Blind Faith

by Ben Elton

  It was then that he had a huge and exciting thought. He smiled, remembering how Barbieheart had suggested that the Love had a task waiting for him. All of a sudden Trafford knew what that task was.

  26

  'It's out of the question,' Cassius said angrily. 'We can't possibly expand our recruitment programme. It simply isn't our way.'

  'You said it was the duty of every Humanist to be a missionary, to spread the knowledge.'

  'It's also our duty not to get caught and risk handing the whole damn network to the Inquisition!'

  'Network! It's not a network. It's a cosy little club! You've said yourself there's barely a few hundred of you in the whole damn country of faith. Do you want the children you saved as a Vaccinator to grow up in the same shitty world we did? And what about their children's children? And the children after that?'

  'Trafford, we can't start a revolution.'

  'Why not? Why can't we start a revolution? We need a revolution.'

  The two men were facing each other in the anteroom of the Finchley library.

  'No, Trafford, we need evolution! Sober thinkers, not impetuous hotheads. What's your hurry?' Cassius asked. 'When you called me you said it was urgent. Why did you have to drag me across the lake to ask me this now?'

  'It is urgent,' Trafford pleaded. 'Every second counts. I had to wait thirty bloody years to find you. To find this library. That's almost half a lifetime wasted! Wasted in ignorance and, more to the point, in utter stupefying boredom. The boredom of living in a world where the only idea is faith and the only diversions are sex and gossip. You know very well that before I met you, the best I could manage to maintain some sense of individuality was keeping a few paltry secrets! How fucking pointless is that? Hoarding feelings like a rat hoards rubbish. Always looking inwards, when I could have been expanding my mind. The day I became a Humanist was the day I was born. Until then, my mind was in utero, an embryonic consciousness. If I deserved this chance,' Trafford exclaimed, 'so do millions of other people.'

  'They may very well deserve their chance,' Cassius replied and despite his anger he could not help smiling at Trafford's passion. 'But we have rules, Trafford. Serious rules. Each new follower is required to wait at least a year before approaching a new prospect of their own—'

  'A year!' Trafford blurted.

  '. . . and even then only with the utmost patience and caution. If you share your secret with the wrong person you will be denounced and almost certainly tortured into denouncing the rest of us.'

  ' "Patience"! "Caution"!' Trafford echoed derisively. 'The way you're going it'll take a thousand years to spread the light.'

  'Better that than have it snuffed out for ever.'

  'You brought me in. How could you be sure I wouldn't denounce you then?'

  'You had allowed me to vaccinate your baby, Trafford. You were entirely compromised and in no position to denounce anyone.'

  'Is that the best you can do to spread the word? Wait until you find someone with a baby that they'll allow you to vaccinate?'

  'Well, you say you have a better way. Let's hear it then.'

  'It's bloody obvious. I can't believe I didn't think of it immediately. That's why it's urgent: too much time has been wasted already!'

  'Yes but what is it? What is your better way?'

  'By finding the people who keep secrets,' Trafford exclaimed, his eyes bright with excitement. 'That was how you found me. You guessed that I kept secrets.'

  'We work together in the same office. I had the opportunity to observe you.'

  'But don't you see? That's the point. We at DegSep have the opportunity to observe everybody! We have access to a profiling tool of incredible sophistication which should, if we ask it the right questions, be able to find people like us.'

  Cassius's eyes narrowed with interest. 'Carry on,' he said.

  'We need to study ourselves,' Trafford continued, 'and our fellow Humanists. We need to identify common movements, characteristics and choices. Are we the sort of people who do such a thing in a certain way, at certain times and in certain places? When we have built up some sort of pattern which we feel is common to us all, or at least indicates a commonality, then I can put it through DegSep and look for matches. All we have to do is profile who we are, then we can find out who is like us.'

  Cassius considered this idea for a moment.

  'It is ingenious, I'll admit that,' he said finally. 'Do you really think you could manipulate DegSep undetected?'

