“All right—let’s go back to the beginning. Sir Reginald’s brother is caught up in this Satanist thing and perhaps drags his younger brother into it. At any rate, Sir Reginald is left this huge library of cult, occult, and Satanist lore, and because he has this enormous project and this way to feed information in huge doses into a computer and store it in compressed form, he does so with the library. He can then sell the physical library at Sotheby, which he does, and distance himself from it while still having all of it.”
“We already had that much,” MacDonald told him.
“Well, yes. Now he plays around with it, doing the sort of correlating we’re doing at Oxford, but he can only get so far until he’s offered the job on the Magellan artificial intelligence project. They build this ironically named SAINT on Allenby—I’m sure they must have worked to get that acronym—using the Japanese technology, and all goes swimmingly until Sir Reginald, on his own, dumps his huge file of occult material into the computer in his own private area. Now, I’m told this computer actually thinks—not in the way we do, but the end result is the same.”
“That’s correct,” Lord Frawley told them. “That’s exactly correct.”
“But the thing’s still a machine, and that’s all it is. Garbage in is still garbage out, but it has no way of really telling what is and what is not. Now Sir Reginald uses as his hypothesis for his own program that all of the material he’s put in it is actual, is real. The computer is told that it contains basic truths, things it is to assume as givens. Do you follow me so far?”
Frawley remained silent, deep in thought, but MacDonald nodded. “I think I see. It was told to believe it, so it did. So what? It’s still only going to use it to solve Reggie’s arcane little problems with the occult.”
“I think it went further than that. Remember, there is one difference between this computer and the one Sir Reginald used originally to compile the information, the same difference that it has with my computer. Unlike those, it thinks, it reasons. But it’s a box, an assemblage of silicon locked in a room.” He reached over to one of the end tables and picked up a red-bound book, opened it, and paged through it to a page near the end.
“I thought about this almost immediately,” he told them. “Now, listen. ‘And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems upon its horns and a blasphemous name upon its heads.’ ” He paused a moment. “Now let’s skip down just a bit. ‘Men worshipped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, saying, ‘Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?’ ” He sighed, then went on.
” ‘And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. . . . Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and tongue and nation, and all who dwell on earth will worship it, every one whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain. If any one has an ear, let him hear: If any one is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes; if any one slays with the sword, with the sword must he be slain. Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.’ ”
“Very instructive,” Pip noted. “Now what’s the point of all that mumbo-jumbo? What is that you’re reading, anyway?”
“The Bible, old man. Revised Standard Version, which is not as melodious, but it’s good enough. The Revelation to John, also known as the Apocalypse. The final authority even for any Judeo-Christian based occultist. Now consider what I’ve read. There are a million interpretations possible and ten million have already been made through the ages. Put it together with all that Satanist claptrap, sew it all up, assume it as real, and we have our SAINT looking at itself. I can tell you still don’t see at all. Go get that photograph of the Institute.”
Greg got up, went into the study, found it, and brought it back. It was an aerial photo used by the company in some publicity shots. It showed the buildings of the Institute surrounding the great antennas of the computer.
“Behold the seven heads of the Beast,” the Bishop told them.
“Hmph!” Frawley snorted. “And where’s the ten horns?”
“Inside the seven heads. All have single feeder horns for sending and receiving, except the ones on each end and the one in the center, which look slightly different and have two apiece. That’s ten ‘horns,’ as I believe they’re called sometimes. Now consider what they do. They listen to and talk to most of the world, including the Soviets whether you deny it or not. Our modern world today still has the bulk of its people in subsistence life living as their ancestors did, but even the most primitive of nations is dependent now on the computer and on telecommunications. All international banking, most military work, most diplomatic work, is done that way. News, television, radio, telephone and telegraph—it’s all done by computers via satellite. All the nations of the Earth now bow down and worship their keyboards, their disk drives, their terminals and telecommunications programs. We’re so dependent on them, and so completely obedient to them, that we follow them as if our very lives depended on it. Computers are taken as best testimony. I’m still getting bills from Harrod’s for stuff I never ordered and they agree I never ordered. But I shall still be hauled into court one of these days for not paying for it. As for the blasphemy, I can think of worse things, but the word SAINT written inside each one of the dishes is good enough I should think.”
“What are you saying?” MacDonald asked, confused. “That SAINT is the devil incarnate or something?”
“No, I’m saying that it reached that conclusion on its own. What few criteria didn’t fit it arranged to fit. It believes that it is the Beast of the Bible, the terrible dragon, the serpent of Eden incarnate. Now, tell me—this master telecommunications network, this worldwide super system. How long has it, rather than SAINT, been active and operational?”
MacDonald thought a moment. “Well, SAINT’s about five years old, but the master network was installed, oh, about three and a half years now.”
“Not about. Exactly.”
He strained to remember. “Um—operational date was, I think, three years ago last May. Maybe April.”
“Could it have been April thirtieth?”
“Uh—yes, now that you mention it, I think it was the last day of April. Huh! Three years to the day before Sir Robert was murdered.”
“Indeed. Walpurgis. The night of that date is particularly powerful in Satanist lore. And six months later, October 31, is All Hallow’s Eve, another important Satanist date, although no more prime than others. Still, the last day of October of this year will mark the forty-second month that the telecommunications network has been in existence. So the Beast will have reigned, and set up, and caused its evil for forty-two months at that time. Then will be the beginning of the end of the world. Then it will delegate its powers, relinquish them to the one who will lead the world to Armageddon, the last war. That person will be the Antichrist.”
