The Past Through Tomorrow

  “Most Reverend Sir, I have nothing to confess.”

  He turned away from me and gave orders in low, gentle tones. “Continue. The mechanicals this time; I don’t wish to burn out his brain.”

  There is no point in describing what he meant by “the mechanicals” and no sense in making this account needlessly grisly. His methods differed in no important way from torture techniques used in the Middle Ages and even more recently—except that his knowledge of the human nervous system was incomparably greater and his knowledge of behavior psychology made his operations more adroit. In addition, he and his assistants behaved as if they were completely free of any sadistic pleasure in their work; it made them coolly efficient.

  But let’s skip the details.

  I have no notion of how long it took. I must have passed out repeatedly, for my clearest memory is of catching a bucket of ice water in the face not once but over and over again, like a repeating nightmare—each time followed by the inevitable hypo. I don’t think I told them anything of any importance while I was awake and the hypno instructions to my unconscious may have protected me while I was out of my head. I seem to remember trying to make up a lie about sins I had never committed; I don’t remember what came of it.

  I recall vaguely coming semi-awake once and hearing a voice say, “He can take more. His heart is strong.”

  I was pleasantly dead for a long time, but finally woke up as if from a long sleep. I was stiff and when I tried to shift in bed my side hurt me. I opened my eyes and looked around; I was in bed in a small, windowless but cheerful room. A sweet-faced young woman in a nurse’s uniform came quickly to my side and felt my pulse.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello,” she answered. “How are we now? Better?”

  “What happened?” I asked. “Is it over? Or is this just a rest?”

  “Quiet,” she admonished. “You are still too weak to talk. But it’s over—you are safe among the brethren.”

  “I was rescued?”

  “Yes. Now be quiet.” She held up my head and gave me something to drink. I went back to sleep.

  It took me days to convalesce and catch up with events. The infirmary in which I woke up was part of a series of sub-basements under the basement proper of a department store in New Jerusalem; there was some sort of underground connection between it and the lodge room under the Palace—just where and how I could not say; I was never in it. While conscious, I mean.

  Zeb came to see me as soon as I was allowed to have visitors. I tried to raise up in bed. “Zeb! Zeb boy—I thought you were dead!” ‘

  “Who? Me?” He came over and shook my left hand. “What made you think that?”

  I told him about the dodge the Inquisitor had tried to pull on me. He shook his head. “I wasn’t even arrested. Thanks to you, pal. Johnnie, I’ll never call you stupid again. If you hadn’t had that flash of genius to rig your sweater so that I could read the sign in it, they might have pulled us both in and neither one of us have gotten out of it alive. As it was, I went straight to Captain van Eyck. He told me to lie doggo in the lodge room and then planned your rescue.”

  I wanted to ask how that had been pulled off but my mind jumped to a more important subject. “Zeb, where is Judith? Can’t you find her and bring her to see me? My nurse just smiles and tells me to rest.”

  He looked surprised. “Didn’t they tell you?”

  “Tell me what? No, I haven’t seen anybody but the nurse and the doctor and they treat me like an idiot. Don’t keep me in suspense, Zeb. Did anything go wrong? She’s all right—isn’t she?”

  “Oh, sure! But she’s in Mexico by now—we got a report by sensitive circuit two days ago.”

  In my physical weakness I almost wept. “Gone! Why, what a dirty, scabby trick! Why couldn’t they have waited until I was well enough to tell her good-by?”

  Zeb said quickly, “Hey, look, stupid—no, forget that ‘stupid’; you aren’t. Look, old man, your calendar is mixed up. She was on her way before you were rescued, before we were even sure you could be rescued. You don’t think the brethren could bring her back just to let you two bill and coo, do you?”

  I thought about it and calmed down. It made sense, even though I was bitterly disappointed. He changed the subject. “How do you feel?”

  “Oh, pretty good.”

  “They tell me you get that cast off your leg tomorrow.”

  “So? They haven’t told me.” I twisted, trying to get comfortable. “I’m almost more anxious to get shut of this corset, but the doc says I’ll have to wear it for several weeks yet.”

