Essential Science Fiction Novels - Volume 10. Edward Bellamy
was a mistake,” said Bondy dryly. “Perhaps you could come to some agreement with Him. A proper formal contract, in something like this style: ‘We guarantee to produce You discreetly and continuously to an extent to be fixed by mutual agreement; in return for which You pledge yourself to refrain from any divine manifestations within such and such a radius from the place of origin.’ What do you think—would He consider these terms?”
“I don’t know,” answered Marek uneasily. “He seems to have a decided inclination in favour of becoming independent of matter once more. Still, perhaps . . . in His own interests . . . He might be willing to listen. But don’t ask me to do it.”
“Very well, then!” Bondy agreed. “I’ll send my own solicitor. A very tactful and capable fellow. And then again . . . er . . . one might perhaps offer Him some church or other. After all, a factory cellar and its surroundings are rather . . . well . . . undignified quarters for Him. We ought to ascertain His tastes. Have you tried yet?”
“No; it would suit me best to flood the cellar with water.”
“Gently, Marek, gently. I’m probably going to buy this invention. You understand, of course, that . . . I’ll send my experts over first . . . we’ll have to look into the business a little further. Perhaps it’s only poisonous fumes, after all. And if it actually turns out to be God Himself, that’s all right. So long as the Karburator really works.”
Marek got up. “And you wouldn’t be afraid to install the Karburator in the M.E.C. works?”
“I’m not afraid,” said Bondy, rising, “to manufacture Karburators wholesale. Karburators for trains and ships. Karburators for central heating, for houses, offices, factories, and schools. In ten years’ time all the heating in the world will be done by Karburators. I’ll give you three per cent, of the gross profits. The first year it will only be a few millions, perhaps. Meanwhile you can move out, so that I can send my men along. I’ll bring the Suffragan Bishop up to-morrow morning. See that you keep out of his way, Rudy. I don’t like seeing you about here in any case. You are rather abrupt, and I don’t want to offend the Absolute to start with.”
“Bondy,” Marek whispered, horror-stricken. “I warn you for the last time. It means letting God loose upon this world!”
“Then,” said G. H. Bondy, with dignity, “He will be personally indebted to me to that extent. And I hope that He won’t show me any ill-feeling.”
V
BISHOP LINDA
About a fortnight after New Year’s Day, Marek was sitting in Bondy’s business office.
“How far have you got?” Bondy had just asked, raising his head from some papers over which he was bending.
“I’ve finished,” said the engineer. “I’ve given your engineers detailed drawings of the Karburator. That bald-headed fellow—what’s his name——”
“Krolmus.”
“Yes, Krolmus has simplified my atomic motor amazingly—the transformation of electronic energy into motor power, you know. He’s an able fellow, my boy, is Krolmus. And what other news is there?”
G. H. Bondy went on writing assiduously.
“We’re building,” he said after a while. “Seven thousand bricklayers on the job. A factory for Karburators.”
“Where?”
“At Vysočany. And we’ve increased our share capital. A billion and a half. Our new invention’s getting into the papers. See for yourself,” he added, tipping half a hundredweight of Czech and foreign papers into Marek’s lap, then buried himself in the documents on his desk.
“I haven’t been for a fortnight,” said Marek gloomily.
“Haven’t been where?”
“I haven’t been to my little factory out at Břevnov for a fortnight. I—I daren’t go there. Is anything being done there?”
“Mphm.”
“And what about my Karburator?” asked Marek, controlling his anxiety.
“It’s still running.”
“And what about . . . the other thing?”
The Chief sighed and laid down his pen, “Do you know that we had to have Mixa Street closed?”
“Why?”
“People kept going there to pray. Whole processions of them. The police tried to disperse them, and seven people lost their lives. They let themselves be knocked over like sheep.”
“I feared as much, I feared as much,” muttered Marek in despair.
“We’ve blocked the street with barbed wire,” Bondy went on. “We had to clear the people out of the neighbouring houses—religious manifestations all over them, you know. A commission of the Ministries of Health and Education is occupying them now.”
“I expect,” said Marek with a breath of relief, “that the authorities will prohibit my Karburator.”
“Oh no, they won’t,” said G. H. Bondy. “The Clerical party are making a fearful row about your Karburator, and for that very reason the progressive parties have taken it under their wing. In reality no one knows what it’s all about. It’s evident that you don’t read the papers, man. It’s developed into a quite needless attack upon clericalism, and the Church happens to have a little right on its side in this case. That confounded Bishop informed the Cardinal Archbishop——”
“What Bishop?”
“Oh, some Bishop by the name of Linda, quite a sensible man in other respects. You see, I took him up there as an expert, to inspect the wonder-working Absolute. His inspection lasted a full three hours, and he spent the whole time in the cellar, and . . .”
“He got religion?” burst out Marek.
“Not a bit of it! Perhaps he’s had too long a training with God, or else he’s a more hard-baked atheist than you; I don’t know. But three days later he came to me and told me that from the Catholic standpoint God cannot be brought into the matter, that the Church absolutely rejects and forbids the pantheistic hypothesis as heresy. In short, that this isn’t any legal, duly recognized God, supported by the authority of the Church, and that, as a priest, he must declare it false, perverse, and heretical. He talked very reasonably, did his Reverence.”
“So he wasn’t conscious of any supernatural manifestations down there?”
“He underwent them all: illumination, miraculous powers, ecstasy, everything. He doesn’t deny, either, that these things happen there.”
“Well, then, tell me, how does he explain it?”
“He simply doesn’t. He said that the Church does not explain, but merely prescribes or prohibits. In short, he definitely refused to compromise the Church with any new and untried God. At least, that’s what I understood him to mean. Do you know that I’ve bought that church up on the White Mountain?”
“Why?”
“It’s the nearest one to Břevnov. It cost me three hundred thousand, man. Both in writing and by word of mouth I offered it to the Absolute down in the cellar to induce it to move over there. It’s quite a pretty baroque church; and besides, I expressed my readiness to undertake any necessary alterations. And here’s a queer thing: just a few steps from the church, at No. 457, there was a fine case of ecstasy the night before last—one of our erectors; but in the church itself nothing miraculous happened, nothing whatever. There was even one case right out in Vokovice and two in Košiře, while at the Petřín wireless station there’s practically an epidemic of religion. All the wireless operators on duty up there are sending out ecstatic messages of their