  'Why not, if I follow your rules and do it boldly? My job is to come up with nonsense to ask the computer, and this would just be more nonsense. I wouldn't even try to hide it.'

  'Very well then,' said Cassius, and despite his efforts to maintain a cool, objective air it was clear he was excited. 'I'll think about it and speak to some of the others. You may have hit on something here, Trafford.'

  'Of course I've hit on something. But I'll only do it on one condition.'

  Cassius's face hardened. 'If you are a loyal Humanist,' he said tersely, 'then you will make no conditions!'

  'I am a loyal Humanist but I don't care. I want to bring in a girl. I know I'm supposed to wait a year but I want to bring her in now.'

  Cassius looked at Trafford long and hard. 'Is it the one at work? Sandra Dee?'

  Trafford tried to hide his surprise.

  'What . . . what makes you think that?'

  'I observe people. You know that, Trafford, and I hardly think you would stand up to our charming Princess Lovebud for just any girl. I'm right, aren't I?'

  'Yes. She's the one I want to bring in.'

  'What makes you think you can trust her?'

  'Because she's like me, she keeps secrets.'

  'If you discovered that, then she can't be very good at keeping them, can she?'

  'No, that's not fair. I discovered them because I went looking . . . I Goog'ed her up.'

  'Why did you Goog' her?'

  'Because . . . she fascinated me. I found her attractive. But when I read her blog and looked at her videos I realized that they weren't hers at all. They were all downloads scavenged from other people's postings. She's actually much, much better at keeping secrets than me, than any of us. We're forced to cover up what we do and who we are but she's developed a method whereby she gives absolutely nothing of herself away, so in effect there's nothing to cover up.'

  Cassius thought for a moment.

  'All right,' he said, 'you may approach this girl.'

  'Thank you.'

  'Just a book or two to begin with,' Cassius added, 'and you must claim that you found them yourself, by chance, in a dump or a gutter. Give no hint about us or our libraries. If the girl responds favourably to what you give her then "find" another book and then another until such time as you are sure that her imagination is sufficiently stimulated for there to be no turning back. Then come to us and, if we agree, then and only then can you tell her of our movement and bring her to the library to choose books for herself. Do you understand?'

  Trafford assured Cassius that he did.

  'Do you promise to abide by these conditions?'

  'Yes. Absolutely.'

  'Good. I would advise you to choose very carefully which books you give her to start with. As you know from your own experience, to begin to read anything of any value is a great challenge. We are no longer educated for such concentration and so you must grasp your reader's attention instantly. Believe me, you will not get a second chance. Anyone who reads one of the old texts is taking an enormous risk and you must make sure that it is sufficiently absorbing for them to be unable to resist continuing with it once they have begun.'

  'Thank you. I'll think about that.'

  27

  Trafford had expressed great confidence to Cassius that Sandra Dee would prove a willing convert to Humanism. But in fact he approached the next Fizzy Coff with considerable trepidation. After all, he had scarcely ever spoken to her before and now he intended to introduce himself by suggesting that she beco
me a heretic. It was true that at the previous Fizzy Coff he had defended her over the doughnut fund confrontation but she had given no sign of gratitude or appreciation. She would also no doubt still be furious with him because her name had been cited at a Community Confession.

  All day long Trafford searched for a moment in which to catch Sandra Dee's eye, a moment when he might initiate a conversation, but no such opportunity arose.

  He hoped to catch her at the lifts at the end of the day but she left early and he missed that chance too. In the end it was Sandra Dee who approached him. He was walking from the office to the tube station, pushing his way along the crowded street, when he heard a voice behind him.

  'Am I supposed to thank you?' Sandra Dee said. 'Is that the idea?'

  She spoke loudly in order to be heard above the noise of the thousands of personal communitainers that were thudding and banging all around them. Some people used earphones, some didn't, clearly believing that as many people as possible should be given the opportunity to appreciate their musical taste. That, combined with the mass leakage from the headsets, created a terrible din and even discreet private conversations had to be conducted at a yell.

