Recoil

by David Sherman

  “This man has managed to tap into ordinary people’s lives, ma’am,” Berentus volunteered. “He’s giving them something they want. I don’t know how long the effect lasts when they get home or after the vid screen goes dead, but you saw how powerful his preaching is! And one more thing, he’s not alone. Others like him are preaching the same doctrine on several of our member worlds. They may not be quite as effective as he is but they are reading off the same sheet of music. Now, how could that be? Well, I’ll tell you. They all have one thing in common.” Berentus paused. “They were all abducted by the Skinks. I have to agree with Hugh on this. Look at what he’s preaching. These people have been indoctrinated!”

  “Ma’am, this has not yet spread to our military forces, but if it does”—General Cazombi shrugged—“our whole campaign against the Skinks could collapse. I can’t stop it if the troops pick this up. I don’t have the authority to dictate their religious convictions or to prevent them from practicing them. If this man’s preaching gets in the way of our mission, though, I’ll have to take action and it’ll get very messy. It’ll become a constitutional matter and wind up in the courts, and you all know what that’ll do to our readiness, to General Aguinaldo’s options as the anti-Skink task force commander. And we know what these things are. They’re not angels, they’re hostile aliens bent on the destruction of humanity. We’ve fought them, we know what they are.” Cazombi did not raise his voice but the way he spoke made it a major emotional outburst. Huygens Long nodded his head energetically at every word.

  “Hmm,” Chang-Sturdevant replied. They were all silent for a moment, sipping their Scotch. “Well, gentlemen,” the president said at last, “I’ve done my homework too.” She nodded at her attorney general. “This Jasper is right out of the nineteenth century. Have any of you ever heard of the Reverend Charles Grandison Finney and the Great Revival? He was a charismatic Pentecostal preacher of the 1820s and 1830s in the old United States. Perhaps he was the greatest of the Pentecostals. The language Jasper uses, even the Bible quotations, are right out of Finney’s sermons. He even uses what he calls Cottage Prayer Meetings, where he meets with small groups in private and preaches to them, probably well-heeled individuals who give generously to his crusade. It’s uncanny if you know your history.”

  “I’ve never heard of this Reverend Finney,” Marcus Berentus said quietly, “but I don’t need to hit the history books to remind you all that whatever this Finney was back in those days, he was no traitor.”

  “It’s a bit early, isn’t it, Marcus, to be throwing that term about?” Chang-Sturdevant replied sharply.

  Huygens Long’s mouth dropped open. He cast a desperate glance at the other two men as if asking them to say something, but he knew Chang-Sturdevant well enough to know when not to argue with her. So did Berentus and Cazombi.

  “Gentlemen, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.” Chang-Sturdevant leaned forward and clasped her hands together. “I’m going to meet this Jimmy Jasper,” she said, nodding her head with conviction, “have a personal interview with the man; not”—she grimaced slightly—“a ‘Cottage Prayer Meeting,’ but a tête-à-tête, to size him up myself.”

  “What?” Huygens Long almost shouted, nearly dislocating his jaw.

  “You heard me, Hugh. I’m going to invite him up here for lunch. I’ll have my minister of public affairs arrange it. Now, you gentlemen maintain low profiles but keep me informed. All right”—she glanced at her watch—“that’s it for now. Please excuse me.” Chang-Sturdevant got up abruptly and left the room, followed closely by her minister of war, who exchanged significant glances with the other two as he went out the door.

  Cazombi and Long sat rooted to their chairs, staring helplessly at the closed door. “Well,” Long said at last, “it could well mean my ass as far as this government is concerned, but I am going to look into this guy and I am going to dig up the dirt on the bastard.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Cazombi cautioned, “but if you’ve made up your mind, Hugh, well, keep me informed, would you?” He leaned over and tapped Long on his knee. “Keep her informed too, whatever the cost to your career. She’s not some ditzy broad, we both know that, and she’ll listen to facts and reason. We have got to do something about this character and the others, but we’ve got to go about it the right way. Do you agree?”

  “Very well, Alistair. I won’t do anything until I’ve got all the facts together, and then I’ll present them to the president. Meanwhile, will you keep me informed on how this is impacting on our military forces?”

