Clifford Simak - I Am Crying All Inside - And Other Stories

“Not tentatively,” said Spencer. “Our decision has been made. I’m curious how you heard it.”

Ravenholt waved an airy hand, implying there was very little he did not know about. “I presume the matter still is open to discussion.”

Spencer shook his head.

Ravenholt said, icily, “I fail to see how you could summarily cut off an investigation so valid and so vital to all humanity.”

“Not summarily, Dr. Ravenholt. We spent a lot of time on it. We made opinion samplings. We had an extensive check by Psych. We considered all the factors.”

“And your findings, Mr. Spencer?”

“First of all,” said Spencer, just a little nettled, “it would be too time-consuming. As you know, our license specifies that we donate ten per cent of our operation time to public interest projects. This we are most meticulous in doing, although I don’t mind telling you there’s nothing that gives us greater headaches.”

“But that ten per cent …”

“If we took up this project you are urging, doctor, we’d use up all our public interest time for several years at least. That would mean no other programs at all.”

“But surely you’ll concede that no other proposal could be in a greater public interest.”

“That’s not our findings,” Spencer told him. “We took opinion samplings in every area of Earth, in all possible cross-sections. We came up with—sacrilege.”

“You’re joking, Mr. Spencer!”

“Not at all,” said Spencer. “Our opinion-taking showed quite conclusively that any attempt to investigate world-wide religious origins would be viewed by the general public in a sacrilegious light. You and I, perhaps, could look upon it as research. We could resolve all our questioning by saying we sought no more nor less than truth. But the people of the world—the simple, common people of every sect and faith in the entire world—do not want the truth. They are satisfied with things just as they are. They’re afraid we would upset a lot of the old, comfortable traditions. They call it sacrilege and it’s partly that, of course, but it’s likewise an instinctive defense reaction against upsetting their thinking. They have a faith to cling to. It has served them through the years and they don’t want anyone to fool around with it.”

“I simply can’t believe it,” said Ravenholt, aghast at such blind provincialism.

“I have the figures. I can show you.”

Dr. Ravenholt waved his hand condescendingly and gracefully.

“If you say you have them, I am sure you have.”

He wasn’t taking any chances of being proven wrong.

“Another thing,” said Spencer, “is objectivity. How do you select the men to send back to observe the facts?”

“I am sure that we could get them. There are many men of the cloth, of every creed and faith, who would be amply qualified …”

“Those are just the ones we would never think of sending,” said Spencer. “We need objectivity. Ideally, the kind of man we need is one who has no interest in religion, who has no formal training in it, one who is neither for it nor against it—and yet, we couldn’t use that sort of man even if we found him. For to understand what is going on, he’d have to have a rather thorough briefing on what he was to look for. Once you trained him, he’d be bound to lose his objectivity. There is something about religion that forces one to take positions on it.”

“Now,” said Ravenholt, “you are talking about the ideal investigative situation, not our own.”

“Well, all right, then,” conceded Spencer. “Let’s say we decide to do a slightly sloppy job. Who do we send then? Could any Christian, I ask you, no matter how poor a Christian he might be, safely be sent back to the days that Jesus spent on Earth? How could one be sure that even mediocre Christians would do no more than observe the facts? I tell you, Dr. Ravenholt, we could not take the chance. What would happen, do you think, if we suddenly should have thirteen instead of twelve disciples? What if someone should try to rescue Jesus from the Cross? Worse yet, what if He actually were rescued? Where would Christianity be then? Would there be Christianity? Without the Crucifixion, would it ever have survived?”

“Your problem has a simple answer,” Ravenholt said coldly. “Do not send a Christian.”

“Now we are really getting somewhere,” said Spencer. “Let’s send a Moslem to get the Christian facts and a Christian to track down the life of Buddha—and a Buddhist to investigate black magic in the Belgian Congo.”

“It could work,” said Ravenholt.

“It might work, but you wouldn’t get objectivity. You’d get bias and, worse yet, perfectly honest misunderstanding.”

Ravenholt drummed impatient fingers on his well-creased knee. “I can see your point,” he agreed, somewhat irritably, “but there is something you have overlooked. The findings need not be released in their entirety to the public.”

“But if it’s in the public interest? That’s what our license says.”

“Would it help,” asked Ravenholt, “if I should offer certain funds which could be used to help defray the costs?”

“In such a case,” said Spencer, blandly, “the requirement would not be met. It’s either in the public interest, without any charge at all, or it’s a commercial contract paid for at regular rates.”

“The obvious fact,” Ravenholt said flatly, “is that you do not want to do this job. You may as well admit it.”

“Most cheerfully,” said Spencer. “I willingly wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. What worries me right now is why you’re here.”

Ravenholt said, “I thought that with the project about to be rejected, I possibly could serve as a sort of mediator.”

“You mean you thought we could be bribed.”

“Not at all,” said Ravenholt wrathfully. “I was only recognizing that the project was perhaps a cut beyond what your license calls for.”

“It’s all of that,” said Spencer.

“I cannot fully understand your objection to it,” Ravenholt persisted.

“Dr. Ravenholt,” said Spencer gently, “how would you like to be responsible for the destruction of a faith?”

“But,” stammered Ravenholt, “there is no such possibility …”

“Are you certain?” Spencer asked him. “How certain are you, Dr. Ravenholt? Even the black magic of the Congo?”

“Well, I—well, since you put it that way …”

“You see what I mean?” asked Spencer.

“But even so,” argued Ravenholt, “there could be certain facts suppressed …”

“Come now! How long do you think you could keep it bottled up? Anyway, when Past, Inc., does a job,” Spencer told him firmly, “it goes gunning for the truth. And when we learn it, we report it. That is the one excuse we have for our continuing existence. We have a certain project here—a personal, full-rate contract—in which we have traced a family tree for almost two thousand years. We have been forced to tell our client some unpleasant things. But we told them.”

“That’s part of what I’m trying to convey to you,” shouted Ravenholt, shaken finally out of his ruthless calm. “You are willing to embark upon the tracing of a family tree, but you refuse this!”

“And you are confusing two utterly different operations! This investigation of religious origins is a public interest matter. Family Tree is a private account for which we’re being paid.”

Ravenholt rose angrily. “We’ll discuss this some other time, when we both can keep our temper.”

Spencer said wearily, “It won’t do any good. My mind is made up.”

“Mr. Spencer,” Ravenholt said, nastily, “I’m not without recourse.”

“Perhaps you’re not. You can go above my head. If that is what you’re thinking, I’ll tell you something else: You’ll carry out this project over my dead body. I will not, Dr. Ravenholt, betray the faith of any people in the world.”