  “How about your hand? Can you bend your fingers?”

  I tried it. “Fairly well. I may have to write left-handed for a while.”

  “All in all, it looks like you’re too mean to die, old son. By the way, if it’s any consolation to you, the laddy boy who worked on Judith got slightly dead in the raid in which you were rescued.”

  “He was? Well, I’m sorry. I had planned to save him for myself.”

  “No doubt, but you would have had to take your place in line, if he had lived. Lots of people wanted him. Me, for example.”

  “But I had thought of something special for him—I was going to make him bite his nails.”

  “Bite his nails?” Zeb looked puzzled.

  “Until he reached his elbows. Follow me?”

  “Oh.” Zeb grinned sourly. “Not nearly imaginative enough, boy. But he’s dead, we can’t touch him.”

  “He’s infernally lucky. Zeb, why didn’t you arrange to get him yourself? Or did you, and things were just too hurried to let you do a proper job?”

  “Me? Why, I wasn’t on the rescue raid. I haven’t been back in the Palace at all.”

  “Huh?”

  “You didn’t think I was still on duty, did you?”

  “I haven’t had time to think about it.”

  “Well, naturally I couldn’t go back after I ducked out to avoid arrest; I was through. No, my fine fellow, you and I are both deserters from the United States Army—with every cop and every postmaster in the country anxious to earn a deserter’s reward by turning us in.“ I whistled softly and let the implications of his remark sink in.

  6

  I HAD JOINED the Cabal on impulse. Certainly, under the stress of falling in love with Judith and in the excitement of the events that had come rushing over me as a result of meeting her, I had no time for calm consideration. I had not broken with the Church as a result of philosophical decision.

  Of course I had known logically that to join the Cabal was to break with all my past ties, but it had not yet hit me emotionally. What was it going to be like never again to wear the uniform of an officer and a gentleman? I had been proud to walk down the street, to enter a public place, aware that all eyes were on me.

  I put it out of my mind. The share was in the furrow, my hand was on the plow; there could be no turning back. I was in this until we won or until we were burned for treason.

  I found Zeb looking at me quizzically. “Cold feet, Johnnie?”

  “No. But I’m still getting adjusted. Things have moved fast.”

  “I know. Well, we can forget about retired pay, and our class numbers at the Point no longer matter.” He took off his Academy ring, chucked it in the air, caught it and shoved it into his pocket. “But there is work to be done, old lad, and you will find that this is a military outfit, too—a real one. Personally, I’ve had my fill of spit-and-polish and I don’t care if I never again hear that ‘Sound off’ and ‘Officers, center!’ and ‘Watchman, what of the night?’ manure again. The brethren will make full use of our best talents—and the fight really matters.”

  Master Peter van Eyck came to see me a couple of days later. He sat on the edge of my bed and folded his hands over his paunch and looked at me. “Feeling better, son?”

  “I could get up if the doctor would let me.”

  “Good. We’re shorthanded; the less time a trained officer spends on the sick list the bette
r.” He paused and chewed his lip. “But, son, I don’t know just what to do with you.”

  “Eh? Sir?”

  “Frankly, you should never have been admitted to the Order in the first place—a military command should not mess around with affairs of the heart. It confuses motivations, causes false decisions. Twice, because we took you in, we have had to show our strength in sorties that—from a strictly military standpoint—should never have happened.”

  I did not answer, there was no answer—he was right. My face was hot with embarrassment.

  “Don’t blush about it,” he added kindly. “Contrariwise, it is good for the morale of the brethren to strike back occasionally. The point is, what to do with you? You are a stout fellow, you stood up well—but do you really understand the ideals of freedom and human dignity we are fighting for?”

  I barely hesitated. “Master—I may not be much of a brain, and the Lord knows it’s true that I’ve never thought much about politics. But I know which side I’m onl”

  He nodded. “That’s enough. We can’t expect each man to be his own Tom Paine.”

  “His own what?”

