If This Goes On. Robert A. Heinlein

If This Goes On.
Robert A. Heinlein.
It was cold on the rampart. I slapped my numbed hands together, then stopped hastily for fear of disturbing the Prophet. My post that night was just outside his personal apartments-a post that I had won by taking more than usual care to be neat and smart at guard mount…but I had no wish to call attention to myself now.
I was young then and not too bright-a legate fresh out of West Point, and a guardsman in the Angels of the Lord, the personal guard of the Prophet Incarnate. At birth my mother had consecrated me to the Church and at eighteen my Uncle Absolom, a senior lay censor, had prayed an appointment to the Military Academy for me from the Council of Elders.
West Point had suited me. Oh, I had joined in the usual griping among classmates, the almost ritualistic complaining common to all military life, but truthfully I enjoyed the monastic routine-up at five, two hours of prayers and meditation, then classes and lectures in the endless subjects of a military education, strategy and tactics, theology, mob psychology, basic miracles. In. the afternoons we practiced with vortex guns and blasters, drilled with tanks, and hardened our bodies with exercise.
I did not stand very high on graduation and had not really expected to be assigned to the Angels of the Lord, even though I had put in for it. But I had always gotten top marks in piety and stood well enough in most of the practical subjects; I was chosen. It made me almost sinfully proud-the holiest regiment of the Prophet’s hosts, even the privates of which were commissioned officers and whose Colonel-in-Chief was the Prophet’s Sword Triumphant, marshal of all the hosts. The day I was invested in the shining buckler and spear worn only by the Angels I vowed to petition to study for the priesthood as soon as promotion to captain made me eligible.
But this night, months later, though my buckler was still shining bright, there was a spot of tarnish in my heart. Somehow, life at New Jerusalem was not as I had imagined it while at West Point. The Palace and Temple were shot through with intrigue and politics; priests and deacons, ministers of state, and Palace functionaries all seemed engaged in a scramble for power and favor at the hand of the Prophet. Even the officers of my own corps seemed corrupted by it. Our proud motto ‘Non Sihi, Sed Dei’ now had a wry flavor in my mouth.
Not that I was without sin myself. While I had not joined in the struggle for worldly preference, I had done something which I knew in my heart to be worse: I had looked with longing on a consecrated female.
Please understand me better than I understood myself. I was a grown man in body, an infant in experience. My own mother was the only woman I had ever known well. As a kid in junior seminary before going to the Point I was almost afraid of girls; my interests were divided between my lessons, my mother, and our parish’s troop of Cherubim, in which I was a patrol leader and an assiduous winner of merit badges in everything from woodcraft to memorizing scripture. If there had been a merit badge to be won in the subject of girls-but of course there was not.

At the Military Academy I simply saw no females, nor did I have much to confess in the way of evil thoughts. My human feelings were pretty much still in freeze, and my occasional uneasy dreams I regarded as temptations sent by Old Nick. But New Jerusalem is not West Point and the Angels were neither forbidden to marry nor were we forbidden proper and sedate association with women. True, most of my fellows did not ask permission to marry, as it would have meant transferring to one of the regular regiments and many of them cherished ambitions for the military priesthood-but it was not forbidden.
Nor were the lay deaconesses who kept house around the Temple and the Palace forbidden to marry. But most of them were dowdy old creatures who reminded me of my aunts, hardly subjects for romantic thoughts. I used to chat with them occasionally around the corridors, no harm in that. Nor was I attracted especially by any of the few younger sisters-until I met Sister Judith.
I had been on watch in this very spot more than a month earlier. It was the first time I had stood guard outside the Prophet’s apartments and, while I was nervous when first posted, at that moment I had been no more than alert against the possibility of the warden-of-the-watch making his rounds.
That night a light had shone brightly far down the inner corridor opposite my post and I had heard a sound of people moving; I had glanced at my wrist chrono-yes, that would be the Virgins ministering to the Prophet… - no business of mine. Each night at ten o’clock their watch changed-their ‘guard mount’ I called it, though I had never seen the ceremony and never would. All that I actually knew about it was that those coming on duty for the next twenty-four hours drew lots at that time for the privilege of personal attendance in the sacred presence of the Prophet Incarnate.
I had listened briefly and had turned away. Perhaps a quarter of an hour later a slight form engulfed in a dark cloak had slipped past me to the parapet, there to stand and look at the stars. I had had my blaster out at once, then had returned it sheepishly, seeing that it was a deaconess.
I had assumed that she was a lay deaconess; I swear that it did not occur to me that she might be a holy deaconess. There was no rule in my order book telling me to forbid them to come outside, but I had never heard of one doing so.
I do not think that she had seen me before I spoke to her. ‘Peace be unto you, sister.’
She had jumped and suppressed a squeal, then had gathered her dignity to answer, “And to you, little brother.’
It was then that I had seen on her forehead the Seal of Solomon, the mark of the personal family of the Prophet. ‘Your pardon, Elder Sister. I did not see.’
‘I am not annoyed.’ It had seemed to me that she invited conversation. I knew that it was not proper for us to converse privately; her mortal being was dedicated to the Prophet just as her soul was the Lord’s, but I was young and lonely-and she was young and very pretty.
‘Do you attend the Holy One this night, Elder Sister?’
She had shaken her head at that. ‘No, the honor passed me by. My lot was not drawn.’
‘It must be a great and wonderful privilege to serve him directly.’
‘No doubt, though I cannot say of my own knowledge. My lot has never yet been drawn.’ She had added impulsively, ‘I’m a little nervous about it. You see, I haven’t been here long.’
Even though she was my senior in rank, her display of feminine weakness had touched me. ‘I am sure that you will deport yourself with credit.’
‘Thank you.’
We had gone on chatting. She had been in New Jerusalem, it developed, even less time than had I. She had been reared on a farm in upper New York State and there she had been sealed to the Prophet at the Albany Seminary. In turn I had told her that I had been born in the middle west, not fifty miles from the Well of Truth, where the First Prophet was incarnated. I then told her that my name was John Lyle and she had answered that she was called Sister Judith.
I had forgotten all about the warden-of-the-watch and his pesky rounds and was ready to chat all night, when my chrono had chimed the quarter hour. ‘Oh, dear!’ Sister Judith had exclaimed. ‘I should have gone straight back to my cell.’ She had started to hurry away, then had checked herself. ‘You wouldn’t tell on me, John Lyle?’
‘Me? Oh, never!’
I had continued to think about her the rest of the watch. When the warden did make rounds I was a shade less than alert.
A mighty little on which to found a course of folly, eh? A single drink is a great amount to a teetotaler; I was not able to get Sister Judith out of my mind. In the month that followed I saw her half a dozen times. Once I passed her on an escalator; she was going down as I was going up. We did not even speak, but she had recognized me and smiled. I rode that escalator all night that night in my dreams, hut I could never get off and speak to her. The other encounters were just as trivial. Another time I heard her voice call out to me quietly, ‘Hello, John Lyle,’ and I turned just in time to see a hooded figure go past my elbow through a door. Once I watched her feeding the swans in the moat; I did not dare approach her but I think that she saw me.
