Hostage by Geoffrey Household

collective subconscious; and as the police state closes down on the people the Commensals of Death will strike back, appearing as the defenders of the rights of the citizen.
    The next stage is to let the people know the truth. Then we shall see stark terror, crowds fighting for the available transport and attempts to prevent by soothing words the general evacuation of the city. When it becomes known that Government, embassies and the herd of apparatchiks have already been quietly evacuated, indignation will be irrepressible.
    The Committee may think it enough for the present to hold the weapon in reserve and exploit the fury. I do not know. But I am sure the final holocaust will never be used to demand power nor to force acceptance of social and financial policies. Such objectives are childish and unrealistic. It will be used without threat or warning to destroy the present for the sake of the future.
    We gain a clean sheet and a precious interval in which human life is no longer subordinate to the requirements of profitable production. The State will revive, due to the use of its armed force to restore discipline, but also a still fiercer anger of the people revives. Then at last in small communities the ideals of the New Revolution begin to grow and offer an example of that content which can never be imposed from the top down, only from the bottom up.
    The ideal remains my ideal but this short-cut to it, logical as it may be, is a denial of evolution. Even if there is no purpose whatever in the Universe and human life is no more sacrosanct than that of a chicken bred for broiling, I still have faith in both. Why?
    I do not know. What is the connection between young Grainger who gave his life and the setting sun in Paxos? What has the herd instinct, which I assume is responsible for our acts of self-sacrifice, to do with pantheistic ecstasy? Is it this problem which the Early Fathers had in mind when they formulated the ingenious conception of a Triune God – a pleasant mystery to clergymen and horrifying to the literal-minded Mohammed. For me the voice which spoke to Job out of the whirlwind is more of a prohibition than the Sermon on the Mount. I must go on. I must not think it hopeless. I alone, the traitor, have inside knowledge. Not enough, but a little.
    I think I should start by talking to Sir Frederick again. He is the only lead for me as for the police. As I see it Shallope discusses his needs with his supposed Ban-the-Bomb fanatics; but even they with all their contacts at home and abroad cannot lay their hands on a workshop where no curiosity will be aroused and his material can be safely delivered. Shallope himself solves the problem. He remembers or is reminded of the reverend baronet and Rake’s Tining. Thereafter Magma only requires the presence of Clotilde on the spot. The choice of Clotilde is easily explained. If she is recognised and questioned, the police are no nearer than they were before to identifying her political sympathies. But she must take exceptional precautions to avoid them. A more drastic change of appearance was required than mere fiddling with hair styles.
    With Shallope dead and the existence of a finished bomb amply confirmed, Special Branch come up against an absolute blank except for Gammel. I imagine that half of them insist he is guilty and must be made to talk while a more intelligent half point out that anyone who has spoken to him for an hour must know he is innocent in spite of claiming to be a Christian Anarchist. In most countries that bold confession of faith combined with the fact that a nuclear bomb was constructed in his hospitable basement would ensure an unpleasant week with electrodes attached to his venerable testicles. I wonder how far the police will go in a desperate situation which justifies any means.
    To approach Roke’s Tining is vilely dangerous. If stopped by the police I have to establish myself as the respectable Herbert Johnson before my fingerprints are