  “I will.”

  “And when the time comes to, er, put my neck in the noose, will you at least hold my hand?”

  “You bet I will,” Cazombi replied, and they shook on it.

  Marcus Berentus had to hurry to catch up to Chang-Sturdevant as she walked rapidly down the corridor toward her office.

  “Suelee,” he whispered, placing a hand gently on her shoulder. She shrugged it off angrily. “Suelee, don’t. Listen to me, will you?” This time she did not shake his hand off, but she whirled and faced him, her face flushed with anger. “For the love of God,” Berentus said, “do not meet with this man! I’m begging you. Don’t do it!”

  “Marcus,” she answered in burning words, “if you persist in opposing me this way, then everything between us is over, do you understand me?”

  Berentus stepped back as if shocked by an electric current. “What?”

  “You heard me. Now get out of my way.”

  “Suelee—”

  “I mean it, Marcus! Just why are you trying to tell me what’s good for me with this . . . this holy man?”

  Berentus could not believe the conversation was really taking place. He swallowed hard and then his own face turned red with anger and he shouted so loudly that heads in adjoining offices turned toward the hallway.

  “Because, love, this son of a bitch thinks he’s Jesus H. Fucking Christ!”

  CHAPTER

  * * *

  ELEVEN

  Senator Maxim’s Villa on the Outskirts of Fargo, Earth

  She floated in a vast, warm bath. Someone was talking to her but she could not make out the words. The voice sounded like it was inside her head, she was sure of that. Maybe it wasn’t a voice, after all; maybe it was her own mind reciting a mantra, a low, monotonous chant over and over again. What difference did it make; it was soporific, comforting. She was vaguely aware of things attached all over her body—wires, cables, things like that—but no pain. No, far from it, she felt wonderful in the torpid liquid that surrounded her. She wasn’t breathing, she was sure of that. How, she wondered vaguely, could that be? Why worry? It was good not to breathe. But she did have a body, she could feel her fingers and toes, and, out of the corner of her eye, she sensed more than saw vague shapes moving somewhere outside the murky liquid bath, just shadows on her retinas, actually, not definable shapes, not shapes she recognized.

  Suddenly Sally Consolador was sitting beneath the spreading pawpaw tree in Senator Maxim’s garden, where she’d come to read her Bible. Dreams of sitting in that bath had been occurring more frequently since she had come to Earth but this was the first time one had come during the day, while she was still awake and fully conscious. She shook her head and closed her Bible. She could prepare for tomorrow’s Holiness Camp later. She arose and began threading her way down the garden trail in the direction of the villa. An idea was beginning to form in her mind about what the visions really meant.

  Sally gently fingered the engraved invitation. “Looks like I ain’t invited,” she pouted. “Fancy invite,” she mused. The invitation was engraved on heavy, cream-colored paper and read: “The President of the Confederation of Human Worlds cordially invites the Reverend Jimmy Jasper to a private reception . . .”

  “Mighty fine, mighty fine,” Sally muttered, turning the card over.

  Jimmy stood before the mirror, carefully examining his appearance. “It is an affair of state,” he said solemnly, “and it mea
ns that the Word has at last reached the highest levels of Satan’s regime. My preaching has finally had the desired effect, and you, Sally, have played your part.” He turned and smiled at his consort. “How do I look?”

  “Like John the Baptist come out of the desert into Herod’s palace. Beware Phasaelis’s treachery.”

  Jimmy was wearing a plain, high-collar tunic, intentionally frayed at the elbows and sleeves as if it had long ago seen its better days. His hair, streaked with gray like his scraggly beard, hung down the back of his neck and over the collar of his tunic.

  “I am Moses, come to warn Pharaoh of dire consequences if he does not comply with God’s commandments,” he reminded Sally sternly.

