"Well ... maybe you're right --"
I think I am. Admitting that you can't spare the regular personnel from the Citadel, here's how we can work it; I'll go down to the city with Alec, locate a building that we can turn into a temple and start holding services. We can get along with the power units in the staffs at first, and Scheer can follow along and rebuild the interior of the temple and set up a proper unit in the altar. Once things are rolling I can turn the routine over to Alec. He'll be the local priest for Denver."
The others had drifted in one by one while Ardmore and Thomas were talking. Ardmore turned now to Alec Howe.
"How about it, Alec? Do you think you can make a noise like a priest, preach 'em sermons, organize charities, and that sort of thing?"
The mountain guide was slow to answer. "I think, Major, that I would rather stay on the job I have now. "
"It won't be so hard," Ardmore reassured him. "Thomas or I can write your sermons for you. The rest of it would consist largely in keeping your mouth shut and your eyes open, and in shooing likely prospects up here to be enlisted."
"It's not the sermons, Major. I can preach a sermon -- I used to be a lay preacher in my youth. It's just that I can't reconcile this false religion with my conscience. I know you are working toward a worthy purpose and I've agreed to serve, but I'd rather stay in the kitchen."
Ardmore considered his words before replying. "Alec," he said at length, in a grave voice, "I think I can appreciate your viewpoint. I wouldn't want to ask any man to do anything against his own conscience. As a matter of fact, we would not have adopted the cloak of a religion had we seen any other practical way to fight for the United States. Does your faith forbid you to fight for your country?"
"No, it does not."
"Most of your work as a priest of this church would be to help the helpless. Doesn't that fit into your creed?"
"Naturally it does. That is exactly why I cannot do it in the name of a false God."
"But is it a false God? Do you believe that God cares very much what name you call Him as long as the work you perform is acceptable to Him? Now mind you," he added hastily, "I don't say that this so-called temple we have erected here is necessarily a House of the Lord, but isn't the worship of God a matter of how you feel in your heart rather than the verbal forms and the ceremonials used?"
"That's true, Major, every word you've said is gospel -- but I just don't feel right about it."
Ardmore could see that Calhoun had been listening to this discussion with poorly concealed impatience. He decided to terminate it. "Alec, I want you to go now and think this over by yourself. Come see me tomorrow. If you can't reconcile this work to your conscience, I'll give you an unprejudiced discharge as a conscientious objector. It won't even be necessary for you to serve in the kitchen."
"I wouldn't want to go that far, Major. It seems to me --"
"No, really. If one is wrong, so is the other. I don't want to be responsible for requiring a man to do anything that might be a sin against his faith. Now you get along and think about it."
Ardmore hustled him out without giving him a chance to talk further.
Calhoun could contain himself no longer. "Well, really, Major, I must say! Is it your policy to compromise with superstition in the face of military necessity?"
"No, Colonel, it is not -- but that superstition, as you call it, is in this case a military fact. Howe's case is the first example of something we are going to have to deal with -- the attitude of the orthodox religions to the one we have trumped up."
"Maybe," suggested Wilkie, "we should have imitated the more usual religions."
"Perhaps. Perhaps. I thought of that, but somehow I couldn't see it. I can't picture one of us standing up and pretending to be a minister, say, of one of the regular protestant churches. I'm not much of a churchgoer, but I didn't think I could stomach it. Maybe when it comes right down to it, I'm bothered by the same thing that bothers Howe. But we've got to deal with it. We've got to consider the attitude of the other churches. We mustn't tread on their toes in any way we can help."
"Maybe this would help," Thomas suggested. "It could be one of the tenets of our church that we included and tolerated, even encouraged, any other form of worship that a man might favor. Besides that, every church, especially these days, has more social work than it can afford. We'll give the others financial assistance with no strings attached."
"Both of those things will help," Ardmore decided, "but it will be ticklish business. Whenever possible, we'll enlist the regular ministers and priests themselves. You can bet that every American will be for us, if he understands what we are aiming toward. The problem will be to decide which ones can be trusted with the whole secret. Now about Denver, Jeff, do you want to start back right away, tomorrow, maybe?"
"How about Howe?"
"He'll come around, I think."
"Just a moment, Major." It was Dr. Brooks, who had been sitting quietly, as usual, while the others talked. " I think it would be a good idea if we waited a day or two, until Scheer can make certain changes in the power units of the staffs."
"What sort of changes?"
"You will remember that we established experimentally that the Ledbetter effect could be used as a sterilizing agent?"
"Yes, of course."
"That is why we felt safe in predicting that we would help the sick. As a matter of fact we underestimated the potentialities of the method. I infected myself with anthrax earlier this week --"
"Anthrax! For God's sake, Doctor, what in the world do you mean by taking a chance like that?"
Brooks turned his mild eyes on Ardmore. "But it was obviously necessary," he explained patiently. "The guinea pig tests were positive, it is true, but human experimentation was necessary to establish the method. As I was saying, I infected myself with anthrax and permitted the disease to establish itself, then exposed myself to the Ledbetter effect in all wave lengths except that band of frequencies fatal to warm-blooded vertebrates. The disease disappeared. In less than an hour the natural balance of anabolism over catabolism had cleared up the residue of pathological symptoms. I was well."
"I'll be a cross-eyed intern! Do you think it will work on other diseases just as quickly?"
"I feel sure of it. Not only has such been the result with other diseases in the animal experimentation that I have conducted, but because of another unanticipated, though experimentally predictable, result. I've suffered from a rather severe cold in the head lately, as some of you may have noticed. The exposure not only cured the anthrax, it completely cleared up my cold. The cold virus involves a dozen or more known pathogenic organisms, and probably as many more unknown ones. The exposure killed them all, indiscriminately."
"I'm delighted to get this report, Doctor," Ardmore answered. "In the long run this one development may be of more importance to the human race than any military use we may make of it now. But how does it affect the matter of establishing the branch church in Denver?"
"Well, sir, perhaps it doesn't. But I took the liberty of having Scheer modify one of the portable power units in order that healing might be conveniently carried on by any one of our agents even though equipped only with the staff. I thought you might prefer to wait until Scheer could add the same modification to the staffs designed to be used by Thomas and Howe."