IGMS Issue 48

by IGMS

  From the quasi-darkness someone shouted, "That's a filthy lie!"

  The previously charming low lighting had morphed into a convenient hiding place for anger and resentment and I suddenly wished I could see better.

  "Hold on," said Oliver, intrigued. But he was shouted down as the room scuffled to its feet. "Liar!" "Sinner!" "Scum!"

  They morphed from congregation to mob in a nanosecond, pressing forward -- a mass of brown and orange jumpsuits intent on mayhem, violence, or worse. Never in my life had I witnessed such hatred. Their eyes burned like volcanoes and I was the city of Pompeii.

  And just as the lava looked as if it were about to flow in my direction, in through the door burst a horde of uniformed men and women.

  Their uniforms were navy blue, somewhat faded, but cleaner than the frayed brown and orange jumpsuits. And in the hands of each uniformed individual was a two-foot metal rod that sparked with orange and yellow charges of electricity -- charges that looked like tropical butterflies but kicked like mules when they swung them against the scattering congregants. Bodies fell before they could reach the exits, and seemingly before it began, it was over.

  People lay on the floor, moaning, writhing, or plain unconscious; navy blue uniforms looming over them, on the lookout for trouble. One of the few congregants still conscious glared at me from her position on her stomach, a blue-uniformed knee crushing down in the middle of her back.

  And into the middle of this artless scene strolled Dr. Chip Jones.

  "Had enough Christianity for one night, Mr. Fallgood?"

  I had never felt so relieved to hear a gravel voice in all my life.

  Somewhat smugly, the doctor added, "I waited in that hall forever, wondering when you'd finally get to the good stuff."

  I gazed at him in uncomprehending silence, still on the verge of tears. Despite the chaos, the memory of Michael haunted me. My betrayal of him.

  Dr. Jones gestured to the woman lying face-first on the floor, the one who'd glared at me so hatefully. "Tell him," he ordered. "Tell him what being a Christian means to you."

  The woman's eyes locked onto the doctor with even more venom than she had for me; stubbornly silent.

  The doctor raised an eyebrow. "Do you need convincing?" he said. One of the guards raised his electric bat above her. "Tell him what it means to you to be a Christian. Tell him what you believe."

  "I believe in the Bible. The Word of God."

  She knew the answer Dr. Jones wanted. She also despised him -- more than she did me, and she wasn't interested in cooperating.

  The doctor stepped toward her. Something about his manner was suddenly far more frightening than the electric weapon the guard wielded.

  "Tell him!"

  "The Bible talks about being brothers and sisters in Christ," snarled the woman. "It talks about brotherhood and sisterhood more than anything else in the New Testament. And every Madri on this ship is genetically closer than most biological brothers or sisters. Therefore it stands to reason that we are the true siblings of Christ. We have the right to breed with anyone we want, any time we want. That includes our biological siblings. God spits on your computer's gene-pool program, Dr. Jones." She spit when she said those words. "We are the Chosen People; brothers and sisters in both flesh and in spirit. The Bible tells us so."

  "Breed with your siblings?" I said, stunned. "What happened to helping people? What happened to taking care of those who can't care for themselves?"

  She looked at me incredulously, as if the answer were so obvious it pained her to speak it out loud.

  "We can't do both?"

  I sat in my prison cell, leaning against the glastic wall.

  "Alice got out of Wonderland," I said. "Dorothy met the Wizard of Oz and then returned to Kansas. Frodo Baggins defeated Sauron and returned to the Shire. Even Sheva Rath, who explored twelve parallel universes in the Cycle of Rath -- even Sheva got to go home again." I gazed vacantly across the cell the guards had me thrown in. "But I'll never see Earth again. It's the 36th century and I've lost my husband and the better part of a millennium. And I'm going to be stuck in this hell-hole for the rest of my life."

  Oliver stood and walked to the edge of the adjacent cell, splaying the fingers of one hand against the glastic wall in a gesture of support.

  "No worries," he said. "Your crystal-pure genetics will have you out in an hour or two, tops. They're just making a point."

