Robert Heinlein - Sixth Column

Howe's mouth quivered, but he said nothing. The two carried the unconscious man into the adjoining room. Before the temple was "consecrated" Thomas had had a partition knocked out between the janitor's toilet and the space adjoining and in that space had had an old-fashioned bath tub installed. They dumped him in the tub.

Howe wet his lips. "Why in the tub?"

"Because it will be a bloody mess."

"You aren't going to use your staff?"

"No, it would take me an hour to disassemble it and take out the suppressor circuit for the white-man band of frequencies. And I'm not sure I could get it back together right. Give me that straight razor of yours and get out."

Howe got the razor and came back. He did not hand it over. "You ever butchered a hog?" he inquired.

"No."

"Then I know more about how to do it." Stooping, he lifted Johnson's chin. The man breathed heavily and grunted. Howe made one quick slash and the man's throat was cut. He dropped the head, stood up and stared at the spreading red stream. He spat in it, then stepped to the wash stand and cleaned his razor.

Jeff said, "I guess I spoke too hastily, Alec."

Alec did not look up. "No," he said slowly, "not a bit too hastily. I guess it takes some time to get used to the notion of war."

"Yeah, I guess so. Well, let's dispose of this thing."

Despite a very short night Jeff Thomas was up unusually early as he wanted to report to Ardmore before the morning service. Ardmore listened carefully to the account, then said, "I'll send Scheer down to install a shield on the basement door. Some such rig will be standard for ail temple installations from now on. How about Howe? Do you want to send him back?"

"No," Thomas decided, "I think he's over the hump now. He's squeamish by nature, but he's got plenty of moral courage. Damn it, boss, we've got to trust somebody."

"Are you willing to turn the temple over to him?"

"Well ... yes, I am -- now. Why?"

"Because I want you to move on to Salt Lake City practically at once. I lay awake most of the night thinking over what you told me yesterday. You stirred me up, Jeff; I had been getting fat and sloppy in my thinking. How many potential recruits have you got now?"

"Thirteen, now that Johnson is out of it. Not all of them candidates for 'priesthood,' of course."

"I want you to send them all here, at once."

"But, boss, I haven't examined them."

"I'm making a radical revision in procedure. We'll cut out examination under drugs except at the Citadel. You haven't the facilities to do it gracefully. I'm assigning Brooks to it; he will do all of it from now on and I will pass on the ones who get by his elimination. From now on the 'priests' will have the prime duty of locating likely candidates and sending them in to the mother temple."

Thomas thought about it. "How about characters like Johnson? We sure don't want his type penetrating into the Citadel."

"I've anticipated that -- and that's why the examinations will be held here. A candidate will be doped before he goes to bed, but he won't know it. He will be given a hypo, roused, and examined during the night. If he passes, well and good. If he doesn't then he never will know he has been examined under drugs but he will be allowed to think that he has passed. "

"That's the beauty of it. He will be accepted into the service of the great god Mota, sworn in as a lay brother -- and then we will work the tail off him! He'll sleep in a bare cell, scrub floors, eat poor food and damn little of it, and spend hours each day on his knees at his devotions. He'll be regimented so thoroughly that he will never have a chance to suspect that there is anything under this mountain but country rock. When he's got his bellyful, he will be sorrowfully allowed to give up his vows, then he can trot back and tell his Masters anything he jolly well pleases."

Thomas looked pleased. "It sounds swell, Major. It sounds like fun -- and it sounds as if it would work."

"I think it will and it will turn their agents to our advantage. After the war is over we'll round them up and shoot 'em -- the actual spies, I mean, not the soft heads. But that's a sideshow; let's talk about the candidates that pass. I want recruits and I want them fast. I want several hundred right away. Out of that several hundred I want to get at least sixty satisfactory candidates for 'priesthood'; I want to train them simultaneously and send them all out into the field at once. You've thoroughly sold me on the dangers of waiting, Jeff; I want to penetrate every major PanAsian center at the same time. You've convinced me that this is our only chance to pull off this masquerade."

Thomas whistled. "You don't want much, do you, loss?"

"It can be done. Here is the new doctrine for recruiting. Turn on your recorder."

"It's on."

"Good. Send in only such candidates as have lost immediate members of their families as a result of the PanAsian invasion, or have other superficial, prima facie evidences that they are likely to be loyal under stress. Eliminate obviously unstable persons but leave any other psychological elimination to the staff at the Citadel. Send in candidates from the following categories only: for the 'priesthood' -- salesmen, advertising men, publicity men, newspapermen, preachers, politicians, psychologists, carnival pitch men or talkers, personnel managers, psychiatrists, trial lawyers, theatrical managers; for work not in contact with the public nor the enemy -- skilled metal workers of all sorts, electronics technicians, jewelers, watchmakers, skilled precision workers in any engineering art, cooks, stenographers, laboratory technicians, physicists, seamstresses. Any of the latter group may be female."

"No female priests?"

"What do you think?"

"I'm against it. These babies rate women as zero or even minus. I don't think a female 'priest' could possibly operate in contact with them."

"I feel the same way. Now, can Alec take over the recruiting under this doctrine?"

"Hmm ... boss, I hate, to throw him on his own just yet."

"He wouldn't make a slip and give us away, would he?"

"No, but he might not get much in the way of results, either."

"Well, you'll just have to push him in, sink or swim. From here on we force the moves, Jeff. Turn the temple over to Alec and report here. You and Scheer will leave for Salt Lake City at once, publicly. Buy another car and use the driver you have now. Alec can recruit another driver. I want Scheer back here in forty-eight hours and I want your first recruits headed this way a couple of days thereafter. Two weeks from now I'll send someone out to relieve you, either Graham or Brooks --"

"Huh? Neither one of them has the temperament for it."

"They can pinch hit after you've broken the ground. We'll relieve the one I send as soon as possible with the proper type. You'll come back here and start a school for 'priests' -- or, rather, continue it and improve it. I'm starting it now, with the people at hand. That's your job; I don't expect to send you into the field again, except possibly as a trouble shooter."

Thomas sighed. "I sure talked myself into a job, didn't I?"

"You did indeed. Get moving."

"Just a minute. Why Salt Lake City?"

"Because I think it's a good spot for recruiting. Those Mormons are shrewd, practical people and I don't think you'll find a traitor among them. If you work at it, I think you can convince their Elders that the great god Mota is a good thing to have around and no menace to their own faith. We haven't made half enough use of the legitimate churches; they should be the backbone of the movement. Take the Mormons -- they run to lay missionaries; if you work it right you can recruit a number of them with such experience, courageous, used to organizing in hostile territory, good talkers, smart. Get it?"