"That's rather a new thought, isn't it?" I said. "That's not how we imagine you."
"Then you haven't understood me at all. I know I can run the world in a proper way, and make it a happy place to live in. But only if I have an absolutely free hand. Good people go on insisting that their alleged God must somehow be brought in, while bad people -- I use the current terminology -- let themselves go in such a way as to spoil the plan for the rest."
"That's all very well, but you have been pretty ruthless in attacking those who regard themselves as the people of God."
He held up his hands as though horrified by my suggestion. "Only if I've been driven to it by attempts to attack me and my rule. When I lose my followers to the other side, I am naturally angry with the people who take them away."
Once more I was puzzled. "You make it sound as though you and the so-called God have very much the same aims. You both want to make the world run well."
"You could put it like that. But the difference is this. Those who believe in a God say that God must be at the heart and basis of everything, if the world is to be put right. My aim is to build a good world without depending on any idea of God at all. He's not needed."
I turned over in my mind this new concept of Satan as the reformer, as well as the enemy of God. It began to make sense. Whether it was his talk or some force of his personality, I found myself accepting the fact that this person sitting opposite me was Satan himself. I didn't shudder at the idea. I could believe in him without believing in God. I had already decided that there might be invisible spirits. But I still wanted to know what he wanted from me. He answered my unspoken question.
"I am about to demonstrate an experiment. I won't say try an experiment, because I know I shall succeed. I need someone to help me, and I believe you are the right man."
"Why me? I'd better tell you straight away that it's one thing to throw God over, but it's another thing to go in with the devil. I don't like it."
"Then I'm sorry. I want a man of maturity, who has seen from the inside all the ideas about God and discarded them, a man who has studied psi. I want a man who is prepared to remake mankind without God, by helping someone who has had many thousand years of experience. I want you to join me as the go-between between myself and humans who are less instructed than yourself. I give you my word, I won't ask you to do anything against your conscience. You can keep that. But think it over carefully. I'll be back this time tomorrow for your answer."
Suddenly the armchair was empty, and I was left with a feeling of utter exhaustion. If this unexpected visitor had indeed been Satan, he had evidently drawn on my psychic energies in order to materialise.
CHAPTER 4
I need not say it was the hardest decision I had ever needed to make. From one point of view it was completely ridiculous to think of going in with Satan. I thought of Faust who sold his soul to the devil. But stories like that belonged to the days when people believed they had immortal souls that would suffer in hell for all eternity. I no longer believed in an immortal soul, and certainly not in hell. If death is the end, one must live to the full here and now. So if Satan could offer me the good life, why not take it?
Satan -- if indeed it had been Satan -- had given me a new picture of himself as an absolute but beneficial ruler. I thought over what I remembered of the New Testament picture of him from the days when I taught in college. The Bible of course is biased, but it speaks of Satan as "the god of this world" and "the prince of this world", which is more or less what he had told me. So he must be concerned with the proper government of the world. It wouldn't be in his interests for everyone and everything to become as bad as possible.
He's called the deceiver, but that's because he opposes the alleged God, since he naturally tries to refute this God's claims. He's called the tempter, and he had already explained this. His aim is to inject decisions into the mind, as he tried to do with Jesus. I saw the Bible picture of Satan in a new light. It seemed to me that he had already done a pretty good work in the world, but obviously he was looking for something new.
By this time, I was more or less convinced that I would go along with him, although I determined to keep my mind open until I knew more about his plan.
Promptly at six-thirty, he was there in the armchair.
"Yes," he said, anticipating my unspoken thoughts, "you naturally want to know the plan. I warn you, it will sound crazy, but I assure you it can be done."
"I'm listening," I said.
"Your scientists tell you that life is probable in other parts of the universe."
"Yes, but only probable. They haven't found any."
"There isn't much to find. I know of only one small distant planet in this galaxy that has life, and that's not human life either -- only creatures somewhat similar to those you have here. But its climate and atmosphere are near enough to what earth has, so humans could live there."
"So what?" I don't usually use such vulgarisms, but it seemed the only thing to say -- a mixture of disbelief and curiosity.
"I'm planning to plant a colony of humans there under my direct rule. I want you as my agent -- if you will join me."
Can Satan suffer from paranoia? I wondered. With some sarcasm I rejoined, "Not a very long journey, then?"
He answered me in my own coin. "Quite short. Just a few million light years."
"Is that all! What time does the train start?"
He didn't answer, but stared hard at my face, giving a sense of pressure which I struggled to resist.
He spoke again. "If I can transport you all there, will you come?"
"Yes," I cried, "yes, I'll come. But the thing's impossible."
"I told you that one of the reasons I chose you was that you knew something about psi."
"That's true, I do. But what has that got to do with it?"
"You've read about teleportation."
