Danger, Religion!

by Brian Aldiss

  Rastell marched over to a bulletin board and scanned it.

  "We have half an hour before the next history briefing for extra-matricials. You'd better attend; the less time wasted the better. I'll see you are found a room where you can wash and rest. I have one or two people I ought to speak to. We'll meet again, shortly, at the briefing."

  A sub ran up to unclip the portal from his back. Another ran up with a glass of water. Captain Apos­tolic Rastell looked pleased to be home.

  He signaled a passing servant, a girl dressed not in overalls but in a curious black and white pantaloon. I felt some anxiety at leaving Rastell, this one contact with my own matrix. He interpreted my expression and nodded at the girl.

  "This sub girl will take good care of you, Meacher. Under the dispensation, she will serve you in any way you may require."

  As he disappeared, I thought he was not an unlikable devil, given better circumstances. I followed the sub girl, noting the yellow disc between her shoulder blades. She led me up one flight of stairs and along a corridor and opened a door for me. When I was inside she followed, locked the door, and handed me the key. Despite myself, her air of submissiveness gave me ideas. In that awful dress she looked Polish, and her face was pasty, but she was young and had good features. "What's your name?"

  She pointed to a button on her dress. On it was stamped the name Ann.

  "You are Ann? Can't you talk?" She shook her head. Cold needles prickled in my chest; it occurred to me that I had not heard a word from Dibbs or from the slaves by the upturned cab. Moving toward her, I touched her chin. "Open your mouth, Ann."

  Meekly, she let her jaw hang. No, her tongue was there as well as several teeth that needed stopping or pulling. The helplessness of the creature over­whelmed me.

  "Why can't you speak, Ann?"

  She closed her jaw and lifted up her chin. On the whiteness of her neck ran an ugly scar. They had severed her vocal cords. I clasped her thin shoulders and let anger burn over me. "Is this done to all slaves?" Shake of head. "To some—to most of them?"

  Nod.

  "Some sort of punishment?"

  Nod.

  "Hurt your Nod. So remote! "Are there other men like me, from other matrices, along this corridor?"

  Blank look.

  "I mean, other strangers from other places like me?"

  Nod.

  "Take me to one of them."

  I gave her back the key. She unlocked the door and went into the corridor. At the door of the room next to mine she stopped. Her key fitted that lock, and the door swung open.

  A fellow with a thatch of wispy yellow hair and stubble all around a great jaw sat at a table eating. He ate with a spoon, furiously. Though he looked up as I came in, pulling Ann in with me, he did not interrupt the ladling of food into his mouth.

  "You're an extra-matricial?" I asked. He made noises of assent into his stew.

  "So am I. The name's Sheridan Meacher. Historian, ex-army." When he made no answer save to gape, I went on. "We can't agree to give these people any help to bolster up their regime. Their entire system is evil and must be destroyed. I'm going to get people to help me."

  He stood up, an ungainly lump of a man. He leaned over the table toward me, still gripping his spoon. "What's evil about the system here, Jack?"

  I showed him Ann's scars, explaining what they were and how they had been caused. He laughed.

  "You want to come and have a look at my home matrix," he said. "Ever since an unsuccessful revolu­tion ten years ago, the Chinese have employed all scholars in chain gangs. They're busy making roads across the Cairngorms."

  "The Chinese? What have they to do with it?"

  "The Red Chinese. Didn't they win the Third World War in your matrix?"

  "Win it? They didn't even fight it!"

  "Well, then, you're just lucky, Jack, and if I were you I'd be inclined to keep my trap shut. Take what's offered, I say!"

  Before I had backed out of his room, he was again spooning stew into his mouth.

  In the next room was a little plump man, red in the face and bald of head, who jumped quickly back from fondling his sub girl as I entered with Ann.

  "I'm extra-matricial like you," I told him, "and I don't like what I have seen here so far. I hope you feel that these people should not be helped in any way."

