"Please don't send me back," Viktor said, his hands waving helplessly, wanting to hold on to Gus to plead with him, but fearing to touch the angry-faced man. "I'm sorry I spit on you. I'm sorry I hurt Tanya. I was just so angry with myself, so frustrated ..." Tears started to stream down his thin, rawboned cheeks and off his small, pointed chin.
Gus let his face and shoulders relax, then finally said in a resigned tone of voice, "All right, Viktor. If Tanya will forgive you, I won't send you back." Then his face hardened again, and the deep-set steel-gray eyes were almost hidden in the crinkled crow's-feet arrows that formed. "But I must insist you finish this piece of research like a true scientist."
"I will! I will!" Viktor promised, sniffling heavily.
"You are responsible for the full scientific investigation and detailed reporting of all aspects of the finding of the alien. You will start by staying here with the technician team in their crawler, making sure nothing happens to the find. I will arrange for portable buildings and a long refrigerated hut to be sent out to hold the specimen. I will also arrange for xenobiologists to be sent by express transport from Earth. You are to stay out here on the ice at all times to work with and coordinate their efforts. Finally, you are responsible for the collection and editing of a full and comprehensive report. It will be a lot of work."
"I'll do it," Viktor said, a little appalled by the job ahead of him, but relieved at the same time.
"See that you do—or else!" Gus, still angry, marched to the front of the crawler.
CHAPTER 9
The Church Of The Unifier
UNDER the expert guidance of Rob and his highly efficient organization, fueled with all the funds and manpower needed to take care of every little detail, Alexander's tour of the major cities of the United States grew from a smashing success into an unbelievable phenomenon. The publicity surrounding Alexander was so great that when the news of the discovery of the alien "icepede" on Mars arrived on Earth, it only lasted two days on the news. Even then, it was relegated to the "science" sections.
Cities for miles around each of the planned stops would empty on the day that Alexander was to arrive. The people would go to stand hundreds deep around the boundaries of the nearby airport, just to watch Alexander borne overhead in his gigantic gold-leaf-gilded private Boeing 7ZX macroliner Bucephalus as it rumbled in to land. More thousands would line the streets from the airport to the dome or Stadium where he would speak.
Thousands of well-dressed "Unies", all third level or higher in the Church of the Unifier, served as ushers at the domes, impressing people with their neatness, calmness, dedication, and helpfulness. In addition to directing and controlling the crowds that came primarily to see General Armstrong, they made converts to the Church of the Unifier. They passed out literature and politely answered questions—sometimes even rude questions—about the Church of the Unifier and the brightly colored Caps of Contact that they wore. The ushers would let little children in the crowds try on their caps, so the little ones could see the video image of Alexander on the built-in viewers that flipped around in front of the left eye of the wearer.
It was the amplified and glorified vision of Alexander presented by Eric and his media magicians, however, that made the most converts to the Church of the Unifier. People who had come to see Alexander the Greatest, conqueror of Mars, left with a sense of worshipful awe at having seen and heard Alexander the Unifier, Infinite Lord.
Those who came to see the general could also not help but be impressed with the sight of the infield. For all around Alexander, in all directions, were seated rank upon rank of devoted leaders and followers of the Church of the Unifier. The first rows were always filled with the white caps and robes of the level nine Leaders, those who owned and controlled the franchises in the local units of the Church of the Unifier.
The next rows were packed with the violet, then blue, caps of the eighth level Senior Watchers and the seventh level ordinary Watchers. Then came more colors of the rainbow, each descending level moving farther down the rainbow and filling more rows, all wearing Caps of Contact.
After a successful sweep of the United States, Rob took the show on a world tour. With Eric's computers working overtime, Alexander spread the word in every country in every tongue outside the New Soviet Union. In those countries around the Mediterranean and in the Near East, whose history and culture had been strongly influenced by the original Alexander the Great, Rob had Alexander ride through the streets on a mechanized version of Alexander's famous horse, Bucephalus, wearing a modernized golden helmet with a built-in communications system and occasionally raising a gilded short sword in salute to the adoring crowds, many of whom were converted on sight.
All of these scenes of adoring crowds, of course, found their way back to the United States, where they were broadcast over Rob's captive television stations, and especially through the left eye viewer of the Caps of Contact of the faithful. Rob had bought at least one television channel in every city and boosted its power so that its continuous transmission of inspiring messages by Alexander and the various advertisements for religious products could be received at all times not only by any television, but by a Cap of Contact anywhere in the surrounding area. In addition, there were three direct-broadcast satellites, with the combined ability to reach a Cap of Contact anywhere on the globe, with different channels for each of the different major languages.
In larger cities, in addition to the inspirational channel, there were other channels that scheduled programs of instruction in the mysteries that needed to be memorized in order to attain the next level in the Church of the Unifier. Like the secret societies, Rob had realized the importance of making a follower feel superior to those of lower levels, while still feeling unsatisfied by not knowing what was going on at higher levels.
