The other people that she avoided discussing her beliefs with were the dedicated atheists. Being a Medical Doctor and scientist herself Julie had spent a lot of time around this type of crusader and could never really understand their insistence that the idea of God and science couldn’t coexist. To Julie, evolution and mathematics helped explain the mechanics of God’s miracles and the revelations of quantum physics were giving new insight into His creation. Who’s to say that the very act of truly believing you won’t perish after physical death isn’t the quantum requirement to accomplish it? Perhaps believing in a certain way, Christianity for example, is what would unite those spiritual beings in that afterlife. The mysteries of quantum physics are surprisingly compatible with this idea and if it were true then the penalty for non-belief could be nonexistence, or at best a lonely lost soul wondering the cosmos eternally alone – and wouldn’t that be a kind of Hell? Every revelation, every new scientific discovery gave Julie new respect, admiration, and sometimes awe for the Creator.
She found the Reverend Dr. Charles Rohn in his quarters. He invited her in and bade her to sit down while he poured coffee for them both.
Rev. Rohn was a quiet unassuming man who had risen near the top of his relatively small Neo Christian denomination not because of any maneuvering on his part but because he was honest, dedicated, and had no political ambitions. Therefore he was politically safe to all factions inside the church. He suspected, rightly so, that this was also the main reason he’d been selected for this mission and assigned to General Nesbit’s HQ group. He’d been very surprised when the government agents first knocked on his door, and totally unsurprised that since then, with the possible exception of General Nesbit himself, he had been totally ignored by the mission leadership.
Having said that, he was a sincere man in his beliefs and potential consequences aside he was excited to be on this journey of discovery.
Julie wasn’t sure what the doctrine of the Neo Christian church was other than it was listed as nondenominational, but she had some thoughts she wanted to give voice to and it would be nice to do it with someone that could at least follow along and hopefully offer insight.
“Rev. Rohn, do you think the Christian churches back on earth will accept that the Noridians and others we share a genetic ancestry with are human?”
“I don’t know, but I hope so.
“Dr. Schein, you have identified what I consider to be my mission imperative – to find an answer for that question and return to Earth with it… are the Noridians also the Children of God?
“The Noridians,” he continued. “Have given me access to their theological history and although they are dogmatically atheist I think there is enough information about other societies to piece together a galactic spiritual history of sorts.”
“They’ve given you that much access?” a surprised Julie asked.
“I don’t think they feel it is an area of importance,” he responded with a grin.
“At any rate I’ve barely begun and I have a tremendous amount of research ahead of me, but I am hopeful to find enough common ground to put forth that doctrine. I can only hope and pray that others see it the same way. I suspect, unfortunately, that it may well depend on the nature of our relationship with the Noridians. If it goes the way many here at HQ are suggesting and we welcome them as friends of earth then I don’t expect it to be much of a problem.”
“What about the Creation stories in the Bible; Adam and Eve?”
“There will definitely be some that resist any new ideas and they’ll be the ones I suspect that will have the most difficulty. My experience Julie is that most people simply adapt. I don’t claim to know all the faces of God and I certainly can’t claim to know His plan. I don’t think however that this will spell doom for Christianity. If anything I hope it opens us up a new era of belief.”
”Reverend,” Julie said carefully. “If the Chextigans really did tamper with our DNA and create Homo sapiens that doesn’t seem to me to be a small matter of interpretation. It seems like a direct conflict with The Bible.”
“The thing is Julie,” he replied after a moment. “We’ve gone through this before.”
Julie couldn’t help her questioning look.
With a smile he continued, “For decades science has pointed to the Book of Genesis to ‘prove’ that science and God cannot coexist. Many Christians were content to accept the six day creation story as an allegory while a smaller subset insisted that science was wrong and that it literally took six days to create the heavens and the Earth. It looks like a direct conflict but it turns out that both opinions were correct.
“It’s all about frames of reference and gets into Einstein’s Laws of Relativity but basically we Christians believe that God created the heavens and the earth. Therefore God’s frame of reference is from outside of the Big Bang – that initial explosion that created the universe. Man’s reference by definition must be from ‘inside’ the event itself. How long it took depends upon where you were standing, so to speak. Looking at the event from the ‘outside’ it only took six days for the universe to form into the state of matter and energy that we see today. From the ‘inside’ however time was moving at a much more accelerated rate and took close to a half billion years.
“Most people are comfortable with the idea that if you were travelling at the speed of light time is different for those on the spaceship than for those back on Earth, but Einstein showed us that not only speed but gravity and the expansion of space itself also affect time.
