Rolltown

X

While Nadine Paskov and Dean Armanruder were going through the routine of summoning the assembly of all residents of New Woodstock over the age of eighteen, Bat Hardin strolled back toward his vehicle in the company of Dag Stryn.

He glanced over at the other from the side of his eyes. “You know, one of their beefs about Americans was your new religious movement, the New Temple.”

“Oh? How is that?”

“One of them called it a no-religion and complained that the simpler people, here in Mexico, enviously noted that the affluent Americans were tending in your direction. The obvious implication is that if they supported the same religion perhaps they, too, would be wealthy.”

The big Norwegian chuckled. “No-religion, eh? Well, in a way I suppose he was right. I see the New Temple as teaching a code somewhere between that of the old Unitarian-Universalists and the Quakers, but I have heard it said that it was the nearest thing to an Agnostic Church that had ever been organized.” He chuckled again. “If you could say that the New Temple was organized. Actually it’s the most chaotic organization going.”

Bat said, “I’m not particularly interested in religion. In fact, I’m not even an atheist. But if your outfit is so permissive, why bother at all?”

Stryn nodded. “Man is an ethical animal, Bat. The only one. So far as we know, he has always sought the gods and down through the ages what began as the simplest of superstition evolved into high ethical standards. Take, for instance, the Jewish faith. The first books of the Bible were pretty grim; the laws and history of a barbarous, warlike people. By the time of the latter prophets however, the Hebrew religion had achieved the highest levels to that date. Jesus, you know, taught nothing that was not to be found in the works of those Jews who had immediately preceded him as religious teachers. And both Christianity and later Mohammedanism were based on Jewish foundations.”

“And the New Temple?”

Stryn shook his head. “Judaism and then Christianity and Mohammedanism all came out of a nomadic desert society and out of a socio-economic system of thousands of years ago. In many respects they no longer fit the world as we find it today. So we of the New Temple try to find new answers for the new questions. We need an ethical code suited to the world as it is today, not to nomadic semi-barbarianism.”

“Well, do you believe in God?”

Stryn squinted quizzically at him. “What is God? That is one of the questions we ask.”

“And what is the answer you come up with?”

“The answer is, we don’t know, but continue to ask. Do you remember reading of a political party called the Know-Nothings in the early history of the United States?”

“Yes, a little,” Bat said.

“Well, the New Temple is in somewhat the same position. We openly say, we know nothing. And possibly it is beyond us to ever know anything about God, or the gods, if such exist. Perhaps such a being as a god is so much above us that we will never be able to comprehend him. Among other things, has it ever occurred to you that if there is a God, he might not be benevolent in his relations to man#longdash#if he bothers to have any at all.”

“How do you mean?” Bat said.

“Well, take chickens and their relationship to man. They can’t comprehend the workings of man. Were they a bit more intelligent, they might think of us as gods. We provide them with a roost for the night where they can be safe from foxes or other animals. During the day we protect them from chicken hawks and such enemies, and always we provide them with food and water. But certainly man’s relationship to the chicken is not a benevolent one. We do all those things in order to steal their eggs and ultimately kill them for our tables.”

Bat had to laugh. He said, “Well, I don’t see why you bother to exist as an organization.”

Stryn thought about it. “Man seeks,” he said finally. “We continue to strive for more understanding. Perhaps some day we will reach out into the stars; perhaps we will achieve the godhead ourselves. One of the fields in which we strive is that of ethics. If there is evolution in man’s society, certainly there is in his ethics. Consider, once again, how far we have come from the teachings of Moses#longdash#and his teachings were notable for his time.”

“Whether or not he wrote them, or even whether or not he ever existed,” Bat said wryly.

“Yes, of course. Quite likely the books of Genesis were ghosted by teachers who came much later. However, whoever wrote them were advanced for their times.”

Bat said suddenly, “Dag, what do you get out of it? You’re what they call a guru. Why?”

The viking-like Norwegian chuckled once more. “Nothing beyond satisfaction. That is one of the few rigid canons of the New Temple, Bat. No New Temple officer, guru or simple follower, can profit in any manner from his position. In past religions, priests, ministers, preachers, rabbis, imams and fakirs found means to enrich themselves. A new religion might start off with deliberately poverty-stricken men of the caliber of Joshua of Nazareth and his apostles, but within a few generations their supposed followers might be among the richest men in the community. Not the New Temple. If I took payment for anything pertaining to the organization, I would not only immediately lose my title of guru, which is largely honorary at any rate, but would even be dismissed from the New Temple itself.”

Bat thought that over. He said, “Well, there are some jobs that have to be paid. Say, for example, that a group of you got together and built a place in which to congregate. If I understand it, you all pitch in and pony up the required funds. But, all right, then you need a janitor to maintain it. Doesn’t he get paid?”

