‘Does it really?’ he asked, considerably shook up. These religious types are something when they try to tackle science.
‘It really does,’ I assured him. ‘I’ve got the proofs in my lab, though the demonstrations are a bit tedious –’
‘No, please, I take your word,’ the old guy said. ‘After all, we did make a Covenant.’
That was the word he always used for ‘contract.’ It meant the same thing, but sounded better.
‘Paired opposites,’ he mused. ‘Determinism. Things becoming their opposites. It’s all quite intricate, I’m afraid.’
‘And aesthetic as well,’ I said. ‘But I didn’t finish about the transformation of extremes.’
‘Kindly go on,’ he said.
‘Thanks. Now then, we have entropy, which means that things persist in their motion unless there is outside influence. (Sometimes even when there is outside influence, in my experience.) But so, we got entropy driving a thing towards its opposite. If one thing is driven towards its opposite, then all things are driven towards their opposite, because science is consistent. Now you get the picture? We’ve got all these opposites transforming themselves like crazy and becoming their opposites. On a higher level of organization, we have groups of opposites going through the same bit. And higher and higher. So far so good?’
‘I suppose so,’ he said.
‘Fine. Now, the question naturally arises, is this all? I mean, these opposites turning themselves inside out and then outside in, is that the whole ball game? And the beauty part is, it’s not! No, sir. These opposites flipping around like trained seals are only an aspect of what’s really happening. Because –’ And here I paused and spoke in a very deep voice. ‘– because there is a wisdom that sees beyond the clash and turmoil of the phenomenal world. This wisdom, sir, sees through the illusory quality of these real things, and sees beyond them into the deeper workings of the Universe, which are in a state of like great and magnificent harmony.’
‘How can a thing be both illusory and real?’ he asked me, quick as a whip.
‘It is not for me to know an answer like that,’ I told him. ‘Me, I am a mere humble scientific worker and I see what I see and act accordingly. But maybe there’s an ethical reason behind it.’
The old boy mused on that one for a while, and I could see he was having quite a tussle with himself. He could detect a logical fallacy as fast as anyone, of course, and my reasons had been shot through with them. But like all eggheads, he was fascinated with contradictions and he had the strong urge to incorporate them into his system. And all the propositions I had proposed, well, his common sense told him that things couldn’t be that tricky; but his intellectuality told him that maybe things did indeed seem that complicated, but maybe there was a nice simple unifying principle underneath it all. Or, if not a unifying principle, at least a good solid moral. And finally, I had hooked him all over again just because I had used the word ‘ethics.’ Because this old gent was a perfect demon for ethics, he was supersaturated with ethics; you could call him Mr Ethics, make no mistake. And so, quite accidentally, I had given him the idea that the whole bloody Universe was a series of homilies and contradictions, of laws and inequities, all leading to the most exquisite and rarefied sort of ethical order.
‘There is a greater depth here than I had considered,’ he said after a while. ‘I had planned to instruct my people in ethics only; and to direct their attention to morally imperative questions such as how and why a man should live instead of what constitutes living matter; I wanted them to be explorers plumbing the depths of joy, fear, piety, hope, despair, rather than scientists who examine stars and raindrops and form grandiose and impractical hypotheses on the basis of their findings. I was aware of the Universe, but considered it superfluous. Now you have corrected me.’
‘Well, look,’ I said, ‘I didn’t mean to cause trouble. I just thought I should point out this stuff …’
The old man smiled. ‘By causing me trouble,’ he said, ‘you have spared me greater trouble. I can create in my own image; but I will not create a world peopled with miniature versions of myself. Free will is important to me. My creatures will have it, to their glory and their sorrow. They will take this glittering useless toy which you call science and they will elevate it to an undeclared Godhead. Physical contradictions and solar abstractions will fascinate them; they will pursue knowledge of these things and forget to explore the knowledge of their own heart. You have convinced me of this, and I am grateful for the forewarning.’
