“Interesting. Differential time flow?” Emmett said, thinking out loud. “So the planet has experienced time displacement, quasi-time, and now differential time.”
John waited, but Emmett was lost in his own head, thinking, weighing probabilities, trying to put it all together.
“Could it have anything to do with this?” John asked, pulling out the lead box with the sample brought back from the moon. “Elizabeth was handling this the night before she went into the passage.”
Emmett was thoughtful, stroking his closely cropped beard. “Might,” he said finally. “Maybe.”
Emmett turned to the keyboard behind him, and soon a new image replaced the moon dinosaur. The video was from the moon mission and shot from a helmet camera, the struggling tyrannosaur in the background. Center screen, an astronaut reached out with a long-handled pair of tongs. The tongs held black material. When it touched the smooth surface, the material blended with it.
“Is that stuff in the tongs, this?” John asked, holding up the lead box.
“Yes. Somehow the orgonic energy interacted with the nuclear explosion, altering the properties of the material.”
“If we made a spear out of this stuff, could I stab that tyrannosaur?”
“What?” Emmett asked. “Why?”
“Never mind,” John said. “I’m going to try going through that passage again, but this time with this.” John said, tapping the box.
“It could be a one-way trip,” Emmett said.
“The Visitors came and went,” John said.
“There may be reasons for that,” Emmett said. “We don’t know the conditions on the other side. The environmental conditions could have prepared the Visitors to pass through, but those same conditions may not affect you in the same way. Nick and Elizabeth haven’t returned.”
“It doesn’t matter,” John said. “I’m going.”
“What would Rosa think?” Emmett asked.
“She’s not going to know,” John said. “She would just worry.”
“What can I do to help?” Emmett asked.
“I need more of this,” John said, opening the box.
Twelve hours later, John was back on the Mills Ranch, with six marines. Fanny passed out cold bottles of Evian water and Godiva chocolate bars while Marty shook each marine’s hand.
“It’s a brave thing you’re doing,” Marty said, over and over.
“You can’t have enough water,” Fanny said, “and here’s something for a little extra energy when you need it,” handing out the cold chocolates. “I froze them so they’ll keep for a while.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” the marines replied, furtively checking out Fanny, who wore white short-shorts with a pink spaghetti-strap tank top.
“Thank you,” John said, taking his water and chocolate bar. “We need to go, Lieutenant.”
Lieutenant Sam Weller called his squad to order, and they walked to the collapsed barn. Lining up inside, Weller ordered his sergeant to come last. Weller would lead, and John would follow the lieutenant.
“Each of you take one of these,” John said, passing out sealed plastic bags. Inside each clear bag was a chunk of the material returned from the moon.
“Lucky charm?” Kelton asked.
“It’s your ticket home,” John said. “Don’t lose it.”
Without another word, the marines tucked their bags into pockets, closing and buttoning the flaps. Each marine also carried a pack, and a belt with water, radio, and ammunition clips. The marines wore tropical camouflage, the lightest fabric issued. None of the marines wore body armor, since it was engineered to stop lead projectiles, not six-inch, razor-sharp teeth.
“Let’s see if it works,” Weller said, duck-walking forward to the collapsed end of the barn. Pausing briefly, Weller looked in the opening, then got down on his hands and knees and crawled forward, disappearing into the dark. Not waiting, John followed him into the unknown.
29
The Reverend
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
—Genesis 1:26
Sixty-five Million Years Ago
Community Sanctuary
“This was my father’s office,” the reverend said, sitting behind the desk, leaning back in a dirty executive chair.
A thick layer of dust covered the desk, bookcases, side chairs, desk, and table lamp. Upholstered in cracked green leather, the chairs were a set. Nick sat in one, looking up high on the wall behind the reverend, where cracked stained-glass windows strained the midday sun.
“He was a preacher’s preacher,” Reverend continued. “A great man and a man of God, as all great men are.”
Reverend paused, waiting for an argument. Nick smiled.
“When God punished us for our sins and sent the dinosaurs to torment us, the people in my father’s congregation were spared because of his faithfulness. It was the world that took my father, leaving God’s work undone.”
“The world?” Nick asked.
“Murdered. Killed by a mob for the food he would have given them willingly. They took him before he fulfilled his mission. The day I buried him, I knew my calling—to finish the work God called my father to do.”
“I know you helped a lot of people. Fed women and children and gave them protection.”
“God did all that,” the reverend said dismissively. “I was only his hands.”
Nick liked most religious people. In his experience, they were gentle folks, worked hard, paid taxes, gave generously to charities and their church, and volunteered in their communities. Through their churches, or para-church organizations, they fed the poor, sheltered the homeless, and cared for the sick. Society was better off because of religion, and if religion did not exist, Nick would invent it to fill the resulting void. Overwhelmingly good citizens, they were nevertheless taken for granted by government and mocked by the media. However, Nick did not like all religious people he knew, and the worst of that lot were the manipulators, who took advantage of goodhearted people by exploiting their generous natures and lining their own pockets from the offering plate. Listening to Reverend, Nick found it hard to classify the dark-haired preacher, but the more he talked, the more Nick believed he was sincere in his beliefs, just woefully, and dangerously, wrong.
