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-A-T-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 1 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.