I’ll be frank, he got me a little nervous just about then. I mean, he was a nobody, he didn’t know any important people; and yet, he had the grand manner. I had the feeling that he could cause me one hell of a lot of trouble, and I felt that he could do it with a few words, a sentence like a poisoned dart lodged in my mind and never to be removed. And that scared me a little, to tell the truth.
Well sir, the old joker must have been reading my mind. For he said, ‘Do not be frightened. I accept without reservation the world you have built for me; it will serve very well, exactly as it is. As for the flaws and defects which you also built into my world, I accept those also, not entirely without gratitude; and I pay for those, too.’
‘How?’ I asked. ‘How do you pay for errors?’
‘By accepting them without dispute,’ he said. ‘And by turning away from you now and going about my business and the business of my people.’
And the old gentleman left without another word.
‘Well, it left me pretty thoughtful. I’d had all the good arguments, but the old boy left somehow with the last word. I knew what he meant; he had fulfilled his contract with me and that ended it. He was leaving with no word for me personally. From his point of view, it was a kind of punishment.
‘But that’s only the way he saw it. What did I need with his word? I wanted to hear it, of course; that’s only natural; and for quite a while I tried to look him up. But he didn’t care to see me.
‘So it really doesn’t matter. I made a pretty nice profit on that world, and even if I bent the contract here and there, I didn’t break it. That’s how things are; you owe it to yourself to make a profit. You can’t get too worked up over the consequences.
‘But I was trying to make a point out of all this, and I want you boys to listen carefully. Science is filled with a lot of rules, because I invented it that way. Why did I invent it that way? Because rules are a great assistance to a smart operator, just as a lot of laws are a great help to lawyers. The rules, doctrines, axioms, laws, and principles of science are there to help you, not to hinder you. They’re there in order to provide you with reasons for what you do. Most of them are true, more or less, and that helps.
‘But always remember – these rules are there to help you explain to the customers what you do after you do it, not before. When you have a project, do it exactly as you see fit; then fit the facts around the event, not the other way around.
‘Remember – these rules exist as a verbal barrier against people who ask questions. But they should not be used as a barrier by you. If you’ve learned anything from me, you’ve learned that our work is inevitably inexplicable; we simply do it, and sometimes it comes out well and sometimes not.
‘But never try to explain to yourselves why some things happen and why other things don’t happen. Don’t ask, and don’t imagine that an explanation exists. Get me?’
The two assistants nodded vehemently. They looked enlightened, like men who have found a new religion. Carmody would have bet anything that those two earnest young men had memorized every one of the Builder’s words, and would now proceed to elevate those words into – a rule.
CHAPTER 13
After finishing his story, Maudsley was silent for a long time. He seemed morose and withdrawn, and filled with unhappy thoughts. But after a while he roused himself and said, ’Carmody, a person in my position is always beset by requests from various charities. I give generously every year to the Oxygen Fund for
Indigent Carbon-Forms. I also contribute to the Interstellar Redevelopment Foundation, the Cosmic Settlement Home, and the Save-the-Immature programme. This seems to me quite sufficient, and is also tax-deductible.’
‘All right,’ Carmody said, with a sudden flash of pride. ‘I don’t want your charity anyhow.’
‘Please do not interrupt me,’ Maudsley said. ‘I was saying that my charities are quite sufficient to fulfil my humanitarian instincts. I do not like to take up individual cases because it gets messy and personal.’
‘I quite understand,’ Carmody said. ‘I think I had better go now,’ he added, though he didn’t have the slightest idea of where he was going or how he would get there.
‘I asked you not to interrupt me,’ Maudsley said. ‘Now, I don’t like to take personal cases, as I said. But I am going to make an exception this time and help you get back to your planet.’
‘Why?’ Carmody asked.
‘A whim,’ Maudsley said. ‘The merest fancy, with perhaps a touch of altruism thrown in. Also –’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, if you ever get home – which is dubious in spite of my help – I would appreciate your delivering a message.’