“There are a relatively large number of physicists, some of them very prominent, whom have done the calculation using the speed of light as a standard for measure. They all essentially agree on the timelines; even to the point of calculating that when God said ‘Let there be light’ it matches up with the point at which the Big Bang’s matter and energy had cooled and expanded enough for light to escape the gravity of the Big Bang itself.”
Julie was surprised; she’d never heard this before.
“Why don’t more people know about this?” she asked.
The Reverend replied with a sigh, “It’s not for me to say. I think the explanation is very technical but I also believe that there will always be those that oppose Christianity. I’ve always found it ironic that while some scientists scoff at the idea of having faith they expect others to believe in scientific and mathematical principals that are over their heads. So I guess it’s ok for people to have faith in science they can’t understand but it’s not ok for them to have faith in a Creator we can’t understand.
“My point is,” he continued. “That conflicts like how long it took God to make the Heavens and the Earth only seem to be conflicts because of our lack of understanding. Who’s to say that the Chextigans weren’t part of God’s plan and who’s to say that time won’t bear that out?”
“Rev. Rohn, what I need to be most concerned with right now is the amount of religious violence this whole mission could spawn. I’m worried that globally there could be many churches that don’t want to be flexible in their dogma for fear of shaking the Faithfull’s vision of God.”
After a moment Rev. Rohn thoughtfully responded, “I understand your fear Julie but think about this; everyone assumes that what we discover among the stars will further test our belief, but what if it’s just the opposite? What if we discover reasons to strengthen our faith? I personally believe that the harder and farther we look the more reasons we’ll find to believe in Him.”
It was at that moment Dr. Sullivan contacted Julie and asked her to assist him in the HQ Hub.
“Reverend, find a way to get that message out. I’m afraid that you have a terrible burden on your shoulders – when we return to earth you may be giving the most important sermons of your life.”
Rev. Dr. Charles Rohn accepted Julie’s words with a smile and as she left his quarters she was thinking that on purpose or not Earth’s governments had selected the right person for the job.
Chapter 22
“You’re just using me for sex,” I said as I watched Hiromi dress.
“Does this truth bother you?” she asked.
The truth was it didn’t bother me at all. She wasn’t trying to claim me, own me, or control me. I know she enjoyed me and liked me just as I liked and respected her. It was also kind of fun; never knowing if someone was going to end up in my bed when I turned off the lights each night.
It was very early morning and as usual she was leaving before anybody else awoke.
Many years ago I had learned that unless a woman had decided that YOU’RE THE ONE they usually appreciated a man being discrete. Even back in college while all my buddies were busy bragging about their conquests I think I actually had some relationships just because women knew I’d be discrete – at least one female friend had admitted as much.
“You know,” I said. “Only a beautiful ninja, samurai, SDF warrior could make scars look sexy. I think it must be something about the danger of you losing control during an orgasm and tearing me limb from limb that excites me.”
Hiromi suddenly sat down on the edge of my bed and placed her hand softly on my chest.
“Mark, for such a smart guy you’re pretty stupid when it comes to figuring yourself out. You’re fun to be with and we don’t want an emotional attachment but I don’t think you’d recognize your soul mate if you worked with her every day.”
Not exactly sure where she was heading with the conversation, I felt an urge to explain myself.
“Look Hiromi, with me it’s real simple. I love women.”
When her expression didn’t change I went on. “I love everything about women; from their nurturing and empathetic nature to their aggressiveness to be taken seriously. I especially love the female form; the curves on the back of your calf, the shape of your butt, even the lines of a woman’s shoulders and neck. And the really best part is that no two women are the same – or at least they’re usually not.” I said wistfully.
“Some women have breasts that are pert and strong that I love massaging and kissing while others are heavy enough that I can put my hands underneath and cradle the weight. Some women can arch their back in an unbelievable way and did I ever tell you how sexy a woman’s feet can be?” I said seriously.
I’m not sure why but I really wanted her to understand.
“What I like most though is being inside a woman. That sense of filling her with pleasure. That faint little gasp when I first slip inside her. Watching you squirm and writhe as I make love to you is important to me. And then the tensing of muscles and curling of toes when a woman just can’t take it anymore and gets overwhelmed with pleasure.”
“Call me a dog if you want Hiromi but the truth is I just love women.”
“I don’t curl my toes,” Hiromi laughed.
“Yes you do. I’ve seen you.”
Hiromi kissed me on the forehead and stood to leave. “All the things you just said are things I know and love about you Mark but there is going to come a day when you find a woman you don’t want to share or let go of; someone that without trying will demand your true love. I just hope that you’ll be able to recognize those feelings inside yourself in time to make it work.”
As she started to leave she paused and said over her shoulder, “Also, you should know me well enough by now to know that I don’t lie; I don’t curl my toes.”