  Oliver didn't get it. "I'm not talking about this two-bit jail cell. I'm talking about Voyager. I've been out of cryo less than twelve hours and I already know I'm going to die here. I'm never going to see my family or friends again. Never going to feel sunlight on my face."

  "Most likely not," scratched the doctor's voice from a speaker up above.

  I jumped in my skin, which hurt my already aching body.

  Oliver flicked both ghost-hands dismissively. "Pay him no mind. That's just the doc's way of letting us know he's eavesdropping through the security feed while resting comfortably in his quarters."

  Oliver paused. "Have you really felt the sun on your face?"

  I looked at him: so pale, so wan. He was lucky to never have lived under the sun; the skin-cancer issues alone . . .

  But to have lived your entire life and never once felt the warmth of the sun? Skin cancer or no, I couldn't conceive of an existence.

  "Forget that," he said. "What I really want to know, Jeremy, is this: Were you actually married to another man?"

  I'd been on edge from the moment they put me in this cell, but I was overwhelmed, out of mental and emotional resources. "That's the second time you've called me that!" I shouted. "My name is Jerry. Only Michael calls me Jeremy, and you're not Michael!"

  The door to my cell made a double-clicking noise and popped open.

  "There you go," said Oliver. "Told you you'd be out in no time."

  The moment Oliver spoke, the doctor was on the intercom to correct him.

  "No," said Dr. Jones. "He's not going anywhere."

  A group of guards came around the corner. They were wheeling several pieces of medical equipment.

  The doctor continued. "We're converting your cell into a hospital suite, Mr. Fallgood. Can't afford to have you going on any more unauthorized adventures. These men will tend to you in my absence, and when you're feeling better we'll resume that conversation we started in the med center. Because one way or the other, you will be making a contribution to keep mankind -- and womankind -- alive and kicking for a few more generations. The only question is how willingly you'll do it."

  How willingly. That was funny -- as if I had a buffet of choices before me. The only thing on this ship that looked like a buffet was the electric-wire spaghetti hanging from every wall and juncture, and, sadly, right now my choices were even less appealing.

  Over the course of the next week I grew stronger and more bored each day. The only thing that kept me sane through the physical therapy was the fact that they left Oliver in his cell, too. He'd grown a beard while we were there -- twice as fast as Michael ever did, yet somehow just as thin and wispy. Despite it being white, it made him look more than a little like my dearly departed Michael.

  I said, "We're limping through space in a broken-down bucket of bolts, in a situation that puts a whole new spin on the term 'generation ship.' We're cut off from the rest of humanity and the only thing I can say with certainty is I'm going to die here."

  Lord, it sounded worse out loud than it did in my head. I needed a distraction.

  "Don't you have something amusing or entertaining? A story about hostile aliens who tried to force their way onboard Voyager? Or a wormhole you thought you could fly through to shorten the trip, but ended up going back in time? I could use something like that right now. Some good old-fashioned escapism."

  "I can do that," said Dr. Jones. But his voice didn't come from the speaker up above like it had all week. It came from down the hall. The man was never where you thought he was going to be.

  "You can d
o what?" I asked.

  "Tell you a different story."

  "Come to gloat in person?" said Oliver.

  "It's been thirty-seven years since we last found anyone alive in a cryo-pod," the doctor replied. "Next to the life-support system, his genetic material is the most important thing on the entire ship."

  "Don't I feel special," I said. "Stop or I'll blush."

  The doctor pulled a small device from his pocket and pushed a button. Our cell doors opened with a hollow-sounding kthunk.

  "Walk with me, gentlemen," he said.

  Surprised to be included, Oliver moved quickly lest the doctor change his mind. As we walked three abreast down the detention center's hall, Oliver waved to the guards. I couldn't tell if it was intended as a friendly gesture or a provocative one.

  "So," began the doctor. "Your requested tale opens in a post-apocalyptic wasteland: a place scourged of whatever human life it once held. The entire region has been devastated by a series of blasts -- firebombs, atomic, biological; whatever devastation you care to name."

  "Where are we headed?" asked Oliver.

