The Arcturus Man

by John Strauchs

a little personal time.

  “I’ll start breakfast.” He sensed how she felt and knew it was time to leave. Jenny smiled. He knew.

  She knew she wasn’t supposed to take a long shower, but maybe just this once.

  The warm water was so soothing. Jared had closed the cabin door. She stepped out dripping to get a few more sips of coffee and then she got back into the shower. She just

  stood under the soft falling water. It was marvelous. The water tank would be filled before they left the marina. She really needed a long shower. There were a lot of bad

  thoughts that had to be washed away. He had to know that she was just a little frightened

  of him.

  “Breakfast is ready.” Jared yelled.

  “Be there in a minute.”

  Jenny came out wearing the same clothes she had on last night, white slacks and a

  knitted white sweater. Jared’s blood stains were all over her white slacks and sweater.

  Jared had forgotten that although he had several changes of clothes stored on the boat,

  there were no women’s clothes. He had to get something for her in Newport. Jenny was resisting talking about anything serious.

  “I saw this on TV,” She had found a deck of playing cards. Her shuffle was

  clumsy. Finally, she dropped the cards on the table and swept through them with both

  hands. She gathered up the cards and squared the deck.

  “Here. Look at the cards. Don’t move them around, just try to remember as many

  as you can.” Jared took the deck and riffled them slowly to reveal the cards one by one. “Why do we need to do this? Parlor tricks make me look freaky.” “Don’t be silly. This is just fun. I’ll try too,” she said. “I want to learn more

  about you. You started to open yourself up to me, but we were interrupted.” He handed the deck back to Jenny.

  “OK, what is the first card?” asked Jenny.

  “It is the three of diamonds.” He then read off all of the remaining fifty-four

  cards, including the two jokers. He had memorized the entire deck in five seconds. “Wow. You are incredible. I pass on taking the test,” she said.

  It did make Jared look freaky.

  “Do you think there is anything we can do to get these stains out of the sweater?

  It has sentimental value to me,” she said.

  “Of course, I’ll kiss you.” Jared leaned forward and gave Jenny a quick peck on

  her cheek. “I’m sure I can get those stains out. It’s just a little chemistry. We’ll save

  your grandmother’s sweater.”

  “How did you know this? Don’t tell me you can read Runes, too? And how did

  you know my grandmother knitted it? OK! Ok! Dumb question. I know how you know.” “Kysmik! Couldn’t be clearer. It means, “kiss me,” said Jared.

  “How many languages do you speak, Jared. Heck, I’m not sure that Runes is

  even a language. It’s sort of Viking culture thing,” she said.

  “I actually noticed it the night before but you seemed so peeved that I didn’t think

  I should bring it up.”

  “How many languages do you speak?”

  “You’ve asked me that before. What does it matter? I speak quite a few.” Jenny had almost forgotten the revelations the night that all the trouble started.

  Now it was coming back to her. She had tried to put that night out of her mind. She

  didn’t want to think about the killings, but it couldn’t be avoided. It was a poison that had

  to be leached away.

  “OK. Forget the languages. How about telling me what happened on Eagle’s

  Head. Who were those men? Why were they trying to kill you? Did you kill them?

  And….what…” She was talking too fast.

  “Get another cup of coffee. Sit down, and I’ll explain everything. OK?” “Please.” She poured another cup for herself and gave Jared a heater. “This is going to sound very melodramatic, but I don’t know how else to explain

  it. There are people—Russians in particular—who have tracked me since I was a very

  young boy. It was a bureaucratic mistake that allowed me to be sent to the United States

  for an education and testing. Once I was at MIT, they tried to get me sent back to the Soviet Union. I never saw my parents again. That was tough for a six year old boy.” “That is horrible. I am so sorry Jared.”

  “That is history now.”

  “You must miss them terribly,” she said.

  “I do. They sacrificed everything for me. They loved me so much that they sent

  me away.”

  “That is so sad.” She sat closer and held his hand.

  “That was a long time ago, Jenny.”

  “Then those men who attacked the island were Russian?”

  “Well, no. They were Colombian mercenaries who were hired by the Russians.

  One of them is named Rubio Matos. I sensed that clearly but everything else came in bits

  and pieces. They spoke in Portuguese to throw me off, but I speak Portuguese quite

  well.”

  She wasn’t going to get into the language thing again.

  “I understand why they want you back, or at least I think I do, but why did they

  want to hurt you, or was that a mistake? Were they trying to kidnap you?” “No, they clearly wanted to kill me,” he said.

  “But, why?” she asked.

  “There is an official reason and then there is a real reason. The red herring reason

  is that I am the seed for an entirely new species of human. They fear that I am the beginning of a race of…what can I call it…supermen, for the lack of a better word.” “Supermen? You’re kidding,” she said.

  “It is totally bogus, of course. Supposedly, they are trying to rebuild the old Soviet Union they are thinking many generations ahead. They don’t want me to be exploited by the United States. They don’t want America to have this advantage. They

  consider it of strategic importance over the next century.”

