Chapter Four

   AS CHRIS reached the entrance to the transmitter building a light flashed on over the doorway. The door opened, an arm reached out, seized him, and pulled him in; whereupon the door slammed shut. Chris shakily recovered his balance and found himself in a passageway formed of concrete blocks, facing a husky, unsmiling young man who wore overalls and jangled a set of keys on an enormous ring.

   ''What was that all about?" demanded Chris, brushing the drops from his eyes and hair.

   ''Thank God you're here, sir," was the reply in a rather strange accent. "This operation is under constant attack by the Principalities, and one of their weapons is short-range weather control. When they turn it on it takes us a few moments to neutralize it. Last night we lost two people right at our doorstep."

   "Who's doing all this? Where's the sheriff? What's the matter with the National Guard?"

   "Sir," said the young man, swinging his key ring toward the other end of the hall, ''I have orders to conduct you to a guest apartment. A shower, some food and a night's lodging will be provided. If you will let me have your keys, your luggage will be

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brought to you in a few minutes, as soon as the hail has stopped. Colonel Goodall will see you in the morning. This way, please.''

   Chris followed his guide through the concrete building and noticed that it had the bleak appearance of a military underground defence establishment. A lift took them down two levels, where the atmosphere brightened considerably. Contemporary prints began to appear on attractive walls; the floors were covered; soft lighting came from recessed lamps. He was shown into a tastefully appointed room in two tones of grey with a comfortable-looking bed, curtains, tapestries and a plush carpet. On the far wall hung a modest print of Christ and His disciples. A television set stood in the corner.

   ''We have ordered a prime rib dinner for you, with salad, coffee and desert,'' said the young man. ''I see your clothes are in rather bad shape. If you will leave them outside the door they'll be ready for you in the morning."

   ''You must have quite a staff," murmured Chris. ''What is this place, a fort or something? Are you in the service?"

   "Yes, sir, on six months volunteer duty. This whole emplacement is manned by volunteers. We are here to see that everyone who comes through gets the same kind of treatment. You'll find a Bible on the dresser. Have a good rest." And he was gone.

   Within less than an hour the offending garments were in the hallway and Chris, having soaked under the hot shower and partaken of an excellent meal

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which appeared at the door on a tray, was easing his grateful body between the cool sheets.

   At six-thirty the next morning the television set suddenly came to life with a flashing of WEAL station signals and a fanfare of bugle calls. Chris squinted at the set and discovered a man eyeballing him from the screen. "Good morning, Mr. Anders," said the face. "I hope you enjoyed your rest. Your laundry is just outside the door. Breakfast will be brought to you in forty-five minutes, and at eight o'clock you will be given an escort to the commandant's office." The set went blank.

   Chris swung his legs over the bed and winced. His hand went instinctively to his back. Yesterday's immersion had been an experience he would pay for. As he stood again under the shower he began to wonder why he had ever thought that leaving home might be a solution to his problems. As if you could run away from the menace of Red China! He found himself thinking about the last camping trip he had taken with the boys, before the older ones had drifted from him. He thought of the way Eileen would fix a Sunday morning breakfast with hot biscuits and honey.

   Promptly at eight he was escorted by another young volunteer to the lift and taken down a floor to a steel slab that peeled back in a synchronized movement with the lift door, disclosing a private office. "Come in," said a hearty voice, and Chris found himself confronted by a pleasant-looking individual of about fifty who introduced himself as Colonel Goodall. Chris recognized the face as the one that had roused

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him from his bed via the TV set. The Colonel wore a well-tailored grey suite. His office, apart from a certain Spartan quality, might have been any executive suite. An engineering diploma hung on one wall, and an astrolabe was mounted in a corner. On the corner of the desk was a Bible. The only other unusual feature was a population clock which ticked away behind the desk, apparently recording the balance of deaths and births. Chris was invited to seat himself in a comfortable chair.

   "Where are you from, Mr. Anders?" inquired the Colonel.

   "Doomsdale, actually," said Chris. "This whole business seems to have started at home one night last week while I was reading the New Testament."

   "That's a normal pattern," nodded Goodall. "What were you reading?"

   "A passage near the end of Revelation, I think. I've been meaning to look it up. I don't know the Bible too well, though I took a course in it. But it was something about a judgment that was coming and a place called Life City, I think. Then while I was sitting there, a kind of burning started up between my shoulder blades. This thing has bothered me off and on in the past, but that night I tell you it sent me right up the wall."

   "Did you take a sedative? Aspirin?"