  'For standing up for me against Lovebud? New Temple favourite comes to the aid of office misfit? Is that it?' Sandra Dee continued. 'Because I can look after myself, you know.' She was beside him now but although he turned to her, she continued to face forward as if she was not talking to him at all but to herself.

  'Yes, yes. I'm sure you can look after yourself,' he said apologetically, although he knew that her confidence was pure bravado. She could not look after herself. No one could, not if they got caught up in an office witch hunt, not once the pack had formed and chosen its prey. Those things took on a life of their own and once started they were virtually unstoppable. Whatever nonsense it was that had been concocted in order to incense them, the attackers came quickly to believe in their righteousness and would not stop until their victim lay broken at their feet.

  'I just got sick of Princess bloody Lovebud. That's all,' Trafford went on. 'I would stick up for anyone to irritate her.'

  'Why did your wife name me at the Confession?' Sandra Dee asked abruptly, finally bringing into the open the elephant that had squatted between them, unacknowledged, since the night that Trafford and Chantorria had begun their divorce proceedings.

  'Because . . .' Trafford began, realizing that there was no answer that would cover the facts except the truth, 'like she said, I'd been Tubing you up and reading your blog. She caught me at it.'

  'So what? Don't all men perv on the net? Isn't that what you're all supposed to do?'

  'Yes but . . . well, I . . . I was only Tubing you. Nobody else.'

  They were deep in the crowd now, shuffling towards the opening and closing station gates. One great mass of humanity, hot, sticky and angry. Half a fried chicken was being consumed noisily not ten inches to the left of Trafford's face: he could see it out of the corner of his eye, the gaudy red and white bucket held up with two hands while its owner buried his face in it and consumed the contents as he shuffled, like a horse with a nosebag.

  Chicken to the left of him, a huge sweating red neck in front of him, a belly pressing on his spine behind him, but to his right Trafford thought he felt lovely coolness. He knew it could only be an illusion, for Sandra Dee was human and hence not immune to the stifling, oppressive, bug-laden heat that wrapped itself around every individual like a thick woolly blanket. She must sweat and burn like the rest of them and yet somehow he perceived a kind of freshness emanating from her. And whenever her arm touched his, which despite her best efforts it continually did as the crowd moved this way and that, her skin cooled him.

  'You only perv on my vids?' he heard her say.

  'Yes,' he admitted. 'But I stopped . . . after, after what my wife said at the Confession.'

  'I know you stopped. I started tracking my hits and you weren't there. Why did you stop?'

  'Well . . . you looked so angry.'

  'Angry? Why would a girl be angry because a guy pervs her up? I'm made up of course, totally flattered big time,' she said, toeing the socially correct line but in a voice that dripped with angry sarcasm. 'So a man likes watching me have sex. What's not to like? Isn't that what the Temple expects of me? Isn't that what every girl wants? To be watched, all the time? To be lusted after and thought hot?'

  'Because . . .'

  Trafford hesitated. He knew the answer. She knew the answer. But did she know that he knew the answer? 'Because the girls having sex in your vid diary aren't you.'

  There, he had done it. He had spoiled her secret, the last thing he had ever wanted to do.

  'Ah,' she said, trying to sound calm and matter-of-fact, 'I was wondering if you'd worked it out. I supposed you must have done. The lie wasn't built to withstand intense scrutiny.'

  Trafford said nothing. The man to the left, having finished his chicken, paused in his shuffling to create a gap between himself and the person crushed in front, then dropped the box with its filthy, rat-magnet contents on the ground.

  'Are you a cop?' Sandra Dee asked.

  'God, no!' Trafford exclaimed.

  'A Temple spy?'

  'As if.'

  'Then why are you interested in a girl who prefers to break the law rather than risk uploading an honest blog?'

  'I was . . . fascinated. You see, I too value . . . privacy.'

  'Then why did you draw attention to yourself by defending me from Princess Lovebud? She's a bad enemy to make even if you are currently a favoured one.'