To receive each level of instruction required a different video decoder chip, and it was supposedly the cost of these "custom" chips that justified the enormous initiation fees that were imposed at each change in level. By the time followers had attained the fifth or sixth level, they had usually turned over all their property to the Church and were either full-time "slaves" to the higher level instructors in the Church, or were working outside at good jobs and turning over all their salaries to pay off the evergrowing interest on their debts. In return they received free room and board, sometimes in their own former homes, now turned into dormitories full of other Unies.
The Caps of Contact were not just continuous receivers of inspirational messages, they were two-way. If some follower of the Church of the Unifier had a question or a problem, all he had to do was press a button on the side of his Cap of Contact, and soon he was in direct contact with someone higher in level who could help him or switch him to someone that could. Like the old-time big-city political ward organizations or the Japanese criminal protection gangs, Rob knew that if you took care of the little problems of the little people, they would be so grateful they would let you get away with murder.
Only Rob and the Watchers knew that each Cap of Contact also continuously broadcast a coded spread-spectrum signal containing a modest resolution picture of what the wearer of the cap was looking at. The view seen from any cap could be separated out from the transmissions of millions of other caps by merely punching in the identity code of the wearer.
By the time Alexander returned from the world tour, the Church of the Unifier was solidly established everywhere in the United States and growing exponentially around the world. "Palaces" had been established near every major city for the use of Alex, Rob, and their entourage. Once each Sunday, they moved to a different city, where Alexander gave the weekly inspirational message, always to a packed house in the largest dome or stadium available. Alexander's large and loyal following was not lost on the political leaders of the United States. Diane Perkins was a frequent visitor to the "Staten Estate" off New York City and the "Potomac Palace" outside Washington, D.C., when Alexander was on the East Coast.
ROB WAS carefu
l to maintain quality by personally running spot checks on the performance of the Watchers and instructors. Punching in a number at random on his monitor console one day, he found the video monitor looking down into a small cubicle. There was a single table with a single lamp, shining directly at an insecure-looking young man with a worried frown.
The young man shifted nervously in the small, hard, armless chair. His black first level Cap of Contact was new and had not been worn long enough to shape itself to his head. The view-plate had been flipped back so the novice could concentrate on the shadowed figure in the dark orange robe and cap of a fourth level instructor sitting on the other side of the table. The computer read the bar code pattern on the caps and inserted their identifications on the screen under their images. The novice's name was Fred 1-13,404, and the instructor was Janet 4-121. Although Unies were allowed to keep their first names, a follower of the Church of the Unifier was expected to forgo family names and family ties for the broader ties of church fellowship.
"I dunno ... If the boss had found out I'd been tapping the till he would eat me alive—then fire me."
"You want to be an honest employee, don't you, Fred?" the shadowed figure said in an unctuous voice. Janet reached into a rack of literature, took out a pamphlet, and handed it across the table, the fingers on her thin white hand extended out from the long orange satin robe far enough that the novice could see the massive silver ring of an instructor embossed with the vertical infinity symbol of the Infinite Lord.
The young man glanced down at the title of the pamphlet. It said, "The Honest Employee—A Servant of the Infinite Lord Can Be Trusted." He started to open it.
"Don't read it now," the instructor said. "I will tell you what's in it, then you can study it in detail later. Now, our overall objective is to have everyone love and obey the Infinite Lord, is it not?"
"Yes," the young man agreed.
"And if the Church of the Unifier can assure an employer that those of his employees who are members of the Church will be scrupulously honest, unlike his average employee, then he will like the Church, and someday come to love and obey the Infinite Lord as we do. Correct?"
"Yes," the young man said, his forehead beginning to sweat, "but I don't see how teaching me to steal from him can do that."
"We are not going to teach you to steal, we are going to teach you not to steal. I think for your situation we will want to go to page seventeen, Erroneous Shipment Addresses. Open to that page and read it."
The pale young man leafed nervously through the pamphlet and started to read, haltingly. "A mail clerk in a large merchandising store ..." He stopped and looked over at the shadowed figure. "Say, that's me, isn't it?" He bent over the pamphlet again and continued. "... should never succumb to the temptation to place fake telephone orders for expensive merchandise that is charged to a wealthy customer and mailed as a gift to a nonexistent address, then change the address on the package to his own when it passes through the mail room." He looked up at the dark figure, surprise on his face. "Say, I never thought of that. Sounds easy."
"It is easy, as all sins are," the dark voice said, assuming a commanding tone. "And to make sure that you do not fall prey to that particular sin, I command you, in the name of the Infinite Lord, to commit that sin. Once you have sinned, and know the suffering and shame that arises from committing a sin, the Infinite Lord will absolve you of that sin, and you will never commit that sin again."
"I don't know ... the boss ..."
"The Infinite Lord is your only 'boss'!" the shadowed figure interrupted. "The Infinite Lord wants to save you from sin. But to be saved—"
"I must sin," the young man agreed resignedly.
"You are showing great promise, Fred," the instructor said in an approving tone. "If you do well, you should be ready soon for second level training sessions."
"But I can't do it," Fred complained. "If I asked any of my so-called friends in the credit department for some charge numbers to use, they would probably turn me in, and the boss would skin me alive!"
