Helen’s face showed a frank incredulity. “You would have one believe,” she said, with a thrill of horror in her voice, “that people are murdered secretly in the name of the Most High?”
“Murder is a harsh word. But as you say,” Hierons went on in a stern, solemn tone, “the Society’s every act is dictated by the aim it has in view. ‘God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.’”
“To me,” said Helen with a little gasp of horror, “that sounds very like blasphemy.”
“No, no!” said Hierons. “Consider the problem the world has now to face. It is all very well to say that faith will move mountains, but when Good is being done inevitably to death by the massed forces of Evil, it is for those of us who dare to believe that the world may yet be saved for mankind to use to the best of our skill what weapons the stronger power may have left us.”
“Or to put it in another way,” said Helen, who was following a singular argument closely, “believing as your Society does that this earth of ours is now ruled by the spirit of Evil, in order to restore the balance of power it is necessary in the most literal fashion to break the Sixth Commandment.”
“Yes,” said Hierons. “But only in the last resort. And such are the basic conditions which now govern the world that no other alternative is left to the Friends of Peace. Let us take a concrete instance. Saul Hartz has the power with the terrible machine he controls to bring about war between Britain and America. And the best informed people firmly believe that he will do so.”
“But why should he? The power of the Universal Press is almost as great in one country as in the other.”
“True. And there’s the rub. The American Senate has recently decided to take strong action against the International Newspaper Ring. Certain trust laws, more or less obsolete, are going to be revived and rigidly enforced. The Colossus is now in a position to fight them and is preparing to do so. And say the wise, so that his will may prevail, he must presently force a fratricidal conflict which may plunge the entire world in darkness.”
“You really feel,” gasped Helen, “that he has that power?”
“Undoubtedly. All the strings are in his hand. He has brought to perfection the art of fouling public opinion at its source. And rather than this ‘unthinkable’ war—his favorite newspaper phrase!—shall come to pass, with hell loose in the very air we breathe, with famine and pestilence on every continent, and damage irreparable to all forms of organic life, it were better, say the wise, for the human race to close down altogether.”