  "We've rather got to make the best of things now we're here, that's my feeling," he said, coming for­ward to look at me. "What don't you like about this place?"

  "Their system of slavery—of mutilating slaves—it alone is enough to convince anyone that the ruling regime should be overthrown. You must feel the same."

  He scratched his bald head, considering the idea.

  "You could have worse than slavery, you know. At least slavery guarantees that a part of the population lives above the level of animals. In the Britain of my matrix—and I expect you have found the same—the standard of living has been declining ever since the beginning of the century. So much so that some peo­ple are beginning to whisper that communism may not after all be the solution we hoped when it was first generally adopted, and...."

  "Communism in Britain? Since when?"

  "You sound so surprised, anyone would have thought I said capitalism! After the success of the general strike of 1929, leading to glorious revolution, the first Communist government was established un­der the leadership of Sir Harold Pollitt. Then in the great People's War of 1940...."

  "All right, thanks for the lecture! Just tell me this— will you back me in opposing this regime of slavery?"

  "Well, I don't oppose you in opposing it, but first I'd have to confer with the comrades and get a rul­ing. .. ."

  I slammed the door on him. I had backed out hurriedly, and I bumped into another man moving rapidly down the corridor. Brought up short, we regarded each other challengingly. He was young and dark, about my weight and height, with a high bridge to his nose, and I liked the look of him immediately.

  "You're an extra-matricial?"

  He nodded, smiling gravely, and held out his hand. When I held out mine, he grasped my elbow instead; so I grasped his elbow.

  "My name is Mark Claud Gale, at your service. I'm on an errand of revolt, and you look like a possible conscript. None of these spineless fellows will back me up, but I'm not going to give this black-frocked government any help."

  "Ah, count me with you all the way, Mark! Great! I am Sherry Meacher, historian and soldier, and I also am recruiting. If we stick together and defy the re­gime, others may follow our example. And then per­haps the slaves...."

  The brazen tongue of a bell interrupted me.

  "Time for the historical briefing," Mark said. "Let's go and learn what we can, Sherry, of these altar-kissing hounds! Such knowledge may be turned to our use later. By my shrine, but this is an adventure!"

  This aspect of the matter had not struck me before, but to have a sturdy, dependable ally heartened me immensely, and I felt ready for anything. A heady and pleasurable excitement filled me. I could not wait to get to the briefing and to hear, to listen, to be assaulted and insulted by a barrage of new facts that—only a day ago!—would have seemed the wild­est fantasy! Then Mark Claud Gale and I would write a page of history of our own.

  A pair of dark-clothed church police appeared at the head of the stairs and began ushering us down. The bald man from Communist Britain (but for all I knew there were a million Communist Britains) tagged on with us but did not speak. Ann disappeared as we pressed downstairs. Counting heads, I noted that there were twenty-two of us extra-matricials. As we filed into a hall at the back of the foyer, we found another thirty-odd people awaiting us. From the variety of clothes they were wearing, it was apparent that they were also extra-matricials.

  We seated ourselves at long tables on benches and looked to the head table, which stood on a dais and contained three men, each with a secretary, and church police standing behind them. One of the three men was Captain Apostolic Rastell; he gave no sign of having n
oticed me.

  When a bell sounded, one of the men on the dais, a white-haired man of good bearing, rose to his feet and began to speak.

  "Gentlemen and sinners, we welcome you to our peaceful God-fearing matrix. We thank you for coming here to bring us help and wisdom. Need I say that your services will be rewarded. I am the Lieutenant Deacon Administered Bligh, and with me are the two members of my committee. Captain Apostolic Rastell is now going to give you a brief history of this matrix so that you may have a correct perspective on our problems. A sub will come round distributing pens and paper to all who wish to make notes."

  Rastell rose, bowed slightly to Bligh, and went straight into his talk.

  He spoke for almost two hours. From the body of the hall, hardly a whisper came. We listened fascinated to the history of a world like – and yet so hauntingly unlike – ours. Rastell’s version as lavishly trimmed by propaganda, yet the man’s own personality enlivened even the heaviest passage of dialectic.