“You mean it expects to anoint a human being, the Antichrist, on Halloween?” MacDonald felt a little ill. “And that person will lead the world into—atomic war?”
“I fear so. That’s why it was so circumspect up to now and why at this stage it is moving much faster.”
“And who will this be? The Dark Man, whoever he is?”
“I think not. We’ve done a good deal of thinking on this, and come up with the usual hundred theories, but we must factor in how this is progressing and with whom. Remember, we’re not working so much on what the full literature says, in allegory and symbolism, but on how this literal machine interprets and acts upon it. I believe I have its monstrous scenario, which explains the rest, but I want to check and double-check everything before throwing it on the table.”
“So what we have, then, basically, is a mad computer,” MacDonald said, thinking it all over. “But how does this explain invisible monsters and this great power they have over people’s bodies and minds?”
“Science,” Lord Frawley stated flatly. “Allenby is a think tank for the west’s greatest scientists and engineers and theoreticians. All of that work, some of it considered so far out that no government or corporation would finance what would be necessary, went into SAINT, and SAINT has access to the full resources of Magellan. We have no idea what incredible things were worked out on that computer and using graphics models. Most of the great minds involved probably believe the work is still in the theoretical stages, but that’s where they have the edge. They can send an apparently valid order to a thousand places, each building and testing small components of a system, all cloaked by national security seals, and then assemble it when and where they wish. I find it difficult to believe that a computer such as SAINT could act as you describe unless told to do so, but, much as I hate to admit it, Alfie’s got the basics down. I think you’ll find humanity more than capable of providing sufficiently demented brilliant minds to carry it out with tools like SAINT, alas. It’s actually an old story—the misuse of breakthrough technology for evil ends—but we have progressed so far in our knowledge and resources that the potential for this dwarfs Hitler.”
“Perhaps,” said the Bishop. “Perhaps. But there are inconsistencies, holes in it all, as our young friend here pointed out. There’s no room up there for secret laboratories and wide scale experimentation on people. It is a close community and is rather open to all. A think tank, not a place for experimentation. I’ve seen the blueprints. There is no way such labs could have been added without everyone noticing; they take time to build and expert, specialized staffs to maintain. No, my friends, this is the real thing. This is Satan’s work, working through men as he always does. People will regard the Antichrist as a great human being capable of miracles and speaking in God’s name. Our materialism, the materialism of our society, leads us to reject the truth when it stares us in the face. Hell has been handed the opportunity and the method and it is taking advantage of it. Do not dismiss their off-handed powers lightly or try rationalization too much, or we shall lose.”
“Oh, Willie, enough of that spiritualistic clap-trap,” Frawley snorted. “Next thing you’ll say is that since it’s in the Bible we shouldn’t stop it, that it’s our duty to let the world be destroyed or dominated by these madmen.”
“No, we must try and prevent it at all cost. God is not as absolute as all that. Men and women must struggle to the last breath against Satan and retain their trust in the Almighty. God’s mercy saved this brave lad in the church from their pet demon. Still, I can not deny that I worry about our role in this.”
“Eh?” MacDonald felt like an observer at a tennis match.
“The beast shall be delivered a mortal wound by the people of God, and that wound will be healed, or so it says. The beast will be apparently vanquished, then resurrected by the Antichrist. We’ve come far, gentlemen, and we’ve accomplished a lot under their very noses, but I worry that this is partly playing into their hands. I can’t help but wonder if we are the instruments that are to mortally wound the beast in God’s service. We could very well triumph in this and actually advance their own mad cause.”
* * *
After so long sleeping on hard straw mats or the harder ground, Angelique found it next to impossible to sleep on a bed even when it was covered with a silk sheet. They had made her slippers which allowed her to walk through the whole of the house, which was mostly carpeted, and that certainly had lifted her spirits, but the clothing was more important to her, as it restored a sense of both freedom and dignity.
She stood there as Maria tied off and put the finishing touches on a beautiful light blue silk dress. It had been designed as a sari, and it gave her an exotic, third-world appearance that seemed almost natural in an international and cosmopolitan setting. It took some time to get used to moving in it, feeling something soft against the skin, but it felt almost sensuous. With a little help—some cleaner and polish for her jewelry, which was welded on, and some dark red lipstick, and a touch of exotic Oriental perfume, she hardly knew herself looking in the full-length mirror. The girl that she saw there was yet a third persona, not the crippled and defenseless girl from Quebec nor the priestess of some ancient time, but rather an attractive, exotic, even sensuous woman from some far off land, who looked quite foreign but even more mysterious and sensual for all that.
The men of the house, even MacDonald, were equally impressed and affected by it, and by the inner change it seemed to bring in her. She felt human again, part of the human race, and it showed.
With Maria’s help in translation, they had quickly worked out a somewhat elaborate sign language for her, so she had a method of communicating even with those she no longer could understand. She was now feeling somewhat irrepressible. She wanted to feel some of that freedom in more than this cloistered setting. She wanted to go out and see this place, this new corner of the world.
At first they were hesitant, but they realized that no one can be a freak and a specimen but so long without going mad. She needed to reclaim her humanity.