‘Sure,’ Carmody said. ‘Who’s the message to?’
‘Why, obviously, to the bearded old man for whom I built the planet. I suppose he’s still in charge?’
‘I don’t know,’ Carmody said. ‘There’s been a great deal of discussion on that point. Some people say he’s there just as he always has been. But others say he’s dead (though I think that’s meant metaphorically), and still others maintain that he never existed in the first place.’
‘He’s still there,’ Maudsley said with conviction. ‘You couldn’t kill a fellow like that with a crowbar. As for his apparent absence, that’s very like him. He’s moody, you know, and filled with high morals which he expects people to live by. He can be peevish, he can just drop out of sight for a while if he doesn’t like how things are going. And he can be subtle; he knows that people don’t like too much of anything, no matter if it’s roast beef, lovely women, or God. So it would be just like him to remove himself from the bill of fare, so to speak, until an appetite has been built up for him again.’
‘You seem to know a lot about him,’ Carmody said.
‘Well, I’ve had a lot of time to think about him.’
‘And I think that I should point out,’ Carmody pointed out, ‘that the way you see him is not in accord with any theological view that I’ve ever heard. The idea that God can be moody, peevish –’
‘But he must be those things,’ Maudsley said. ‘And much more besides! He must be a creature of extreme emotionality! After all, that’s how you are and, I presume, how your fellow humans are.’
Carmody nodded.
‘Well, there you are! He stated plainly that he was going to create in his own image. And obviously, he did so. The moment you came here, I recognized the family resemblance. There is a little God in you, Carmody, though you shouldn’t let that go to your head.’
‘I’ve never had any contact with him,’ Carmody said. ‘I don’t know how to give him a message.’
‘It’s so plain!’ Maudsley said, with an air of exasperation. ‘When you get home, you must simply speak up in a firm, clear voice.’
‘What makes you think he’ll hear me?’ Carmody asked.
‘He can’t help but hear you!’ Maudsley said. ‘It is his planet, you know, and he has shown his deep interest in his tenants. If he had wanted you to communicate in any other way, he would have shown it.’
‘All right, I’ll do it,’ Carmody said. ‘What do you want me to tell him?’
‘Well, it isn’t anything much, really,’ Maudsley said, suddenly ill at ease. ‘But he was quite a worthy old gentleman, really, and I’ve felt a bit bad about the planet I built him. Not that there’s anything wrong with the planet, when you come right down to it. It’s quite serviceable and all that. But this old guy was a gentleman. I mean, he had class, which is something you never see too much of. So I’d kind of like to do a renovation on that planet of his, entirely free you understand, gratis, it wouldn’t cost him a cent. If he’d go for it, I could turn that planet into a showplace, a real paradise. I’m really a hell of a good engineer, let me tell you; it’s quite unfair to judge me by the borax I have to turn out to earn a buck.’
‘I’ll tell him,’ Carmody said. ‘But very frankly, I don’t think he’ll take you up on the offer.’
‘I don’t think he will, either,’ Maudsley said morosely. ‘He’s a stubborn old man and he doesn’t want favours from anyone. Still, I do want to make the offer, and I mean it in all sincerity.’ Maudsley hesitated, then said, ‘You might also ask him if he’d care to drop around for a chat sometime.’
‘Why don’t you go to see him?’
‘I tried that a couple of times, but he wouldn’t see me. He’s got quite a vindictive streak, that old man of yours! Still, maybe he’ll relent.’
‘Maybe,’ Carmody said doubtfully. ‘Anyhow, I’ll tell him. But if you want to talk to a God, Mr Maudsley, why don’t you talk to Melichrone?’
Maudsley threw back his head and laughed. ‘Meli-chrone! That imbecile? He’s a pompous, self-centred ass, and he has no character worth considering. I’d rather talk metaphysics with a dog! Technically speaking, Godhead is a matter of power and control, you know; there’s nothing magical about it, and it’s not a cure-all for what ails you. No two Gods are alike. Did you know that?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Bear it in mind. You can never tell when a piece of information like that will prove useful.’