  Trafford's reply was almost as unexpected to him as it must have been to Sandra Dee. 'Because . . . I think I might be falling in love with you.'

  He really did not know he was going to say it. He had not, up until that moment, truly admitted the fact to himself. Certainly he knew that he was fascinated by her, even obsessed, but this was the first time he had voiced the word 'love' in his own mind. And now in that same moment he had acknowledged it to the very object of his passion. The strangeness of the situation made him dizzy.

  'Don't be bloody stupid,' she replied. 'You don't know a single thing about me.'

  'Yes. You've made sure of that. Nobody knows anything about you. I think that's the reason I'm . . . attracted to you.'

  This seemed to make her think and for a number of minutes they shuffled on without speaking. The great gates opened and closed ahead of them as they drew closer. There were stern announcements instructing people at the back to stop pushing.

  'Shall we find somewhere better to talk?' she asked finally.

  'That would be great,' he replied. 'Where?'

  'Stick with me.'

  There was no question of retreating from the tube crowd now; it would have taken an hour to fight their way back out of the queue. Therefore they descended together into the appalling, breath-denying crush of the station.

  'We'll just go one stop,' Sandra Dee gasped as they struggled on to the platform.

  When the train arrived, the crush was so great that he nearly lost her. As usual, the mass of people surged forward to battle for places, hindering those who were attempting to leave the train.

  After a few minutes of breathing the treacle-thick fug of the carriage, the train arrived at the next station and battle commenced once more. They fought to get off the train against the human tide that was attempting to board and then struggled to ascend the litter-strewn, long since broken-down escalator until finally, mercifully, they reached the surface and spilled out into what for one glorious moment seemed like fresh air.

  'Where are we going?' Trafford panted.

  'Down to the lake,' Sandra Dee replied. 'I have a little boat.'

  'Wow!' Trafford was surprised and impressed. 'Pretty cool. How did you manage that?'

  In the semi-flooded city, ownership of a boat was a great luxury. This was a world in which twenty square feet of folding plasma screen could be bought for almost nothing but a rowing boat was a rich person's p
laything.

  'There are ways and means,' Sandra Dee replied mysteriously.

  Together they walked down to the shore at Notting Hill, where many thousands of private pleasure boats were kept moored to the tops of rusting lamp posts in a vast marina which had once been the Borough of Hammersmith.

  'How do you afford to pay mooring fees, let alone own a boat?' Trafford asked as they made their way out along a floating jetty that threaded its way among the long lines of chimney pots.

  'I have no children to support,' she said, 'no leeching lover. My money's my own. Besides, it's only a little skiff.'

  Trafford did not enquire further although he knew there must be more to it. Whatever Sandra Dee's circumstances, paying for a mooring on a NatDat Senior Executive Analyst's salary would not be easy. Perhaps, he thought, she had inherited money.

  'Here it is,' Sandra Dee said.

  They had arrived at one of many near-identical little aluminium-shelled open boats with a single short mast. They climbed aboard and within moments Sandra Dee had cast off and was navigating her way expertly among the derelict rooftops of Maida Vale.

  'If I could spend the rest of my life on this boat I would,' said Sandra Dee. 'I hate people. Well, I hate most of them anyway. And I hate all of them when they're in a crowd.'

  Trafford did not say anything for a little while. He felt suddenly so happy that he did not want the moment to end and he worried that if he said something it might be the wrong thing and so cause this unique woman to return the boat to its mooring and order him out of her little paradise.

  'It's lovely,' he said eventually.

  And it was. Perhaps, Trafford thought, as lovely as or lovelier than anything he had previously experienced. To be alone in such company, to be away from the crowd. Looking about him, he realized that the nearest boat was more than twenty metres away. He wondered if he had ever in his whole life been as much as twenty metres from another human being. It felt wonderful to be so alone. Except he wasn't alone, of course: Sandra Dee was with him, sharing the isolation, and that was wonderful too. She looked so beautiful and strong; the warm breeze which gently filled the sail as she adjusted it filled also her dress, revealing her lovely legs to the thigh.