Adapted from:
“Whew! Sure is hot around here.”
“Must be close to a hundred and twenty in the shade, I bet.”
“Shade? You must be seeing a mirage! There’re no trees for hundreds of miles around.”
“I didn’t mean trees, old man. I meant the clouds. Those water-vapour-plus-xenon contraptions overhead that the Chief concocted for us. Beats me why they don’t evaporate at this temperature. Well, I never was much of a scientist, just a plain old construction worker. In fact, I never was much of a scholar altogether. And never will be, I guess.”
“Oh, don’t say that. The Chief doesn’t like such talk. He intends to make scholars of us all — that’s what the daily classes are about. Sharpen the mind, increase perception, shake off superstitions. You know, make moral people out of us through the intellectual approach. Don’t you go for them?”
“Oh, yes. I love the classes, they’re really cool. Besides, they make me feel part of this whole project. Sort of gives us a sense of pride and togetherness we wouldn’t feel otherwise. The Chief knows what he’s doing, all right.”
“No doubt about that. Never saw such a capable man in my life. And to think of what he left, first to come and help us and now to head up this whole outfit. Why, he could have lived the life of Tut, been a prince back there! But no, he chose to give up his high position in the palace and now he’s come with us into this sandy sauna. There isn’t very much left back there, true, but you know what I mean. Me myself — of course I’m happy leaving that black hole and the forced labour and all the cruel treatment, that’s obvious. But I’ll bet that he’s also happy to have come out with us, even though he himself wasn’t included in any of the labour gangs, you know, with his special protection and all that. I know we ate their bread so we shouldn’t bad-mouth them — that’s probably what the Chief would tell us — but they were a cruel, degenerate lot back there, pulling off their barbaric atrocities under the pretence of culture and civilization. Boy, am I glad I got out of there in time!”
“Me, too. Happy to get out of all that mind pollution we left behind. You even breathe freer here, you know? Your eyes and ears are not bombarded with their filth and dark superstition in every public place.”
“You’re right there. It feels great. You can almost taste the freedom. The change in air and diet will perform wonders in no time — that’s what the Chief promised us back there — that he’d make new men out of us. And it’s happening: he delivers. Sure, some grumblers say we’re roughing it but that’s just because they want to look at it that way. I suppose that for them old habits die hard. Maybe they’d rather get their bread like slaves and not to think for themselves than to be free men. But I sez, rough — it might be, but it’s heaven compared to the living hell we left behind us.”
“Talk about diet: that sure is funny stuff the Chief is feeding us. I know that he told us way back then that it comes direct from the Boss so I expect it should be unusual. But even the delivery is most impressive, don’t you say? Dead on time every morning, two portions on Erev Shabbos and Erev Yom Tov, and so on and so forth. But what is it? I wonder. The wife says it’s a health food, just like some seed-and-honey mixture. I tell you straight, I dunno what it is, but it’s doing wonders for me. No elimination problem. No acid indigestion like I used to suffer from. The doc says my ulcers have disappeared. You have to get used to the stuff, I know, but it’s got a real delicate flavour. The wife makes it into all kinds of stuff so sometimes it comes out chewy and sometimes soft, or hard, or like cake. I tell you, it’s a marvel! I think that going out to fetch it ourselves every morning is a clever idea, too. That bit of exercise at dawn before breakfast helps keep me fit for the rest of the day. But you wanna hear something funny? Just yesterday I kind of got a hankering for a real roast beef. D’you know what? For a while I could have sworn that the stuff food tasted exactly like roast beef? It was uncanny — the texture, the smell, the taste — with the perfect degree of rareness on the inside, crispy on the outside. D’you think the heat is affecting my senses?”
“Well, I’ve had similar experiences all along. Only I like my steaks well done and that’s what I had. No, I don’t think it’s the heat because in any case it’s quite mild here compared to what things were back there. But who knows? Maybe it’s the change of conditions and different food that’s affecting our minds. One thing I do know: it’s not natural! But I’m getting used to things being “not natural” and I quite like it that way. Looks like most of us do too and perhaps that’s why everyone goes around with that peaceful look on his face. I personally wouldn’t mind if this went on for a good long stretch. Who wants to go back to civilization? Bah! Not I, I can tell you! And now we’re started on this new part of the project — sure is interesting! I hope it works out well. I mean, with all the talent, energy and labour being sunk into it, if it didn’t work out as the Chief planned it all, I’d feel pretty bad for him.”
“Imagine how the Chief would feel if this flopped.”
“I don’t really believe anything’ll go haywire. Not with the blueprint that the Boss drew up. It’s all just so neat. And with everyone doing his own bit, no duplication of jobs, no wasted skills, everyone contributing their penny’s-worth and feeling good for it. With time off for releasing tensions — and, of course, the lessons. We’ve got the ideal happy community here, even though there must be more than a couple of million of us here, including the women and kids. Amazingly little friction, too, for a camp this size. Well, I guess I’d better get back to the grind and do my bit for the cause. ’Bye for now.”
***
“How are things going, O.A.? Everything running smoothly? No snags in the machinery?”
“Purring like a kitten, Chief, Sir, except for some minor problems here and there.”
“Well, I just had a lulu of a problem but I suppose it’s my own fault.”
“You, Sir?”
“Well, yes. I misunderstood the Boss’s directions. The blueprint had everything detailed real neat — all the components, how to make them, and where they belonged in the final shell. So I just went ahead and ordered all the components from each outfit separately. The metallurgists, coppersmiths, carpenters, the various technicians. Then along comes Betz and tells me in the nicest way possible that I’ve got it wrong, that I’ve started from the wrong end, that we’ve got to start from the shell and build inwards. When he explained it to me it seemed so commonsensical that I see why it wasn’t even mentioned in the master plan. No harm done, thanks to Betz. Well, the Boss picked himself a good foreman, I’ll say. Talented fellow, and so young, too, great co-ordinator, and no prima donna. Salt of the earth type. How did things go with you? Better, I hope.”
