The Holy Land: Fanatical Earthling planet assassins are spreading chaos through the galaxy. Is there any nice way to stop them?

by Robert Zubrin

  The volunteers and parents around Hamilton joined the chant. “No more bloodshed, General Strike!” It started to spread to other citizens, and then even to parts of the choir.“No more bloodshed, GeneralStrike!” Hamilton felt his spirits lift, as he chanted with gusto. Reason was triumphing over madness! “No more bloodshed, General Strike! No more bloodshed, GeneralStrike!”

  Suddenly a shot rang out, and the hall fell silent. Thebailiff’s gun was smoking, and Doctor Berger lay dead on the ground.

  The Reverend Aaron Vardtsurveyed the crowd. “There will be no general strike,” he said coldly.“We do not wish for equal rights with the Minervans, we wish to destroy them. That can only be done through holy violence. Those who give their lives in this crusade will be rewarded by Jesus with eternity in Paradise. Those who shirk their duty to kill pagans will be punished with eternal damnation.” He pointed to the body of Doctor Berger.“An unbeliever has met his deserved doom. Let us all give thanks to Jesus for his divine justice. Let us devote ourselves to his holy cause, of killing all pagans everywhere, until all worship only the one true God, the lord of Love, Jesus Christ,Amen.”

  Hamilton tried to fight back his tears. “You’re mad! The Western Galactic Navy is arriving here tomorrow. They have billions of starships. They can wipe us out without blinking. Your crusade against pagans is going to get every man, woman, and child on this planet killed!”

  Vardtsmiled. “Oh ye of little faith. All the starships in the universe are but chaff on the wind compared to the power of Jesus. In coming here, the pagans are but hastening their own doom. For so it is written. Let us therefore rejoice; the hour of our deliverance is at hand. Choir, hymn number fortynine.”

  The choir began to sing:

  “Jesus loves me

  This I know

  To kill the pagans

  We will go…”

  Armed bailiff or not, Hamilton was so furious he wanted to make a run at the judge, but a soft hand on his left arm held him back. It was Susan Peterson. “Come on Hamilton, there’s nothing more we can do here. Melissa will need us.”

  Hamilton nodded and swallowed his rage. He turned to the truck driver standing on his right. “Charlie, would you give me a hand with Dr. Berger’s body?”

  Charlie wiped away a tear. “Sure,” he said.

  Later that night, Hamilton stood by helplessly as Melissa Berger cried and cried over the body of her husband. Around him, and up and down the long hospital tent, wounded children on cots and straw mattresses were crying, too. A few of them were crying for the lost doctor; most, uncomprehending, simply cried to express their own pain.

  Nurse Susan Peterson moved among the wailing children, offering ice packs to some, attempts at reassurance to others. But there was really very little she could do.

  “Oh, you brave, noble, foolish man,” Melissa whispered, r ocking the corpse’s head at her breast. “What am I going to do without you? What am I going to do?”

  There was a rustle of sound at the tent flap. Hamilton turned. It was Aurora.

  The priestess was dressed in her finest black robe, and her gold owl pendant shimmered like the Moon. “Come, Hamilton,” she said. “The fleet has arrived.”

  Hamilton looked at her with sad eyes. “Must we go right now? Something terrible has happened.”

  Aurora’s eyes widened with horror, and she stared first at Hamilton, than Susan, and finally Melissa, obviously reading their minds. “Oh, no,” she said. “Not Doctor Berger.”

  She ran to the center of the tent where Melissa sat on the ground, cradling the body of her husband. She looked in silence for several seconds at the grieving wife, and then said simply,“I’m sorry. He was a good being.”

  Melissa said nothing. All around them the maimed children screamed their agony. Aurora shook her head and started to leave but then did an about-face andwalked back to where the doctor’s wife was sitting.

  “What is it now?” Melissa said. “What do you want from us now?”