Dag Stryn nodded. “Yes, sometimes, if volunteers aren’t adequate. But in this case the janitor’s first requirement is that he not be a follower of the New Temple. He can be a Catholic, or a Buddhist, or an atheist for that matter, but he can’t be a follower of the New Temple and profit in any manner from his membership.”

Bat said, “Well, I can see that would eliminate opportunists and hypocrites.” They had reached the vicinity of his two vehicles and he waved a goodbye at the New Temple guru who continued on to his own mobile home.

Bat went over to Sam Prager’s home repair shop and knocked at the door. Edith Prager opened it. She was an intense woman who impressed Bat Hardin as having a culture complex beyond that usually associated with even inhabitants of an art colony. He liked Sam Prager but invariably felt uncomfortable in the presence of his wife.

She wrote poetry, Doc Barnes had said. Bat had never seen any of it and he suspected that he didn’t want to.

“Hello, Mr. Hardin,” she said, standing in the door without inviting him in.

“Good morning,” he said. “Is Sam back from the meeting as yet?”

“No, he isn’t. What’s this about an assembly?”

“It’s being organized now. When Sam comes, will you let him know that the screen on my car phone is broken? I think it’s just the screen but I don’t know.”

She said sharply, “It’ll take the whole unit possibly. Who’s to pay?”

Bat said, “It’s my own car, Mrs. Prager, but was damaged while on duty for the town. I assume the cost of parts will come out of town finances but I’ll take the bill immediately and charge it to the town later on. Tell Sam I’d appreciate having him put high priority on this. A police car simply can’t operate without a TV phone.”

“I’ll tell him,” she said, and closed the door.

She seemed a bit abrupt. Bat remembered Jeff Smith and wondered if there were others in New Woodstock who, inwardly at least, objected to him because of his racial heritage.

It had been quite a time since he had even thought about the subject. In a town such as New Woodstock, you didn’t expect to run into characters who bothered with such nonsense as race, color or religious beliefs. He wondered vaguely if there were any Jews in New Woodsock; he had never thought of that before, either. Was Prager a Jewish name, or Zogbaum? Damned if he knew.

Back in his parents’ day being black or even mulatto had its definite disadvantages but that had been a couple of generations ago. Today, under the Meritocracy, you found your level through your own abilities and the man that sat at the desk next to you might just as soon be a Black or an Oriental as not. The fact that the old-time stastistics indicated that the Black race was less educable and less intelligent than the White were proving less and less valid.

He reentered his mobile house and took up a folding chair and, carrying it, went back to the center of the site.

Others were already setting up their own chairs in a large horseshoe-like semicircle.

It came to him that this was a present-day equivalent of the old Town Meeting of New England, or, possibly, something like the governing of the Swiss Confederation of cantons. It was a working democracy in which every adult had his say because the governing unit was small enough so that power and responsibility didn’t have to be delegated.

By and large, it worked. It wasn’t the only method utilized to govern mobile cities and towns, of course. New Woodstock was small enough to put it over but the really large cities had city payrolls and full-time officials. However, some of the towns, usually ones that were even smaller than New Woodstock, sometimes had governments ranging from pseudo-communism to out-and-out anarchy#longdash#in short, no government at all. Bat had to smile inwardly when he realized that the other mobile town he had lived with, the one composed largely of archeology buffs, had in actuality been one of the anarchy types. It had been a madhouse when some decision had to be made.

The executive committee and Nadine Paskov, who had a portable TV phone before her, sat behind a table facing the assembly of town adults. Bat took his chair and sat it to one end of the table in view of the fact that undoubtedly he’d be called on frequently.

When all except a few straggling latecomers had found places, Dean Armanruder opened the meeting by pounding with the gavel of the executive committee’s senior member.

He came immediately to the point. “Mr. Hardin has requested a convening of the assembly on the grounds that the community has been threatened with physical danger and must decide whether or not to continue this move to South America. Mr. Hardin.”

Bat was moderately surprised. He had expected the retired corporation manager to sum up the situation. In actuality, Bat Hardin had had little experience in public speaking and was a victim of both stage fright and inarticulateness. However, he did as well as he could and sat down as quickly as he could, feeling a little ashamed of himself. In his time he had charged full into automatic weapon fire with less quailing than this.

When he had finished, stunned silence met his words for a moment.

Dean Armanruder cleared his throat. “The question before us, citizens of New Woodstock, is whether to proceed, or whether to return to the United States. The floor is open to discussion.”

For a long moment, no one requested permission to speak.

Finally, “The chair recognizes Mr. Jeff Smith.”

Smith stood next to his folding seat and looked about him deliberately. “I think the first thing to consider is whether this whole story is a lot of crap.”