Most of the pews were already full when Randall and the priest re-entered the nave, and there were still more people filing in through the large double doors from the reception hall. Each new arrival was greeted by a man in a white robe. A verger, Randall guessed. He remembered that, back before the decline of organised religion, vergers were member of the church staff junior to the priest himself whose job was to help him in the running of the church. They also conducted some of the minor services if the priest was otherwise occupied, but weren't qualified to perform any of the priest's major duties such as weddings and baptisms.
Several of the already seated citizens stared disapprovingly at the hibernator in his filthy, torn, potato sack clothes. They were, by their appearance, moderately wealthy middle class people, and Randall guessed that there were other churches that catered for the poorest of the city's inhabitants, thereby preventing them from having to rub shoulders with their betters.
"Perhaps you should change into something a bit more comfortable," said the priest. "I'll show you where we keep the clothes. They're donated by the people of the parish, along with food, shoes and money. For the poor."
Randall nodded, thinking that the clothes had almost certainly belonged to dead relatives before being donated, but he was hardly in a position to be choosy. He allowed the priest to lead him to another room at the back of the church, therefore, where threadbare, moth eaten and colour faded clothes were stuffed untidily in a number of wooden chests. The priest popped out for a moment, then returned with another verger dressed in a white robe. "Cuthbert, please assist Mister Randall, if you please." The verger nodded and the priest returned to see to his parishioners.
Fifteen minutes later, Randall was standing in a rough woollen tunic with a hood and long red breeches not quite long enough to reach down to his ankles. He was wearing a pair of boots that still had some wear left in their wooden soles but which he could feel were going to start chafing his ankles very quickly. Under everything else was a set of linen underwear. He'd expected them to be alive with lice and fleas, but they weren't and Randall found himself grateful for whatever high tech measures the priest took to keep the pests and parasites away. It itched like crazy, though, and he could only hope that he would get used to it before he scratched himself raw trying to ease the discomfort.
"Thet's better," said Cuthbert, smiling and revealing perfect white teeth. "Now ye looks likes a proper, respectable person, fit ter attend a religious service. Cem on, let's see if there's still a seat for yez."
All the pews were taken, though, and Randall had to stand at the back with the children and a young woman holding a crying baby. A young man sitting on the back row stood and offered Randall his seat, but Randall declined. All the muck and grime on his face and in his hair must be making him look old, he thought, despite that fact that his cosmetic treatments had made him look a good ten years younger than his fifty years before entering hibernation.
The last of the congregation had entered the church now and the verger closed the doors. It immediately began to get warmer as the draught of cold air was shut out. Conversations stopped as Cuthbert began handing out hymn books. Randall glanced at the one the young woman held out for him to share, but he couldn't read it. The written language had evidently evolved over the centuries more than the spoken language had.
The priest climbed to the pulpit and stood there until every eye was on him. He looked out across the sea of people and his eye fixed on Randall. "We will begin with hymn number two one six," he said without taking his eyes off him and Randall suppressed a smile. The whole service was going to be aimed at him, he guessed, telling him that his best option for the rest of his life was to simply find a place for himself in this new world and fit in. That didn't mesh with Randall's plans at all, though. He wanted no part of this miserable, primitive world. He was a civilised man and he was accustomed to a civiised lifestyle. Somehow, he intended to find a way to attain it.
The young woman standing beside Randall opened the hymn books at the rignt page and Randall had his head phone take a photo of it. Then he told his phone to listen to the hymn and match the sung words to the written words. With a bit of luck he'd have a good database of words before the service was over. The beginnings of a translation app that would allow him to read the written language. There was no point in his trying to learn the language for real, of course. He wasn't going to be here long enough.
The hymn was called "You showed me the way" and, as Randall had guessed, it told the whole congregation how the evils of technology had almost destroyed the world back in the dark days before the coming of VIX. Randall was interested to learn, in the words of the song, that VIX made no claim to have created the world. Nor did he claim to be the only God. There had been other Gods, the song told them, but they had deceived and misled mankind while VIX was honest and only told the truth. Based on his conversation with the priest, Randall was inclined to believe it, and if so it made VIX the only God in human history able to make that claim.