  “This is unbelievable. How can anyone swallow that?” she asked. “Well, there are gullible people who believe that crap. You know what people say

  about the big lie. Big lies are easier to foist on people than little lies,” he said. “I can’t believe that Russia has long range plans like that. Is it true? I thought that

  the fall of the Soviet Union ended that kind of cold war thinking.”

  “Well, that kind of thinking did end for the Yeltsin and Putin Governments—well

  maybe the Putin Government—but just because we talk about the fall of the Soviet Union, everyone forgets that the old guard never disappeared. They are all still there. In

  some ways it is even more menacing than it was before. The old leaders of the KGB are

  still there. Remember Putin was former KGB, although I honestly don’t think he is involved with the people who are trying to kill me. Anyway, the old KGB melded with the

  new Russian Mafia—mostly gangsters and vicious criminals who struck it rich when the

  Soviet Union fell and they were long longer kept in check by the KGB or even the police.

  They have formed a secret shadow government called Red Snow--красный снег— krasniy sneg. Now they control much of the power and the wealth in Russia. It is a sym

  biotic relationship. It reminds me a lot of the Medici’s behind the Pope in Italian history. “Why aren’t you asking our government to protect you?”

  “Our government—I really should say small powerful parts—helped get the Colombians into the U.S. through Canada. There are people in our government who conspired with the Russians,” said Jared.

  “You mean to tell me that the United States Government is working with the

  Russians to kill you?”

  “No, I don’t mean that at all. There are only a few people who want to kill me,”

  said Jared
/>   “Then why aren't we calling the FBI for help.”

  “We can’t do that. Two have leadership positions in the Justice Department and

  the CIA. I could never be sure that I could trust whoever showed up.”

  “Who are these men?” asked Jenny.

  “John Comfort Anderson, the Deputy Attorney General, is one. Franklin Reisinger, the Executive Director of the CIA, is another.”

  “I don’t understand. If having you is such a strategic advantage to whatever

  country you are living in, why would they want to have you killed?”

  “You’re forgetting that we’re talking about the bogus reason. On the other hand,

  Anderson honestly believes the bull shit. He’s a real Bible thumper. He truly thinks that I

  am the product of some kind of Soviet genetic experimentation. That isn’t true of course,

  but you’re not going to convince him of that. I am a stain that needs to be eradicated. He

  is utterly convinced that I am the Anti-Christ—as ridiculous as that sounds. He is a zealot

  and he believes it,” he said.

  Jenny was shaking her head in disbelief.

  “With this much attention, why don’t I know about you already? Why haven’t

  you been on the cover of Newsweek?”

  “I’ve done everything that I can do remain anonymous. Fortunately, I have two

  world powers that have worked hard at helping me achieve that. No one wants me to become famous,” he said.

  “This is getting scary. You are saying that Russia and the United States are trying

  to kill you.”

  “No…not the entire governments—as I said, just certain leaders—and, yes, they

  are,” he said. “The involvement of Anderson and Reisinger is surprising, but then again,

  religion is a powerful opiate. I’m not sure what Reisinger’s motivations are, but as for Anderson, all religion is superstition and there isn’t anything that can’t be rationalized by zealotry if God is on your side. Hundreds of millions have died in the cause of one reli

  gion or another. That is a number that is so large that it loses meaning.”

  “You don’t believe in God?”

  “That is one question I can’t answer. I don’t know if there is a God. I can say that

  I don’t believe in the God of any particular organized religion. Maybe I’m a Deist. There

  used to be a religion called Deism that took that view. In fact, some of our founding fathers were Deists, such as Benjamin Franklin. I can say that I don’t believe in divine intervention—assuming there is an all-knowing and all-powerful entity in the Universe. I

  do believe that religion, per se, is blind faith in mythology. You might as well believe in

  Santa Clause.”

  She was shaken by Jared’s revelation. Jenny was brought up as a Lutheran. She

  didn’t know what to say or what to think. She already knew that he wasn’t a religious

  man but he had never expressed it this clearly before.

  “The man she fell in love with was an atheist,” thought Jenny.

  “I am not an atheist.”

  “Stop doing that. I need some mental privacy.” Jenny was very religious. It was

  important to her life and important to every one in her family. She couldn't imagine how

  anyone close to her could not believe in God.

  “Jenny, have you ever read Mark Twain’s Letters from the Earth?” “I heard about it but I never read it. What’s the relevance?”

  “Mark Twain wrote this near the end of his life. He wanted a vehicle to serve as a

  dispassionate view of our world so he invented a scenario where God sends Satan to earth

  as punishment, but only for one celestial day. To humans it would have been an eternity.

  Time is, of course, relative to the observer. When Satan arrives he begins to write letters

  back to St. Michael and St. Gabriel, trying to explain what he observers. It is a clever

  vehicle because it removes the bias of any morality or ethics that were acquired by living

  on earth for any period of time.”