The Temple Herald printed the duty lists of both my service and hers. I was standing a watch in five; the Virgins drew lots once a week. So it was just over a month later that our watches again matched. I saw her name-and vowed that I would win the guard mount that evening and again be posted at the post of honor before the Prophet’s own apartments. I had no reason to think that Judith would seek me out on the rampart-but I was sure in my heart that she would. Never at West Point had I ever expended more spit-and-polish; I could have used my buckler for a shaving mirror.
But here it was nearly half past ten and no sign of Judith, although I had heard the Virgins gather down the corridor promptly at ten. All I had to show for my efforts was the poor privilege of standing watch at the coldest post in the Palace.
Probably, I thought glumly, she comes out to flirt with the guardsmen on watch every time she has a chance. I recalled bitterly that all women were vessels of iniquity and had always been so since the Fall of Man. Who was I to think that she had singled me out for special friendship? She had probably considered the night too cold to bother.
I heard a footstep and my heart leaped with joy. But it was only the warden making his rounds. I brought my pistol to the ready and challenged him; his voice came back, ‘Watchman, what of the night?’
I answered mechanically, ‘Peace on Earth,’ and added, ‘It is cold, Elder Brother.’ ‘Autumn in the air,’ he agreed. ‘Chilly even in the Temple.’ He passed on by with his pistol and his bandolier of paralysis bombs slapping his armor to his steps. He was a nice old duffer and usually stopped for a few friendly words; tonight he was probably eager to get back to the warmth of the guardroom. I went back to my sour thoughts.
‘Good evening, John Lyle.’
I almost jumped out of my boots. Standing in the darkness just inside the archway was Sister Judith. I managed to splutter, ‘Good evening, Sister Judith,’ as she moved toward me.
‘Ssh!’ she cautioned me. ‘Someone might hear us. John Lyle-it finally happened. My lot was drawn!’
I said, ‘Huh?’ then added lamely, ‘Felicitations, Elder Sister. May God make his face to shine on your holy service.’
‘Yes, yes, thanks,’ she answered quickly, ‘but John … I had intended to steal a few moments to chat with you. Now I can’t-I must be at the robing room for indoctrination and prayer almost at once. I must run.’
‘You’d better hurry,’ I agreed. I was disappointed that she could not stay, happy for her that she was honored, and exultant that she had not forgotten me. ‘God go with you.’
‘But I just had to tell you that I had been chosen.’ Her eyes were shining with what I took to be holy joy; her next words startled me. ‘I’m scared, John Lyle.’
‘Eh? Frightened?’ .I suddenly recalled how I had felt, how my voice had cracked, the first time I ever drilled a platoon. ‘Do not be. You will be sustained.’
‘Oh, I hope so! Pray for me, John.’ And she was gone, lost in the dark corridor.
I did pray for her and I tried to imagine where she was, what she was doing. But since I knew as little about what went on inside the Prophet’s private chambers as a cow knows about courts-martial, I soon gave it up and simply thought about Judith. Later, an hour or more, my reverie was broken by a high scream inside the Palace, followed by a commotion, and running footsteps. I dashed down the inner corridor and found a knot of women gathered around the portal to the Prophet’s apartments. Two or three others were carrying someone out the portal; they stopped when the reached the corridor and eased their burden to the floor.
‘What’s the trouble?’ I demanded and drew my side arm clear.
An elderly Sister stepped in front of me. ‘It is nothing. Return to your post, legate.’
‘I heard a scream.’
‘No business of yours. One of the Sisters fainted when the Holy One required service of her.’
‘Who was it?’
‘You are rather nosy, little brother.’ She shrugged. ‘Sister Judith, if it matters.’
I did not stop to think but snapped, ‘Let me help her!’ and started forward. She barred my way.
‘Are you out of your mind? Her sisters will return her to her cell. Since when do the Angels minister to nervous Virgins?’
I could easily have pushed her aside with one finger, but she was right. I backed down and went unwillingly back to my post.
For the next few days I could not get Sister Judith out of my mind. Off watch, I prowled the parts of the Palace I was free to visit, hoping to catch sight of her. She might be ill, or she might be confined to her cell for what must certainly have been a major breach of discipline. But I never saw her.
My roommate, Zebadiah Jones, noticed my moodiness and tried to rouse me out of it. Zeb was three classes senior to me and I had been one of his plebes at the Point; now he was my closest friend and my only confidant. ‘Johnnie old son, you look like a corpse at your own wake. What’s eating on you?’
‘Huh? Nothing at all. Touch of indigestion, maybe.’
‘So? Come on, let’s go for a walk. The air will do you good.’ I let him herd me outside. He said nothing but banalities until we were on the broad terrace surrounding the south turret and free of the danger of eye and ear devices. When we were well away from anyone else he said softly, ‘Come on. Spill it.’
‘Shucks, Zeb, I can’t burden anybody else with it.’
‘Why not? What’s a friend for?’
‘Uh, you’d be shocked.’
‘I doubt it. The last time I was shocked was when I drew four of a kind to an ace kicker. It restored my faith in miracles and I’ve been relatively immune ever since. Come on-we’ll call this a privileged communication-elder adviser and all that sort of rot.’
I let him persuade me. To my surprise Zeb was not shocked to find that I let myself become interested in a holy deaconess. So I told him the whole story and added to it my doubts and troubles, the misgivings that had been growing in me since the day I reported for duty at New Jerusalem.
He nodded casually. ‘I can see how it would affect you that way, knowing you. See here, you haven’t admitted any of this at confession, have you?’
‘No,’ I admitted with embarrassment.
‘Then don’t. Nurse your own fox. Major Bagby is broadminded, you wouldn’t shock him-but he might find it necessary to pass it on to his superiors. You wouldn’t want to face Inquisition even if you were alabaster innocent. In fact, especially since you are innocent-and you are, you know; everybody has impious thoughts at times. But the Inquisitor expects to find sin; if he doesn’t find it, he keeps on digging.’

At the suggestion that I might be put to the Question my stomach almost turned over. I tried not to show it for Zeb went on calmly, ‘Johnnie my lad, I admire your piety and~ your innocence, but I don’t envy it. Sometimes too much piety is more of a handicap than too little. You find yourself shocked at the idea that it takes politics as well as psalm singing to run a big country. Now take me; I noticed the same things when I was new here, but I hadn’t expected anything different and wasn’t shocked.’
‘But…‘I shut up. His remarks sounded painfully like heresy; I changed the subject. ‘Zeb, what do you suppose it could have been that upset Judith so and caused her to faint the night she served the Prophet?’
‘Eh? How should I know?’ He glanced at me and looked away.
‘Well, I just thought you might. You generally have all the gossip around the Palace.’
‘Well … oh, forget it, old son. It’s really not important.’
‘Then you do know?’
‘I didn’t say that. Maybe I could make a close guess, but you don’t want guesses. So forget it.’