  Jimmy did not like the comparison to John the Baptist, betrayed by Herod’s wife, Phasaelis, and beheaded. He was beginning to wonder if Satan at last had reached his consort and driven out the Holy Spirit. Had she turned into a weak vessel, he wondered. Her jealousy at not being invited to visit the president was disturbing, not in keeping with his holy mission. It smacked of cynicism, defeatism, in fact. Instead, she should be delighted that his evangelism had so impressed the president of the Confederation that she had requested a private meeting. No, Sally’s potential backsliding could mean serious trouble for his crusade. Often before, he reflected, those who had received the Word had not kept it. Satan was a wily devil who delighted in the corruption of saints and sinners alike. He would have to keep an eye on Sally.

  “Sally, are you having those dreams again?” he asked suddenly.

  “Yup, just had one out back, in the garden.”

  “Satan’s wiles are powerful, Sally. He often comes to us in our dreams—”

  “Wasn’t dreamin’ this time, Jimmy.”

  “—in our dreams, Sally, when we are most susceptible to his temptations.”

  “Well,” she said, “I ’spect I will just have to amuse myself in the garden until you get back from”—she tossed the invitation on the bed—“this invite.”

  Jimmy stepped forward quickly and retrieved the invitation. “You can amuse yourself by getting ready for the Holiness Camp scheduled to begin tomorrow,” he replied sharply.

  “But Senator Maxim’s gardens are so wonderful.” Sally smiled archly, glancing sideways at Jimmy. Senator Luke Maxim of the Kingdom delegation to the Congress of Human Worlds, an early convert to Jimmy’s preaching, had given the pair the full run of his country estate, including its formal gardens, which were then in full bloom, and Jimmy had made the villa his headquarters for the duration of his stay on Earth.

  Is she teasing me? Jimmy wondered. A prophet, he reflected, can tolerate anything—torture, persecution (the more of that the better!), disputatious disbelief—but a prophet cannot tolerate laughter. “Well, Sally, gardens can be a dangerous place. Ask Adam.”

  Sally stretched luxuriously and opened her robe wide. “Don’t I look like Eve?” she said with a wicked grin.

  Jimmy punched the egress button on the door console and as it hissed open turned back toward Sally. “I’ll be back as soon as I’ve finished. Meanwhile, get ready for the—”

  “The apple trees hang heavy with their fruit,” Sally said, laughing and letting the robe fall to the floor.

  “Stay out of the goddamned garden!” he shouted as he stomped angrily out of the room.

  Office of the President, Confederation of Human Worlds, Fargo, Earth

  “Madam President.” Jimmy Jasper took Chang-Sturdevant’s hand and brushed his lips softly over it. His hand in hers was hard, firm, warm. “I am so very pleased you invited me here today,” he murmured.

  “Very nice of you to come, Reverend Jasper.”

  “Call me Jimmy, Madam President, please do. I never went to divinity school, none of that scholarly stuff for me; just like Jesus Himself and His Disciples, I received my license to preach directly from God,” he said, smiling. “All that education,” he said, shaking his head, “it only confuses. A great poet once wrote:

  ‘Myself when young did eagerly frequent

  Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument

  About it and about: but evermore

  Came out by the same door where in I went.’ ”

  Chang-Sturdevant recognized the quatrain immediately and was surprised that Jasper knew it too. There was a sharp wit behind the man’s folksy puritanical facade. “Well, Jimmy, please.” Chang-Sturdevant gestured toward some easy chairs and they seated themselves. It was not lost on Jimmy that she did not offer to let him call her Cynthia.

  She noticed Jimmy’s trousers were wearing thin at the knees. “Refreshments?”

  “Springwater, please, Madam President, if you have it. I take neither spiritous liquors”—he nodded disdainfully at the wet bar in a corner—“nor tobacco products. Our bodies, Madam President, are temples of the Lord who has created the souls that inhabit them and we shall not corrupt them by consuming harmful substances. ‘Garbage in, garbage out,’ as they say.” He smiled briefly.

  “Well, I happen to like my ‘garbage,’ Mr. Jasper. Will I go to hell because of that?”

  “Yes, but not because of anything you drink or smoke.”

  “I’m going to hell?”