  A few instances of the strange things Rastell told us must suffice. In this matrix, the concept of nationality has not arisen at as early a date as it had in the matrix I knew. In my home matrix (AA688 Rastell had called it, and I had committed the number to memory), although German and Italian nationality was not achieved until the second half of the nineteenth century, the other great European countries had achieved unity several centuries earlier.

  In Rastell’s matrix, the kings of England and France had been less successful in their struggles against the feudal lords; one reason for this was, I gathered, that the Church had looked less favorably on the concept of earthly kingdoms. The Church had played the barons against each other and against the Crown. Bishops held more power than kings or par­liaments.

  Consequently, Great Britain had not become a united kingdom until 1914, at the time of the Franco-German War, in which Britain remained neutral and the Consolidated Holy States of America sold arma­ments to both sides. In the First World War of 1939, the alignment of power was as I knew it, with a Nazi Germany fighting against Britain and France and, later, Holy Russia and Holy America entering as their allies, while Japan fought on the same side as Germa­ny. Japan, however, had been Christianized. The Americans, having been less attracted to a less heavi­ly industrialized Europe, had turned their attention and their missionaries to Japan earlier than they had done in my matrix.

  This led to a crisis in the conduct of the war. American and British scientists developed an atomic bomb. Before using this weapon against their Japa­nese and German enemies, the thirty-fifth President of the United States Benedict H. Denning, consulted with the Convocation of Churches.

  The Convocation was a powerful group. It not only forbade the use of such a weapon against nominally Christian countries; it gradually took over jurisdiction of the weapon. The war lasted until 1951, by which time the Church was completely in control of all nuclear-power development.

  A long and hard war had vitiated the C.H.S.A. and her allies. At the end of the conflict, weak governments fell and a strong church with popular backing rose as a challenging power. Its rule had spread to other countries, particularly to Europe, which was occupied after the war, not by armed forces, but by battalions of militant churchmen.

  In 1955, World Church waged a brief nuclear war against China and won.

  Since that date, almost a century ago, World Church had kept the fruits and the secrets of nuclear power under her voluminous skirts.

  Exhaustion of natural resources had necessitated the employment of subject populations, but there had been no war in the West since 1951. The rule of religion poured out its benefits on to all mankind. What Rastell did not mention were any negative or suppressive results of this rule.

  Some of these suppressions were obvious enough. With an autocratic central control and the lack of incentives that wars provide, scientific and technolog­ical developments had dropped away. World popula­tion, on the other hand, had risen steeply. Rastell mentioned at one point that, after the amalgamation of the Universal Christian Church in 1979, methods of contraception were universally discouraged. The new populations were born into slavery.

  "We have been able to turn away from materialism because we have a large subject population to per­form the menial tasks of the world for us," Rastell said. It struck me at the time that this was a twisted way of saying that almost every nation without mechanical labor is forced to use slaves.

  From what he said, and from what he omitted, it became apparent that almost the only scientific de­velopment since the 1960s was the portals, and trans-matricial travel. The Church had not encouraged space travel. No doubt they would have been shocked to learn of the Battle of Venus in the Fifth World War, in which I had taken part.

  When Rastell had finished speaking, silence lay over the hall. It had grown dusk while he talked; now lights came on reluctantly as we returned to awareness of our own situation. I could see by the faces about me that to many of the extra-matricials, Rastell's material had been more astonishing than I found it.

  What amazed me most was the way the Church had departed from what it represented in my matrix. Perhaps it was the possession of nuclear power that had worked the change. Such a possession would' have needed strong men to control it, and obviously the strong men had ousted the meek. Another case of absolute power corrupting absolutely. So I said to myself, with the Church cast as villain of the piece. Then Administered Bligh rose again and said nothing to make me doubt my own reasoning.