  “Thomas Paine. But then you’ve never heard of him, of course. Look him up in our library when you get a chance. Very inspiring stuff. Now about your assignment. It would be easy enough to put you on a desk job here—your friend Zebadiah has been working sixteen hours a day trying to straighten out our filing system. But I can’t waste you two on clerical jobs. What is your savvy subject, your specialty?”

  “Why, I haven’t had any P.G. work yet, sir.”

  “I know. But what did you stand high in? How were you in applied miracles, and mob psychology?”

  “I was fairly good in miracles, but I guess I’m too wooden for psychodynamics. Ballistics was my best subject.”

  “Well, we can’t have everything. I could use a technician in morale and propaganda, but if you can’t, you can’t.”

  “Zeb stood one in his class in mob psychology, Master. The Commandant urged him to aim for the priesthood.”

  “I know and we’ll use him, but not here. He is too much interested in Sister Magdalene; I don’t believe in letting couples work together. It might distort their judgments in a pinch. Now about you. I wonder if you wouldn’t make a good assassin?”

  He asked the question seriously but almost casually; I had trouble believing it. I had been taught—I had always taken it for granted that assassination was one of the unspeakable sins, like incest, or blasphemy. I blurted out, “The brethren use assassination?”

  “Eh? Why not?” Van Eyck studied my face. “I keep forgetting. John, would you kill the Grand Inquisitor if you got a chance?”

  “Well—yes, of course. But I’d want to do it in a fair fight.”

  “Do you think you will ever be given that chance? Now let’s suppose we are back at the day Sister Judith was arrested by him. Suppose you could stop him by killing him—but only by poisoning him, or knifing him in the back. What would you do?”

  I answered savagely, “I would have killed him!”

  “Would you have felt any shame, any guilt?”

  “None!”

  “So. But he is only one of many in this foulness. The man who eats meat cannot sneer at the butcher—and every bishop, every minister of state, every man who benefits from this tyranny, right up to the Prophet himself, is an accomplice before the fact in every murder committed by the inquisitors. The man who condones a sin because he enjoys the result of the sin is equally guilty of the sin. Do you see that?”

  Oddly enough, I did see it, for it was orthodox doctrine as I had learned it. I had choked over its new application. But Master Peter was still talking: “But we don’t indulge in vengeance—vengeance still belongs to the Lord. I would never send you against the Inquisitor because you might be tempted to exult in it personally. We don’t tempt a man with sin as a bait. What we do do, what we are doing, is engaging in a calculated military operation in a war already commenced. One key man is often worth a regiment; we pick out that key man and kill him. The bishop in one diocese may be such a man; the bishop in the next state may be just a bungler, propped up by the system. We kill the first, let the second stay where he is. Gradually we are eliminating their best brains. Now—” He leaned toward me. “—do you want a job picking off those key men? It’s very important work.”

  It seemed to me that, in this business, someone was continually making me face up to facts, instead of letting me dodge unpleasant facts the way most people manage to do throughout their lives. Could I stomach such an assignment? Could I refuse it—since Master Peter had implied at least that assassins were volunteers—refuse it and try to ignore in my heart that it was going on and that I was condoning it?

  Master Peter was right; the man who buys the meat is brother to the butcher. It was squeamishness, not morals… like the man who favors capital punishment but is himself too “good” to fit the noose or swing the axe. Like the person who regards war as inevitable and in some circumstances moral, but who avoids military service because he doesn’t like the thought of killing.

  Emotional infants, ethical morons—the left hand must know what the right hand doeth, and the heart is responsible for both. I answered almost at once, “Master Peter, I am ready to. serve… that way or whatever the brethren decide I can do best.”

  “Good man!” He relaxed a bit and went on, “Between ourselves, it’s the job I offer to every new recruit when I’m not sure that he understands that this is not a ball game, but a cause to which he must commit himself without any reservation—his life, his fortune, his sacred honor. We have no place for the man who wants to give orders but who won’t clean the privy.”

  I felt relieved. “Then you weren’t seriously picking me out for assassination work?”

