Kayla looked up at Tem.
“Yes, my full name is Temujin.”
“You’re … one of his descendants?”
“I am his clone.”
Kayla took a step back, eyes wide as if seeing a ghost. How many men, kings, and cities had seen that face and felt terror—or been the last thing they ever gazed upon?
“You’re Genghis Khan?”
“No. I am the same as those hominids you saw yesterday—an identical twin born in another era. Though it’s a distinction my own people never accepted.”
“But why clone someone like that in the first place?” Kayla asked.
“Mongolia had been crushed under the Soviets and the Chinese. Ethnic Mongols became a minority in their own land, destitute and yearning for a return to their past glory. They found hope in the shadowy science of Archeological Cloning and took tissue samples from the secret grave of their greatest leader.”
“To create a second Mongol empire?” Kayla asked.
He nodded. “I grew up on horseback, slept in a tent, worshiped the animistic gods of my ancestors, and fought the other youths in my band on a daily basis to mirror the upbringing of the Great Khan. The daughters of the elite flocked to me in the hopes I’d marry them and start a new royal line.”
“Then you can have children?”
“That was considered one of my many duties, though I resisted.”
“You must have felt enormous pressure.”
Tem brushed a finger over a book titled Twelfth Night on the shelves. “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”
“Are you saying they cloned Shakespeare, too?”
“The looting of famous men and women’s tombs became a worldwide sport. The media hounded them from the time of their birth—some around the clock as reality entertainment shows.”
Tem walked along the rows of books, his eyes scanning their titles. “When the Genetic Purity laws passed, I submitted to the first Genetic Census of mankind like everyone else. The government seized the records of corporations involved in genetic cloning and tracked down thousands of clones of dead movie stars, Egyptian Pharaohs, dead saints from church relics, and deceased loved ones. They exterminated them all.”
“The government killed Shakespeare?”
“His clone had already committed suicide at age fifteen. Many famous clones did the same, since genius is as much a product of environment as anything else, and growing up a celebrity before having done anything to deserve it is often disastrous. Such expectations proved a burden few could live up to.”
“Did they come after you?” Kayla asked.
“Genghis Khan’s genetic sequencing had been done in strict secrecy. Everyone involved knew the rest of the world would oppose such a resurrection. My genes blended into the population, since a third of native Mongol men carry Genghis Khan’s Y chromosome due to the many wives, concubines, and rape victims he impregnated during his lifetime.” A look of disgust shadowed Tem’s face as he spoke. “Therefore, they certified me Pure.
“When I reached my eighteenth year, an age when Genghis Khan embarked on his long campaign of conquest, the pressure mounted. What they desired was hopeless, given Mongolia’s place in the world. They accused me of cowardice.”
Tem lowered his head. Kayla placed a hand on his forearm.
“The Neo-Luddite Plague changed everything. The isolation of the Mongolian plains sheltered it well. Before all but a few died there, the antidote arrived. For once, our isolation and lack of modern development proved an advantage.”
Kayla shuddered. “I witnessed the Plague through Peter.”
“Three-fourths of the world’s population died of the Plague, but in the following months, warfare, disease, and starvation decimated the human race further. In twelve months, Earth’s population went from fifteen billion to under one billion, a level not seen since the time of Columbus.”
Tem’s eyes drifted as he took the book from her hands and closed it.
“I reluctantly led my people into battle to restore order, but the moment there surfaced a chance at peace, I took it. My people pronounced me a traitor.”
Tem shook his head. “No doubt the real Genghis Khan would have gone ahead without a second thought, creating a new empire despite the cost in lives. I realized in that moment how different I am from my twin.”
As he fell silent, Kayla nodded. “You’re saying that no matter what anyone tells me, I still have a choice?”
“I was created to serve the ambitions of others but chose my own path.”
Kayla nodded. Tem replaced the history book, and they entered the courtyard. The gurgling fountain and the clatter of Gene-Freaks passing in the main tunnel seeped through the door.
“What happened when you refused your role as conqueror?”
Tem shook his head and remained silent.
***
Fatima spread the word about Kayla’s mysterious Mind-Link, and many joined Mirza in calling for her expulsion. The specter of a summons from Ohg haunted Kayla, but the eccentric leader remained absent.
Each morning Tem introduced her to more of Middilgard’s underground society, and this helped allay the fears of many. If not for him, she might have locked herself away in her library and hidden from the world.
As they explored the strange underground society of Gene-Freaks, their discussions often turned into a debate. Their greatest difference centered on God. Tem would never say if he believed or disbelieved in a higher power, but challenged her to use logic to argue her case.
“The burden of proof falls on the one making the claim,” he said.
Accepting his challenge, she scoured the books in her library for ammunition and greeted him the next morning armed with Saint Augustine. As they walked the tunnels of Middilgard, she laid out what seemed, to her, to be irrefutable proof of God’s existence.
