by gerald hall
My father tried to do good things with his gifts. He was the person responsible for the first two Events that happened on Earth. But the things that he changed also led to millions of people dying, even though I’m certain that it wasn’t his intention.”
The priest’s eyes opened wide for a few moments in amazement at Deborah’s revelations. He then warmly smiled before responding.
“There are always things that we do that lead to unexpected consequences. That is why the Bible told us that all good things come to those who love the Lord and are guided according to His will. We have to pray to ask for guidance and follow His commands before undertaking any task.”
“I pray all of the time to the Lord, Father. But I am still very much a warrior. I have fought and have willingly taken lives. Even now, I could take someone’s life with just a thought.” Deborah said, holding her index finger and thumb a few millimeters apart. “All that I would need to do is cause an artery in someone’s heart or brain to constrict for a few seconds. No one could tell that the resulting death was unnatural in any way. Having that kind of power terrifies me, Father.”
“Yet, God has given you just that kind of power. Why do you think that is, Deborah?” The Jesuit priest asked with a smile.
“I don’t know. A Methodist minister and his family raised me. They adopted me shortly after my birth and the disappearance of my parents. My faith in Jesus has given me strength through so much. But I am so afraid of what I could do, especially after what I did here recently on Mars.”
“I believe that God has a special purpose for you. That is why he has given this incredible gift to you. He knows your heart like no one else can. When you have fought, did you do this with hatred in your heart? Or did you fight in order to save the helpless or the innocent, Deborah?” The priest asked in a kind tone.
“I was always thinking of protecting others like my fellow shipmates or others who were unable to protect themselves.”
“God knew that with this gift, you could indeed take life wantonly, without another human being any the wiser. But you haven’t, have you? In fact, you probably also have the ability to heal people and have used it for just that purpose, haven’t you, Deborah?”
Deborah silently nodded her head after Paul’s insightful question.
“I know that you described yourself as a warrior. But I think that a more apt description for you would be a ‘sheepdog’. You always use those gifts of yours to protect the sheep from the wolves of the world, I strongly suspect.”
It was as though this priest could see right into Deborah’s heart. But she was very curious about Paul’s background too.
“I suppose that I’ve always been a bit of a sheepdog. But I am curious about you, Father. How did you end up out here on Mars. I was under the impression that almost everyone that came out here had some sort of hardcore technical background. With so few people out here, everyone had to be able to help keep things running.”
“You’re right about that. In fact, I was a pretty good engineer before I decided to join the priesthood. I decided that my gift for ministering to people’s hearts was more important to my fellow man than my ability to design new machines. Besides, I banged up my left knee pretty badly in an accident shortly after I arrived here. So I can’t really do much outside the domes anymore. It’s hard to hobble around out there in a pressure suit and play with the machines when you have a bad knee.”
“That’s still quite a career change. You don’t look any older than I am, Father.”
“That’s understandable. But remember, Jesuits like myself have always been interested in the sciences.
As far as our ages are concerned, most of us here on Mars who came in the first couple of waves were all very close in age. In fact, I’m only a couple of months younger than you are. I was born near Boston just a couple of months after the Iranian nuclear attack.”
‘Yea, I know that from all of the people that I have met here since I arrived from Earth.” Deborah replied.
“There is a good reason for that, of course. I’m one of the Ten Thousand. “
“You are a polymath?” Deborah asked. In the aftermath of the Second Event, there had been born approximately ten thousand of the most brilliant human beings to have ever appeared on Earth. They were all extraordinarily talented in multiple disciplines and excelled in everything that they chose to do. These polymaths were known collectively as ‘The Ten Thousand’. To a person, these young polymaths had all travelled to settle on Mars just a few years before Deborah’s own arrival there.
“Yes, I am. We all felt drawn to Mars, especially with all of the turmoil that was going on back on Earth. Some of us were already experiencing some persecution by people who didn’t understand us or were allied with some pretty regressive elements like the Caliphate.
“But what you did was incredibly important for so many people. If you hadn’t used your gift when you did, we all would have either died from radiation exposure or from suffocation. The power surge in our electronic systems here from the CME would have destroyed them and crippled all of our life support systems. You saved us all, Deborah. For that, we are eternally thankful.”
“It sounds like you already knew that I was the one who was responsible for the Third Event, Father.”
“I suppose that’s true, even those the fact that you admitted it to me was a bit of a surprise. I recognized you the moment that you came in here. You shouldn’t be surprised though, Deborah. We’ve all always known just how incredibly special you are for a very long time. Of course, you’ve probably had some idea that we knew anyway, I suspect.”
“I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to assume. So I kept quiet in the hope of keeping my gift a secret for as long as possible. I worry about my family though. Even if I wouldn’t use my gift for evil, someone might try to use them to force me to do something that I don’t want to do.”
“Don’t worry. As capable as you and all of your friends here are, your family on Mars will always be safe.” Paul assured her.