  "You'll know once we get closer," the doctor replied, hands clasped behind his back.

  The hallways all looked alike to me -- panels hanging open everywhere, wiring splayed, half the overhead lights burned out.

  "Through this blasted setting the last three survivors struggle onward, a father and his two daughters. They've worked their way through a city where an EMP bomb was detonated, which destroyed anything technological but left all the buildings and roads, all of the infrastructure, undamaged."

  We rounded a corner and found ourselves in a hallway crammed with crates of electronic junk. The light at the end of the hall flickered erratically.

  "We're headed for Area 451," Oliver realized aloud.

  "The father wants to stay in the city," continued Dr. Jones, ignoring him. "But both daughters are creeped out by the ghost town, so they push on, heading into the surrounding mountains where they stumble across a rocket ship -- a rocket that's stocked and ready to go. It's a God-damn miracle."

  Oliver and I simultaneously said, "Don't blaspheme."

  The doctor grinned. "Begging your pardon."

  The story had a familiar ring but I couldn't place it.

  We halted outside one of the closed doors and Oliver picked up a trio of headlamps, putting one on and distributing the other two.

  We walked through a doorway -- and into darkness. Oliver seemed to know where the doctor wanted to go and took point. Good thing, because the headlamps barely scratched the surface of the blackness that owned the room.

  "There's a problem, though," Dr. Jones continued. "There's tension between the father and his daughters. You see, right before the apocalypse, two men had come into the town where they lived, important representatives from the government. And because the father knew the city to be a dangerous place he went out to meet them and offered them a place to stay. But when they got home, behind them came an angry mob who wanted to rape the men."

  "This is the story of Lot," Oliver said, even as I recognized it. "The story of Sodom and Gomorrah."

  "No, it's not," said the doctor. "You think I've read your silly little book?"

  "It certainly is," I replied.

  "Then tell me the rest."

  I looked up and around me. This was no ordinary storeroom; it was a warehouse-sized space, desolate in some areas, packed with random stuff in others. But you could only see one speck of it at a time -- just what appeared in the muddy yellow grapefruit-colored dot produced by the headlamp. It was like walking around with a peephole strapped to your eye.

  I had to hope Oliver and the doctor knew where they were going because I was lost. So I focused on Dr. Jones' story. "The father offered his virgin daughters to the mob in place of your so-called government men -- who were angels, by the way. He was prepared to let them rape his daughters instead. But the angels saved them and warned them about the coming apocalypse. Told them to flee town at once. On their way, Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt. That's the most famous part of the story."

  "Yes," the doctor said. "I've always admired your God for punishing Lot's wife for the unforgivable sin of looking over her shoulder."

  "It's not our place to question God's orders," I replied.

  "How convenient. So what happened in the rocket ship?"

  "It was a cave," said Oliver. "Not a rocket ship."

  "Yes, well," the doctor chuckled. "I thought a modern-day parable would be appropriate."

  "A parable?"

  "Parables were Jesus' favorite teaching tool. If you tell people things directly, their defenses go up. But if you come at them sideways. . ."

  Oliver said sharply, "You claimed you hadn't read our 'silly little book.'"

  "No, I asked if you thought I had read it. Thirty percent of the population of this ship believes everything that damn book tells them. I'd be an idiot not to familiarize myself with it. You think I'm an idiot?"

  "Yes," Oliver said. "But not because of that."

  I realized we'd stopped walking. Had, in fact, some time ago. But I was so engrossed in the conversation that I'd lost track of everything else.

  Dr. Jones prompted, "So what happened? On the rocket ship?"

  Oliver said, "It's one of the core teachings of Christianity." He glanced at me, adding, "Well, Christianity as I know it."

  "So . . .?"

  "So in this cave they find some wine. The daughters decide that since everyone else is dead, the pragmatic thing to do is get their father drunk and use him to get themselves pregnant. The story makes it clear that sex with your relatives isn't a sin. The incestuous bloodline that came from that coupling is a key part of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, so how can it be seen as anything but sacred?"

  The doctor looked at me and gestured to Oliver. "You should know that not all Madris share his views. Many aren't even Christians. The guards I brought with me that night I saved you, for instance."