  “Yes, Madam President, you are. You shall sink straight down, like a stone in a lake of brimstone. You shall burn and suffer there forever, writhing and screaming horribly. You shall roast like an overstuffed sausage on a barbie, your flesh splitting and oozing for all eternity. White-hot iron rods will be inserted into your anus and sear their way into your innards with a horrible intensity and burning. You shall turn slowly on a spit as devils puncture your flesh with red-hot pitchforks and horrid monsters constantly gnaw and rip at your palpitating flesh, consuming your tortured body, which will never be consumed, never diminish through the feasting but always be the same and always feed their insatiable appetites. You shall scream terribly and beg forgiveness but it shall never be granted, never.” He sipped primly at his water and smiled. “But that does not have to be, Madam President.”

  Chang-Sturdevant regarded her guest with revulsion and fascination. His rugged face was strikingly handsome; his huge hands, scarred and veined from heavy manual labor, held the large glass of water as if it were a thimble. His voice, although he was not now speaking with the same volume and power he used when preaching, was deep, laden with conviction, and its timbre penetrated straight through her body. But it was Jimmy Jasper’s eyes that held her attention. They were the brightest blue she had ever seen and they virtually shimmered with conviction. She could hardly avoid staring into them. “You . . . you are as impressive in the flesh as on a vid screen, Mr. Jasper. How—”

  Jasper held up his hand. “It is not me that impresses people, Madam President; it is the Holy Sprit that resides within me.”

  “How do you know all this about hell and its tortures?” She winced visibly at the thought of white-hot spits and all that. How could the man in one breath quote Omar Khayyam and in the next talk so lovingly of the tortures of hell?

  Jasper smiled gently. “I have been told, Madam President, by God Almighty Himself. But you can find out by reading the Scriptures. Read Psalms, Isaiah, but particularly, Madam President, beware of what Our Lord saith in Mark 9:47, ‘And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hellfire.’ ” He leaned forward and placed his hand gently on Chang-Sturdevant’s knee. “You must pluck out an eye, Madam President, and it is my mission to help you do that.”

  Jasper smiled. He fixed Chang-Sturdevant’s eyes with his own. Staring into those brilliant blue orbs, she felt she could not break away from this man. His hand resting on her knee seemed to be throbbing with power. With great effort, she closed her eyes and then looked away. The spell broken, he removed his hand, sat back in his chair, and sipped at his water. Chang-Sturdevant almost sighed with relief. “That is a mighty big sacrifice, Mr. Jasper, to pluck out your own eye,” she said, smiling weakly.
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  “Oh, call me Jimmy, please.” He chuckled. “Our Lord did not mean that literally, Madam President. He meant only that to enter the kingdom of God one has to make huge sacrifices.”

  “What’s my sacrifice, then, Mr. Jasper?”

  Jimmy smiled before he answered. Then: “Get rid of those around who refuse to shake off the clutches of Satan. I mean your minister of war in particular, who is known to be close to you.” He nodded his head. Chang-Sturdevant thought, How in hell does he know that? Jasper saw the expression that crossed her face at that statement and smiled knowingly. “Call off this war against the Angels of the Lord, Madam President!” he continued. “Let them come among you and purge your souls of the Devil and expel from this land Satan and his demons! Let the Millennium begin! Welcome the messengers of Christ and accept His blessings and salvation!”

  Afraid to look directly into those eyes, Chang-Sturdevant stared at the wet bar for a long moment before answering. Yes, she badly needed a drink! “You are talking about the Skinks, Mr. Jasper.”

  “As you call them, Madam President; as you call them, as Satan has made you call them. But I have been to the kingdom of God and I know the true nature of these entities, and they are here to bring you peace and salvation.”

  “There are people in my government, Mr. Jasper, who are saying words to that effect. Senator Maxim, for one, who I understand is your host. But we have seen those creatures, Mr. Jasper. They have murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people! My soldiers and Marines have fought them and beaten them back. All these victims, these fighters, they cannot all have been deceived. How could God have chosen this way to save us? We aren’t Sodom! We aren’t Gomorrah! I am not Lot’s wife, Mr. Jasper, you can be damned sure of that,” she said, looking directly into Jimmy Jasper’s eyes. She blinked. Nothing happened.