“They want God back again, after we’ve put him down. They want their heaven after their rotten hides are turned into fertilizer. I know. I know those Christians. London’s full of them today. The defective shops are full of them. They’re talking and planning for an uprising that will turn back the hands of the clock. But Sanson will oust them when he gets ready. He’ll give them the Rest Cure.
“They say there’s a Messiah coming to mate the Temple goddess and bring back the old, bad days. Do you know what Sanson means to do? He’s going to mate her himself. And then he’s going to make us all immortal. We’ll have our heaven on earth then, and keep our bodies too. What’s the use of a heaven when you haven’t a body to enjoy it with? Sanson will make us all young again. We don’t want freedom, we want immortality.”
I was so astonished by his gabbling that I remained silent after he had ended, not knowing how to answer him. He began scanning me slowly from my feet upward.
“You’re a stranger,” he said, with slow suspicion.
“Yes,” I replied. “Now tell me how I can go up to the Council garden.”
“Garden,” he replied, in apparent stupefaction. “Don’t you know that’s Boss Lembken’s palace? That’s the People’s House, where Boss Lembken lives. People can’t go up there. Don’t you know that’s the People’s House? Who are you?”
Suddenly he started back and a malignant look came over his face.
“You’re a wipe!” he shrieked. “You want to trap me and send me to the Comfortable Bedroom because I’m too old to work. Never a month passes but I put up my hektone and a quarter. Look on the register. You want to switch an old man who minds his own business and puts up his hektone and a quarter, you rotten moron!”
His old face worked with fear and excitement, and he raised his fist in a threatening manner; then, suddenly changing his intention, he swung on his heel and hurried away toward the gate. I saw him glance back furtively at me and then increase his speed.
As I turned to look at him I perceived that a small wooden gate on the interior side of the circular fortification stood partly open, and inside I saw a troop of the international guards at drill.