CHAPTER 15

Pausing at the door, Comstock turned around to blow a goodbye kiss to Pat. But she had turned with her back to him which may have been the reason that he at first failed to understand the meaning of what she said to him.

The words which baffled him were, "Darling, it's all going to be so worth while. It will mean that our child will be born in a world that is worth living in, not this sorry mess through which we have had to struggle."

One hand on the door knob, one foot raised, about to proceed out through the doorway, Comstock stood stock still. Then he said, and his voice was quite numb, "Child?"

Turning from the window, Pat smiled and said, "Oh, it's too soon to know, but one of the inevitable results of two people of opposite sexes making love is that a child is born, you know."

"Child?" he repeated.

"Imagine," Pat went on not noticing that her man looked as if he had been pole axed, "Our child will be the first love child born for centuries.... Isn't that exciting?"

"Child?" he said for the third time and then fainted.

When he came to, Pat said, "I'm sorry, dear, perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it all so abruptly."

"We're going to have a child. I'll be a father!" Beaming he took her in his arms and kissed her, for the first time the emotion he felt was a completely different kind of love, minus the lustful feelings that being near her generally engendered.

"That is," she said carefully, trying to avoid shocking him again, "we'll have a child if we are successful in what we have been doing."

"It's wonderful fun trying, isn't it?"

"Ummmm," she said, and kissed him with more fervor.

Neither knew how long an R.A. had been framed in the doorway, his shocked face alternately scarlet and then livid. The man croaked, "The Grandfather awaits your presence, Father Comstock."

Father with a capital F and father with a small f. Now, surely, Comstock thought, he would have the courage to face again the being whom he feared had to be overcome before their desire could come to fruition.

* * * * *

Facing The Grandfather was still difficult, Comstock found. Many things conspired to make it so. First was his training, but second was the terrible ego position of being so much smaller than the towering figure, who stood, beard foaming down his chest, his hands behind his back as he paced back and forth in his sanctum and said, "Just before I feared your imminent collapse last night you said that you did not think I was a human being. Would you care to amplify your statement at this time?"

Rather than stand before The Grandfather, his head tilted back like a child facing an irate parent, Comstock decided to sit down. That way he could stare at The Grandfather's belt and speak to it, instead of getting a crick in his neck.

"Before I go back to that line of thought," Comstock said rather pompously. "I would like to take this opportunity of saying that in some ways I feel you have acted like an egregious idiot."

"Oh?"

"If I understand what I was told, you set up this whole strict very moral world just so that disease could be cured by what our people considered to be sins. Correct?"

"Correct."

"I think you've got the whole thing wrong."

"I see."

"Of course you've been around a lot longer than I have, but if I may say so, I think you got the whole blasted thing turned around."

"You are being quite objectionable, Father Comstock."

"Objectionable, perhaps, but I notice that you do not say that I am incorrect in my assumption."

"I am waiting to see what your assumption may be."

"I think that disease is caused by sin."

"And you feel that this is different than saying that sin can cure disease?"

Was the old gent really an imbecile? Comstock wondered irritably. It seemed quite obvious to him that somewhere along the line the basic idea had been lost sight of, and the antithesis set up in its place.

"In one of the earth books I read there was a reference to what was called psychosomatic medicine. Now, if I understood what I read correctly, the theory of this kind of curing was that the person who was sick was punishing himself for some sin that he thought he had committed," Comstock said thoughtfully.

"Yes?"

"The cure then, was to assure the person that his sin was either non-existent or not heinous."

"I see."

"But the way you've run our world, you've made us commit real sins in order to be cured of non-existent diseases."

The Grandfather stared off into space. Then he snapped his fingers and said, "By golly, I bet you're right! Now that you say it out loud that does seem to be what the scientists were thinking about. Guess I got things a little mixed up."

"A little mixed up!" Comstock was incredulous. "You've had us living in a madhouse for five hundred years and all you can say is that you must have made a little mistake?"

Shrugging, The Grandfather said, "So I made a little mistake."

"Now," Comstock said, "now I know that my hypothesis is correct, how could you have listened to the things, the horrors that have gone on in our world for all these centuries and not been affected, not been chilled to the bone with a desire to do something concrete?"

The Grandfather seemed to consider the question carefully, then he shrugged and said, "Who listens?"

There was only one thing that remained for Comstock to do. Marshalling his forces, he suddenly leaped from his chair straight at The Grandfather.

His clutching hands were stretched out in front of him as the forward impetus of his movement carried him into The Grandfather's chest. He pulled at The Grandfather's beard.

Now he would know, once and for all.

And then he knew.

The beard came off in his hands.