Kate Wilhelm - Let the Fire Fall

Special to the New York Times

Today the N. Y. Supreme Court upheld the decision handed down by the once-defunct House Un-American Activities Committee, known as HUAC. HUAC has been granted an appropriation of $785,000, and the mandate to investigate the activities of “certain people and groups of people who seek to perpetuate works of atheistic views in order to undermine the freedom of religion established under the Constitution of our country.”

Crandall Worth, committee chairman, announced following the vote that the committee would hold its first hearings next Wednesday in New York City. Mr. Worth denied that there was, or could possibly be, a conflict between the freedom granted in the First Amendment and the freedom of religion amendment which he has sworn to uphold. He said, further, that those members of the House who had seen fit to vote against the motion might well find themselves in the witness chair when his meetings get under way. Citing the recent reversals of the Supreme Court, overthrowing decisions made in the sixties, Mr. Worth thanked those House members who had voted with him in reestablishing the committee. His concluding statement was, “If our committee finds evidence that any religion is being vilified, then those persons guilty of such a transgression of God-given law will face due process of law. We are a nation under God, let us not forget that. Our founding fathers were men inspired by God, and today we have among us yet another man so inspired who is God’s hand now in this time of mortal peril. Those who would question this fact will have to answer to our committee.”

DEREK was not at the cabin, and judging from the condition of the food stocks, had not been there for months. Lorna looked at Blake, her eyes dark ,with apprehension and dismay. “Obie…?” she said.

“Possibly, but I don’t think so. He left things in order.” Blake looked over the equipment carefully. Derek had taken the tiny radio. Tentatively he tried to call him; the channel was open, but there was no response. “We’ll keep trying. He must have anchored it somewhere safe, where he can be in touch with it at some time during the day.”

Blake prepared a meal from the cans of food, and after they ate, they went outside to bathe in the cold pool. Lorna was as hard as he was almost, and she had acquired a rich although spotty tan during the trek that had taken them nearly three months. All afternoon they made love, dozed, bathed again, ate again. It was the happiest day of her life.

Late that night they got an answer from Derek.

He was an active member of the group known as the Barbers. Nightly they raided the churches across the country and gave free haircuts to unwilling patrons. They were an immense success, wanted by members and non-members alike, although for different reasons, not always friendly. They had found hundreds of ways to sneak scissors into meetings. Also they had completed and were using one of Blake’s unfinished projects, an electronic distorter that scrambled Obie’s magnificent voice when he used it to surround his believers. It created a noise like a fingernail on a blackboard that was most disconcerting, and it never failed to break up the most serious gathering before the end of the opening invocation.

Obie was due to hold his annual memorial service at Covington in a week, Derek said, and they were planning a reception for him then.

“Call me back in an hour or so, Dek,” Blake said. “I want to think about this. There must be a way to combine our efforts….”

After the connection was broken Lorna said, “Blake, wait a minute. I don’t think you and Derek should try anything at that particular time. You don’t know about it at all.”

Blake leaned back and said, “tell me what I don’t know.”

“It’s a weekend thing, this memorial service, the reenactment of the meeting Obie says took place between him and God in the woods. He goes off alone and everyone prays that God will speak to him again, and there are more services, and all the while everyone is fasting, for three days. On the night of the third day the psychedelic drug they call XPT is given out on small round crackers, and now that they have your magic wine, I guess they’ll use that, too. Anything that impressive they would use. There are only the tapers for this rite, and after the last person has had his cracker with the drug, the candles are extinguished. Obie’s voice, or, as he says, God’s voice manifested through him, is there recalling the rapture of their first meeting, and describing the ecstasy of it, and a procession of young girls starts. They come in with robes on and their hair done up on their heads. One by one they go forward on the stage where Obie is standing in the middle of a small circle that is lighted. The girl enters the circle and he removes her robe, and lets down her hair. That’s all. He doesn’t touch her other than that. He sends her down into the congregation with her hair down her back. All the while there is the voice everywhere, and the drug is taking effect more and more. By the time the last girl has entered the circle everyone is… strange. Obie undresses then. He has a robe on too, and there in the circle of light he takes the last girl, or starts to, and the light goes out.” Lorna kept her eyes on Blake as she described the ritual. There was no embarrassment on her face, just the earnestness of one trying to make another understand something that is alien. “You must think it’s beastly and ugly. A real orgy. But it isn’t anything like that. With the drugs and the tapers, and the voice saying this is how life is, this is what rapture and ecstasy are like, this is the consummation of human desire…. You accept all of it, and it is rapture.”

“It sounds like that might be the ideal time to make a raid, while everyone is so preoccupied….”

“No! You don’t understand. Think of the precautions they take for those ceremonies, no outsider is allowed in at all. Only those they are very certain of. Have you ever heard these rites described?” He shook his head. “Rumors, only rumors. No one who has participated has spoken out. They take pictures, of course, and I heard once that they use them for blackmail, if someone does want out of the Church, but I don’t think that’s true. Those who participate come away believing they have participated in some way with the union of God and Obie Cox, that they have experienced a touch of what happened then.”

“The other rumors one hears, the homosexual groups, the lesbians, all that true?”

She nodded. “Obie preaches that there is nothing in sex that can be evil, no perversions exist. The Church permits, condones, sponsors every known aberration ceremoniously.”

“I wonder who was smart enough to figure that out for him,” Blake said. “The Church forbids only those things that other established churches exhort one to accept: pity, mercy, charity, love.” He made the contact then with Derek and said, “I’m delivering your sister to the group. Listen to her explain the memorial service before you decide anything. I’m going to take up where I left off in New Orleans.”

“I won’t go back there,” Lorna said, interrupting him.

“You can’t stay here, and you can’t go with me, so there doesn’t seem to be much choice. Talk it over with Derek.” He handed her the receiver, which she put to her ear. After listening for several moments she nodded reluctantly.

“Okay,” she said with bad temper. “I might put you in danger again. I don’t care where I go.”

“Fine,” Blake said grinning. He finished his conversation with Derek, and the next morning he and Lorna left the cabin. This time they were in his small hovercraft. He left her with Derek in Massachusetts, fifty miles from Boston, and he turned south.