"Please, Colonel. We need you badly. On that matter of a communication system now -- Imagine temples in every city in the country hooking together with a communication system and the whole thing hooked in here at the Citadel."
Calhoun snorted. "Yes, and the Asiatics listening in to everything you say!"
"That's why we need you, Colonel. Couldn't you devise a system that they couldn't trap? Something like a radio, maybe, but operating in one of the additional spectra so that their instruments could not detect it? Or couldn't you?"
Calhoun snorted again but with a different intonation. "Why, certainly I could. The problem is elementary."
"That's exactly why we have to have you, Colonel -- to solve problems that are elementary to a man of your genius", Ardmore felt slightly nauseated inside: this was worse than writing advertising copy
"but which are miracles for the rest of us. That's what a religion needs -- miracles! You'll be called on to produce effects that will strain even your genius, things that the PanAsians cannot possibly understand, and will think supernatural." Seeing Calhoun still hesitate, he added, "You can do it, can't you?"
"Certainly, I can, my dear Major."
"Fine. How soon can you let me have a communication method which can't be compromised or detected?"
"Impossible to say, but it won't take long. I still don't see the sense to your scheme, Major, but I will turn my attention to the research you say you require." He got up and went out, a procession of one.
"Major?" Wilkie asked for attention.
"What? Oh, yes, Wilkie."
"I can design such a communication system for you."
"I don't doubt it a damn bit, but we are going to need all the talent we can stir up for this job. There will be plenty for you to do, too. Now as to the rest of the scheme, here's what I have in mind just a rough idea, and I want you all to kick it around as much as possible until we get it as nearly foolproof as possible.
"We'll go through all the motions of setting up an evangelical religion, and try to get people to come to our services. Once we get 'em in where we can talk to 'em, we can pick out the ones that can be trusted and enlist them in the army. We'll make them deacons, or something, in the church. Our big angle will be charity -- you come in on that, Wilkie with the transmutation process. You will turn out a lot of precious metal, gold mostly, so that we will have ready cash to work with. We feed the poor and the hungry -- the PanAsians have provided us with plenty of those! and pretty soon we'll have 'em coming to us in droves.
"But that isn't the half of it. We really will go in for miracles in a big way. Not only to impress the white population -- that's secondary but to confuse our lords and masters. We'll do things they can't understand, make them uneasy, uncertain of themselves. Never anything against them, you understand. We'll be loyal subjects of the Empire in every possible way, but we'll be able to do things that they can't. That will upset them and make them nervous."
It was taking shape in his mind like a well-thought out advertising campaign. "By the time we are ready to strike in force, we should have them demoralized, afraid of us, half hysterical."
They were beginning to be infected with some of his enthusiasm; but the scheme was conceived from a viewpoint more or less foreign to their habits of thought. "Maybe this will work, Chief," objected Thomas, " I don't say that it won't, but how do you propose to get it underway? Won't the Asiatic administrators smell a rat in the sudden appearance of a new religion?"
"Maybe so, but I don't think it likely. All Western religions look equally screwy to them. They know we have dozens of religions and they don't know anything about most of them. That's one respect in which the Era of Nonintercourse will be useful to us. They don't know much about our institutions since the Nonintercourse Act. This will just look like any one of half a dozen cockeyed cults of the sort that spring up overnight in Southern California."
"But about that springing-up business, Chief -- How do we start out? We can't just walk out of the Citadel, buttonhole one of the yellow boys, and say, 'I'm John the Baptist.' "
"No, we can't. That's a point that has to be worked out. Has anybody any ideas?"
The silence that followed was thick with intense concentration. Finally Graham proposed, "Why not just set up in business, and wait to be noticed?"
"How do you mean?"
"Well, we've got enough people right here to operate on a small scale. If we had a temple somewhere, one of us could be the priest, and the others could be disciples or something. Then just wait to be noticed. "
"H-m-m-m. You've got something there, Graham. But we'll open up on the biggest scale we can manage. We'll all be priests and altar attendants and so forth, and I'll send Thomas out to stir up a congregation for us among his pals. No, wait. Let 'em come in as pilgrims. We'll start this off with a whispering campaign among the hobos, send it over the grapevine. We'll have 'em say, 'The Disciple is coming!"'
"What does that mean?" Scheer inquired.
"Nothing, yet. But it will, when the time comes. Now look -- Graham, you're an artist. You're going to have to get dinner with your left hand for a few days. Your right will be busy sketching out ideas for robes and altars and props in general -- sacerdotal stuff. Guess the interior and exterior of the temple will be mostly up to you, too."
"Where will the temple be located?"
"Well, now, that's a question. It shouldn't be too far from here unless we abandon the Citadel entirely. That doesn't seem expedient; we need it for a base and a laboratory. But the temple can't be too close, for we can't afford to attract special attention to this mountainside." Ardmore drummed on the table. "It's a difficult matter."
"Why not," offered Dr. Brooks, "make this the temple?"
"Huh?"
"I don't mean this room, of course, but why not put the first temple right on top of the Citadel? It would be very convenient."
"So it would, doctor, but it would certainly draw a lot of unhealthy attention to -- Wait a minute! I think I see what you mean." He turned to Wilkie. "Bob, how could you use the Ledbetter effect to conceal the existence of the Citadel, if the Mother Temple sat right on top of it? Could it be done?"
Wilkie looked more puzzled and collie-doggish than ever. "The Ledbetter effect wouldn't do it. Do you especially want to use the Ledbetter effect? Because if you don't it wouldn't be hard to rig a type-seven screen in the magneto-gravitic spectrum so that electromagnetic type instruments would be completely blanked out. You see --"
"Of course I don't care what you use! I don't even know the names of the -- stuff you laboratory boys use -- all I want is the results. O. K. -- you take care of that. We'll completely design the temple here, get all the materials laid out and ready to assemble down below, then break through to the surface and run the thing up as fast as possible. Anyone have any idea how long that will take? I'm afraid my own experience doesn't run to building construction."
Wilkie and Scheer engaged in a whispered consultation. Presently Wilkie broke off and said, "Don't worry too much about that, Chief. It will be a power job."
"What sort?"
"You've got a memorandum on your desk about the stuff. The traction and pressure control we developed from the earlier Ledbetter experiments."
"Yes, Major," Scheer added, "you can forget it; I'll take care of the job. With tractors and pressors in an aggravitic field, it won't take any longer than assembling a cardboard model. Matter of fact, I'll practice on a cardboard model before we run up the main job."