“The Caliphate won’t stop with Earth, you know. They will eventually come here too. The Islamists have to be utterly terrified of us and our continued existence.” Deborah said with a note of caution.
“That is entirely possible too. But, you and your family will still be fine, Deborah. When the time comes, we will all leave together to find our special place among the stars. I’m sure that you already know that the first of the M-class asteroids being redirected from the asteroid belt by our probes will soon be drawn into Martian orbit for us to mine and use for other purposes.”
“I already know about Arthur Wheeler’s new ‘science project’ though I am not entirely sure how far along it has progressed. What are you doing to do in the event of the Caliphate coming here, Father?”
“Well, for starters, I hope not to be here if and when that ever happens. I’m going to soon be leaving the priesthood and getting married. My fiancée Jeannie Carter and I met a few months ago after the Event here. So I will be leaving the Catholic Church shortly before our wedding.
But I will still be working in the ministry though I suspect that I will also be getting back into some engineering work at the same time. I have been accepted by the Methodist Church to become a pastor here on Mars. I have a feeling that we will be seeing a lot of more each other once I get the church set up here. I remember that you were raised a Methodist, weren’t you?”
“Yes, I was.” Deborah laughed.
“I look forward to getting to know you and your family much better. It has been a blessing for me to have finally met you in person. I hope that I have been able to help you get through this difficult time. We have so much to look forward to.” Paul said as he looked up towards the ever-changing Martian sky.
And then she touched him.
The Jesuit priest’s eyes flew wide open as he sat there motionless and speechless. From the moment that Deborah’s hand made contact with the priest’s hand, it felt as though an electric current wa
s running through his entire body from her. Paul began to feel his injured knee begin to throb. At first, the throbbing was painful, much like it had been shortly after the injury occurred. Then he began to feel a sense of euphoria. The priest wondered then if this was what it was like when Jesus touched one of the multitudes who had flocked to him to be healed over two thousand years earlier.
Of course, this young woman being here on this world was not the Second Coming of Christ. But she was surely one of His blessed servants. God would surely have never permitted this kind of power to be in the hands of anyone in the service of Satan. Paul was absolutely certain of that as Deborah finally released his hand and smiled with a knowing twinkle in her eye.
“Go ahead and stand up, Father.” She told him.
To his delight, Paul found that he was able to walk normally without any pain at all for the first time in nearly two years. Shortly after the accident, he had been offered the option of knee replacement surgery. But he had resisted that, telling the doctors that those resources were better allocated to people who truly needed them. It was, after all, a key tenant of Paul’s faith was to put the needs of others ahead of his own.
“I was right about you, Deborah. We all were. You just proved it once again, I am very proud to say. Thank you for what you have given back to me, even though I had never asked for it.” Paul said as tears of joy ran from his eyes.
“You didn’t need to ask. But I knew in my heart what you needed and how much you still missed working out there. I also know that you will still serve people here as well because you have your own special gifts for that purpose too.”
“Well, obviously I have someone that I need to tell the good news too. Once Jeannie learns about my knee, she will probably figure out who I met today. After all, she’s one of the Ten Thousand also.”
“I’m sure that I will be seeing you around, Father.”
“Please just call me, Paul. I’m sure that we will be seeing each other plenty enough. It is a small world, after all.” The priest said just before Deborah turned to walk away, both of them laughing.
Chapter Three:
Deborah and Peter Sorenson’s Quarters
Hebes Chasma Habitat, Mars
November 15, 2040
With Deborah and Peter’s babies being among the latest additions to the population of Hebes Chasma, there was a certain amount of celebrity associated with them. Either Deborah or Peter could have easily taken time away from their work to spend with the twins. But instead, the new parents decided to continue to help the colony in any way that they could.
So the four of them stayed together. Of course, that pretty much ruled out any outdoors activities. But there was still plenty enough work inside the various parts of the colony that Deborah and Peter could still do. Each of them worked while carrying one of the babies in a backpack or belly carrier. Whenever the babies got hungry, Deborah just stopped what she was doing, got out a blanket to cover herself and then nursed them. After she was done, they just went back to work.
Recycling was a necessity in a resource-limited facility like Hebes Chasma, so the babies had to use cloth diapers rather than disposable ones. Soiled diapers were taken to a special laundry facility to be rinsed thoroughly of organic waste materials before going through a second washing. Only then were they returned for reuse.
After a long day at work with the children, Deborah and Peter returned to their quarters. After a quick dinner for themselves and another feeding of the babies, Deborah put the twins to bed and returned to the family room for a nice relaxing time listening to jazz with Peter. This was also the time in the evening where Deborah and Peter discussed certain matters that they did not want anyone else to overhear.
“Sweetheart, I know that you told me that you inherited this gift from your father. But do you know what exactly it is.” Peter asked.