   "Drugs never helped me much before, and I couldn't see why they would now. It was just one more thing added to a lot of others. So I just decided to start out. I didn't know where, or why, but—"

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   ''What did you do with your family?"

   "I left them in Doomsdale. I offered to bring them along, but they weren't interested. The fact is, my wife and I—''

   "Who directed you here?" interrupted by Goodall again.

   ''Fellow named Van Gelst,'' said Chris. ''But when I tried to follow his directions I ran my Mustang into a stinking creek. If it hadn't been for a road construction man who happened to come along, I'd be there yet."

   ''Ah, yes, that would be Upman. A wonderful chap. Did anyone come with you?"

   "I started out with a neighbour named Warren Clay, who said he was interested in where I was going. Then when we got stuck in midstream he waded off and left me."

   "Was your car damaged?"

   ''Oh, once we got out we had to haul it to Weathervane and have it worked on. It was a mess."

   "And then you drove up here?"

   "Well, not exactly. I met this old gaffer who told me about somebody who lives in Upper Striving—a Doctor Liegel, I think —who's supposed to know a lot about cases like mine."

   "You mean you left the road?"

   "Well, in a way, yes. I thought he was giving me good advice, but I ran into such conditions on the road—you wouldn't believe it if I told you. Rocks—a landslide—and then a brush fire—I thought for a while I was done for. But finally I got turned around. Never did get to see that man."

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   ''You got some bad advice. Everyone knows Liegel is a phony. So is the man who talked to you, Guy Wise. It seems to me you wandered around quite a bit, Anders. What else happened?"

   "Oh, while I was backing and turning, Van Gelst showed up from somewhere and steered me back on the highway. I didn't have any trouble after that until I got right up here to the top of the hill. I ran into a lot of mist, and then while I was parking the car the sky fell in."

   "I'm glad you made it," said the Colonel. At this point a panelled door opened and a girl attendant, from some Asian country, Chris thought, rolled in a trolley with coffee and Danish pastry. She smiled at him, and noted that she too was wearing overalls. As she poured him a cup of coffee and the aroma came to his nostrils, he felt himself relaxing for the first time in what seemed an age. A flicker of hope went throughout him.

   "Do you think, Colonel," he began, "that I might get some help for this—''

   "Cream?'' asked the smiling attendant.

   ''Oh, yes. And sugar."

   "Yes,'' said Goodall genially, "you'll get help. If you get where you're going, the pain will go away of itself.''

   ''Where's that?"

   "You'll be told."

   "Colonel, just what kind of club are you running here?"

   ''We can't describe the nature of our operation,

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Mr. Anders, except to say it is concerned with Outer Space and is not related to Cape Kennedy. We're set up to service people like yourself who are on the road to Life City. We take in anyone. A number of individuals have arrived even since you came last night."

   "But it seems to be a war—all these people shuttling about in uniform—does the Pentagon know about this?"

   "Some men in the Pentagon know about it. It is a war, certainly, as you will find out."

   "Don't tell me I'm going to be inducted at my age. Flabby old me?''

   "No, we'll keep you here just long enough to put you through a briefing session. That will be with Major Putter in our studio on the next level. After that you're on your way. First, however, I want to say one or two things about your passport that may be helpful to you."

   "About my what?"

   "Excuse me, Mr. Anders. About the Bible.'' And the Colonel began to speak matter-of-factly, without any pulpit mannerisms or holy tones, about the meaning of certain passages of Scripture. Chris listened carefully. It seemed to him that in all the hours he had spent listening to religiously minded people, the real teaching of the Word of God had never been expounded to him so simply and clearly. He managed to put in a question or two, particularly about the person of the Holy Spirit. He found himself wondering why it had taken so many years for him to find a man

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with whom he could sit and have an unembarrassed talk about things always, in his experience, considered either too sacred or too silly to be mentioned.

   Finally the Colonel closed his Bible and pressed a buzzer. The escort Chris had met on his arrival reappeared. ''This is Philip," Goodall explained. "He will take you to the studio.'' He held out his hand. ''God in your heart,'' he said.

   The sign on the door opposite the lift shaft read simply N. T. R. PUTTER. Philip opened it and escorted Chris into a well-lighted staff room filled with blackboards, maps, charts, tables, clocks, globes, anemometers and scale models of the celestial regions. A large white screen was built into one wall, and slide and film projects dominated the centre of the room along with three studio chairs.

   A dapper, balding man in uniform emerged briskly from an adjoining room and nodded to Chris. He spoke with a BBC accent, and his upper lip supported a hairline moustache. "How do you do,'' he said. "I'm Major Putter. If you will be seated, Philip will turn out the lights and we shall proceed with the briefing." The Major's clipped, even tones as he continued cut through the darkness like a saw.

