In his office in the same building where Winifred labored over the long account of her daily life with Johnny, Obie was kicking his desk. “God damn it! We’ve gotta get him through a miracle!”
Merton slouched lazily, contemplating his fingers. “You have any idea of the security precautions they have set up there?”
“Okay, okay. I believe you. So what? Think, dammit, think!”
Billy was there also, panting, perspiring in the middle of January, uneasy as usual about anything that threatened to shake the boat that he thought of as eternally on the verge of sinking. He puffed and said, “Obie, be reasonable. He can make his own demands, and if they turn him down, we can send in a squadron for him. Like we planned in the beginning.”
“In the beginning that seemed good enough,” Obie said. He was growing thick around the middle, and his face was getting heavy in the jowls. His neck had grown an inch in the past two years. He was forty, and feeling depressed about it, wanting things to come to a head now, while he was still in command. He looked on the years ahead as going downhill only; after forty there was nothing but old age to look forward to, and he wanted this to be finished, this year. He didn’t want to have to keep fighting for the Church until he was a tottering old fool like Everett. He kept Everett around in order to look at him from time to time, firming his resolve each time he studied the senile fool. Not to him. That wasn’t going to happen to him!
He paced for several minutes in the silence of the room, then he turned to Merton and said, “We’ve got almost six months to get something organized. You got the men with brains, let them come up with something. I want to lift him with such a blaze of glory that it will set the whole world on fire. You get that for me.”
Merton pushed himself up from the chair. “Sure, Obie, I see the point, and I think it’s a good one, but the execution? I just don’t know.”
In upper New York State Johnny stared at Lenny Mallard. Lenny said, for the third time, “You are going to address them, Johnny. We are going to put a stop to all the rumors now.” Lenny was smiling.
Johnny hadn’t been afraid of anyone for a long time, not since his shining man in the sky first nodded and smiled at him, but he felt a chill then. Lenny didn’t believe in him. “I won’t do it, Mr. Mallard,” Johnny said stubbornly, for the third time also.
They were in Lenny’s office, where he had turned off the recorder for this interview. Lenny smiled more broadly and stood up. He came around his desk and put his arm about Johnny’s shoulder companionably. “Son, you know and I know that all this is a frost. Right? If you could kill, I’d be dead now. Let me tell you something, Johnny. Ever since man began to talk, he’s been at war with other men. Fact, They fought over land, over trade routes, over insults, over game…. You name it, it’s been fought for. But none of the wars ever fought for all these things was half as bloody as war over religion. If it got to be a religious war, there was nothing either side could do that was so bad it gave anyone insomnia.
“As soon as you convince yourself that you’re fighting God’s war, anything goes. Follow me, so far?” Johnny nodded. “Good. Now, religion’s a funny thing, Johnny. It’s an idea in the head of men. That’s all. If you’re fighting a war for a river, once you defeat the enemy you can seize control of the river and the war’s over. Not with ideas. The only way that sort of a war can be ended really is through the eradication of the idea wherever it exists and that means the eradication of the enemy, and the complete destruction of all the writings that include the idea. Simple?” Again Johnny nodded.
“Now, as soon as a man, any man, comes along with a full-blown idea of what God is and what His purpose is, other men start to pick it to pieces. They find the inevitable contradictions and errors and point them out in a reasonable manner. They become the enemy of that particular religion. Every religion ever born has its enemies. Every last one. By the very nature of the subject matter there is no room for more than one religion in any given area. If the God of the Catholic Church is the real God, then the others are false, see? And those who worship false gods are a menace. If Buddha is God, then the other gods are false gods. And so on. Historically the gods have been warlike. but not in more recent years. Through the spread of Christianity the gods became loving and forgiving and although a few people have raised the cry of Anti-Christ from time to time during war, there hasn’t been a truly religious war for almost a thousand years. But one is brewing.
“Obie Cox is going to start such a war within the next five years, if he isn’t stopped soon; You can stop him.”
Johnny hadn’t seen Obie Cox since his weekend visit three years ago or more. He had promised to call him from time to time, but hadn’t done so. There was always trouble locating him when Johnny thought of it, or someone came to see Johnny, or something happened to postpone the call. Johnny had no idea that Obie claimed him as the inventor of the revolutionary products that were being offered to believers through the Church. He had found Obie interesting, but he found everyone from outside interesting. He couldn’t remember what they had talked about. It didn’t surprise him to hear that he was the only one who could stop a war brewing on Earth. As the months went on, his power would come to be realized more and more by Earthmen, and they would turn to him often for help and advice. He said, “How could addressing the United Nations General Assembly stop this one man and his ideas?”
Lenny hesitated only a fraction of a second, coming to the tricky part now, not really knowing exactly how aware Johnny was of what was happening in the world beyond the walls of the estate. He suspected that the answer was nothing, except for what his occasional visitor told him, and that was carefully monitored at all times. He didn’t appear to pause at all. “Obie Cox has made certain claims about you. He says that you have appealed to him as your savior, that you have pleaded with him to rescue you from the U.N. personnel who torture you daily. Things like that. He also has claimed that your people are wicked and plan to conquer Earth when they return, and that you are in communication with them and plan to aid them in their endeavor. He will make war with them too, if they return.”
He stopped, not knowing if he had gone too far or not. johnny’s face changed subtly during this recitation of Obie’s claims, he had become more distant, more thoughtful. Well,it was done. Now he would wait for the reaction. Johnny was thinking about Obie. He hadn’t appeared very brilliant, so how had he guessed about Johnny and his almost daily communication with his people? Why did he think Johnny’s people would want to conquer Earth? And didn’t he realize, if he knew that much, that johnny was the one pre-selected to lead the attack. destined to reign forever? Johnny felt the beginnings of a headache and there was a stir of excitement that he always felt when it was time for the shining man to come to him and tell him what to do. He stood up.
“I’ll think about it,” he said, starting toward the door.
“There’s nothing to think about,” Lenny started, but when Johnny turned to him, his eyes were glassy-looking, and his face as composed as a sleepwalker’s. Lenny had seen Johnny fall asleep on his feet before, and it always made him queasy. He said hurriedly, “Yes, think about it, Johnny. I’ll talk to you later.”
In his room Johnny let himself open to the inner vision and he listened intently to the voices that instructed him daily.
Afterward he knew that he would help Obie Cox in his war all that he could. If that would halve the population, when his people returned it would be simple to finish the rest of the job, the other half. Johnny never had seen more than fifty or sixty people at one time in his life. To him the idea of four billion people was incomprehensible; that was somewhat over five thousand, but how much over he had no concept. So he could consider reducing that by half with ease since it was meaningless to him to begin with.