"I have already taken care of that," the instructor said. "Here is a list of credit card numbers of people who charge a lot at your store, and here is the list of items. As you receive each one at your house, destroy the wrappings and any tags that indicate the store name, and bring them to me. I will see that they get back to the proper person."
Fred looked down at the list and his face whitened visibly with shock. "There are over thirty items on this list!" he whispered in a strained voice. "Jewelry ... watches ... vidofaxes ... Each one costs over a hundred dollars!"
The jerk has overreached herself with that one, Rob thought. The mark will lose his nerve and quit.
"The Infinite Lord wants you to be so appalled at the enormity of your sin that you will never do it again. The sin is appalling, isn't it, Fred?"
"Yes, but—"
"Won't you feel relieved when the Infinite Lord absolves you of that sin?"
"Yes ..." Fred agreed reluctantly.
"When you are free of sin, I can guarantee entry into the second level mysteries," the instructor promised.
"I'll get started today!" the excited youngster said as he bolted out of the cubicle.
Rob could now see great Watcher potential in Janet and made a note in her personnel files.
A message appeared at the top of Rob's screen.
Andy 8-10 on Channel 32. "Would you or Alexander like this one?"
Rob switched his viewscreen to Channel 32. There were two people sitting at opposite ends of a comfortable sofa in a large, well-appointed office. Both wore Caps of Contact. His was the eighth level violet of a Senior Watcher, while hers was a second level brown. He was in his violet robe, while she wore a short skirt that showed shapely legs and a blouse whose buttons were under considerable strain. The computer identified the young woman as Susan 2-132,030. After seeing Susan's face and figure, Rob understood why a level eight was stooping to individual instruction of a level two.
"I understand you are married, Susan?" Andy asked, putting a violet-robed arm up on the back of the sofa.
"Yes," Susan said. "He's John 2-321,556. We met eight months ago at a first level retreat."
Rob zoomed the monitor image in on Susan and looked her over with an experienced eye. She was too skinny for his tastes, and Alexander preferred blonds.
"Tell Andy, 'No thanks'," he instructed the communications computer. The computer instantly flashed the message to Andy through the viewer on his Cap of Contact.
"Then you know how very important it is in a marriage for the partners to be sexually faithful to each other. In the Church of the Unifier, it is a sin to have sex with someone other than your husband. In order to move up to the third level you must be saved from this sin of extramarital carnal pleasure."
"Oh," Susan said, her face suddenly blushing. "Then that means I must ..."
"Yes ..." Andy said, flipping back his viewer and moving closer until he was staring straight into her eyes. "You must! The Infinite Lord commands it! If you don't sin, how can he save you?"
"I do so want to become a third level ..." Susan said, pondering. Then she looked puzzled.
"Who?" she asked innocently.
CHAPTER 10
The Calm
THE XENOBIOLOGISTS came and spent a dozen weeks out on the ice cap examining the Lineup. The general physiology turned out to be similar to that of an animal on Earth, with the exception that there was no breathing system. The lack of eyes was puzzling at first, but the multitude of rods between each segment seemed to play that part, somewhat like the compound eyes of an insect. Amazingly enough, the eyerods were pure diamond-dense glassy diamond at the center, graded to less dense diamond crystal around the outside—so the eyerod acted like a light pipe. The Martian creature was the first example of a carbon-based life form that could produce a pure carbon structure.
The most unexpected discovery occurred during the preliminary exploration of the body cavities with fiber-optic probes.
The long, segmented creature seemed to be made up of six individual units lined up end-to-end. The xenobiologists had not yet attempted to separate out one of the units, since they were extremely tightly bonded, sharing digestive tracts, bloodstreams, and possibly even nervous systems. A puzzling feature, and a disappointment to that type of specialist, was the lack of parasites. No fleas, no mites, no cysts, not even gut bacteria.
The region of the ice canyon for hundreds of meters around the find and tens of meters down was carefully mapped, excavated, and screened for artifacts. The only object found was an unrelated three-centimeter-diameter iron meteorite.
As fall turned into winter in the northern hemisphere and the population at Boreal Base shrank in proportion to the amount of daylight, the xenobiologists carefully packed up the creature in a surplus quartermaster lander modified with a refrigerated hold and took it off to Earth. There, they would use whole-body scanners to image its insides before they started cutting.
THE WEEKS passed, and soon the short northern winter was over. The Sun began to rise above the horizon once again, and Boreal Base slowly became alive. The arrival of spring brought the independent prospectors, lured by the dream of finding armloads of diamond eyerods in some hypothetical Lineup graveyard.
The first to arrive was Red Storm, and she caused a minor sensation when she landed her asteroid belt tug, The Billionaire, at Boreal Base. She was tall and angular, pretty in a skinny sort of way, with a long, thin, space-weathered face innocent of makeup, and a narrow nose covered with freckles. She had shoulder-length, curly orange-red hair falling in a mop of hundreds of straggly ringlets, and large innocent-looking blue-green eyes that had stared at a vacuum more than once.
Her first stop was at the "Bore Hole" beer garden on the bottom floor of the central hub of Boreal Base. It was early morning and there was no one at the bar. The combination bartender, postmaster, and banker was busy sorting mail into mailboxes, for some things just don't transmit well over computer links.
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