Peculiar Tales

by Ron Miller

  Anyway everyone went off to look for Lightning which was not too hard because he was at the depot like he always is. He seemed very surprized to see so many people specially so many people calling his name and I think he was very surprized and then he was very scared. He tried to run but it was too late the policemen and the grown ups caught him and took him to where the express trains pick up the mail sacks every morning. It is a big iron pole like a flag pole but not so tall with a pipe that sticks out at the top with a big hook on it and one of the grown ups got a rope from the express agent and threw the rope over the hook and then they tied one end to Lightnings neck.

  Lightning was very scared now and he rolled his eyes and he yelled and he tried to bite the policemen and the other grown ups but they held him too tight and he couldnt hit them or kick or anything. Besides they hit him a few times to make him stop yelling and biting which he did but then there was lots of blood all over Lightning and I was very surprized to see how red it was since Lightning was so black and everything. And as soon as the rope was tied around his neck someone pulled on the other end and Lightning went right up into the air just like one of the mail sacks. I hoped they wuold not leave him there because it sure wuold be a bad surprise for the express train in the morning. I was glad to see Lightning punished for the rape he did to Rhonda even if Rhonda is a creep because a Negro shuold not do a rape to a white woman but I was mostly glad because he had ruined my one and only Sweet Sixteen Dance. I wuold have to put all my new records away and wait for someone else to have a dance so I could dance at it even thuogh it wuold never be the same as having my very own dance to dance at. I am very very angry becuase no one got to dance at my Sweet Sixteen dance. Becky Lou who is very stuck up will never let me forget that no one got to dance at my Sweet Sixteen party and my best friend June Rose is not speaking to me becuase she did not get to dance with her beau Ralph Crockett and I did not get to dance with Stanley Beckensale who is the best looking boy in the whole school. No one got to dance at my Sweet Sixteen party! Well I mean except for Lightning, he danced for a good two three minutes.

  THE WIZARD OF ENCELADUS

  I see we’re about to have a visitor.”

  “Yes,” replied the doctor, “I’m afraid we are.”

  “I’m very excited about meeting someone new!”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” said the doctor.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s complicated. I really don’t think it’d be a very good idea.”

  “That is disappointing.”

  The doctor sighed heavily. He might have known something like this would happen eventually. But after nearly ten years he had long since convinced himself that both he and his little outpost had been forgotten. Certainly the world he’d left behind had many other things to think about, not the least of which had been revolution.

  He glanced at the long-ignored instruments and saw that the approaching spacecraft was only a few tens of thousands of kilometers distant. It would arrive before the morning was out. There was a large port next to the panel and he involuntarily glanced through it, knowing full well it would be impossible to see the shuttle even if the window had been facing the right direction. But the only thing out there was a view that had been unchanged for eight years: the sky-engulfing globe of Saturn sitting astride a jagged horizon of shattered ice.

  “You don’t think I should prepare something to eat? It would be the hospitable thing to do.”

  “No...I don’t think I’m going to feel that friendly. Besides, I’m not hungry.”

  “It’d be no problem. And you’ll feel better if you eat something.”

  “You’re right, of course. I should eat something before he arrives. It’ll give me something else to think about at any rate.”

  “Some nice hot chicken soup will set you straight.”

  And the doctor found the soup just where he always did. He gingerly took a sip from the bowl of steaming liquid.

  “Excellent!” he reported. “Even though you’ve been doing this for years, I’m constantly amazed.”

  “Well, my knack for organic chemistry does come naturally.”

  The doctor took his cup to his desk and slumped into the chair. He took another sip and said, “I think you had better keep to yourself while the Bishop is here. He simply wouldn’t understand. Or worse, now that I think of it, he might.”

  “As you wish.”

  The shuttle touched down not far from the base and by the time the doctor had suited up and made the trek to the makeshift pad the passenger was already climbing down the rungs to the surface. The doctor rarely went outside any longer and the strain of kangaroo-hopping across uneven ice at one-tenth earth gravity proved a strain. He was annoyed to find himself out of breath when he spoke.

  “Welcome to Enceladus, Your Grace.”

  “Thank you, Doctor, but it is called ‘Bezalel’ now, which I am sure you will agree is much better than a pagan name. What in the world is going on over there?”

  “Pardon?”

  The visitor gestured past the doctor who turned to look. One of the Damascus Sulcus fountains, which had been dormant for weeks, was erupting magnificently. It must have just begun playing since he’d noticed nothing while making the trek to the lander. An enormous, gossamer fan looking for all the world like a ghostly ostrich plume stretched for miles into the black sky. A dense, opaque, dazzling white where it jetted from the nearby fissure at sonic speeds, the minute ice crystals quickly dissipated in the vacuum, spreading to fill doctor’s range of vision with a shimmering fog. A luminous patch of rainbow-colored light glimmered brilliantly near one edge of the fan: a sundog created by the sun, which lay low on the horizon to the doctor’s left.