Randall moved his mouth as the song was sung, trusting in the sound of so many voices to hide the fact that he wasn't adding to it. He guessed, correctly as it turned out, that most of the congregation knew the words of the humn by heart, and he didn't want to give away the fact that he didn't. Fortunately no-one seemed to notice, and he saw that some members of the congregation weren't even pretending to sing. They were the younger people for the most part, and Randall guessed that they were only there because custom and tradition said they had to be. They would clearly rather have been doing something else, and Randall was amused to see a look of annoyance on the priest's face when he saw it.
When the hymn was over the priest began his service, beginning with words of praise for the brave defenders of the city who had, just a couple of days before, driven off the army of orcs that had attacked it. "It is thanks to the glory of VIX that we had enough warning of the attack to prepare our defences," he said, raising his hands towards the high ceiling. "He looked down upon the world from His heavenly throne and He sent word to the Archpriest in the Golden Temple that the hordes of evil were bearing down on us. The warning gave us time to send word to the outlying towns and villages telling them to take shelter within the walls of our great city, so that by the time the beasts of hell arrived there was no-one left out there for then to harm. Thank VIX for sending us the warning! Thank VIX for saving so many hundreds of lives!"
"Thank VIX!" the entire congregation said as one, and Randall chimed in, staring up as he did so as if he could see the tiny planetoid passing by overhead through the arched buttresses of the ceiling.
"VIX will always help us in any way He can," continued the priest, "so long as we keep His commandments. To make no machine that does the work of a man for him. To never use fire as a weapon, not even against the orcs, and to never enslave the lightning, for lightning is the servant of VIX alone, and for man to encroach onto the purview of VIX Himself is the greatest sin of all. He alone commands the lightning, even though even the holiest of priests admits that His control is not complete. Sometimes a church is struck by lightning. Sometimes righteous people are killed by lightning. This is not because VIX has a divine plan which sometimes requires innocent people to be sacrificed like cattle in an abattoir, as some well meaning but misguided people try to claim. No, it is because the power of VIX is not complete. He will not lie to you. He will not try to deceive you, as the false gods of the past tried to do. VIX is honest about His limitations, because He wants your trust. He deserves our trust! We trust Him to know what is best for mankind, and so we follow His commandments."
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"We follow!" the congregation replied, and again Randall chimed in, even raising his voice above that of the others so that the priest heard him from the front of the church. Randall saw the priest look at him and smile with pleasure. Smile all you want, Randall thought as the echoes of the great cry died out around him. I'll wipe that smile off your face soon enough. So VIX is your God is he? Well I owned the company that had a hand in creating your God and I have a power over Him that you can't imagine.
Another hymn followed, a hymn by the name of 'The skies are His', and that was followed by a long prayer in which the priest reminded everyone present of the rewards that came from a virtuous life. Freedom from illness and disease. A beautiful world full of mysteries for the daring explorer to discover and good weather for crops and harvests. And for the sinful, the priest continued, a terrible punishment awaited those who ignored the commandments of VIX.
"Let us not forget the fate of the Corwellians," said the priest, his eyes narrowing dangerously as he peered out at his congregation, and once again his gaze lingered on Randall for a moment or two telling the former businessman that the lesson he was about to give was also aimed at him in particular.
"The Corwellians built machines of fire and steam," continued the priest. "Damnable contraptions that they thought to use to do the work of a dozen men. They ignored the warnings of the priests. Even after the priests withdrew the blessings of health and healing, as ailments spread among their people, they still built their abhorrent machines. VIX gave them every chance. Time and again He offered to forgive them if they would turn away from sin. Time and again they threw the gift of absolution back in His face."
Randall looked around at the other members of the congregation. They were all staring up at the priest in rapt fascination. Even the young woman beside him was entranced by the story, her eyes wide and bright, even though Randall had the very good idea that she, like all the others, already knew the story off by heart. It had the sound of a story from a holy book, and Randall had no doubt that the Church of VIX did have a holy book of some kind, even though he hadn't yet seen one, either in the possession of the priest himself or any members of his congregation.
He could already predict how the story would end. An army raised by God fearing worshippers of VIX, led by priests, would have attacked the city, or country, or whatever Corwell was. The engineers and ringleaders would have been arrested and given some suitable punishment, with lesser punishments for everyone else in the city, probably higher taxes or something, until they were made fully aware of the error of their ways. The city would have returned to its righteous ways and health and prosperity would have returned while the whole world would have learned a valuable lesson in obedience.