  Aurora did not answer. Instead she closed her eyes and clutched her owl in her right hand, while holding her left out before her at full length. As she did so, a little girl who was lying on a cot in front of her stopped crying, closed her eyes, and slipped into a peaceful sleep. Then, as Hamilton, Melissa, and Susan watched in amazement, the priestess slowly turned around, and as she did so, all the children fell asleep.

  She then walked rapidly back to Hamilton. “Now we must go,” she said, in a voice that brooked no argument.

  But before she passed him, Hamilton saw that there were tears in her eyes.

  WGE Ambassador Junea looked at the President and his Cabinet with disgust. All their purchases of advanced technology had not altered their subhuman appearance, or done much to suppress their hideous smell. Oddly, however, their minds were not leaking thoughts in the obnoxious but useful manner they had in their first meeting. Apparently the Minervan suspicions were true. The savages had acquired antitelepathy technology. She exchanged that thought with Fedris, and he concurred. The guilt for the demise of Draco 4 was now all too clear.

  “The fleet is here,” Junea said. “The hour of punishment is at hand. We require you to transport up to the flagship to face Princess Minaphera.”

  The President smiled, revealing his horribly mutilated teeth. “Well I certainly appreciate your invitation to meet the Princess, but my schedule is full for the next several days. Perhaps next week, after she has finished punishing the planet-assassins, we can all get together for a social occasion.”

  Junea was shocked. The creature’s impertinence was astonishing . “So,” Junea said, “you are not even going to attempt to beg for mercy before the Princess renders judgment?”

  The President twinkled his bloodshot eyes. “Why should we beg for mercy? We’re not guilty of anything.”

  Even with her mind-reading abilities blocked, Junea could see that the subhuman chieftain was lying. “I don’t think the Princess is inclined to believe that,” she said thinly.

  “No, not currently, of course. But once she hears our side of the story, that will allchange.”

  Junea had to smile. One could only imagine the impression this hideous thing would make presenting his case to the Princess. The idea was so funny she had to suggest it. “Then why don’t you go and explain yourself to her?”

  Fedris exchanged a thought with her. Inside he was laughing as hard as she was.

  “No,” the President said. “What with all the anti-Earthling prejudice recent events seem to have aroused, we feel it would be better to retain professional representation.”

  That was a surprise. “Who?” Junea asked.

  The President leaned forward, causing Junea to back away a step to avoid his awful smell. “You,” he said, and then turning to Fedris contin- ued, “and you.”

  Junea was flabbergasted. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Of course I am.”

  “I’m afraid that is not possible.”

  “Why not? You seem quitequalified.”

  This was amazing. The insignificant creature actually thought her refusal to serve him was based on modesty! Junea decided to spell the situation out for him.“Indeed, Consul Fedris and I are certainly qualified to represent your hopeless case, but we choose not to because we have no interest in doingso.”

  “Oh, but you do,” the President grinned. “You most certainly do.”

  Something about the President’s grin made Junea uncomfortable. He seemed too confident. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. The President walked around the room and took a seat in a big chair

  covered with dead animal material, and then put his feet up on a large desk made out of a murdered tree. “Fred,” he said grandly, “why don’t you explain to our ambassador friends why their interests and ours now coincide.”

  An Earthling only a bit less hideous-looking than the President now stepped forward. Although his teeth weren’t quite as sickening as the President’s, his smile was almost as
disgusting and his smell was almost as bad.

  The thing bowed to Junea and nodded to Fedris. “Ambassador, Consul. Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Dr. Fred Collins, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.”

  “And he is intelligent too,” the President called out gaily. “Fred went to Harvard. It’s about time you met him. I’m sure the three of you are really going to hit it off.”

  “Yes,” Collins said. “We have a lot of common interests. Information and money,for example. I find those subjects fascinating. Don’t you?”

  Fedris sent Junea a thought of alarm. Did this creature know something he shouldn’t?

  “You know,” Collins continued, “I really want to thank you two for arranging the deals that have given us so many of your wonderful bluebacks. Everything you said about them is true. They really are good everywhere, and you really can buy practically anything with them.”