"Yes, I know it has happened, but nobody knows how solid objects can pass through solid walls into a room, and how occasionally people have suddenly appeared many miles away from where they were last seen."
"I can make it happen. If a solid body can be dissolved and rebuilt, it is no harder for it to pass to a spot millions of light years away than into another room or another place on earth."
I gasped. "So you really are serious." I felt my bluff was being called, and I now regretted my hasty agreement to go along with this unbelievable plan.
"I am serious. Deadly serious. And I want you to come with me."
My reading had inclined me to accept impossibilities. Suddenly the whole thing made sense. "I'll come."
"Thank you. Then I can put you in the picture. We need about eighty people, singles and families. We must have a mixed community of ordinary people, intellectually and socially. It would be good if we could have a complete set of total goody-goodies, and keep them good, but there aren't any such people. We have to start with faulty material -- with apologies to yourself -- and mould them into a happy community. We certainly can't have any Christians. You will do most of the interviewing, and you must make certain that no one attends church, or sends the children to Sunday school or takes any private interest in Christian books. Even one adherent of the Christian superstition could wreck the whole plan. We shall demonstrate that utopia can be achieved without God. Are there any questions?"
"Yes. How are we going to find the right people?"
"We'll try an advertisement in the local evening paper. You'll have to interview anyone who seems promising material. Try this: Individual and family volunteers wanted for constructive community experiment. Congenial surroundings. No Christians need apply. That's roughly what we want to say. We'll put a box number, and letters will be forwarded to you for preliminary vetting. Then you and I will make a selection for interview. I suggest we hire a hotel room for that purpose."
"How can I describe you in the interviews? I can hardly advertise you as Satan."
"Call me the Anonymous Scientist. You can say I'm anonymous because
of the jealousy of my scientific colleagues."
"If you can get us all up to that planet, what will you supply there?"
"I've told you there are mammals, birds and fish that are much the same as you have here. I've arranged for houses to be built out of local stone and wood."
"Who on earth will build them?"
"No one on earth. I have many workers."
This was the first time Satan had hinted at other spirits beside himself. "We must be realistic," I objected. "What about heat and light?"
"You can use electricity. There is a waterfall that will drive turbines to generate all you need, but you must choose men who can maintain it."
"Won't we need to buy things? Food and suchlike?"
"We can manage that. We can issue tokens for money, and get things teleported from earth for a shop. You might look out for a shopkeeper in the applications."
"One other question. Has this planet got a name?"
"Not yet. Can you make a suggestion?"
"Well, as it's up in the sky, could we call it something like Heaven's Home?"
Satan put his hands over his ears. "Never let me hear you mention that name again!"
"I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. Our planets have used up most of the Greek and Latin gods and goddesses. But what about a classical king -- say Priam?"
"Sounds good. Priam it shall be. You can get on with the advertisement, and I'll be looking in."
Once more the armchair was empty, and once more I felt drained out. And rather cold.
CHAPTER 5
When the advertisement appeared, replies soon came in. It was interesting to read them, but not easy to pick out the possibles, far less the probables. However, I was confident that we would be better able to sort them out in the interviews.
Curiously enough, in spite of the words in the advertisement, several Christians applied. They were surprised at such discrimination in this day and age, and argued in their application letters that Christians were needed for the stability of a community. I need hardly say they were not invited for interview.
I rejected those, and also some other applications because the applicants gave so few particulars of themselves. Others wrote at considerable length, and I sensed that some of these were rather too weird to be reliable members of the community.
Fortunately, there was a reasonable choice of professions. We needed a doctor, and there was a good GP and his wife. I rejected a solicitor, since, if the experiment worked, disputes would be settled by a committee. We were looking out for a shopkeeper, and found a husband and wife who kept a general store. There was an application from a printer, and another from a general handyman, another from a farmer. I thought these would be useful.
Two teachers -- a man and a woman -- who enclosed good references could cover the basic needs of children, if books could be teleported. I was particularly glad to find a shoe repairer, whose daughter was a librarian. Two for the price of one, as it were, and I guessed we should have a library. There were plenty of what one might call average individuals and families with various jobs and interests. I decided to keep to families with no more than two children, plus several grannies and grandfathers to keep a balance.
Satan constantly scrutinised the list, and made suggestions. When the time came for interviews, he left them to me, but told me that he would be present, though invisible.
Only one journalist got hold of the advertisement. He worked for the paper in which it appeared, and came to interview me about the plan. I simply told him that I was only an agent acting on behalf of a gentleman who wished to remain anonymous. It was my task to pass on the names of people to him. Fortunately, this interview was evidently too dull to print.
Naturally, the first question anyone asked was about the "constructive community experiment" referred to in the advertisement. Of course, I didn't frighten them by talking of outer space, but kept to the experiment, devised by a scientist, for satisfactory community living in a village in pleasant surroundings. Stress would be on simplicity of life, without being overloaded with any modern gadgets, or being caught up in the rat race of city life. Most of them fell for this, although two or three backed out when they found there would be no cars.
