“You are running away from Him,” said Marek, “but I am running after Him, and I’m close at His heels. I know a bit about Him already, enough to get out a warrant for Him! Description: infinite, invisible, and formless. Place of residence: everywhere in the vicinity of atomic motors. Occupation: mystical Communism. Crimes for which He is wanted: alienation of private property, illegal practice of medicine, offences against the Public Assemblies Act, interference with officials in the execution of their duty, and so forth. Distinguishing marks: omnipotence. In short, have Him arrested.”

“You’re making fun of it,” sighed G. H. Bondy. “Don’t do it. He has beaten us.”

“Not yet!” cried Marek. “Look here, Bondy. He doesn’t know how to govern yet. He has got into a fearful muddle with His new undertakings. For instance, He has gone in for overproduction instead of first building up a miraculous railway system. Now He’s in the mire Himself—what He produces has no value. That miraculous profusion of everything was a fearful fiasco. In the second place, He turned the brains of the authorities with His mysticism and upset the whole machinery of Government, which otherwise He could now be using to maintain order. You can make revolutions anywhere else you like, but not in the Government offices; even if the world’s to be brought to an end, the thing to do is to destroy the universe first and take the Government offices afterwards. That’s how it is, Bondy. And in the third place, like the crudest of doctrinaire Communists, He has done away with the currency and thereby with one stroke paralysed the circulation of commodities. He did not know that the laws of the market are stronger than the laws of God. He did not know that production without trade is utterly senseless. He knew nothing whatever. He behaved like . . . like a . . . well, to put it shortly, as if He would destroy with one hand what He made with the other. Here we have miraculous profusion, and along with it disastrous shortage. He is all-powerful, yet He’s achieved only chaos. I believe that He once did really create the laws of Nature, the primordial lizards, the mountains, and anything else you like. But business, Bondy, our modern industry and commerce, that I swear He did not create, for He simply doesn’t know a thing about it. No, Bondy, industry and commerce are not of God.”

“Hold on,” said G. H. Bondy. “I know that the consequences of His acts are calamitous . . . immeasurable. . . . But what can we do about it?”