  “Twain was not a religious man. He was an atheist too, wasn’t he?” asked Jenny. “Who knows! Only Clemens can answer that question. It is evident from Letters

  from the Earth that he disliked the Bible and religious institutions.”

  “I can see your attraction to this book,” said Jenny.

  “By putting the blame on Satan, he can make radical observations that Mark

  Twain, the author, could never get away with. By using a hated character like Satan, he

  can ask questions that some people may have wondered about, but never had the courage to ask. Remember, this was written not too long after the turn of the last century. At that

  time, religion was very strong in America.”

  “What’s your point?” asked Jenny.

  “When God destroyed the entire world except for Noah and his family, how could

  God justify killing millions of babies and very young children who were blameless and

  innocent of sin.”

  “No one takes every part of the Bible literally.”

  “That is wrong. Many do, such as Anderson,” he said.

  “You can’t base an argument on religious crackpots. Everyone knows that parts of

  the Bible are translations by Jewish zealots from ever more ancient stories. The flood is

  described in the Epic of Gilagamesh. I read that in college,” said Jenny.

  “The story of the king of Uruk was written almost three thousand years before

  Christ. That is more than six hundred generations of people from the time of Gilagamesh

  to Christ—and yet more generations until the Bible as we know it was actually compiled,” said Jared.

  “That’s the point. Jewish scholars borrowed the story. The drowning of innocent

  children along with the wicked comes from a cruel and savage time. God wouldn’t have

  done that,” said Jenny.

  “Either the Bible is the word of God or it isn’t. If only parts are the word of God

  and but other parts aren’t, who can ever sort it out. How can you know what is the word

  of God?” asked Jared. “Moreover, provided there is enough seminal information about

  any particular miracle described in the Bible, they can all be explained by science. Take,

  for example, the burning bush that Moses saw, there is a shrub in that part of the world

  called Dictamnus albus, or more commonly Dittany. It exudes a volatile oil that can self

  ignite during very hot weather. Hence, the burning bush plant.”

  “Alright! I get it. I don’t take the Bible literally. It is nevertheless an important

  way of teaching morality.”

  “Really? Lot has an incestuous relationship with his daughter. Is that teaching

  morality? And, if you violate all of the ten commandants, only two, perhaps three, are

  regarded as crimes by today’s legal systems throughout the world. Some actions therefore are sacrilegious, but not criminal.”

  “You keep pulling stuff out of the old testament. No, that’s not moral, but you

  won’t find anything like that in the New Testament. There are absolute values of right

  and wrong that Jesus Christ teaches,” she said.

  “He died by crucifixion to atone for the sins of all mankind, is that the morality

  that the New Testament teaches?

  “You know it is,” said Jenny.

  “So if a mother drowned her newborn baby before the crucifixion because she

  doesn’t want to care for it, her sin was paid for by Jesus? There is absolution by proxy, is

  that it?

  “If she is sincerely repentant, yes, her sin was forgiven.”

  “Who determines if she is sincerely repe
ntant?”

  “God,”

  “That is the power of religion, isn’t it? It requires blind faith. Didn’t the crucifixion absolve even the unrepentant from all sin?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then what was the point of a Father allowing his son to die in such a cruel and

  painful way? I could never allow my son to be crucified, but God could. Wouldn’t the

  repentant have been forgiven by God without the crucifixion anyway or is it that God was

  going to punish even the sincerely repentant if Jesus hadn’t died on the cross. Doesn’t

  sound moral to me.”

  “You’re twisting things. It’s not like that.” Jenny was disturbed. “Even the Devil

  can quote scripture.”

  “Am I the devil, Jenny?”

  “I’m not calling you the devil. Just stop it. Anyone can take words out of the Bible out of context and twist the meaning.” Jenny was very disturbed. Jared was confusing her. He was confusing the goodness of the Bible.

  “I’m not twisting anything. You just don’t have any answers so it’s easier to

  simply assert that the logic is warped. It isn’t,” he said.

  “Everyone knows that some things are just right and some things are wrong. Certain moral values are universally absolute,” she said.

  “Like what, for example?” asked Jared.

  “Thou shalt not kill! That is an absolute. Every culture on earth follows that, even

  the ones that aren’t Christian,” she said.

  “Then explain killing in war. Explain capital punishment. I know you said that

  the Old Testament may not be the word of God, but he kills tens of thousands in it,

  doesn’t he? You might as well believe in the pantheon of gods in Greek mythology as

  believe in Christian mythology. There is hardly a difference.”

  “Killing in war is still evil. So is capital punishment,” she said.

  “It wasn’t to the Grand Inquisition,” said Jared.

  “That was a sinful time in human history. Those people used religion to do evil

  things.”

  “And in our time, therefore, how can you know if the Church is serving the will of

  God or the Institution of the Church?”

  “Like I said, morality is absolute. You just know,” she said.

  “There is a dark side to you that I have never seen before,” she said. “Now that is interesting. In lieu of rational debate, you have chosen to use one of