“Huh? Oh, yes, Doctor — what were you going to say?”
“Psychology is not a science because it is too difficult. The scientific mind is usually orderly, with a natural love for order. It resents and tends to ignore fields in which order is not readily apparent. It gravitates to fields in which order is easily found such as the physical sciences, and leaves the more complex fields to those who play by ear, as it were. Thus we have a rigorous science of thermodynamics but are not likely to have a science of psychodynamics for many years yet to come.”
Wilkie swung around so that he faced Brooks. “Do you really believe that, Brooksie?”
“Certainly, my dear Bob.”
Ardmore rapped on his desk, “It’s an interesting subject, and I wish we could continue the discussion, but it looks like rain, and the crops still to get in. Now about this matter of founding a church in Denver — anybody got any ideas?”
CHAPTER SIX
Wilkie said, ” I’m glad I don’t have to tackle it. I wouldn’t have the slightest idea where to start.”
“Ah, but you may have to tackle it, Bob,” Ardmore countered. “We may all have to tackle it. Damn it — if we only had a few hundred that we could depend on! But we haven’t; there are only nine of us.” He sat still for a moment, drumming the table. “Just nine.”
“You’ll never get Colonel Calhoun to make noises like a preacher,” commented Brooks.
“Okay, then — eight. Jeff, how many cities and towns are there in the United States?”
“And you can’t use Frank Mitsui,” persisted Brooks. “For that matter, while I’m willing enough I don’t see how you can use me. I haven’t any more idea of how to go about setting up a fake church than I have about how to teach ballet dancing.”
“Don’t fret about it, Doctor, neither have I. We’ll play by ear.
Fortunately there aren’t any rules. We can cook it up to suit ourselves.”
“But how are you going to be convincing?”
“We don’t have to be convincing — not in the sense of getting converts.
Real converts might prove to be a nuisance. We just have to be convincing enough to look like a legitimate religion to our overlords.
And that doesn’t have to be very convincing. All religions look equally silly from the outside. Take the — ” Ardmore caught a look on Scheer’s face and said, “Sorry! I don’t mean to tread on anybody’s toes. But it’s a fact just the same and one that we will make military use of. Take any religious mystery, any theological proposition: expressed in ordinary terms it will read like sheer nonsense to the outsider, from the ritualistic, symbolic eating of human flesh and blood practiced by all the Christian sects to the outright cannibalism practiced by some savages.”
“Wait a minute, now!” he went on. “Don’t throw anything at me. I’m not passing judgments on any religious beliefs or practices; I’m just pointing out that we are free to do anything at all, so long as we call it a religious practice and so long as we don’t tread on the toes of the monkey men. But we have to decide what it is we are going to do and what it is we are going to say.”
“It’s not the double-talk that worries me,” said Thomas. “I just stuck to saying nothing in big words and it worked out all right. It’s the matter of getting an actual toe hold in the cities. We just haven’t got enough people to do it. Was that what you were thinking about when you asked me how many cities and towns there are in the country?”
“Mmm, yes. We can’t act we don’t dare act, until we cover the United States like a blanket. We’ll have to make up our minds to a long war.”
“Major, why do you want to cover every city and town?”
Ardmore looked interested. “Keep talking.”
“Well,” Thomas went on diffidently, “from what we’ve already learned the PanAsians don’t maintain real military force in every hamlet. There are between sixty and seventy-five places that they have garrisoned. Most towns just have a sort of combination tax collector, mayor, and chief of police to see that the orders of the Hand are carried out. The local panjandrum isn’t even a soldier, properly speaking, even though he goes armed and wears a uniform. He’s sort of an M. P., a civil servant acting as a military governor. I think we can afford to ignore him; his power wouldn’t last five minutes if he weren’t backed up by the troops and weapons in the garrisoned cities.”