I stopped strolling, stepped in front of him and faced him. ‘Zeb, anything you know about it-or can guess-I want to hear. It’s important to me.’
‘Easy now! You were afraid of shocking me; it could be that I don’t want to shock you.’
‘What do you mean? Tell me!’
‘Easy, I said. We’re out strolling, remember, without a care in the world, talking about our butterfly collections and wondering if we’ll have stewed beef again for dinner tonight.’
Still fuming, I let him take me along with him. He went on more quietly, ‘John, you obviously aren’t the type to learn things just by keeping your ear to the ground-and you’ve not yet studied any of the Inner Mysteries, now have you?’
‘You know I haven’t. The psych classification officer hasn’t cleared me for the course. I don’t know why.’
‘I should have let you read some of the installments while I was boning it. No, that was before you graduated. Too bad, for they explain things in much more delicate language than I know how to use-and justify every bit of it thoroughly, if you care for the dialectics of religious theory. John, what is your notion of the duties of the Virgins?’
‘Why, they wait on him, and cook his food, and so forth.’
‘They surely do. And so forth. This Sister Judith-an innocent little country girl the way you describe her. Pretty devout, do you think?’
I answered somewhat stiffly that her devoutness had first attracted me to her. Perhaps I believed it.
‘Well, it could be that she simply became shocked at overhearing a rather worldly and cynical discussion between the Holy One and, oh, say the High Bursar-taxes and tithes and the best way to squeeze them out of the peasants. It might be something like that, although the scribe for such a conference would hardly be a grass-green Virgin on her first service. No, it was almost certainly the “And so forth.”’
‘Huh? I don’t follow you.’
Zeb sighed. ‘You really are one of God’s innocents, aren’t you? Holy Name, I thought you knew and were just too stubbornly straight-laced to admit it. Why, even the Angels carry on with the Virgins at times, after the Prophet is through with them. Not to mention the priests and the deacons. I remember a time when…‘He broke off suddenly, catching sight of my face. ‘Wipe that look off your face! Do you want somebody to notice us?’
I tried to do so, with terrible thoughts jangling around inside my head. Zeb went on quietly, ‘It’s my guess, if it matters that much to you, that your friend Judith still merits the title “Virgin” in the purely physical sense as well as the spiritual. She might even stay that way, if the Holy One is as angry with her as he probably was. She is probably as dense as you are and failed to understand the symbolic explanations given her-then blew her top when it came to the point where she couldn’t fail to understand, so he kicked her out. Small wonder!’
I stopped again, muttering to myself biblical expressions I hardly thought I knew. Zeb stopped, too, and stood looking at me with a smile of cynical tolerance. ‘Zeb,’ I said, almost pleading with him, ‘these are terrible things. Terrible! Don’t tell me that you approve?’
‘Approve? Man, it’s all part of the Plan. I’m sorry you haven’t been cleared for higher study. See here, I’ll give you a rough briefing. God wastes not. Right?’
‘That’s sound doctrine.’
‘God requires nothing of man beyond his strength. Right?’
‘Yes, but…‘
‘Shut up. God commands man to be fruitful. The Prophet Incarnate, being especially holy, is required to be especially fruitful. That’s the gist of it; you can pick up the fine points when you study it. In the meantime, if the Prophet can humble himself to the flesh in order to do his plain duty, who are you to raise a ruction? Answer me that.’
I could not answer, of course, and we continued our walk in silence. I had to admit the logic of what he had said and that the conclusions were built up from the revealed doctrines. The trouble was that I wanted to eject the conclusions, throw them up as if they had been something poisonous I had swallowed.
Presently I was consoling myself with the thought that Zeb felt sure that Judith had not been harmed. I began to feel better, telling myself that Zeb was right, that it was not my place, most decidedly not my place, to sit in moral judgment on the Holy Prophet Incarnate.
My mind was just getting round to worrying the thought that my relief over Judith arose solely from the fact that I had looked on her sinfully, that there could not possibly be one rule for one holy deaconess, another rule for all the rest, and I was beginning to be unhappy again-when Zeb stopped suddenly. ‘What was that?’

We hurried to the parapet of the terrace and looked down the wall. The south wall lies close to the city proper. A crowd of fifty or sixty people was charging up the slope that led to the
Palace walls. Ahead of them, running with head averted, was a man dressed in a long gabardine. He was headed for the Sanctuary gate.
Zebadiah looked down and answered himself. ‘That’s what the racket is-some of the rabble stoning a pariah. He probably was careless enough to be caught outside the ghetto after five.’ He stared down and shook his head. ‘I don’t think he is going to make it.’
Zeb’s prediction was realized at once, a large rock caught the man between the shoulder blades, he stumbled and went down. They were on him at once. He struggled to his knees, was struck by a dozen stones, went down in a heap. He gave a broken high-pitched wail, then drew a fold of the gabardine across his dark eyes and strong Roman nose.
A moment later there was nothing to be seen but a pile of rocks and a protruding slippered foot. It jerked and was still.
I turned away, nauseated. Zebediah caught my expression.
‘Why,’ I said defensively, ‘do these pariahs persist in their heresy? They seem such harmless fellows otherwise.’
He cocked a brow at me. ‘Perhaps it’s not heresy to them. Didn’t you see that fellow resign himself to his God?’
‘But that is not the true God.’
‘He must have thought otherwise.’
‘But they all know better; we’ve told them often enough.’
He smiled in so irritating a fashion that I blurted out, ‘I don’t understand you, Zeb-blessed if I do! Ten minutes ago you were introducing me in correct doctrine; now you seem to be defending heresy. Reconcile that.’
He shrugged. ‘Oh, I can play the Devil’s advocate. I made the debate team at the Point, remember? I’ll be a famous theologian someday-if the Grand Inquisitor doesn’t get me first.’
‘Well … Look-you do think it’s right to stone the ungodly? Don’t you?’
He changed the subject abruptly. ‘Did you notice who cast the first stone?’ I hadn’t and told him so; all I remembered was that it was a man in country clothes, rather than a woman or a child.
‘It was Snotty Fasset.’ Zeb’s lip curled.
I recalled Fassett too well; he was two classes senior to me and had made my plebe year something I want to forget. ‘So that’s how it was,’ I answered slowly. ‘Zeb, I don’t think I could stomach intelligence work.’
‘Certainly not as an agent provocateur,’ he agreed. ‘Still, I suppose the Council needs these incidents occasionally. These rumors about the Cabal and all…’
I caught up this last remark. ‘Zeb, do you really think there is anything to this Cabal? I can’t believe that there is any organized disloyalty to the Prophet.’
‘Well-there has certainly been some trouble out on the West Coast. Oh, forget it; our job is to keep the watch here.’
Chapter 2.
But we were not allowed to forget it; two days later the inner guard was doubled. I did not see how there could be any real danger, as the Palace was as strong a fortress as ever was built, with its lower recesses immune even to fission bombs. Besides that, a person entering the Palace, even from the Temple grounds, would be challenged and identified a dozen times before he reached the Angel on guard outside the Prophet’s own quarters. Nevertheless people in high places were getting jumpy; there must be something to it.