“Reverend, with all due respect, what the world experienced eighteen years ago was a disruption of time and space as a result of the explosion of fusion bombs in the fifties and sixties. It wasn’t God’s punishment that brought the dinosaurs back to the world, it was men’s stupidity.”
“What’s the difference?” Reverend asked, spreading his arms wide and smiling. “God often uses man to punish man.”
Even knowing it was useless, Nick pressed on. “What you see in the sky isn’t a sign from God, or any kind of holy fire; it is an asteroid and it is going to hit the planet and kill just about everything on it. You and your people will not survive. We know this because it already happened. We call it the K–T event, and the resulting mass extinction of dinosaurs made it possible for mammals to dominate the planet, and for humans to evolve.”
“Listen to you,” Reverend said, losing some of his smile. “You insist on propping up the theory of evolution when the evidence for creation is all around you.”
“Evidence?” Nick said.
“Evolutionists like you insist that dinosaurs and people never lived side by side, yet here we are.”
“But we’re here only because of an accident,” Nick said.
“God is no accident,” Reverend said.
Sinking in the quicksand of Reverend’s convoluted thinking, Nick slogged his way toward solid ground. “You can’t survive what is coming,” Nick said.
“Not without God’s help,” Reverend said. “But we have survived worse with God’s help.” Again, the reverend spread his arms, indicat
ing the existence of his father’s church as proof of God’s intervention.
“You haven’t survived anything like what’s coming,” Nick said.
“Dr. Paulson, your God is too small. Try kneeling before the God of the universe.”
“I’m agnostic,” Nick said, “but I respect your beliefs and would fight for your right to believe anything you wish. Reverend, I am telling you the truth, if you stay here, you and anyone who stays with you will die. If you want to continue to worship your god, you need to let me try to help you get back to our present.”
Reverend leaned forward, putting his hands flat on the desk. The old chair squeaked as he rocked forward. A condescending smile on his lips, Reverend said, “God is the path to salvation, in this world and the next.”
“Reverend, a rock ten kilometers in diameter is going to hit the Earth and leave a crater one hundred and eighty kilometers in diameter. The resulting explosion will be the equivalent of one hundred million megatons. That is ten thousand times the explosive power of all the nuclear weapons on the planet.”
“There are no nuclear weapons on the planet,” Reverend said, his smile back.
“You’re making jokes?” Nick asked indignantly. “When that space rock hits, it will vaporize the surface layer of the Earth and pulverize bedrock. The resulting acoustic wave will make the whole planet ring. Earth’s surface will ripple, dormant volcanoes will explode into life, and active volcanoes will erupt like nothing ever seen. Every crack in the mantle will seep magma, rivers of lava will flow like water. Ejecta will rain from the skies and the blast wave will level every tree and building. If you survive that, you’ll find yourself engulfed in a firestorm that will sweep the continent. Particulates will circle the globe for decades, and that will be the end of summer for years. If by some miracle you live through the initial destruction, you will starve to death.”
“By some miracle,” Reverend said, jumping on the phrase. “Exactly.”
Knowing it was useless, Nick changed tactics. “God gave us free will,” Nick said.
“Free to sin, free to repent,” Reverend said.
“Let me talk to your people and let them make their own choice.”
Reverend paused, his smile shrinking slightly; then the smile faded away. “Of course you can talk to them,” Reverend said. “This isn’t a prison, Dr. Paulson. These people are here by choice. I know you think I’m some sort of puppet master, controlling their lives, but what little control I have is because they gave their lives over to God and God has put them in my hands.”
Nick sensed the man’s sincerity, but knew also his sincerity would get them all killed.
“Do you read the Bible, Dr. Paulson?”
“I read it in college.”
“In the first chapter of Philippians, Paul writes something that may shock you. I know it shocked me when I read it. He says, ‘Some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so in love and the former out of selfish ambition. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached.’ So you see, Dr. Paulson, ultimately my motives don’t matter. I am preaching Christ to people who need to hear Christ’s message.”
“I don’t doubt your sincerity,” Nick said. “But I am just as sincere as you are, Reverend. That asteroid will destroy your Community.”
“If it is God’s will.”
“If God’s will is inevitable, then it is God’s will,” Nick said.
Reverend lowered his eyes, then slowly leaned back and sighed deeply. “Are you a prophet of God or Satan?” Reverend asked, and then held up his hand, stopping Nick’s answer. “Don’t answer. You’ll only deny there are spiritual forces at work, and if you don’t believe in God and Satan, you would be deaf to both voices.”
“I am speaking truth, doesn’t that mean I speak for God?” Nick said.
“Whether what you say is true or not, some killer space rock, no matter how big, is any match for the God who created the universe. If God wills it, God can save us.”
“We can save ourselves,” Nick said. “At least we can try.”
“Or we can trust God,” Reverend said.
“No offense, but I plan on giving God a hand in saving me.”