“Well, technically, I believe that I actually inherited my abilities from both of my parents. While my dad had the ability to do things with the power of his mind, it wasn’t until he met my mom that he was really able to make use of his full abilities. There was something about Mom that sort of ‘completed’ him, it seems.
My mom and dad made some video recordings for me while they were in hiding from some bad people in the government. As my dad explained things, he described the ‘gift’ generally as the ability to transmute matter and energy. But there was a lot more to it than that. He also needed to be able to sense how to reconstruct things into a useful form. Part of that was a matter of raw intellect, but most of that required the ability to pick up patterns of objects and materials, possibly even down to the subatomic level.
Dad could do that at very short distances by himself. But together with Mom, he could reach out a lot further, even hundreds of kilometers away. He also had a lot more control over his gift when he was with my mom.”
“So how were you able to do this transmutation by yourself? I am guessing that was what you did to stop the CME from killing us all.” Peter asked as he sat on the bed looking over at Deborah.
“Apparently, I got the gifts from my mom and dad that made them so special when I was conceived. So I became the best of both worlds. At the same time, I ended up also being a polymath at the same time. I guess that I needed enough brains to be able to handle my gifts and be able to keep up with all of the other super-geniuses that are out there.” Deborah replied with a little smile.
From what I have already seen with our twins, they are both going to be competing with you for the top spot in brain power, Hun.”
“That’s great, unless they decide to get into mischief. Then we are going to find parenthood to be very challenging indeed.”
“Or if they happen to have your ‘other gifts’ as well. I don’t even want to think about what a little child could do with that transmutation power of yours.”
“Well, I managed not to destroy the world while I was a child growing up, I’ll have you know.” Deborah replied while suddenly sitting up in bed with a cross expression before breaking into laughter.
“I and several hundred millions of your fellow humans are very glad of that too, I assure you.” Peter said, joining in his wife’s laughter. They continued to talk about many other subjects like the new arrivals from Earth, the terraforming project and the situation on Earth.
Deborah stopped talking suddenly and intently looked over towards the twins’ room.
“What’s wrong, Sweetheart?” Peter quickly asked after seeing his wife’s change of expression.
“Feeding time again.”
“I don’t hear the twins crying. Are you using telepathy or something like that now?”
“Something like that.” Deborah said with a sly smile and a quick kiss before getting out of bed and walking over to the twins’ room.
“I will definitely have to be very good around her.” Peter muttered quietly to himself as Deborah left to see to the twins.
Deborah returned to the family room after about ten minutes.
“They are all satisfied and asleep now, thankfully. Mutley is asleep on the floor in from of their cribs as well. So, what are we going to do before we go to bed? I understand that we have some new movies and animation that just arrived from the Alliance. The videos are all available now via the community data network. Since Hollywood is now part of the Western Republic, most of the really good movies are being produced in studios located in New York and in the Carolinas.” Deborah said.
“Who says that we need to do anything at all before going to bed, Sweetheart?” Peter said with a salacious smile.
“Oh really?” Deborah answered back with an equally hungry smile of her own. “For that matter, who says that we have to wait to go to bed first?”
Deborah then reached out, pulled Peter close and passionately kissed him. It didn’t take long for him to get the hint either as clothes soon began to come off. Fortunately for Deborah and Peter’s neighbors, the walls between living quarters at Hebes Chasma were all very well insulat
ed and sound proofed. The one thing that could see or hear what was going on in the Sorenson’s family room was SALI.
The colony’s AI monitored every part of the complex at all times for safety purposes. Of course, SALI was far too discrete to share anything that she saw or heard in the Sorenson’s quarters with anyone else. After all, Deborah was a friend that knew SALI ever since the AI was ‘born’. Deborah also trusted that SALI would always keep her secrets to herself too.
SALI simply was pleased at the joy that Deborah and Peter enjoyed in their bedroom that night, as they had on so many others since the couple’s arrival at Hebes Chasma. The AI would do nothing to disrupt that.
Chapter Four:
Pacific Caliphate Forward Headquarters
Pearl Harbor Naval Base, Oahu, Hawaii
January 4, 2041
“The campaign in Australia and New Zealand is now over. The resistance has ended finally. The last pockets of resistance in Sydney and in the Western Outback have been crushed. We are beginning to move many of our mujahedeen from those accursed places to here in preparation for the next phase.”
“It took far longer to subdue the Australians than we had anticipated. Their stubborn resistance delayed our move into New Zealand by several months. As a result, we actually conquered New Zealand first. But our holy warriors never stopped fighting until all who resisted were dead, Your Excellency. I believe that the fighting in those two countries would have last far longer if their governments had not largely disarmed their own citizens a few decades ago.”
“The infidel leaders can be so foolish at times. We must take full advantage of this at every opportunity. However, several ships evacuated thousands of Australians to North America just before Sydney fell. I’m afraid that we will end up fighting these infidels again later on. That is still very disturbing”