But I was delighted to find that I had been assigned as Zebadiah’s partner. Standing twice as many hours of guard was almost offset by having him to talk with-for me at least. As for poor
Zeb, I banged his ear endlessly through the long night watches, talking about Judith and how unhappy I was with the way things were at New Jerusalem. Finally he turned on me.
‘See here, Mr. Dumbjohn,’ he snapped, reverting to my plebe year designation, ‘are you in love with her?’
I tried to hedge. I had not yet admitted to myself that my interest was more than in her welfare. He cut me short.
‘You do or you don’t. Make up your mind. If you do, we’ll talk practical matters. If you don’t, then shut up about her.’
I took a deep breath and took the plunge. ‘I guess I do, Zeb. It seems impossible and I know it’s a sin, but there it is.’
‘All of that and folly, too. But there is no talking sense to you. Okay, so you are in love with her. What next?’
‘Eh?’
‘What do you want to do? Marry her?’
I thought about it with such distress that I covered my face with my hands. ‘Of course I do,’ I admitted. ‘But how can I?’
‘Precisely. You can’t. You can’t marry without transferring away from here; her service can’t marry at all. Nor is there any way for her to break her vows, since she is already sealed. But if you can face up to bare facts without blushing, there is plenty you can do. You two could be very cozy-if you could get over being such an infernal bluenose.’

A week earlier I would not have understood what he was driving at. But now I knew. I could not even really be angry with him at making such a dishonorable and sinful suggestion; he meant well-and some of the tarnish was now in my own soul. I shook my head. ‘You shouldn’t have said that, Zeb. Judith is not that sort of a woman.’
‘Okay. Then forget it. And her. And shut up about her.’
I sighed wearily. ‘Don’t be rough on me, Zeb. This is more than I know how to manage.’ I glanced up and down, then took a chance and sat down on the parapet. We were not on watch near the Holy One’s quarters but at the east wall; our warden, Captain Peter van Eyck, was too fat to get that far oftener than once a watch, so I took a chance. I was bone tired from not having slept much lately.
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be angry, Zeb. That sort of thing isn’t for me and it certainly isn’t for Judith-for Sister Judith.’ I knew what I wanted for us: a little farm, about a hundred and sixty acres, like the one I had been born on. Pigs and chickens and barefooted kids with happy dirty faces and Judith to have her face light up when I came in from the fields and then wipe the perspiration from her face with her apron so that I could kiss her no more connection with the Church and the Prophet than Sunday meeting and tithes.
But it could not be, it could never be. I put it out of my mind. ‘Zeb,’ I went on, ‘just as a matter of curiosity-You have intimated that these things go on all the time. How? We live in a goldfish bowl here. It doesn’t seem possible.’
He grinned at me so cynically that I wanted to slap him, but his voice had no leer in it. ‘Well, just for example, take your own case.‘
‘Out of the question!’
‘Just for example, I said. Sister Judith isn’t available right now; she is confined to her cell. But…‘
‘Huh? She’s been arrested?’ I thought wildly of the Question and what Zeb had said about the inquisitors.
‘No, no, no! She isn’t even locked in. She’s been told to stay there, that’s all, with prayer and bread-and-water as company. They are purifying her heart and instructing her in her spiritual duties. When she sees things in their true light, her lot will be drawn again-and this time she won’t faint and make an adolescent fool of herself.’
I pushed back my first reaction and tried to think about it calmly. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Judith will never do it. Not if she stays in her cell forever.’
‘So? I wouldn’t be too sure. They can be very persuasive. How would you like to be prayed over in relays? But assume that she does see the light, just so that I can finish my story.’
‘Zeb, how do you know about this?

‘Sheol, man! I’ve been here going on three years. Do you think I wouldn’t be hooked into the grapevine? You were worried about her-and making yourself a tiresome nuisance if I may say so. So I asked the birdies. But to continue. She sees the light, her lot is drawn, she performs her holy service to the Prophet. After that she is called once a week like the rest and her lot is drawn maybe once a month or less. Inside of a year-unless the Prophet finds some very exceptional beauty in her soul-they stop putting her name among the lots entirely. But it isn’t necessary to wait that long, although it is more discreet.’
‘The whole thing is shameful!’
‘Really? I imagine King Solomon had to use some such system; he had even more women on his neck than the Holy One has. Thereafter, if you can come to some mutual understanding with the Virgin involved, it is just a case of following well known customs. There is a present to be made to the Eldest Sister, and to be renewed as circumstances dictate.
There are some palms to be brushed-I can tell you which ones. And this great pile of masonry has lots of dark back stairs in it. With all customs duly observed, there is no reason why, almost any night I have the watch and you don’t, you should not find something warm and cuddly in your bed.’
I was about to explode at the calloused way he put it when my mind went off at a tangent. ‘Zeb-now I know you are telling an untruth. You were just pulling my leg, admit it. There is an eye and an ear somewhere in our room. Why, even if I tried to find them and cut them out, I’d simply have the security watch banging on the door in three minutes.’
‘So what? There is an eye and an ear in every room in the place. You ignore them.’
I simply let my mouth sag open.
‘Ignore them,’ he went on. ‘Look, John, a little casual fornication is no threat to the Church-treason and heresy are. It will simply be entered in your dossier and nothing will be said about it-unless they catch you in something really important later, in which case they might use it to hang you instead of preferring the real charges. Old son, they like to have such peccadilloes in the files; it increases security. They are probably uneasy about you; you are too perfect; such men are dangerous. Which is probably why you’ve never been cleared for higher study.’
I tried to straighten out in my mind the implied cross purposes, the wheels within wheels, and gave up. ‘I just don’t get it. Look, Zeb, all this doesn’t have anything to do with me or with
Judith. But I know what I’ve got to do. Somehow I’ve got to get her out of here.’
‘Hmm… a mighty strait gate, old son.’
‘I’ve got to.’
‘Well … I’d like to help you. I suppose I could get a message to her,’ he added doubtfully.
I caught his arm. ‘Would you, Zeb?’
He sighed. ‘I wish you would wait. No, that wouldn’t help, seeing the romantic notions in your mind. But it is risky now. Plenty risky, seeing that she is under discipline by order of the
Prophet. You’d look funny staring down the table of a court-martial board, looking at your own spear.’
‘I’ll risk even that. Or even the Question.’
He did not remind me that he himself was taking even more of a risk than I was; he simply said, ‘Very well, what is the message?’
I thought for a moment. It would have to be short. ‘Tell her that the legate she talked to the night her lot was drawn is worried about her.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Yes! Tell her that I am hers to command!’
It seems flamboyant in recollection. No doubt it was-but it was exactly the way I felt.
At luncheon the next day I found a scrap of paper folded into my napkin. I hurried through the meal and slipped out to read it.
