, Father Stillwell. If a patient reaches such a stalemate in his fantasies, it can be extremely dangerous. His way back is blocked — the door of his avenue of escape is slammed in his face.’

  ‘But the door isn’t slammed in his face.’

  ‘But he thinks it is.’

  ‘So we have to tell him that it’s not?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  There was silence between them. Outside, a spark zagged down from the cunim to the taller of the two high-rise buildings. The lightning was an ice pick splitting the air in half. Outside the rain was going through metamorphosis until rocklike hailstones fell in icy avalanche onto the metal roof of the podium.

  Father Stillwell said, ‘I’ll get Ann Marie. She seems to have a certain rapport with the patient.’ He went outside, found her transfixed.

  She said, ‘Those people down there. In the computer room. They’re fighting over something.’

  ‘I need you inside.’

  She clutched his sleeve. ‘Let us wait. One of the men is running out. See?’

  ‘That does not concern us at present.’

  ‘Father, how do we know what concerns us at present?’

  ‘Ann Marie, I want you to help the patient. I want you to open the barrier that he has met with in his fantasies.’

  ‘The man is taking the ramp staircase two at a time. He’s heading this way!’

  ‘The patient,’ continued Father Stillwell doggedly, ‘has tricked himself into a dilemma. He thinks — and states — that he cannot communicate with us. Yet the very words he utters are clear messages which we can receive, by playing them backwards. What does that imply to you?’

  ‘That man! What’s he carrying in his arms?’

  Stillwell looked around. A man was dashing across the concrete with a great wad of printout clutched to his breast. He tried to wipe the salt from his eyes as he got his breath back … ‘Father Stillwell? — I must talk to you.’

  Stillwell said, ‘We are a little busy up here.’

  ‘This can’t wait. They’ll try to gag me under some gimmick like the Official Secrets Act. I must tell you!’

  ‘Carry on.’

  ‘We ran the forecasts on the genetic effects of the split chromosome. The implications in this printout are quite appalling; but they’re going on with it!’

  ‘Where did this printout come from?’

  ‘From the program we just ran. But Security Level Alpha. In other words, top secret.’

  Ann Marie started to stammer something but Stillwell shushed her silent. ‘They know they’re doing something harmful yet they’re concealing it as well as pursuing it?’

  ‘Yes. They say that I must have written the program wrongly but if there’s anything I really know it’s how to batch a program together. The mistake isn’t mine.’

  ‘Could the computer have erred?’

  ‘No. You get a validation check at various points during the run.’

  ‘What is the timescale of this forecast?’

  ‘Over a hundred years. Right up to the year 2080. It shows that the split chromosome can replicate in two different ways — not just the one, as we thought.’

  ‘With what result?’

  ‘Extreme premature aging.’

  Ann Marie had gone white. ‘But —’

  The man appeared desperate. ‘Father Stillwell, keep these sheets in a safe place. In your Chapel. Somewhere they can’t find them. I want to get an outside analysis done. Until that time, I don’t want the information suppressed.’

  ‘Is this the only copy?’

  ‘The rest of it is held on magnetic disc in the —’ His breath ran out. ‘… puter.’

  ‘So the computer knows?’

  The man said, ‘In strict terms, the computer still holds the program and the data in backing store.’

  ‘Isn’t that another way of saying the same thing?’

  ‘I won’t split hairs. There’s no time. They’ve gone to fetch Dr Braknell.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they know what’s going on up here … Father Stillwell, will you promise not to hand those printouts over to Braknell?’

  ‘Surely,’ said Stillwell calmly, ‘Dr Braknell can assess the position objectively?’

  ‘It’s no longer a situation where objective criteria apply.’

  ‘Isn’t the problem simply that of determing whether or not a mistake has occurred somewhere along the line?’

  Ann Marie stammered out, ‘Along what line, Father? What has Neil found out that has led to a program apparently being different from the information supplied?’

  Father Stillwell thought this line of argument had gone quite far enough. He said to the man, ‘By what means was this program fed to the machine?’

  ‘With punched cards.’

  ‘Is it possible that, through some accident, someone has included some cards that were not the result of direct observation of the experiments?’

  ‘Father, if any incompatible cards were included there would have been an Interrupt and the error would have been printed out. I prepared this deck of cards myself and kept them in a card-case. Later I’ll go through them; but I’m sure no error occurred. Please will you keep the printout safely?’

  ‘All right. But what about those cards? Where are they?’

  ‘They’ve kept them.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In G Block.’

  ‘And you can’t get them back?’

  ‘From now on they won’t let me in. As it is I’ll be in bad trouble
with the DHSS, who have sponsored the project.’

  Ann Marie said, ‘They’ve wasted no time. There’s Dr Braknell’s car now.’

  Father Stillwell said, ‘I’ll deal with him. Ann Marie, take this printout down to my quarters. Greystones House.’

  ‘Where shall I hide it?’

  ‘There’s a recess behind the night-storage heater in the hall. The one nearest the door.’

  ‘How do I get in?’

  ‘Here’s the key. Don’t be seen by anyone. If you’re intercepted, call me.’

  ‘Okay, Father …’

  He watched her disappear down the south ramp of the podium, just as Braknell took the cantilevered ramp near the computer room, driving at what seemed an unholy speed. Tyres squealing, he followed the spiral road all the way up to podium level and jumped out. It was evident that he was furious. ‘So you’ve caught them at it, have you?’

  ‘Brack, let’s go and talk quietly together. How about your office?’

  ‘Like hell we go to my office! What are they playing at? Dr Schuber knows I have ruled absolutely against the further use of TNA!’

  ‘I think, possibly, Dr Schuber misunderstood your directive.’

  ‘In which case,’ said Braknell pushing his way past, ‘we must take steps to correct her misapprehension on that count.’

  He was not going to be stopped, even by Father Stillwell. With three angry strides he was inside. He glared once at Jane Schuber, then went to the patient and lifted an eyelid.’

  ‘Lamp. Quickly … Thank you very much.’ He held the pinpoint lens close to Neil’s right eye.

  He turned, put the instrument down, and rattled off questions at Jane Schuber in a voice so hostile that at one point Stillwell thought he might strike her. ‘How long has he been in this state?’

  ‘For about an hour.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call me?’

  ‘Because I feel that the options open to me as a doctor are quite clearcut.’

  ‘You mean you couldn’t come to me because you chose to use TNA?’

  She didn’t blush. ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘You do realize, don’t you, that by now the main effect of TNA would have worn off — and that therefore what you are now faced with is a deep psychotic episode?’

  ‘I realize he is in a trance state.’

  ‘A catatonic state.’