“Fine, Sir, just fine! I’ve been inspecting the special suits our men will have to wear. They’ll have to be made of just the right blend of lightweight material and still be solid stuff, if you know what I mean. But sometimes I do find myself wondering how come the Boss’s instructions are so detailed even on something as minor as clothing?”
“I wouldn’t consider that to be minor, O.A. After all, I sure wouldn’t want any of our men getting burned or something because the atmosphere was lacking or the suits were not flame-resistant or anti-magnetic or static-proof, or something like that. All I know is that every fibre and filament has to be in place. You’ve got to be real careful with those fibres and threads so that they conduct just the right amount without resistance or overload, know what I mean? A short-circuit anywhere could be fatal, you know.”
***
“They sent me to you, sir. Here are my credentials. You’ll never get the hang of all those names and titles in my pedigree so let’s skip the formalities. Just call me Jess. I’m from The Daily Median. Came for some information about your project here. You’re quite famous, you know. All over the globe, in fact! You know, it’s real nice of you guys to let me in. Thought there’d be plenty hush-hush on something as big as this. Can you tell me what it’s actually all about?”
“I’ll try to explain it in layman language as best as I can. You could put it like this: Our overall project has something to do with hi-fidelity reception from out beyond. We’re trying to tune in on cosmic transmissions of a special order and sensitivity. This has never been done on a massive scale like this before and we’ve got to start from scratch, manufacturing and assembling all our own equipment. We’ve got to train a special corps of men, too. These transmissions from out yonder are so special and that’s why our reception equipment has to be so very delicate. These incoming transmissions are influenced by the vibes of the receiver operator and can even be affected by the receiver himself. In fact, they’re so sensitive that even the brain waves of the slightest aberration can make a difference. So all the operators have to be emotionally and morally stable as well as highly sensitive and well trained.”
“Oh, then I read you all wrong! I thought this was some kind of moonshot outfit.”
“Did you? Well, let me show you around the place, and then you can go back to The Median and tell your readers all about it. See if you can make them understand what it’s all about.”
“Sounds O.K. with me, though out there we get the impression that you don’t care much for outsiders.”
“You’re right about that. We don’t want snoopers messing around. We don’t want mental saboteurs who might ruin the excellent morale we’ve built up here. But you seem to be all right, so we’ll take our chances with you.”
“That’s very kind of you, I’m sure. Mind if I ask some questions?”
“Fire away!”
“How did you get all your raw materials to this man-forsaken spot? I see technicians working with rare woods, copper, silver, gold. Seems that everything is of the best quality, too.”
“That’s right, the materials are not from here. We brought it all with us and all of it belongs to the people themselves. They worked hard for it, I can tell you and they’ve freely given it for this part of the grand project. And you’re quite right, there’s no expense spared. Everybody wants this to work out well. As I’ve explained, the transmission from way out yonder is of the utmost exactitude and the success of the whole project depends heavily on the correct reception and this in turn depends on the perfection of each minute component. We don’t worry here too much about budget restraints. Everybody wants to be part of the project and the whole thing is run on a communal basis. Every one of us has bought an initial shareholding and we all pay our yearly dues regularly. Equally. On top of that, anyone and everyone can chip-in as their means allow.”
“Do I get you straight? The financing is coming from all the members? There are no shirkers? Wow! No wonder you’ve got enough gold and silver and all those precious materials!”
“Yep, everyone’s a partner in this project. More than that! Some of our wives volunteered their own jewellery to be melted down.”
“Amazing! I think the sociological aspects of this project are even more fascinating than the technical ones. Would make a fascinating study. Tell me, this sharing business goes all the way? ‘The community that eats together’ and all that jazz?”
“Oh no! We confine our togetherness to work, meditation and learning together. But we have completely separate housing, and so on. In fact, the layout of our houses was especially designed so that no one entrance faces another. We believe in each family unit keeping its individuality. Makes for less friction all around and maintains the emotionally stable atmosphere which is so vital to the whole project. As I told you before, any offbeat brain waves or highly charged negative emotions can throw the whole programme off kilter.”
“You say you meditate together? If I get you right, doesn’t that generate psychic energy of extremely high velocity?”
“Good for you! As I said, we’re concerned specifically that since aberrant psychical activity can adversely affect the whole experience, that’s why we all meditate in the same direction, so to speak. This is another integral part of the whole project which I haven’t explained yet. As you know, we actually have rather more than two million souls with us, all of them involved in this grand project. So you probably wonder why we are doing this on such a gigantic scale. Well, it’s like this. We know that it is precisely this concentration of mental effort — in layman terminology ‘our magnetic force-field’ — which attracts that special transmission — that we spoke about before — our way. We’ve got a kind of motto for it: ‘Think One.’ We had our first trial demonstration not so long back. It was something to experience, but the force of it was a bit too much for us. You see, we had no equipment. It took place just out in the open and it struck us like lightning. There were a couple of other hiccups too that I’d rather not go into but after that, the Boss said that we’d better go ahead and design the machinery and its housing and train our special corps so that we could maintain a steady psychical level. That’s what this part of the project is all about. I hope I haven’t confused you too much.”
“I’m afraid you have. But I’d like to stay around and see for myself what’s going on. I don’t mind telling you that the atmosphere here is so pleasant and exhilarating that if you’d allow it, I might even want to stay and join you. Oh, one minor question. Do you have a name for this particular stage of the project? No one on the outside seems to know.”
“Oh? Didn’t I tell you that? We call this part of the project ‘Operation Mishkon.’”