“I’m glad you did. I want you to repeat it, in much more detail. I’ll put Estelle on and have her make a recording of everything you’ve got to say. We’ll work up an instruction manual for student ‘priests’ from your lecture.”
“O. K., but let me call you back. I’ve got a service in ten minutes.”
“Can’t Alec even run a service?” ‘
“He does and he’s O. K. He preaches a better sermon than I do. But it’s my best recruiting time, Major; I study the crowd and talk to them individually afterwards.”
“OK, OK — I’m switching off.” ‘Bye.”
Services were crowded by now. Thomas did not fool himself that the creed of the great god Mota was the drawing card; even while the service proceeded, at the sides of the hall tables were being piled high with food, purchased with Scheer’s fine gold. But Alec put on a good show. It seemed to Jeff, as. he listened to him preach, that the old mountain man had somehow reconciled his strange new job with his conscience so thoroughly that he actually believed that he was preaching his own religion, in symbols of course and with odd ritual — but his voice carried conviction.
“If he keeps that up,” Jeff told himself, “we’ll have women fainting in the aisles. Maybe I should tell him to soft-pedal it.”
But without untoward incident Alec reached the final hymn. The congregation sang with verve, then trooped toward the tables. Sacred music had at first been a problem until Jeff had hit on the dodge of putting new words to the commonest American patriotic music. It served a double purpose; anyone who listened closely could hear the old words, the true words, being sung by the bolder spirits present.
Jeff circulated around among his flock while they ate, patting the heads of children, pronouncing blessings — and listening. As he passed a man got up from his place and stopped him. It was Johnson, the former real estate salesman. “A word with you, Holy One?”
“What is it, my son?”
Johnson indicated that he wanted to speak privately; they drew away from the crowd over into the shadow of the altar. “Holy One, I don’t dare go back to my room tonight.”
“Why not, my son?”
“I still haven’t been able to get my work card validated. Today was my last day of grace. If I go home it’s the camps for me.”
Jeff looked grave. “You know that the servers of Mota do not preach resistance to mundane authority.”
“You wouldn’t turn me out to be arrested(”
“We do not refuse sanctuary. Perhaps it is not as bad as you think it is, my son; perhaps if you stay here tonight, tomorrow you may find someone to hire you and validate your card.”
“I can stay, then?”
“You may stay.” Thomas decided that Johnson might as well stay from then on; if he measured up, he would be sent to the Citadel for final test.
If not, Johnson could stay as an unenlightened helper around the temple
— the temple needed more help every day, especially in the kitchen.
When the crowd had gone Jeff locked the door, then checked through the building personally to make sure that none but the resident help and those who had been granted overnight sanctuary were still inside. There were more than a dozen of these refugees; Jeff was studying some of them as prospective recruits.
Inspection completed and the place tidied up, Jeff shooed everyone but Alec upstairs to the second-floor dormitory rooms; he locked the door to the staircase after them. This was a nightly routine; the altar with its many marvelous gadgets was safe from snoopers, as it had a shield of its own, controlled by a switch in the basement nonetheless Jeff did not want anyone attempting to get at it. The avowed reason for the nightly lock up was, of course, a piece of holy mumbo jumbo having to do with the “sacredness” of the lower floor.
Alec and Jeff went down into the basement, locking after them a heavy, steel-sheathed door. Their apartment was a large room, housing the power unit for the altar, the communicator back to the base, and the same two cots Peewee Jenkins had gotten for them on their first day in Denver.