I need your help, it read, and am so very grateful. Will you meet me tonight? It was unsigned and had been typed in the script of a common voicewriter, used anywhere in the Palace, or out. When Zeb returned to our room, I showed it to him; he glanced at it and remarked in idle tones:
‘Let’s get some air. I ate too much, I’m about to fall asleep.’ Once we hit the open terrace and were free of the hazard of eye and ear he cursed me out in low, dispassionate tones. ‘You’ll never make a conspirator. Half the mess must know that you found something in your napkin. Why in God’s name did you gulp your food and rush off? Then to top it off you handed it to me upstairs. For all you know the eye read it and photostated it for evidence. Where in the world were you when they were passing out brains?’
I protested but he cut me off. ‘Forget it! I know you didn’t mean to put both of our necks in a bight-but good intentions are no good when the trial judge-advocate reads the charges. Now get this through your head: the first principle of intrigue is never to be seen doing anything unusual, no matter how harmless it may seem. You wouldn’t believe how small a deviation from pattern looks significant to a trained analyst. You should have stayed in the refectory the usual time, hung around and gossiped as usual afterwards, then waited until you were safe to read it. Now where is it?’
‘In the pocket of my corselet,’ I answered humbly. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll chew it up and swallow it.’
‘Not so fast. Wait here.’ Zeb left and was back in a few minutes. ‘I have a piece of paper the same size and shape; I’ll pass it to you quietly. Swap the two, and then you can eat the real note-but don’t be seen making the swap or chewing up the real one.’
‘All right. But what is the second sheet of paper?’
‘Some notes on a system for winning at dice.’
‘Huh? But that’s non-reg, too!’
‘Of course, you hammer head. If they catch you with evidence of gambling, they won’t suspect you of a much more serious sin. At worst, the skipper will eat you out and fine you a few days pay and a few hours contrition. Get this, John: if you are ever suspected of something, try to make the evidence point to a lesser offence. Never try to prove lily-white innocence.
Human nature being what it is, your chances are better.’
I guess Zeb was right; my pockets must have been searched and the evidence photographed right after I changed uniforms for parade, for half an hour afterwards I was called into the
Executive Officer’s office. He asked me to keep my eyes open for indications of gambling among the junior officers. It was a sin, he said, that he hated to have his younger officers fall into. He clapped me on the shoulder as I was leaving. ‘You’re a good boy, John Lyle. A word to the wise, eh?’
Zeb and I had the midwatch at the south Palace portal that night. Half the watch passed with no sign of Judith and I was as nervous as a cat in a strange house, though Zeb tried to keep me calmed down by keeping me strictly to routine. At long last there were soft footfalls in the inner corridor and a shape appeared in the doorway. Zebadiah motioned me to remain on tour and went to check. He returned almost at once and motioned me to join him, while putting a finger to his lips. Trembling, I went in. It was not Judith but some woman strange to me who waited there in the darkness. I started to speak but Zeb put his hand over my mouth.
The woman took my arm and urged me down the corridor. I glanced back and saw Zeb silhouetted in the portal, covering our rear. My guide paused and pushed me into an almost pitchblack alcove, then she took from the folds of her robes a small object which I took to be a pocket ferretscope, from the small dial that glowed faintly on its side. She ran it up and down and around, snapped it off and returned it to her person. ‘Now you can talk,’ she said softly. ‘It’s safe.’ She slipped away.
I felt a gentle touch at my sleeve. ‘Judith?’ I whispered.
‘Yes,’ she answered, so softly that I could hardly hear her.
Then my arms were around her. She gave a little startled cry, then her own arms went around my neck and I could feel her breath against my face. We kissed clumsily but with almost frantic eagerness.
It is no one’s business what we talked about then, nor could I give a coherent account if I tried. Call our behavior romantic nonsense, call it delayed puppy love touched off by ignorance and unnatural lives-do puppies hurt less than grown dogs? Call it what you like and laugh at us, but at that moment we were engulfed in that dear madness more precious than rubies and fine gold, more to be desired than sanity. If you have never experienced it and do not know what I am talking about, I am sorry for you.
Presently we quieted down somewhat and talked more reasonably. When she tried to tell me about the night her lot had been drawn she began to cry. I shook her and said, ‘Stop it, my darling. You don’t have to tell me about it. I know.’
She gulped and said, ‘But you don’t know. You can’t know. I…he…’
I shook her again. ‘Stop it. Stop it at once. No more tears. I do know, exactly. And I know what you are in for still-unless we get you out of here. So there is no time for tears or nerves; we have to make plans.’
She was dead silent for a long moment, then she said slowly, ‘You mean for me to … desert? I’ve thought of that. Merciful God, how I’ve thought about it! But how can I?’

‘I don’t know-yet. But we will figure out a way. We’ve got to.’ We discussed possibilities. Canada was a bare three hundred miles away and she knew the upstate New York country; in fact it was the only area she did know. But the border there was more tightly closed than it was anywhere else, patrol boats and radar walls by water, barbed wire and sentries by land . and sentry dogs. I had trained with such dogs; I wouldn’t urge my worst enemy to go up against them.
But Mexico was simply impossibly far away. If she headed south she would probably be arrested in twenty-four hours. No one would knowingly give shelter to an unveiled Virgin; under the inexorable rule of associative guilt any such good Samaritan would be as guilty as she of the same personal treason against the Prophet and would die the same death. Going north would be shorter at least, though it meant the same business of traveling by night, hiding by day, stealing food or going hungry. Near Albany lived an aunt of Judith’s; she felt sure that her aunt would risk hiding her until some way could be worked out to cross the border. ‘She’ll keep us safe. I know it.’
‘Us?’ I must have sounded stupid. Until she spoke I had had my nose so close to the single problem of how she was to escape that it had not yet occurred to me that she would expect both of us to go.
‘Did you mean to send me alone?’
‘Why… I guess I hadn’t thought about it any other way.’
‘No!’
‘But-look, Judith, the urgent thing, the thing that must be done at once, is to get you out of here. Two people trying to travel and hide are many times more likely to be spotted than one. It just doesn’t make sense to …‘
‘No! I won’t go.’
I thought about it, hurriedly. I still hadn’t realized that ‘A’ implies ‘B’ and that I myself in urging her to desert her service was as much a deserter in my heart as she was. I said, ‘We’ll get you out first, that’s the important thing. You tell me where your aunt lives-then wait for me.’
‘Not without you.’
‘But you must. The Prophet,’
‘Better that than to lose you now!’
I did not then understand women-and I still don’t. Two minutes before she had been quietly planning to risk death by ordeal rather than submit her body to the Holy One. Now she was almost casually willing to accept it rather than put up with even a temporary separation. I don’t understand women; I sometimes think there is no logic in them at all.
I said, ‘Look, my dear one, we have not yet even figured out how we are to get you out of the Palace. It’s likely to be utterly impossible for us both to escape the same instant. You see that, don’t you?’
She answered stubbornly, ‘Maybe. But I don’t like it. Well, how do I get out? And when?’
I had to admit again that I did not know. I intended to consult Zeb as soon as possible, but I had no other notion.
