Uses Of The Bible II And More About Venus

Simon Hollister addresses his men:

"'You thought me another of these bootlickers to a rotten government...who was being rewarded for some Judas act.'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Big Rain" IN Anderson, The Psychotechnic League (New York, 1981), pp. 201-280 AT p. 257.

Here is "Judas" again, a word in our language. If you call an atheist, "Judas!," does he say, "That's in the Bible. I don't believe that ___!"? No. He doesn't like it. The equivalent in Norse mythology would be "Loki!"

To gain the men's support, Hollister appeals to their nationalism despite despising it. His psych training helps him to do this effectively. That there can be such an exact science of psychology and society is as much a science fictional premise of the story as the spaceships and other gadgets. Venus will be terraformed by airmakers, pulverizers, genetically engineered organisms, water units and hydrogen bombs causing volcanoes that will release carbon dioxide and water. In Hollister's time, Lucifer is the site of a penal uranium mine. Later, on a free Venus in the Solar Union, there will be a kilt-wearing Lucifer Clan, its members identifiable by their distinctive tartan. We wish that a story had been set on Venus during that later period.