Reverend smiled and then chuckled. “God helps those who help themselves, eh?” Reverend said. “Did you know that’s not from the Bible? Ben Franklin said it, but no one remembers that. In truth, the opposite is true. God helps the helpless, and you don’t get much more helpless than a group of pampered people suddenly dropped into a forest teeming with killer beasts. Yet here we are.”
“But you’re not thriving, you’re just barely surviving, and there are fewer of you every year. This used to be a city with half a million people in it. Where have they gone?”
Looking genuinely sad, Reverend’s eyes moistened, and he cleared his throat before speaking. “Most of the buildings collapsed when we came here,” Reverend said, then cleared his throat again. “I can still hear the people inside begging for help. We helped those we could, but day by day we heard fewer cries for help, and then finally none. Then came the fires and plague and fighting—wars, really. Man’s sinful nature reared its ugly head, and the desperate killed the desperate, the strong the weak, the weak the weaker. Starvation took many, disease and exposure many more, and then there were the beasts. We had guns, but they are big and fast and hard to kill. I saved what people I could, and other men and women did God’s work too, but Satan was loose in the land and many fell to temptation. Then the demons came.”
“Demons?” Nick asked.
“Beasts in the guise of man,” Reverend said.
“What your people call Inhumans?”
“The same,” Reverend said. “They massacred the People of Martha who were farming a piece of land to the north. I took a hundred warriors to help them, but it was too late. The demons killed everyone: men, women, children. I even saw an infant dead in her mother’s arms.”
“Did you try talking to them?” Nick asked.
“Talk to animals? I’m not Doctor Doolittle,” Reverend said, finishing with a forced smile. “We wasted so much ammunition on the big beasts that we did not have enough for the demons. We killed many of them, yet they would not stop coming, them and their beasts.”
“Their beasts?” Nick said.
“Yes, the beasts have beasts,” Reverend said. “That is why I know they are demons, because they command the other beasts.”
“They’ve domesticated dinosaurs?” Nick asked.
Frowning, Reverend leaned forward again, spreading his hands on the desktop and then sighing. “Dr. Paulson, don’t go down that road. The Inhumans aren’t people, they aren’t cute, they aren’t like us in any way that you can imagine. God gave man dominion over the beasts, not them. The power they have over the great beasts must come from Satan because it does not come from God.”
Reverend stopped suddenly, eyes now bright, seeing something that Nick could not.
“Of course,” Reverend said, excited. “It makes sense now. That space rock that you think will destroy us was sent by God, but not to destroy God’s faithful, it was sent to destroy Satan’s minions.”
“Reverend, that asteroid is not going to discriminate,” Nick said, but he had lost the reverend.
Sitting tall now, his fixed smile back, confidence swelling, Reverend resumed his megalomaniacal persona. “Can’t you see the way your truth and my truth came together to give us God’s truth?” Reverend said, excited. “Some had speculated that the fire in the sky was an asteroid, but I knew God would not save us only to kill us. And I could not understand why God would tolerate the continued persecution of his people at the hands of demons. You brought me the answer, Dr. Paulson. God is coming to the aid of believers.”
Nick wanted to ask why God would not just sweep the Inhumans away, why God would use a blunt instrument like an asteroid, and why God would wait so long to destroy the Inhumans, but t
here was no chance. Reverend was a true believer. Retreating so deep into his worldview, there was no way to drag him back to reality.
“Reverend, we have little time. My friends and I need to find a way home. I’m willing to take any of your people who want to come with me.”
“Of course,” Reverend said, now brimming with confidence. “You can ask, but will they follow you?”
They found the Community celebrating, the horse and police officer the center of attention. Never having seen a real horse, children cautiously approached, touched Torino’s flank, and then scooted back, bragging to the others about their courage. Officer Conyers supervised, protecting her mount from rambunctious children and the children from any sudden moves Torino would make. The horse, however, munched happily on handfuls of grass, gathered by children.
Dr. Gah sat on the remains of a picnic table, leg stretched out, surrounded by middle-aged men and women and a few young adults, answering their questions about the world they had been ripped away from eighteen years ago. Carson Wills had his own worshippers: young women, mostly, with young men at the back of his circle, listening intently as Carson described his life in Florida. From the few snatches Nick heard, Carson’s life amounted to capturing rogue dinosaurs, driving fast cars, listening to rock music, drinking copious amounts of beer, and living with his hot girlfriend. Nick hoped Carson had the sense to stop talking as the reverend approached.
Ranger Wynooski stood in her own group, scolding the adults. “Look at these children,” Wynooski said. “They’re nothing but skin and bones. You folks aren’t looking much better. You need to put some meat on these kids.”
A big woman, and overweight, Wynooski was average in modern America, and the people of Reverend’s Community were thin, even emaciated, but tough from years of hard work. Every mouthful was hard earned, the calories it took to extract the food from the land little less than the food itself. Obesity was a luxury none could afford.
Jacob was holding his wife, Leah, their children bouncing around, hanging on the pant leg of their father, or trying to wedge between their parents. Seeing Jacob holding Leah, Nick thought of Elizabeth and punished himself for not spending enough time holding her.
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