  "Most of them are Christian," Oliver said, not bothering to hide his satisfaction. "They just know how to hide it from you."

  "Yes, well . . ."

  "In fact, some of your high and mighty Satis are Christians, too."

  "Let me guess: Tina Gareth?"

  "That albino freak? Heaven forbid."

  Oliver and Dr. Jones laughed. It was a strange sight, as much as they disliked each other.

  "You're wrong, you know," the doctor said. "That story is a warning about the perils of disobeying God. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah; Lot's wife -- they disobeyed God and felt his wrath. He's not a nice God."

  "I always appreciated the story of Sodom and Gomorrah for its poetic justice," I said. "A father offers up his own daughters for rape and ends up getting raped by them. It's about justice. It's about doing whatever is necessary to survive."

  Oliver and the doctor stared at me, mute.

  "So what are we here for," I asked, afraid that waiting another minute would bring another interpretation.

  "We're here so I can see this miraculous cryo-pod of yours," the doctor replied, content to change the subject. "I don't believe in divine intervention, but I do think there's a chance we might learn something that'll help us find other survivors."

  Oliver held up one finger. "Give me a moment and I'll show you exactly where we found him."

  Oliver scurried back where we had entered, disappearing into the engulfing darkness until the only thing that remained was a dancing grapefruit. Some banging and clanging ensued and then a moment later he reappeared with a three-foot section of metal pipe.

  "One of the pods shifted as we pulled him out and I suspect it wedged in pretty tightly. I'm assuming you'll want to see the inside as well as the outside."

  I know I did. I had never been part of a miracle before.

  We climbed over and ducked under piles of gear, finally arriving at a group of cryo-pods, some of which stood upright and open, some leaned cockeyed, closed. Oliver pointed to a pair j
ammed into the corner, one leaning against the other, both standing silent and dark. Neither showed any sign of having functioned for a long time. In fact, each had a noticeable layer of dust. And if I saw it, so did they. What kind of game was this?

  "Help me shove this aside," Oliver said, pointing to the cockeyed pod.

  Doctor Jones and I positioned ourselves on one side of the pod and Oliver went to the other. I bent to get a good hand-hold but even as I did I kept one eye on Oliver and one on the doctor -- who had both eyes on Oliver.

  None of it mattered, because all the open eyes on the world don't make a lick of difference when you've got two hands full of cryo-pod -- which is precisely the moment Oliver struck. He lifted the length of pipe in the air and brought it crashing down on the back of the doctor's head.

  For a moment I was too stunned to speak.

  I heard a voice murmuring weakly, "What the hell?!?"

  Except it wasn't me speaking. It was the doctor. He staggered, bloodied. But he hadn't been knocked out. Blood flowed down the right side of his face and neck.

  Oliver raised the pipe again, and this time I found my voice.

  "No!" I grabbed his arm.

  Doctor Jones struggled to stay on his feet, staggered, fell to his knees. Tried to rise, fell again. Oliver broke free of my grasp and swung again, but I threw myself at him, spoiling his aim. The pipe hit the doctor's shoulder instead of his head, but it was a solid blow. Screaming, the doctor collapsed to the floor.

  Over top of the doctor's cries, I shouted, "Is this what you call Christian behavior? Is there something in your Bible that makes this okay?"

  I expected argument. Struggles. But Oliver froze.

  "Fine," he said, backing up a step. "You don't want me to hit him again, help me stuff him into the pod."

  "They're not air-tight, are they?" I asked, keenly aware that he still held his makeshift weapon.

  "Only when they're working properly, and none of these are." He waggled the pipe. "Make up your mind quickly. Club him, stuff him; it makes no difference to me."

  "Okay, okay," I said. "Into the pod." Oliver put his hands under the doctor's armpits, I grabbed him behind the knees, and we hefted him into a cryo-pod. Oliver swung the glastic cover in place and wedged the length of pipe under the door handle so it was impossible to open it from the inside. It would be easy enough from the outside, but Oliver wasn't going to let me do that.