∆∆∆
General Nesbit was dead.
We found out from Captain Silva about three hours before Colonel Memphis made an evening statement on our smartpads.
At about the same time that Silva was giving his report Julie had also learned the news from Dr. Sullivan. We had gathered in Major Reagan’s quarters along with Anzio, Toni, Dr. Decker, and Captain Hiromi. I don’t think anyone really trusted Decker and no one was talking out of school but he’d been with me when an obviously upset Julie found me.
“According to Dr. Sullivan,” Julie was explaining. “The general has suffered from arterial bleeding in the brain; it was a massive cerebral hemorrhage. It goes along with the reasons the Noridians were giving for his slow recovery.”
“Why couldn’t they prevent it?” Dr. Decker asked. “With their technology I would have thought they could have caught it immediately and at least mitigated the damage.”
Several of us looked at each other, unsure if we should voice our real fear.
Finally Major Reagan spoke up, “We may never know the reason for that but we have to move on and ask ourselves how this affects the mission.”
I made a mental note that Dr. Decker seemed truly effected by the general’s death; which was in a weird way relieving considering all of the conspiracy theories I was juggling in my head.
Captain Silva took up the thread, “In practical terms it doesn’t change much. Colonel Memphis has been in charge since the general first fell ill so not much changes there, and we still have our excursion tomorrow that could be very informative.”
Our 3rd Platoon had been notified this morning that we would be visiting a planet that Noridia had befriended thousands of years ago and that we would be free to talk to its people about what it was like to work with them and to become a part of the Noridian culture.
Captain Silva continued, “I think we should be more concerned about the psychological effect”.
“There are also the political ramifications,” I interjected. “General Nesbit was by nature a cautious man but Colonel Memphis already seems to be gung-ho on trusting the Noridian’s completely.
“At least it seems that way to me. What is your take on it Dr. Decker?”
Yes, I know I was pushing him but I wanted to get a better feel for what he was thinking. Judging from how everybody shifted their attention to him and awaited his answer I don’t think I was the only one.
“I… I think that’s a fair statement,” he responded. “I understand Colonel Memphis’ and Dr. Helmer’s excitement about what the Noridians can give to us but I know that I have a lot of questions that no one seems to have answers to.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“I’m not sure this is the right place to go into it,” he said while looking around at all of us.
Without hesitation Major Reagan spoke up and said, “Dr. Decker, this is exactly the right place. What are your concerns?”
After a very long pause Dr. Tony Decker took a breath and said, “Ok, I don’t think the Noridian’s are leveling with us, at least not completely.”
When we didn’t say anything he went on.
“Look, why are we on this mission; or more precisely, why do the Noridian’s want to take us on this tour? We’ve been so anxious to see the big wide universe that nobody’s stopped to ask why the Noridians would want to play tour guide.
“Everything we’ve seen, everything we’ve learned could have been done on earth – probably a lot faster and with far less resources involved than building a ship.
“Another thing… Why can’t we communicate with earth? I know they tell us that in our mode of travel instant communications like that are not possible, but there had to have been opportunities when we slowed down or stopped to launch the excursion. Maybe there’s a good explanation for it but it doesn’t make sense to me.”
He took a deep breath and continued. “The only thing that does make sense is if they wanted us isolated. They’re making a giant sales pitch and they want time alone with us so that Earth’s best and brightest will return totally sold and singing their message.”
In a quieter voice he added, “I’m just not sure yet what that message is.”
Well, who’d have thunk it? The arrogant scientist that seemed to make a point of being a pain in the rear had seen the obvious that all of us had missed and by himself put the pieces together to reach a similar conclusion as we did collectively.
Like usual, Major Reagan knew how to best handle the situation. “Dr. Decker,” he said as he stuck his hand out. “Welcome to a group of like-minded people.”<
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In a shallow way I think everyone felt relieved to have our fears validated by a third party. If other people were just as paranoid it might very well mean that we weren’t crazy. Of course, that’s totally ignoring the fact that it just validated that our whole species was in a lot of danger.
Julie and I though had all the confirmation we needed with the announcement of General Nesbit’s death. Earlier that morning after the breakfast announcement of our Platoon’s excursion we had taken a walk and she had paused in that uncomfortable dead-zone where the hallways connect with the hubs. I realized it was a brilliant precaution and I listened closely as she outlined her concern.
She explained her theory that the Noridians were purposely staging paradigm shifts to shape our groups opinions and mindset; something dramatic shakes us up, then we get the soothing sales pitch. She explained that unlike the last excursion tomorrow’s outing would be the proselytizing half of the equation and that if she was right…
Here Comes Earth: Emergence Page 14