  "Now that you have a perspective with which to work," he said, "World Church can proceed to place before you the problem with which we are immedi­ately faced. As you know, you were brought here to give us your help. All of you are students of history in some form or other, in your separate matrices. A meal is going to be served to you right away; afterward I shall explain our problem in detail and invite your ad­vice; but now I will put it to you in general terms so that you can consider it while you eat.

  "We try to instill into our subject population the eternal truth that life in this world is always accom­panied by sorrow, alike for those that lead and those that are led, and that they must expect to find their rewards for virtue in the Hereafter. But subs do not learn.

  "Several times they have risen against their mas­ters, against World Church. Now—I will tell you frank­ly, gentlemen—we are faced with a much more serious revolt. The subs have captured the capital; Lon­don is in their hands. The Church there was ... somewhat decadent.... The question we are going to ask you, with all its ramifications, is this: will leniency or harshness be the most effective way of dealing with them?

  "Should we destroy London with nuclear weapons and thus risk raising the specter of martyrdom, to inspire other slaves communities? Or should we force them to surrender and forgive them, killing only the ringleaders—thus allowing them to believe that World Church held back not through mercy but weakness?

  "Either course is open to us. But we need the benefit of historical knowledge from war-torn matrices to formulate the better solution.

  "World Church will bless you for your aid."

  He sat down. Already plates were clattering. Subs of both sexes poured forth from doors at the far end of the hall, bearing food. Greasy steam poured from the kitchens, and the smell of porridge and meat.

  The little bald man from Communist Britain was sitting next to me.

  "An interesting poser, that," he said. "Leniency al­ways impresses the uniformed mind, if it is properly stage-managed."

  "Ah, but terror impresses them more," someone else said, and laughed.

  "These Church people are dogs, spineless hypo­crites," Mark told him. "And you must come from a nasty bootlicking culture if you can seriously give their problem a minute's thought. Don't you agree Sherry?'

  He turned his clouded, honest face to me.

  'It cheers me immensely to hear that they are hav­ing trouble in London, Mark! There are about fifty extra-matricials here. Most of them must feel as we do and wil
l refuse to help this regime. Let's find them and get together...."

  Mark held up his hand.

  "No, Sherry. Listen, I have a simpler idea!" He leaned forward to speak confidentially. Bald Head also leaned forward to catch his words. Mark put his palm over the man's nose and pushed him away.

  "Go away and play in the bushes, smoothpate," he said. To me he said, "Two's never a crowd. An undis­ciplined bunch of men is nothing but a pain in the kilt. I know, I've had experience. In my own matrix, I'm history instructor in one of our military schools. I've served all over the world—I only got back from legion duty in Kashmir a week before these people grabbed me. Believe me, this paltry Church is used to dealing with slaves, not free men, or they could solve their own problems. The two of us can get away with murder."

  "What are you planning?" I had a nasty feeling that I was letting myself in for more trouble than I had bargained for.

  "First, we test their resourcefulness. At the same time we get weapons. Can you fight, Sherry? You look like a warrior to me."

  "I fought in World War V, on Earth and Venus."

  "All these world wars! My matrix is completely different—we only have local campaigns. Much more sensible! Much more civilized! When we have time, we must talk and talk—and listen, of course. First, we must get to the kitchens. Kitchens are always well stocked with weapons, even if these curs are vegetari­an. Come on!"

  He did not wait for my agreement. He had slipped from the table and was off, bent double so that he could not be seen from the dais. I did the only possible thing. Glad in my heart to be committed, I followed.

  Double swing-doors of heavy wood led into the kitchens. We barged in. It was a huge place, bathed in steam, and gave an impression of darkness rather than dirt. All the equipment looked incredibly old-fashioned.

  An overseer with a short whip in his hand saw us at once and came toward us. He had a long raw face and sandy eyebrows—yes, an Edinburgh type, I thought-even as I cast about and noted that there was only one other overseer in the whole place, to watch over the activities of perhaps thirty slaves. A plan formed in my mind.