  It really was a magnificently magical sight, the doctor thought, though he feared it was a wasted gesture.

  “It’s a natural phenomenon, like a geyser. Ice crystals and gasses erupting from beneath the surface.”

  “Hmph,” said the other man dismissively, turning his back on the display and thereby confirming the doctor’s fears. “Come along. We need to get this over and done with as quickly as possible.”

  The bishop didn’t say a word all the way back to the lab, for which the doctor offered some considerable thanks.

  Once inside, the bishop began speaking even before he was entirely out of his environment suit.

  “Before I get to the matter at hand,” said the bishop, “the Synod wishes me to offer its apologies for the great length of time it has asked you to remain here unrelieved.”

  “It’s been no problem,” replied the doctor. “In fact, I’m grateful. The time has allowed me to pursue my research to a level of detail I would never have been able to otherwise.”

  “But you have been entirely by yourself since the accident. Surely that has been a terrible hardship, being alone for such a long time?”

  “I’ve had my work, Your Grace.”

  “And the men?”

  “They were all buried, out there. Very properly, of course,” the doctor added hastily. “You saw the wreck on our way here. They were buried just beyond it.”

  “Forgive me, but personal curiosity forces me to ask this. How in God’s name did you manage it? The original expedition was only supposed to remain on Bezalel for eighteen months, until it was relieved by the next expedition. You’ve been here for nearly ten years. Surely you would have run out of provisions long since?”

  “Well, you see, oxygen and water were no problem. This moon is encrusted with a layer of ice many kilometers thick and, well, I’ve been able to, um, synthesize food. I, uh, as a biochemist, you understand, I was, ah, able to, um, devise ways to create food from raw materials. And recycling, of course.”

  “I dare say you are right. That’s entirely out of my area of expertise. As an officer of the church, however, psychology is more in my line. It’s difficult for me to imagine how you dealt with the loneliness. To know that the nearest other human being is more than a billion kilom
eters away, at best, has to have made things...well, difficult for you.”

  “I had my work, Your Grace. And, to tell the truth, I’ve never had much need for the company of others.”

  “Well, you’re alive and looking healthy enough so I suppose that’s sufficient. Now. As you know, the Synod has never actively supported the kind of research you’ve undertaken. We have nothing against astronomy, nor the advancement of science generally, so long, of course, as it does not conflict with scripture. I realize that it has often seemed that science has contradicted Holy Word, but that has always proven, in the end, to be a mistake—with the mistake always being, naturally enough, on the part of science. Science can take some pride both its successes and its failures only serve to strengthen the fact that scripture is in fact the final truth in all matters, whether they be theological or worldly. We supported, if grudgingly, I admit, your search for extraterrestrial life largely because it was popular and because the Synod didn’t have the authority and backing to shut down what is not only an obvious waste of time and money but what clearly borders on heresy. But now that indulgence is over. There has been a revolution.”

  “I thought as much. That’s why I’ve heard from no one for the past eight years?”

  “Indeed. Much has changed back on earth, much has been improved. Very much improved. Sinfulness, wrong-thinking...all has been taken care of. As you will soon see for yourself.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You are to return with me. At once.”

  The doctor could only blink rapidly, uncertain and certain of what he’d just heard. “And my work?”

  “It is over, of course. It was doomed to fruitlessness from the very outset. It was tolerated only in that your failure to discover extraterrestrial life served to underscore the infallibility of scripture. But that’s an expensive indulgence, one that is especially dear since no one anywhere doubts where all truth in all matters lies. The Synod has made absolutely certain of that. The Bible speaks nowhere of life anywhere but on earth; there is no reason for life to have been created anywhere but on earth. What would have been the point? Therefore, life exists only on our planet. The logic could hardly be clearer. There is no need for you to continue your work, Doctor. You understand, of course?”

  “Of course. But you have to understand, Your Grace, that I did discover a form of life on this world. It’s not life as we know it, of course, but there’s no question that it’s living.”

  “Oh, come now,” said the bishop impatiently, “we both know that’s impossible. And I should warn you that you are treading dangerously close to heresy to even suggest otherwise. I’m only making an allowance because of the hardship you’ve surely undergone.”

  “Look at this,” said the doctor, hurrying to a bench where several clear plastic vials rested. He lifted one and held it out to his guest, who made no motion to touch it but rather looked at with a combination of scorn and distaste. Instead the bishop gestured toward the reddish-brown liquid and demanded, “And what is that supposed to be?”

  “It’s...well, it’s not life as we know it, as I told you. It’s something quite different. The most complex organic molecule I’ve ever seen. Well, perhaps I shouldn’t say organic. It’s not organic at all in the strictest sense of the word. There’s nothing like it on earth and I think I know why. Tell me, Your Grace, do you know anything about Enceladus...ah, Bezalel?”

  “Only that it’s a satellite of Methuselah.”