   ''Firstly, old chap, we shall make use of the slide projector. This first scene is rather nice, I'd say." It turned out to be a coloured slide of a sunny mountain meadow, with a family seated on a rock in the foreground. The scene was one of breathtaking beauty. "This photograph,'' said the Major, "tries to express in a symbolic way what God has in store for you. It

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tells you that your Creator wishes to make of your life a thing of radiance."

   The next slide brought a grunt from Chris. It showed him the yellow Mustang mired in the creek with dirty water swirling around it. ''You might recognize this scene,'' said the Major with a gentle cough. ''This is man as he tries to run his own life. The polluted stream, of course, is human sin. I believe this makes rather a useful illustration and I plan to use it again.''

   ''My pleasure,'' muttered Chris.

   The frame changed, and a reproduction of Gordon's ''Calvary'' came in view. ''We are not certain that this is the exact archaeological site outside Jerusalem where the crucifixion took place,'' said the Major, ''but it does very well for our purposes. The Bible teaches that here around the year A. D. 30 a change took place in the moral nature of the universe.''

   ''What was that?'' asked Chris.

   ''Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins,'' said the Major simply. ''We have two more slides, and then a film.''

   The fourth photograph was another shocker for Chris. It was taken at his high-school graduation years before. He was standing on the stage of the Doomsdale High Auditorium, holding out his hand for the diploma that was being presented to him. ''This picture symbolizes the meaning of salvation,'' said the Major. ''It shows you in the act of accepting. God gives; we receive. Now for one final picture. Notice the features of this person when he appears.''

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The person who flashed into view could have been any businessman on the morning shuttle between New York and Washington; but Chris gave an exclamation.

   ''I know that fellow,'' he said. ''I just can't place him.''

   ''This man,'' said Major Putter, ''is a qualified and authorized guide. You will meet him along the way. He ranks at the top of our personnel list.''

   ''Who is he?'' asked Chris.

   Major Putter flicked the switch. ''All in due time, my dear man. Any other questions?''

   ''Why, uh, yes—'' Chris began.

   ''It doesn't matter,'' said the Major, breaking in neatly. ''The film you are about to see will explain most of the points that are giving you difficulty. It will show, for example, why you were wasting your time trying to get to Upper Striving. It will demonstrate how Liegel's so-called 'cures' only make the patient worse. It will spell out the difference between passion and patience. And it will explain the properties and uses of spiritual oil."

   ''Spiritual oil—what's that? Some kind of lubricating job? Are you going to give me a tune-up, Major?"

   The Major chose to ignore him. ''The scenes that follow will be a bit violent, I'm afraid. You will learn something of the military strategy of the Principalities. After that there will be some related themes, and a final sequence in a dungeon of the Chateau d'if.''

   The projector turned on with a roar, and the Major stepped back into his office, leaving Chris exposed to a battery of sights and sounds certainly unique in his

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experience. He wondered if what he was watching was what the French called ''total cinema''. Scenes jumped back and forth and blended into each other until at times it was impossible to tell what subject was being treated; yet the effect was unmistakable and convincing.

   In the early reels the whole history of man's religious efforts was evoked in kaleidoscopic form. Sequence after sequence portrayed the titanic struggle of individuals in human history to reach the portals of Heaven by means of prayers, gods, shrines, idols, gates, towers, monuments, fasts, regulations, pilgrimages and sacred paraphernalia. One by one each effort tottered and collapsed, leaving mankind worse off than before. Then the film rehearsed in symbols the sin of man's first parents and showed the demonic sources of human pride, and how it inevitably fostered one war after another.

   As the picture continued to unwind, Chris saw a few shots he thought he recognized from The Robe, The Gospel According to Matthew and The Greatest Story Ever Told. In these scenes and others, the film suggested with exquisite restraint what it could not represent: the spiritual meaning of Christmas, Good Friday and Easter. A master of cinema art seemed to have realized that he could not screen the unscreenable except by suggestion and a touch of love. Then came the Council of Jerusalem—a snatch of it—and the scene shifted quickly to the Circus Maximus in Rome, with the crowds crying for the blood of Christians and wild beasts padding up and down

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subterranean passages waiting to be let out. In the midst of the arena he saw a squalid band of Christians, utterly desolate, and heard a voice whisper to them, ''God in your heart.''