But Judith had a suggestion. ‘John, you know the Virgin who guided you here? No? Sister Magdalene. I know it is safe to tell her and she might be willing to help us. She’s very clever.’
I started to comment doubtfully but we were interrupted by Sister Magdalene herself. ‘Quick!’ she snapped at me as she slipped in beside us. ‘Back to the rampart!’
I rushed out and was barely in time to avoid being caught by the warden, making his rounds. He exchanged challenges with Zeb and myself-and then the old fool wanted to chat. He settled himself down on the steps of the portal and started recalling boastfully a picayune fencing victory of the week before. I tried dismally to help Zeb with chit-chat in a fashion normal for a man bored by a night watch.
At last he got to his feet. ‘I’m past forty and getting a little heavier, maybe. I’ll admit frankly it warms me to know that I still have a wrist and eye as fast as you young blades.’ He straightened his scabbard and added, ‘I suppose I had better take a turn through the Palace. Can’t take too many precautions these days. They do say the Cabal has been active again.’
He took out his torch light and flashed it down the corridor.
I froze solid. If he inspected that corridor, it was beyond hope that he would miss two women crouching in an alcove.
But Zebadiah spoke up calmly, casually. ‘Just a moment, Elder Brother. Would you show me that time riposte you used to win that last match? It was too fast for me to follow it.’
He took the bait. ‘Why, glad to, son!’ He moved off the steps, came out to where there was room. ‘Draw your sword. En garde! Cross blades in line of sixte. Disengage and attack me.
There! Hold the lunge and I’ll demonstrate it slowly. As your point approaches my chest -, (Chest indeed! Captain van Eyck was as pot-bellied as a kangaroo!) ‘- I catch it with the forte of my blade and force it over yours in riposte seconde. Just like the book, so far. But I do not complete the riposte. Strong as it is, you might parry or counter. Instead, as my point comes down, I beat your blade out of line,‘ He illustrated and the steel sang, ‘and attack you anywhere, from chin to ankle. Come now, try it on me.’
Zeb did so and they ran through the phrase; the warden retreated a step. Zeb asked to do it again to get it down pat. They ran through it repeatedly, faster each time, with the warden retreating each time to avoid by a hair Zeb’s unbated point. It was strictly against regulations to fence with real swords and without mask and plastron, but the warden really was good … a swordsman so precise that he was confident of his own skill not to blind one of Zeb’s eyes, not to let Zeb hurt him. In spite of my own galloping jitters I watched it closely; it was a beautiful demonstration of a once-useful military art. Zeb pressed him hard.
They finished up fifty yards away from the portal and that much closer to the guardroom. I could hear the warden puffing from the exercise. ‘That was fine, Jones,’ he gasped. ‘You caught on handsomely.’ He puffed again and added, ‘Lucky for me a real bout does not go on as long. I think I’ll let you inspect the corridor.’ He turned away toward the guardroom, adding cheerfully, ‘God keep you.’
‘God go with you, sir,’ Zeb responded properly and brought his hilt to his chin in salute.
As soon as the warden turned the corner Zeb stood by again and I hurried back to the alcove. The women were still there, making themselves small against the back wall. ‘He’s gone,’ I reassured them. ‘Nothing to fear for a while.’
Judith had told Sister Magdalene of our dilemma and we discussed it in whispers. She advised us strongly not to try to reach any decisions just then. ‘I’m in charge of Judith’s purification; I can stretch it out for another week, perhaps, before she has to draw lots again.’
I said, ‘We’ve got to act before then!’
Judith seemed over her fears, now that she had laid her troubles in Sister Magdalene’s lap. ‘Don’t worry, John,’ she said softly, ‘the chances are my lot won’t be drawn soon again in any case. We must do what she advises.’
Sister Magdalene sniffed contemptuously. ‘You’re wrong about that, Judy, when you are returned to duty, your lot will be drawn, you can be sure ahead of time. Not,’ she added, ‘but what you could live through it-the rest of us have. If it seems safer to ‘She stopped suddenly and listened. ‘Sssh! Quiet as death.’ She slipped silently out of our circle.
A thin pencil of light flashed out and splashed on a figure crouching outside the alcove. I dived and was on him before he could get to his feet. Fast as I had been, Sister Magdalene was just as fast; she landed on his shoulders as he went down. He jerked and was still.
Zebadiah came running in, checked himself at our sides. ‘John! Maggie!’ came his tense whisper. ‘What is it?’
‘We’ve caught a spy, Zeb,’ I answered hurriedly. ‘What’ll we do with him?’
Zeb flashed his light. ‘You’ve knocked him out?’
‘He won’t come to,’ answered Magdalene’s calm voice out of the darkness. ‘I slipped a vibroblade in his ribs.’
‘Sheol!’
‘Zeb, I had to do it. Be glad I didn’t use steel and mess up the floor with blood. But what do we do now?’
Zeb cursed her softly, she took it. ‘Turn him over, John. Let’s take a look.’ I did so and his light flashed again. ‘Hey, Johnnie-it’s Snotty Fassett.’ He paused and I could almost hear him think. ‘Well, we’ll waste no tears on him. John!’
‘Yeah, Zeb?’
‘Keep the watch outside. If anyone comes, I am inspecting the corridor. I’ve got to dump this carcass somewhere.’
Judith broke the silence. ‘There’s an incinerator chute on the floor above. I’ll help you.’
‘Stout girl. Get going, John.’
I wanted to object that it was no work for a woman, but I shut up and turned away. Zeb took his shoulders, the women a leg apiece and managed well enough. They were back in minutes, though it seemed endless to me. No doubt Snotty’s body was reduced to atoms before they were back-we might get away with it. It did not seem like murder to me then, and still does not; we did what we had to do, rushed along by events.
Zeb was curt. ‘This tears it. Our reliefs will be along in ten minutes; we’ve got to figure this out in less time than that. Well?’
Our suggestions were all impractical to the point of being ridiculous, but Zeb let us make them-then spoke straight to the point. ‘Listen to me, it’s no longer just a case of trying to help
Judith and you out of your predicament. As soon as Snotty is missed, we-all four of us-are in mortal danger of the Question. Right?’
‘Right,’ I agreed unwillingly.
‘But nobody has a plan?’
None of us answered. Zeb went on, ‘Then we’ve got to have help … and there is only one place we can get it. The Cabal.’
Chapter 3.
‘The Cabal?’ I repeated stupidly. Judith gave a horrified gasp. ‘Why … why, that would mean our immortal souls! They worship Satan!’
Zeb turned to her. ‘I don’t believe so.’ She stared at him. ‘Are you a Cabalist?’
‘No.’
‘Then how do you know?’
‘And how,’ I insisted, ‘can you ask them for help?’
Magdalene answered. ‘I am a member-as Zebadiah knows.’ Judith shrank away from her, but Magdalene pressed her with words. ‘Listen to me, Judith. I know how you feel-and once I was as horrified as you are at the idea of anyone opposing the Church. Then I learned-as you are learning-what really lies behind this sham we were brought up to believe in.’ She put an arm around the younger girl. ‘We aren’t devil worshipers, dear, nor do we fight against God. We fight only against this self-styled Prophet who pretends to be the voice of God. Come with us, help us fight him-and we will help you. Otherwise we can’t risk it.’