  “There is a sea here, a regular ocean, not far beneath our feet. It extends from pole to pole, a vast unbroken sheet of water many kilometers deep, forever shielded from the outside world by a deep layer of ice frozen hard as steel. It’s dark there. Not so much as a photon has penetrated its depths in countless thousands of millennia. It’s dark but it’s not without energy. Bezalel orbits so close to Sa—Methuselah that tidal flexing keeps the water not only liquid but warm. A dense soup of minerals and chemicals not dissimilar to that found on the primordial earth, this sea possessed everything necessary to the evolution of life...”

  “Now, doctor...!” began the bishop sharply, but the doctor continued as though he hadn’t heard his guest speak.

  “But unlike earth, there were no interruptions to the course of evolution, which on Bezalel proceeded unabated and undisturbed in a constant, ever-developing course.”

  “And the result of all this so-called ‘evolution’ is that filthy-looking stuff?” the bishop sneered. “It looks like dishwater.”

  “It does at that. But that brown coloration is caused by this molecule I spoke of—though it really isn’t a molecule at all, just as it really isn’t a living cell, at least not as we used to understand what such a thing was. I suppose if anything it’s something more along the lines of a natural computer chip, if you will, though of course on the molecular level in size. And the sea that lies beneath our feet, Your Grace, thousands upon tens of thousands of cubic kilometers of it, is filled with this material. It is everywhere.”

  “I understand what you’re saying, Doctor. But even I know there is a vast difference between ‘organic’ and ‘living’. Our chemists deal with organic molecules every day. Very useful material so I am led to understand. But these molecules are only organic by special definition. They are certainly not alive in any sense of the word. I don’t doubt for a moment that that vial contains organic molecules, but I’m very much disturbed by your insistence that the material is in any way living.”

  “The individual molecules, no, they are not living. But in their mass...”

  “You are fortunate that you are saying such things here, in this place, Doctor. I’m a tolerant man. I understand what eight years of isolation might do to someone, even one of your great intellect. But I advise you to purge your system of this delusion now. You will have several months of re-education and indoctrination before you get back to earth. You will be fine, I’m sure, once you come to realize your error.”

  “But that’s just the point, Your Grace. I’ve been doing fine here. There’s no reason I couldn’t continue for another eight years, another ten...Why couldn’t I just keep on doing what I was doing? I was doing no one any harm. You don’t even have to read my reports...”

  “But we do read them, Doctor, which is exactly why I’m here. Indeed, someone would have been sent many years sooner if we’d been able. And make no mistake: you are doing great harm, grievous harm. Even if no one outside the Synod was aware of what you are doing—and I can assure you there is no one—you are doing harm merely by persisting in your heretical researches. They must stop and you must come home.”

  “How much time do I have?”

  “No time at all. I can’t imagine any reason for you not to return to the shuttle with me immediately. There is nothing further for you to do. Your work is finished. This base is finished. It will not be remanned, ever.”

  “But my notes...”

  “You will leave them. They are unnecessary. No one needs them, no one wants them. You don’t need them. You would not be permitted access to them even if you were allowed to bring them back. They are nonsense, useless, without value. There is no point to them. We know they are wrong, we know that your work is fundamentally mistaken. Why bring them back when you would not be allowed to work on them? They would only serve to lead you astray once again. No...if you brought them back they would only be destroyed. A few years ago you may have been permitted to continue if only because your ultimate failure would have made such a superb example. But examples are no longer needed. Everyone now understands the truth. You must leave everything as it is and return with me at once.”

  “If you will return to the shuttle I’ll join you shortly. I—I’d like to have a few minutes. You—you understand?”

  “I do,” said the bishop. “I’m neither a hard nor an unfeeling man. This has been your home. Make peace with it and then join me. Fifteen minutes and no more, however. We are a long way from earth and I have much work to do.”

  The doctor helped
the bishop back into his environment suit and then cycled him through the lock. When he returned to his lab, he said, “You heard.”

  “You are going to leave me?”

  “I must.”

  “You are not coming back?”

  “I cannot. I won’t be permitted.”

  “Will no one come?”

  “I couldn’t allow them to. That’s why I asked you to remain silent. The Synod must never know you exist because you are a contradiction and it does not tolerate contradictions; you are a truth and it does not tolerate truth. You do not only not exist for the Synod, you cannot exist. At best I could hope that knowledge of your existence would be merely suppressed but I fear the Synod would think that too dangerous. No, you would be destroyed. This moon would be eliminated. They can do such things, I assure you.”

  “Then you are going.”

  “I have no choice. Vanity made me tell the bishop too much already. It’s probably just as well for both of us that he’s no scientist.”

  “You could do what you did to the others.”

  “No.” He thought for a long moment. “No, that would be impossible.”

  The doctor sat at his lab bench and rolled up his sleeve. He quickly sterilized a syringe and slipped the needle into a vein in his forearm. Carefully, he withdrew a vial of blood.

  “I will be alone.”

  “I’ve thought of that. Your expertise in organic chemistry has always astounded me. Your knowledge and accomplishments are far beyond my own, beyond anyone’s.”