‘Thank you,’ Carmody said. ‘You know, before this, I didn’t believe in any God at all.’
Maudsley looked thoughtful and said, ‘To my way of thinking, the existence of a God or Gods is obvious and inevitable; and belief in God is as easy and natural as belief in an apple, and of no more or less significance. When you come right down to it, there’s only one thing that stands in the way of this belief.’
‘What’s that?’ Carmody asked.
‘It is the Principle of Business, which is more fundamental than the law of gravity. Wherever you go in the galaxy, you can find a food business, a house-building business, a war business, a peace business, a governing business, and so forth. And, of course, a God business, which is called “religion,” and which is a particularly reprehensible line of endeavour. I could talk for a year on the perverse and nasty notions that the religions sell, but I’m sure you’ve heard it all before. But I’ll just mention one matter, which seems to underlie everything the religions preach, and which seems to me almost exquisitely perverse.’
‘What’s that?’Carmody asked.
‘It’s the deep, fundamental bedrock of hypocrisy upon which religion is founded. Consider: no creature can be said to worship if it does not possess free will. Free will, however, is free. And just by virtue of being free, is intractable and incalculable, a truly Godlike gift, the faculty that makes a state of freedom possible. To exist in a state of freedom is a wild, strange thing, and was clearly intended as such. But what do the religions do with this? They say, “Very well, you possess free will; but now you must use your free will to enslave yourself to God and to us.” The effrontery of it! God, who would not coerce a fly, is painted as a supreme slavemaster! In the face of this, any creature with spirit must rebel, must serve God entirely of his own will and volition, or must not serve him at all, thus remaining true to himself and to the faculties God has given him.’
‘I think I see what you mean,’ Carmody said.
‘I’ve made it too complicated,’ Maudsley said. ‘There’s a much simpler reason for avoiding religion.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Just consider its style – bombastic, hortatory, sickly-sweet, patronizing, artificial, inapropos, boring, filled with dreary images or peppy slogans – fit subject matter for senile old women and unweaned babies, but for no one else. I ca
nnot believe that the God I met here would ever enter a church; he had too much taste and ferocity, too much anger and pride. I can’t believe it, and for me that ends the matter. Why should I go to a place that a God would not enter?’
CHAPTER 14
Carmody was left to his own devices while Maudsley began construction of a machine to take him back to Earth. He became very bored. Maudsley could only work in utter solitude, and the Prize had apparently gone back into hibernation. Orin and Brookside, the junior engineers, were dull fellows, preoccupied with their work and uninterested in anything else. So Carmody had no one to talk to.
He filled in his time as well as he could. He toured an atom-building factory and listened dutifully while a red-faced foreman explained how it was done.
‘This used to be all handwork,’ the foreman told him. ‘Now machines do it, but the process is really the same. First, we select a proton and attach a neutron to it, using Mr Maudsley’s patented energy-binding. Then, we spin the electrons into position with a standard microcosmic centrifuge. After that, we put in anything else that’s called for – mu mesons, positrons, that sort of gingerbread. And that’s all there is to it.’
‘Do you get much call for gold or uranium atoms?’ Carmody asked.
‘Not much. Too expensive. Mostly, we turn out hydrogen atoms.’
‘What about antimatter atoms?’
‘I’ve never seen much sense in it, myself,’ the foreman said. ‘But Mr Maudsley carries it as a sideline. Antimatter is made in a separate factory, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Carmody said.
‘That stuff explodes when it comes into contact with normal atoms.’
‘Yes, I know. It must be tricky stuff to package.’
‘No, not really,’ the foreman assured him. ‘We put it up in neutral cartons.’
They continued to walk among the huge machines, and Carmody tried to think of something else to say. Finally he asked, ‘Do you make your own protons and electrons?’
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