  Collins rambled on. “One of my favorite things to buy is antitelepathy implants. It’s so nice to have some mental privacy again. Don’t you agree? I really want to thank you for making such a wonderful thing available to the people of Earth. We understand, of course, that you made a lot ofmoney yourself on that sale, but you earned it, both of you.”

  Here Collins stopped, and simply broadened his hideous smile.

  Junea could only stare at the horrible creature.

  The President spoke up. “You two look upset that everyone here seems to know all about your trading activities. I hope none of the items you sold were used in the planet-murders. I hear the Princessisn’t the forgivingtype.”

  Junea received an urgent thought from Fedris.“Ambassador, they are threatening to implicate us as complicitin their planet assassination!” Junea thought back, “I know that, you fool. What are we going to do aboutit?”

  Fedris ventured. “Getting us into trouble with the Princess won’t do you any good.”

  The President laughed. “Oh, no, Fedris my boy, you have us all wrong. No one wants to get you or the lovely ambassador into any trouble. We’re just saying that we all need to work together to make sure the blame for the recent unfortunate incidents falls only on the guilty.”

  Junea said coldly,“And who do you claim thatis?”

  “Why the Minervans, of course,” the President replied. “It is their brutality that provoked such an anguished response.”

  Junea shook her head.“I’m afraid thatwon’t fly. Itwasn’t Minervans who exploded those star systems, it was Earthlings. Whatever their provocation, they are the ones who did it, and it is those who did the deed who must be punished forit.”

  The President shrugged. “Well then, in that case, the guilty party is Peru.”

  Junea was bewildered. “What is Peru?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” the President said.“I shouldn’t have expected you to know such a minor detail about the Earth. Peru is a country. It’s located here.”

  The President pointed to a green-colored patch on the lower part of a globe that adorned his desk.“All the planet assassins came from Peru. So clearly, if any nation of Earth is to blame, it is Peru, not the United States ofAmerica.”

  Junea raised an eyebrow. If that were true, there might be some hope. All their anti-telepathy sales were to the USA. She exchanged a thought to that effect with Fedris. He answered telepathically.“Unfortunately our evidence indicates they were Americans.” Probably so, but perhaps the Earthlings had a counter. She decided to find out.

  “Fedris,” she said.“What were the names and birth places of the four planetassassins?”

  Fedris looked at his helicipad. “David Crockett Christianson, born Provo Utah, USA; George Washington Jones, born Newark, New Jersey, USA; Mickey Mantle Ostrowski, born Yonkers, New York, USA; and Thomas Jefferson Clark, born Norfolk, Virginia, USA.”

  “They all sound like Americans,” Junea said.

  Collins waved his hand dismissively. “No, former Americans. It’s true they were all born in our country with those names, but that was decades ago. Since then, they all moved to Peru, and become Peruvian citizens. They used US passports to get onboard your ships, but those passports were old. In fact, our records show some time ago, all four changed their names as well as their citizenships. Their real names were David Crockett Christianson de Peru, George Washington Jones de Peru, Mickey Mantle Ostrowski de Peru, and Thomas Jefferson Clark de Peru. You see, all Peruvian citizens with good traditional Peruviannames.”

  A nice cover story, but Junea knew it wouldn’t be enough. “If we are to convince the Princess, we’ll need more evidence than that.”

  “Certainly, certainly,” Collins said. “You’ll have all the evidence you need. Here are photographs taken by our reconnaissance airplanes showing the planet-assassin training camps in the Peruvian mountains.” He handed Junea some slimy pieces of paper with images on them. As they smelled vaguely toxic, Junea quickly passed them on Fedris.

  A moment later Fedris transmitted a thought. “May the Triune Goddess be praised. The images really do show training camps. I’ll have one of our ships take better images for confirmation.” He then punched a few buttons on his helicipad.

  Junea looked at the President. “Remarkable,” she said.

  “You see,” the President said, “not o nly are we not involved in planet-assassination, but we are your staunch allies in the struggle against such crimes. Without us, you might never have discovered the Peruvian conspiracy.”