Judith searched her face by the faint light from the portal. ‘You swear that this is true? The Cabal fights only against the Prophet and not against the Lord Himself?’
‘I swear, Judith.’
Judith took a deep shuddering breath. ‘God guide me,’ she whispered. ‘I go with the Cabal.’
Magdalene kissed her quickly, then faced us men. ‘Well?’
I answered at once, ‘I’m in it if Judith is,’ then whispered to myself, ‘Dear Lord, forgive me my oath-I must!’
Magdalene was staring at Zeb. He shifted uneasily and said angrily, ‘I suggested it, didn’t I? But we are all damned fools and the Inquisitor will break our bones.’
There was no more chance to talk until the next day. I woke from bad dreams of the Question and worse, and heard Zeb’s shaver buzzing merrily in the bath. He came in and pulled the covers off me, all the while running off at the mouth with cheerful nonsense. I hate having bed clothes dragged off me even when feeling well and I can’t stand cheerfulness before breakfast; I dragged them back and tried to ignore him, but he grabbed my wrist. ‘Up you come, old son! God’s sunshine is wasting. It’s a beautiful day. How about two fast laps around the Palace and in for a cold shower?’
I tried to shake his hand loose and called him something that would lower my mark in piety if the ear picked it up. He still hung on and his forefinger was twitching against my wrist in a nervous fashion; I began to wonder if Zeb were cracking under the strain. Then I realized that he was tapping out code.
‘B-E-N-A-T-U-R-A-L,’ the dots and dashes said, ‘S-H-O-W - N-O - S-U-R-P-R-I-S-E - W-E - W-I-L-L - B-E -C-A-L-L-E-D - F-O-R - E-X-A-M-I-N-A-T-I-O-N - D-U-RI-N-G - T-H-E - R-E-C-R-E-AT-
I-O-N - P-E-R-I-O-D - T-H-I-S - A-F-T-E-R-N-O-O-N’
I hoped I showed no surprise. I made surly answers to the stream of silly chatter he had kept up all through it, and got up and went about the mournful tasks of putting the body back in shape for another day. After a bit I found excuse to lay a hand on his shoulder and twitched out an answer: ‘0-K -I-U-N-D-E-R-S-T-A-N-D’
The day was a misery of nervous monotony. I made a mistake at dress parade, a thing I haven’t done since beast barracks. When the day’s duty was finally over I went back to our room and found Zeb there with his feet on the air conditioner, working an acrostic in the New York Times. ‘Johnnie my lamb,’ he asked, looking up, ‘what is a six-letter word meaning “Pure in Heart”?’
‘You’ll never need to know,’ I grunted and sat down to remove my armor.
‘Why, John, don’t you think I will reach the Heavenly City?’
‘Maybe-after ten thousand years penance.’
There came a brisk knock at our door, it was shoved open, and Timothy Klyce, senior legate in the mess and brevet captain, stuck his head in. He sniffed and said in nasal Cape Cod accents, ‘Hello, you chaps want to take a walk?’
It seemed to me that he could not have picked a worse time. Tim was a hard man to shake and the most punctiliously devout man in the corps. I was still trying to think of an excuse when Zeb spoke up. ‘Don’t mind if we do, provided we walk toward town. I’ve got some shopping to do.’
I was confused by Zeb’s answer and still tried to hang back, pleading paper work to do, but Zeb cut me short. ‘Pfui with paper work. I’ll help you with it tonight. Come on.’ So I went, wondering if he had gotten cold feet about going through with it.
We went out through the lower tunnels. I walked along silently, wondering if possibly Zeb meant to try to shake Klyce in town and then hurry back. We had just entered a little jog in the passageway when Tim raised his hand in a gesture to emphasize some point in what he was saying to Zeb. His hand passed near my face, I felt a slight spray on my eyes-and I was blind.
Before I could cry out, even as I suppressed the impulse to do so, he grasped my upper arm hard, while continuing his sentence without a break. His grip on my arm guided me to the left, whereas my memory of the jog convinced me that the turn should have been to the right. But we did not bump into the wall and after a few moments the blindness wore off. We seemed to be walking in the same tunnel with Tim in the middle and holding each of us by an arm. He did not say anything and neither did we; presently he stopped us in front of a door.
Klyce knocked once, then listened.
I could not make out an answer but he replied. ‘Two pilgrims, duly guided.’
The door opened. He led us in, it closed silently behind us, and we were facing a masked and armored guard, with his blast pistol leveled on us. Reaching behind him, he rapped once on an inner door; immediately another man, armed and masked like the first, came out and faced us. He asked Zeb and myself separately:
‘Do you seriously declare, upon your honor, that, unbiased by friends and uninfluenced by mercenary motives, you freely and voluntarily offer yourself to the service of this order?’
We each answered, ‘I do.’
‘Hoodwink and prepare them.’
Leather helmets that covered everything but our mouths and noses were slipped over our heads and fastened under our chins. Then we were ordered to strip off all our clothing. I did so while the goose pumps popped out on me. I was losing my enthusiasm rapidly-there is nothing that makes a man feel as helpless as taking his pants away from him. Then I felt the sharp prick of a hypodermic in my forearm and shortly, though I was awake, things got dreamy and I was no longer jittery.
Something cold was pressed against my ribs on the left side of my back and I realized that it was almost certainly the hilt of a vibroblade, needing only the touch, of the stud to make me as dead as Snotty Fassett-but it did not alarm me. Then there were questions, many questions, which I answered automatically, unable to lie or hedge if I had wanted to. I remember them in snatches: of your own free will and accord?’ ‘conform to the ancient established usages-a man, free born, of good repute, and well recommended.’
Then, for a long time I stood shivering on the cold tile floor while a spirited discussion went on around me; it had to do with my motives in seeking admission. I could hear it all and I knew that my life hung on it, with only a word needed to cause a blade of cold energy to spring into my heart. And I knew that the argument was going against me.
Then a contralto voice joined the debate. I recognized Sister Magdalene and knew that she was vouching for me, but doped as I was I did not care; I simply welcomed her voice as a friendly sound. But presently the hilt relaxed from my ribs and I again felt the prick of a hypodermic. It brought me quickly out of my dazed state and I heard a strong bass voice intoning a prayer:
‘Vouchsafe thine aid, Almighty Father of the Universe: love, relief, and truth to the honor of Thy Holy Name. Amen.’ And the answering chorus, ‘So mote it be!’
Then I was conducted around the room, still hoodwinked, while questions were again put to me. They were symbolic in nature and were answered for me by my guide. Then I was stopped and was asked if I were willing to take a solemn oath pertaining to this degree, being assured that it would in no material way interfere with duty that I owed to God, myself, family, country, or neighbor.
I answered, ‘I am.’
I was then required to kneel on my left knee, with my left hand supporting the Book, my right hand steadying certain instruments thereon.
