Comstock gulped and thought of his heart.
"To become a Father," Grundy added hurriedly as The Grandfather raised his hand for silence, "is a sentence of death. For once you know how sin cures sickness, it can no longer cure you."
"Fathers," The Grandfather said, and involuntarily, Comstock felt his heart fill with awe, so imbued had his upbringing been with respect and worship of the figure called The Grandfather; he tried to control the emotion that threatened to unman him, for his temptation was to fall down before The Grandfather.
"Fathers," the deep organ bass went on, "you know why we are gathered in this extraordinary conclave. So successful has been the regime that I have caused to come into being, that no longer can we hope to recruit new Fathers from amongst those brave souls who rebel against the government we have set up. Not for fifty years has a new rebel appeared to challenge our power. Therefore, as you all know, Father Bowdler, because he is the healthiest appearing of any of you, was empowered to go out into the world and find rebellious souls whom we may be able to use as leaders.
"I feared when first I caused the apparatus of power to be set up as I have done, that there would be instant and successful rebellion. It did not then occur to me that I would be too successful and that rebellion would be bred out of the blood of our people.
"We have, as you know only too well, arrived at a period of stasis from which our world may never recover.
"It therefore devolves upon the men who stand before you as well as the women who have made common cause with them, to come to our aid.
"Now that aid is to be given, what these new Fathers will be able to do before death claims them, I do not know. All that I can say with any assurance, is that if something is not done and done quickly, our world will go down the road to static death, never knowing what has toppled it from the high estate it held."
Comstock's mind was almost incapable of digesting what The Grandfather was saying. It had all happened much too quickly. To be raised in a matter of moments from a position where death seemed imminent first to a position on the Board of Fathers, and now, if he understood correctly, to be told that the future of the world was somehow his responsibility, was just too much.