What Saint Robert and Saint Nadia claimed is that everything around you, from the floor under your feet all the way out to the Hubble Limit, sprang into creation the moment you began to believe. Even the memory that you have believed for some seconds or hours or years—that was just created, too, as part of God’s mysterious loving purpose.

If you pointed out the small paradox that their religion only allowed one person to actually exist—everyone else being just part of the divinely created miseen-scene—the believer would either nod and smile or shake his head and smile.

One advantage of this religion is that there is no sin; only the divinely created memory of nonreal sins. And of course a true believer will never die, although he may have these remarkably intense memories of other people dying. God’s will is obscure and not to be questioned, though your memories of questioning God’s will are acceptable, since they are themselves part of God’s will.

One disadvantage of the religion is that believers turn into smiling lumps. They were not a lot of fun to have around, since they rarely spoke, and when they did, it was just about their own private ecstasy. Some of them would copulate in public, or worse. Why not?

There haven’t been many cultures where the Church of the Eternal Now could have taken hold and swiftly made converts, but the isolated, cloistered environment of Newhome was ideal for the existential fantasy it required, and also provided adequate living conditions. You wouldn’t starve if you could wander smiling into the cafeteria once or twice a day, and when fatigue finally overtook you, you could lie down wherever you were, and people would just walk around you—until you woke up smiling to another perfect instant of God’s love.

At the September Cabinet meeting, Eliot Smith said he was tired of maneuvering around them, and made the modest proposal that we steer them all into one big room and lock it from the outside, and try to remember to throw them some food once a day. He added some details, and his gifts for scatology and maledicta lightened up a boring meeting.

A year later, no one was laughing.

YEAR 9.88

HOMECOMING

12 August 07 [3 Tsai Lun 313]—We had Sandra’s eighth birthday celebration up in John’s room, so he could be comfortable. The low gravity made Sandra frisky, but agreeably so. John, especially, had fun playing with her. (She asked him about his hump and he said it was magical; if you rub it you get your wish—sometimes. She accepted that.)