The oath and charge was enough to freeze the blood of anyone foolish enough to take it under false pretenses. Then I was asked what, in my present condition, I most desired. I answered as I had been coached to answer: ‘Light!’
And the hoodwink was stripped from my head.
It is not necessary and not proper to record the rest of my instruction as a newly entered brother. it was long and of solemn beauty and there was nowhere in it any trace of the blasphemy or devil worship that common gossip attributed to us; quite the contrary it was filled with reverence for God, brotherly love, and uprightness, and it included instruction in the principles of an ancient and honorable profession and the symbolic meaning of the working tools thereof.
But I must mention one detail that surprised me almost out of the shoes I was not wearing. When they took the hoodwink off me, the first man I saw, standing in front of me dressed in the symbols of his office and wearing an expression of almost inhuman dignity, was Captain Peter van Eyck, the fat ubiquitous warden of my watch-Master of this lodge!
The ritual was long and time was short. When the lodge was closed we gathered in a council of war. I was told that the senior brethren had already decided not to admit Judith to the sister order of our lodge at this time even though the lodge would reach out to protect her. She was to be spirited away to Mexico and it was better, that being the case, for her not to know any secrets she did not need to know. But Zeb and I, being of the Palace guard, could be of real use; therefore we were admitted.
Judith had already been given hypnotic instructions which-it was hoped-would enable her to keep from telling what little she already new if she should be put to the Question. I was told to wait and not to worry; the senior brothers would arrange to get Judith out of danger before she next was required to draw lots. I had to be satisfied with that.
For three days running Zebadiah and I reported during the afternoon recreation period for instruction, each time being taken by a different route and with different precautions. It was clear that the architect who had designed the Palace had been one of us; the enormous building had hidden in it traps and passages and doors which certainly did not appear in the official plans.

At the end of the third day we were fully accredited senior brethren, qualified with a speed possible only in time of crisis. The effort almost sprained my brain; I had to bone harder than I ever had needed to in school. Utter letter-perfection was required and there was an amazing lot to memorize-which was perhaps just as well, for it helped to keep me from worrying. We had not heard so much as a rumor of a kick-back from the disappearance of Snotty Fassett, a fact much more ominous than would have been a formal investigation.
A security officer can’t just drop out of sight without his passing being noticed. It was remotely possible that Snotty had been on a roving assignment and was not expected to check in daily with his boss, but it was much more likely that he had been where we had found him and killed him because some one of us was suspected and he had been ordered to shadow.
If that was the case, the calm silence could only mean that the chief security officer was letting us have more rope, while his psychotechnicians analyzed our behavior-in which case the absence of Zeb and myself from any known location during our free time for several days running was almost certainly a datum entered on a chart. If the entire regiment started out equally suspect, then our personal indices each gained a fractional point each of those days.
I never boned savvy in such matters and would undoubtedly have simply felt relieved as the days passed with no overt trouble had it not been that the matter was discussed and worried over in the lodge room. I did not even know the name of the Guardian of Morals, nor even the location of his security office-we weren’t supposed to know. I knew that he existed and that he reported to the Grand Inquisitor and perhaps to the Prophet himself but that was all. I discovered that my lodge brothers, despite the almost incredible penetration of the Cabal throughout the Temple and Palace, knew hardly more than I did-for the reason that we had no brothers, not one, in the staff of the Guardian of Morals. The reason was simple; the Cabal was every bit as careful in evaluating the character, persona, and psychological potentialities of a prospective brother as the service was in measuring a prospective intelligence officer and the two types were as unlike as geese and goats. The Guardian would never accept the type of personality who would be attracted by the ideals of the Cabal; my brothers would never pass a-well, a man like Fassett.
I understand that, in the days before psychological measurement had become a mathematical science, an espionage apparatus could break down through a change in heart on the part of a key man-well, the Guardian of Morals had no such worry; his men never suffered a change in heart. I understand, too, that our own fraternity, in the early days when it was being purged and tempered for the ordeal to come, many times had blood on the floors of lodge rooms-I don’t know; such records were destroyed.
On the fourth day we were not scheduled to go to the lodge room, having been told to show our faces where they would be noticed to offset our unwonted absences. I was spending my free time in the lounge off the mess room, leafing through magazines, when Timothy Klyce came in. He glanced at me, nodded, then started thumbing through a stack of magazines himself. Presently he said, ‘These antiques belong in a dentist’s office. Have any of you chaps seen this week’s Time?’
His complaint was addressed to the room as a whole; no one answered. But he turned to me. ‘Jack, I think you are sitting on it. Raise up a minute.’
I grunted and did so. As he reached for the magazine his head came close to mine and he whispered, ‘Report to the Master.’
I had learned a little at least so I went on reading. After a bit I put my magazine aside, stretched and yawned, then got up and ambled out toward the washroom. But I walked on past and a few minutes later entered the lodge room. I found that Zeb was already there, as were several other brothers; they were gathered around Master Peter and Magdalene. I could feel the tension in the room.
I said, ‘You sent for me, Worshipful Master?’
He glanced at me, looked back at Magdalene. She said slowly, ‘Judith has been arrested.’
I felt my knees go soft and I had trouble standing. I am not unusually timid and physical bravery is certainly commonplace, but if you hit a man through his family or his loved ones you almost always get him where he is unprotected. ‘The Inquisition?’ I managed to gasp.
Her eyes were soft with pity. ‘We think so. They took her away this morning and she has been incommunicado ever since.’
‘Has any charge been filed?’ asked Zeb.
‘Not publicly.’
‘Hm-m-m-That looks bad.’
‘And good as well,’ Master Peter disagreed. ‘If it is the matter we think it is-Fassett, I mean-and had they had any evidence pointing to the rest of you, all four of you would have been arrested at once. At least, that is in accordance with their methods.’
‘But what can we do?’ I demanded.
Van Eyck did not answer. Magdelene said soothingly, ‘There is nothing for you to do, John. You couldn’t get within several guarded doors of her.’
‘But we can’t just do nothing!’
The lodge Master said, ‘Easy, son. Maggie is the only one of us with access to that part of the inner Palace. We must leave it in her hands.’
I turned again to her; she sighed and said, ‘Yes, but there is probably little I can do.’ Then she left.
We waited. Zeb suggested that he and I should leave the lodge room and continue with being seen in our usual haunts; to my relief van Eyck vetoed it. ‘No. We can’t be sure that Sister
Judith’s hypnotic protection is enough to see her through the ordeal. Fortunately you two and Sister Magdalene are the only ones she can jeopardize-but I want you here, safe, until
Magdalene finds out what she can. Or fails to return,’ he added thoughtfully.
I blurted out, ‘Oh, Judith will never betray us!’
He shook his head sadly. ‘Son, anyone will betray anything under the Question-unless adequately guarded by hypno compulsion. We’ll see.’
I had paid no attention to Zeb, being busy with my own very self-centred thoughts. He now surprised me by saying angrily, ‘Master, you are keeping us here like pet hens-but you have just sent Magg