When we had made our final decision, we had to fix the date and time and method of the teleportation. I discouraged anyone from selling up, in case they decided to return, although Satan was confident that the project would be such a success that no one would want to come back to earth.
Looking back, I am sure Satan used some hypnotic influence on their minds to keep them from worrying about their houses, so that they didn't even contemplate renting them out while they were away. They were unconcerned when I told them on June the twelfth that June the twenty-fourth, the Summer Solstice, would be the date of departure. Even when I told them not to pack anything, since everything would be supplied in the new community, no one objected.
Although a few seemed a bit restless at being kept so much in the dark, most accepted the wishes of an anonymous eccentric scientist to keep everything secret until the last minute. Actually, they had to wait until almost the last minute before they received final directions by letter. These instructions sounded so strange that again only some sort of hypnotic influence from Satan could have induced anyone to follow them.
The letter said they were about to take part in a rather strange experiment. To this end, at midday on June the twenty-fourth they must relax as completely as possible. Quiet music would help. Then without any concentration they would start to repeat aloud softly, again and again the single word Priam. They must not attempt to leave the house, and they would be taken very soon to the new community.
Meanwhile, Satan instructed me to go to a stone circle some miles from my home. He explained that while the repetition of the word Priam would produce some psychic power, we might need further psychic force. So at the stone circle I would be at the centre of an old focus of force, which by concentration I could mobilise. I had already understood from my reading that people of old sensed lines of force and places where the forces built up, and made use of these in various ways. Now it was my turn to use them, because much psychic energy would be needed for this transportation.
At midday I stood in the circle and did my best to tune in to the vibrations around me of which I gradually became more and more aware. It was a beautiful day, with the sun overhead in a blue sky flecked with clouds. Time became irrelevant. I was in the past and the present simultaneously. One moment I was standing on the green grass in the centre of the circle. I had no sense of motion, but the next moment I was standing on the grass in the centre of a village green, staring at houses in the street.
The effect was the same as when the scene changes in a film. I had not moved, but the film had changed. I was seeing a fresh picture in which I was taking part. It was still a beautiful day, with the sun overhead in a blue sky flecked with clouds.
As I stood staring, people came pouring out of the houses. I could hear them shouting "What's happened? Where are we?"
Some of them recognised me, and rushed on to the green. They pressed round me, all the time looking in a bewildered way at the strange surroundings and at one another, since this was the first time they had met together. I was their only point of contact. I had to reassure them.
I forget now just what I said, for I was almost as staggered as they were. But I told them we had had an experience that had never been given to another person on earth. Through the skill of my master, the Anonymous Scientist, we had somehow been transported through outer space to a planet called Priam, many billions of miles from earth, but like earth in many ways. The interiors of the houses were as near as possible identical to the houses they had left on earth.
Meanwhile I told them I was still the agent of the great scientist who would be able to supply us with what we needed. Together we must build a new and happier life. I think I sounded terribly formal, but I was exhausted by the psychic forces that had invaded me at the stone ci
rcle.
The people parted as I moved across the green. On the other side of the street I could see a house that looked very like the one I had left behind on earth. Indeed, it had a brass plate on the gatepost, with the word Agent. I went up the path. The front door was unlocked. Inside it was almost exactly the same as mine at home.
A large and a small armchair each side of the fireplace reminded me of my first meeting with the gentleman in black. My own books were in their own bookcase. I looked out of the window and could see people still moving about uncertainly. Two or three were talking together. Others were obviously making their way back to what was now to be home.
The thought came to me that we were like children arriving on the first day of their first term at school. We were strangers to each other in a strange environment. We had to form new friendships and build a new life together. Priam was now our Alma Mater. Floreat Priam!
CHAPTER 6
At a later date I saw Dr Peter Faber's notes that he started writing on the day after we arrived on Priam. I reproduce them here, to show the reactions of one member of the party who, unlike myself, was very much in the dark about all that was happening. This is what he wrote:
I find it difficult to understand how I have come to be mixed up in this strange affair. I can trace the steps, but why on earth did I keep agreeing? The one word that keeps coming into my mind is "pressure". I'm not easily influenced as a rule, but this was a strange sort of inner pressure, almost as though I were being hypnotised into saying Yes.
Perhaps I should blame it on depression. For some time I have been getting more and more depressed over the state of the world, and over the laws and restrictions that governed my medical practice. I could see that my wife was worried about me, and the antidepressants I give to patients had no effect on me.
One day I had a visit from a patient who came to me fairly regularly, a Mr Richard Halliday. He came in with more excitement than usual.
"Well, doctor, this may be my last appointment with you. I'm pulling out of the rat race."
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