“Poor creature,” said Butler, compassionately.
“Outer darkness,” I agreed.
“But mark my words before ten years have passed they will have the truth.”
“I have no doubt of that, Communicator, none at all. If the others who come out have even a tenth of your devotion the work will go fast.” The easy words of praise came back to me mechanically from those decades when a large part of my work was organizational, spurring the mediocre on to great deeds ... and the truth of the matter has been, traditionally, that the unimaginative are the stuff from which heroes and martyrs are invariably made.
“Thanks for those kind words,” said Butler, flushed now with pleasure as well as heat. “Which reminds me, I was going to ask you if you’d like to help us with our work once we get going?”
“I’d like nothing better but I’m afraid my years of useful service are over. Any advice, however, or perhaps influence that I may have in Luxor....” There was a warm moment of mutual esteem and amiability, broken only by a reference to the Squad of Belief.
“Of course we’ll have one here in time; though we can say, thankfully, that the need for them in the Atlantic states is nearly over. Naturally, there are always a few malcontents but we have worked out a statistical ratio of nonconformists in the population which is surprisingly accurate. Knowing their incidence, we are able to check them early. In general, however, the truth is happily ascendant everywhere in the really civilized world.”
“What are their methods now?”
“The Squad of Belief’s? Psychological indoctrination. We now have methods of converting even the most obstinate lutherist. Of course where usual methods fail (and once in every fifteen hundred they do), the Squad is authorized to remove a section of brain which effectively does the trick of making the lutherist conform, though his usefulness in a number of other spheres is somewhat impaired: I’m told he has to learn all over again how to talk and to move around.”
“Lutherist? I don’t recognize the word.”