  “Eh? Usually I am not; few men are fitted for it. But in your case I am quite serious, because we already know that you have an indispensable and not very common qualification.”

  I tried to think what was so special about me and could not. “Sir?”

  “Well, you’ll get caught eventually, of course. Three point seven accomplished missions per assassin is what we are running now—a good score, but we ought to do better as suitable men are so scarce. But with you we know already that when they do catch you and put you to the Question, you won’t crack.”

  My face must have shown my feelings. The Question? Again? I was still half dead from the first time. Master Peter said kindly, “Of course you won’t have to go up against it again to the fullest. We always protect assassins; we fix it so that they can suicide easily. You don’t need to worry.”

  Believe me, having once suffered the Question, his assurance to me did not seem calloused; it was a real comfort. “How, sir?”

  “Eh? A dozen different ways. Our surgeons can booby-trap you so that you can die at will in the tightest bonds anyone can put on you. There is the old hollow tooth, of course, with cyanide or such—but the proctors are getting wise to that; sometimes they gag a man’s mouth open. But there are many ways. For example—” He stretched his arms wide and bent them back, but not far. “—if I were to cramp my arms backward in a position a man never assumes without very considerable conscious effort, a little capsule between my shoulder blades would rupture and I would make my last report. Yet you could pound me on the back all day and never break it.”

  “Uh… were you an assassin, sir?”

  “Me? How could I be, in my job? But all of our people in positions of maximum exposure are loaded—it’s the least we can do for them. Besides that, I’ve got a bomb in my belly—” He patted his paunch, “—that will take a roomful of people with me if it seems desirable.”

  “I could have used one of those last week,” I said emphatically.

  “You’re here, aren’t you? Don’t despise your luck. If you need one, you’ll have one.” He stood up and prepared to leave. “In the meantime, don’t give any special thought to being selected as an executioner. The psycholo
gical evaluation group will still have to pass on you and they are hard men to convince.”

  Despite his words, I did think about it, of course, though it ceased to worry me. I was put on light duty shortly thereafter and spent several days reading proof on the Iconoclast, a smug, mildly critical, little reform-from-within paper which the Cabal used to pave the way for its field missionaries. It was a “Yes, but—” paper, overtly loyal to the Prophet but just the sort of thing to arouse doubt in the minds of the stiff-necked and intolerant. Its acid lay in how a thing was said, not what was said. I had even seen copies of it around the Palace.

  I also got acquainted with some of the ramifications of the amazing underground headquarters at New Jerusalem. The department store above us was owned by a Past Grand Master and was an extremely important means of liaison with the outside world. The shelves of the store fed us and clothed us; through taps into the visiphone circuits serving the store commercially we had connection with the outside and could even put in transcontinental calls if the message could be phrased or coded to allow for the likelihood that it would be monitored. The owner’s delivery trucks could be used to Spirit fugitives to or from our clandestine quarters—I learned that Judith started her flight that way, with a bill of lading that described her as gum boots. The store’s manifold commercial operations were a complete and plausible blind for our extensive operations.

  Successful revolution is Big Business—make no mistake about that. In a modern, complex, and highly industrialized state, revolution is not accomplished by a handful of conspirators whispering around a guttering candle in a deserted ruin. It requires countless personnel, supplies, modern machinery and modern weapons. And to handle these factors successfully there must be loyalty, secrecy, and superlative staff organization.

  I was kept busy but my work was fill-in work, since I was awaiting assignment. I had time to dig into the library and I looked up Tom Paine, which led me to Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson and others—a whole new world was opened up to me. I had trouble at first in admitting the possibility of what I read; I think perhaps of all the things a police state can do to its citizens, distorting history is possibly the most pernicious. For example, I learned for the first time that the United States had not been ruled by a bloodthirsty emissary of Satan before the First Prophet arose in his wrath and cast him out—but had been a community of free men, deciding their own affairs by peaceful consent. I don’t mean that the first republic had been a scriptural paradise, but it hadn’t been anything like what I had learned in school.