"VIX was left with no choice," the priest continued. "On the thirteenth night after the coronation of King Thomas the Third, the city of Corwell felt the wrath of VIX. Many of the older members of this congregation still remember that day, when the ground shook hard enough to make plates and cutlery fall from kitchen shelves to break on the floor. Hard enough to make slates fall from the roof of the courthouse to the consternation and astonishment of all. We still remember the great light that lit up the northern sky as if the whole forest were suddenly ablaze. An hour later a great wind blew across the city tearing the roofs from cottages and overturning trees, and over the next few days we heard stories told by terrified travellers of a great blast of fire that swept the land for leagues around that sinful place setting alight everything that would burn. The survivors, many bearing terrible burns, blood pouring from dreadful injuries, fled in terror, begging forgiveness with wild, gibbering voices as they bore dreadful witness to the wrath of VIX. Many came to Tettlehall and dwell among us still, passing on their regrets and their new found wisdom to all who willl listen."
Randall stared in astonishment. Was the priest telling a true story? He'd been certain at first that the story was true, that the priest had been describing something that had actually happened, a city of inventors and engineers defying the edicts of their god, but the calamity he'd just described couldn't possibly be true, could it? The event the priest had just described sounded like a nuclear attack, or a small asteroid impact, but surely a sapient computer that had originally been created to serve mankind wouldn't do such a thing just to punish people for trying to develop technology. The idea was monstrous, or it would have been if it wasn't just plain preposterous.
The priest was still talking, but Randall was no longer listening as the implications of the story burned its way through his head. Mankind could no longer be trusted with technology, the priest had said, because it would inevitably lead to pollution, nuclear war, global devastation. And even if that didn't happen, the benefits of technology would inevitably be limited to the elite while the majority of the human race would be left in misery and poverty, without even the green and beautiful natural world to fall back on. Randall hadn't been entirely isolated from the realities of the world back in his old life. He'd known about the billions living in squalour and misery, but he'd always assumed that the benefits of modern life would find its way to everyone sooner or later. It might have taken a few more generations, but eventually everyone in the world would have access to the standard of living he'd enjoyed. Had he really always believed that though, he suddenly found himself thinking, or was it just the lie he'd told himself to allow himself to enjoy his privileged lifestyle without guilt?
Randall could see how some people might believe that mankind would be better off without technology. He could imagine someone rising to power and using his authority to forbid the development of technology, perhaps using all the benefits of modern medicine as a bribe. Live the simple life, he could imagine the tyrant saying. Live in harmony with the natural world, and you will be healthy and happy as a result. And perhaps the human race really would be better off, for a while, at least.
The trouble was, of course, that technology would develop. It was inevitable. People would have ideas, would perform experiments, and steam engines, once the basic art of metallurgy reached a certain level, were easy to build. Simply declaring it to be against the law probably wouldn't be enough. Even denying people the benefits of modern medicine, allowing plagues and diseases to run rampant, might not be enough. What would the benevolent dictator do if a rogue city decided to build steam engines, or learnt how to make gunpowder, despite every attempt to stop them? Would the benevolent dictator really be willing to destroy the entire city before the technology could escape into the outside world? Would they really be willing to kill so many people, including innocent children, in the name of the greater good?
Everyone around him was singing another hymn, but Randall was scarcely aware if it. Perhaps it wouldn't be necessary to actually destroy a city, he thought, if people could be made to believe that a city had been destroyed. VIX could drop a small asteroid somewhere. Something the size of a large house. Large enough that it would have destroyed a city, had it landed on one, but landing on an empty stretch of countryside instead, a hundred miles away from where anyone lived. The impact would be felt a thousand miles away. The ground would shake, just as the priest had described. They would be able to actually hear the impact, even at that distance, and when someone travelled to the impact site and saw the city sized hole in the ground, the priests could tell them that there had been a city of sinners there.
Randall relaxed in relief. Yes, that was almost certainly what had happened. A little deception to keep the people in line, to keep them too afraid to dabble with steam engines. He saw the priest looking at him again and Randall smiled back. A smile that said you may have fooled these simple peasants but I am a sophisticated, educated man from the twenty first century. I know better. The priest frowned back at him as if guessing his thoughts, and then they came to the end of the hymn and the priest led the congregation in another prayer.