‘You see our methods, son. Efficiency and kindness, those are our watch words. Now tell me-Where did you put her?’
I broke off with the logarithm of eight. ‘Put who?’
‘Why did you do it?’
‘I am sorry. Most Reverend Sir. I don’t know what it is I am supposed to have done.’
Someone slapped me hard, from behind. The lights on the wall jiggled and the Inquisitor studied them thoughtfully, then spoke to an assistant. ‘Inject him.’
Again my skin was pricked by a hypodermic. They let me rest while the drug took hold; I spent the time continuing with the effort of recalling logarithms. But that soon became too difficult; I grew drowsy and lackadaisical, nothing seemed to matter. I felt a mild and childish curiosity about my surroundings but no fear. Then the soft voice of the Inquisitor broke into my reverie with a question. I can’t remember what it was but I am sure I answered with the first thing that came into my head.
I have no way of telling how long this went on. In time they brought me back to sharp reality with another injection. The Inquisitor was examining a slight bruise and a little purple dot on my right forearm. He glanced up. ‘What caused this, my boy?’
‘I don’t know, Most Reverend Sir.’ At the instant it was truth.
He shook his head regretfully. ‘Don’t be naïve, my son-and don’t assume that I am. Let me explain something to you. What you sinners never realize is that the Lord always prevails. Always. Our methods are based in loving-kindness but they proceed with the absolute certainty of a falling stone, and with the result equally preordained.
‘First we ask the sinner to surrender himself to the Lord and answer from the goodness that remains in his heart. When that loving appeal fails-as it did with you-then we use the skills God has given us to open the unconscious mind. That is usually as far as the Question need go-unless some agent of Satan has been there before us and has tampered with the sacred tabernacle of the mind.
‘Now, my son, I have just returned from a walk through your mind. I found much there that was commendable, but I found also, a murky darkness, a wall that had been erected by some other sinner, and what I want-what the Church needs-is behind that wall.’
Perhaps I showed a trace of satisfaction or perhaps the lights gave me away, for he smiled sadly and added, ‘No wall of Satan can stop the Lord. When we find such an obstacle, there are two things to do: given time enough I could remove that wall gently, delicately, stone by stone, without any damage to your mind. I wish I had time to, I really do, for you are a good boy at heart, John Lyle, and you do not belong with the sinners.
‘But while eternity is long, time is short; there is the second way. We can disregard the false barrier in the unconscious mind and make a straightforward assault on the conscious mind, with the Lord’s banners leading us.’ He glanced away from me. ‘Prepare him.’
His faceless crew strapped a metal helmet on my head, some other arrangements were made at the control board. ‘Now look here, John Lyle.’ He pointed to a diagram on the wall. ‘No doubt you know that the human nervous system is partly electrical in nature. There is a schematic representation of a brain, that lower part is the thalamus; covering it is the cortex. Each of the sensory centers is marked as you can see. Your own electrodynamic characteristics have been analyzed; I am sorry to say that it will now be necessary to heterodyne your normal senses.’
He started to turn away, turned back. ‘By the way, John Lyle, I have taken the trouble to minister to you myself because, at this stage, my assistants through less experience in the Lord’s work than my humble self sometimes mistake zeal for skill and transport the sinner unexpectedly to his reward. I don’t want that to happen to you. You are merely a strayed lamb and I purpose saving you.’