  Junea said, “But what about the mass demonstrations in your cities calling for death to the Western Galactic Empire?”

  The President shrugged. “What of it? In the United States we have freedom of speech. If the people want to vent their frustrations with Minervan oppression with public demonstrations, they are free to do so. It doesn’t harm anyone. The point is that no part of the US government played any role in the recent planet-assassin attacks on the WGE. Far from it. We are willing to help you with intelligence and even deploy our armed forces to assist you in the war against Peru.”

  Fedris said, “Alright, so you have some counter-evidence. How are we supposed to make anyone believe it? There are just two of us and a whole court filled with advisors who are much too sophisticated to be readily convinced by this sort of stuff. The Princess will never believe us if all of them are arguing the more obvious case against you. How are we to prevail against suchnumbers?”

  The President pursed his lips. “You can’t.”

  Junea and Fedris looked at each other crestfallen.

  “But,” continued the President, “you don’t need to. All you have to do is win them over to your side.”

  “How can we do that?” Fedris asked.

  “It’s really very simple,” the President said. “Just use some of these.”

  With that, the savage chieftain opened a case made of dead animal skin revealing bundles of hundred-thousand blueback chips.

  Junea’s eyes widened. “You’re giving those to us to assist in trans- forming the views of the court advisors?”

  “Sure,” the President smiled. “Thanks to you, there’s a lot more where that came from. We certainly wouldn’t want to leave our friendsin the lurch at a time likethis.”

  Junea and Fedris exchanged a thought. There was more than enough in the case to do the job. About twice as much, in fact.

  Junea said, “Well, in that case, I think we would be remiss if we did not do everything we could to convince the Princess of your innocence.”

  “Good,” the President exclaimed. “I’ll send Lisa with you. She’s our Public Relations Director, and can fill you in on all the other details you need to bring the Princess around.”

  A diminutive and ugly Earthling woman stepped forward. She had obviously made an attempt to cover her Earthling smell with an even more powerful odorant. The net effect was to give her a stench beyond creation. “I look forward to working with you, ambassador,” she said.

  Offended by the creature’s awful smell, both Junea and Fedris took an involuntary ste
p backwards. Unfortunately, this allowed the female Earthling to seize the case of bluebacks and snap it shut.

  Junea sighed and made the sign of the triune blessing.

  Chapter 13

  Encased in a small Minervan travel sphere, Hamilton and Aurora sped through the night crossing Washington State from Kennewick to Seattle.

  It had been several hours since the incident in the Bergers’ hospital, and Aurora had recovered from the emotion she had expressed there.

  “So, a general strike to demand equalrights,” she mused.“You know, Hamilton, it never would haveworked.”

  “Why not?” Hamilton was irritated with Aurora. She had shown real compassion in the hospital, but now she was suppressing her feelings, and was back to her usual haughty hyper-rational self. “You need us to do your scut work. Is trampling on us so much fun that you are willing to scrub fishtanks for the privilege? I don’t think so.”

  Aurora crossed her arms. “Now there you go again, accusing us of sadistic cruelty. The reason why we don’t give Earthlings equal rights is because, one, being nonrational you don’t deserve them, and two, if we ever gave you them, you would use such privileges to kill us. Can you deny my logic?”

  Hamilton frowned. “I deny your first point. We are rational crea- tures.”

  Aurora was dismissive. “So, killing Dr. Berger was rational? He was the last Earthling physician left in Kennewick. Without him most of the wounded assassin children will die. Yet your Minister, the very man who recruited the assassins, had him killed, and most of the Kennewickians supported him.”

  “Most, maybe, but not all. Our side had a lot of support.”

  “Most is too many. While I would be the first to insist that there are genuine examples of limited proto rationality among Earthlings—such as Dr. Berger, certainly, or even, to a much lesser extent, you—the dominant mental condition is clearly insanity.”

  “But don’t you see, Aurora? If you treated us better, a lot more peo- ple would see things Berger’s way and less would follow Vardt.”