   Suddenly he was back in the twentieth century, and two men in what looked like Nazi uniforms were standing in front of a burning brick of wall, trying to put out the blaze with a fire hose. The stream played on the flames, but the more water they poured on the wall, the higher the flames leaped. Then the camera panned around to the other side of the wall, revealing a series of oil ducts penetrating through the bricks and connected with a drum of crude oil, which obviously kept the fire burning. Four men in overalls were continually rolling up fresh drums and replacing the supply. Chris noticed that the drums had been stencilled GRACE OIL CO., and as the camera moved in closer he could see names stitched on the men's overall pockets: Luke, Matthew, John and Mark.

   At last the parade of symbols drew to an end and the scene shifted to the Chateau d'If, where a bearded man was sitting in a cold, damp dungeon, half-clothed in rags that had obviously not been changed in years. His fingernails were uncut, his eyes nearly caked shut with dirt, his skin covered with sores, his feet swollen and crippled, and he seemed either unable or unwilling to move. Behind him was an open door and a large sign which read EXIT. A shaft of sunlight could be seen coming through the passage. Yet there he sat; and after a few moments he began to speak through darkened rotting teeth.

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   ''Oh, yes,'' he said, ''I believed. I thought I was going to Life City. But here I am. I know now I'll never make it.''

   He sighed, and there followed another painful silence.

   ''I know that door. But I tell you I can't walk through it. The Bible says to repent, but I can't. I had my chance. Now it's gone. As least I feel it's gone. And when I think that what lies ahead. . . .''

   The film went into a series of flashes; it was finished. The Major, who had slipped into the room, now switched off the projector and turned up the lights. ''That's it,'' he said. ''You're free to go.''

   Chris sat in his chair, stunned. ''What kind of ending is that?'' he demanded. ''How can you leave a man sitting there without hope? What are you trying to tell me?"

   "The Christian life is not a game, my dear Mr. Anders. The stakes are high." He pointed to a large black octagonal can of film on a rack behind him. ''There is another film here I can show you if you insist upon it. It's a representation of what the Bible says are things to come—in full colour. But you won't like it."

   Chris shuddered. ''I've seen enough,'' he said. ''Which way is out?''

   ''Oh, yes, of course. Do you recall by any chance what time it was when you picked up that New Testament back in Doomsdale?" asked the Major.

   "No, I don't.''

   The Major glanced at a chart on the wall. ''Let's

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see—according to your profile it was eight forty-three in the evening," he said. He stepped over to a large astronomically-timed wall clock, and moved the hands ahead to 8:43. Then he stepped to a computer control and typed a series of numbers. A plastic-covered card emerged from the machine and was handed to Chris. "Keep this," the Major said. Whereupon he pressed another button, and an opening perhaps four feet square appeared in the floor in front of the screen, with steps leading down. The major picked up two flashlights and handed one to Chris and the other to Philip, who was waiting quietly.

   "We are developing an electronic device that neutralizes the missile firepower of the Principalities by jamming," the Major explained. "It's still in the experimental stage, but it's built on what we call the apostolic principle—Paul spells it out in 1 Corinthians 10:13. We haven't quite solved the time lag yet. Now Philip will conduct you to the exit," he added and held out his hand. "God in your heart,'' he said.

   "Major Putter," said Chris, "you have been kind."

   "Not at all."

   Following his guide, Chris descended the wooden steps and was then led through a half-mile of lighted concrete passageway which seemed to twist in aimless fashion. At last they came to an impressive steel gate that blocked the end of the tunnel. In it was a small notch, into which Philip inserted one of the keys on his large ring. Before turning it he faced about and regarded Chris.

   "This will let you out on the side of the hill," he

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said. "Our summit is connected to a higher one by a ridge, and that's your only way. There's a slight drop before you start to climb. Aim for the top. The path is easy to follow, but you'd better get a running start. We never know what will happen."

   "What about my clothes? What about the Mustang?" asked Chris in some alarm.

   Philip shook his head. "Driving is too dangerous for you," he said. "You've got to get off this hill in one piece. Remember what the Major said about the time lag. We have detectors that can give our staff people advance warning when they're outside, but they would not help you. We'll get your things together and have them waiting, locked in your car in a parking lot at the bottom of the next hill. Here are your keys, and here's a map of the ridge path. All you have to remember is, stay on the path and move fast."

   "If you say so," said Chris.

   "One other thing."

   "What's that?''

   "You won't go alone."

   "Are you coming?"

   "No. But you will have an invisible means of support."

   "Thanks."

   Philip opened the small steel door and let Chris out. "God in your heart," he said. "Run!"

Chapter Five  ||  Table of Contents