The fourth-century bishop and theologian proposed that if something greater than human reason could exist, then it must exist, since the only way something can be less than the highest, is if there is something higher. Since it’s obvious that humans are not the highest beings possible, then there must exist something higher, which we call God.
Tem listened as she spun Augustine’s mathematical web of logic.
“So there’s the proof,” she said.
Tem remained silent for a while and her smile widened. Thank you, Saint Augustine!
“Suppose I told you I’m God,” Tem said, “and since God can do anything, I must be able to fly?” Tem glanced at her as they headed down a series of stairs carved into the rock of the passageway. “Is this proof that I can fly?”
“Of course not.”
“Why?”
“Well, because you’re not God.”
“I said I was.”
“Just saying something doesn’t make it true.”
Tem smiled. “Exactly.” The stairway ended in another tunnel, and the smell of salt water infused the air. “The conclusion only holds if we accept my initial statement. A proposition that proves itself is called circular reasoning.”
The cavern walls transitioned to that of a glass tube inside a vast tank of water stretching above and below at least half a mile. Light spheres illuminated it from above, but the surface waves broke them into beams that danced across their bodies like living entities.
Kayla frowned. “Just like Augustine’s statement that something greater than human reason must exist.”
Tem nodded.
Why didn’t I see that on my own?
Tem leaned against the glass tunnel, and an enormous shadow rose up through the murk. Kayla gaped as a glowing creature came into focus behind him. As large as a whale, it had tentacles draped off the front of its head like an articulated beard. A wavy fin stretched all the way around its main body for propulsion.
“Hello, Tem,” a deep voice said, reverberating from tiny speakers set into the glass walls all around them. Kayla jumped.
�
��Don’t be frightened,” the voice said. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Kayla of Potemia.”
The creature floated down next to the glass tube Kayla and Tem stood inside. An enormous eye with a dark pupil in the shape of a “W” regarded her. Its tentacles wrapped around their glass tunnel, eclipsing the light from above. Claustrophobia washed through her.
“This is Ahti,” Tem said. “He’s a Cuttlefish.”
Her heart raced, and her knees threatened to give way. “It-it’s nice to meet you, Ahti.”
Puck emerged from her pocket and scurried to her shoulder, straining his neck for a closer look at the great floating creature. Kayla took the little mouse in her palm and lifted him up to the top of the glass tunnel. Ahti came closer, and their noses seemed to touch.
“This is Puck,” Kayla said.
“Ahhh, Puck. It is very nice to meet you.” The mouse squeaked as Ahti’s entire body shimmered and cycled through a dazzling display of colors and patterns. “Middilgard needs you to shake us out of our malaise,” Ahti boomed. “The first of a new generation.”
An eel undulated out of the gloom and slid alongside the glass. “I agree with Fatima,” hissed the serpent. “She is dangerous and should leave us in peace.”
Kayla averted her eyes from its accusing glare.
“You are wrong, Conger,” Ahti said to the eel. “Life is change, and we have been stuck in stasis for too long.”
The eel shook its prehistoric head and swam away as a dozen other creatures rose from the depths. They gazed through the glass as if into an oxygen-filled fishbowl.
A mermaid swam over to the glass and studied her. Iridescent scales covered every inch of her body, and gills extended down from her neck to both sides of her naked breasts. Kayla crossed her arms over her own chest and glanced at Tem.
“This is Tiamat,” Tem said. “She’s a Christian like yourself.”
For the rest of the morning Kayla chatted with the group of aquatic Gene-Freaks. Each of their stories brought Kayla near tears, especially when Tiamat spoke of how her devotion to Jesus had made dealing with her tragedies bearable.
“Without Christ,” the mermaid said, “I don’t know how I’d live with the pain of all the friends I lost in the genocide.” Tiamat lowered her head, her green hair floating around her like a halo. “But I know without a shadow of a doubt that I’ll see my loved ones in Heaven someday.”
Kayla returned to her villa more determined than ever to find proof of God that would convince even Tem. The next morning she confronted him with Thomas Aquinas’s Five Proofs of God from his Summa Theologica.
The first three, The Argument of the Unmoved Mover, The Argument of the First Cause, and The Argument from Contingency proposed—since objects cannot create themselves—there must be a Creator. Aquinas stated: “There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible.”
“That proof is based on a fact of nature,” she said as they walked through an underground series of caverns mimicking a grassland for a wide variety of ruminant Gene-Freaks.
“Even if I accept that nothing can create itself,” Tem said, “doesn’t this apply to God as well?”
“God had no beginning or end, since He isn’t physical, but eternal.”
“If you say that God has always existed, then why can’t we say this about the universe itself, or the laws of physics?”
They passed the open door of a tavern, where the sounds of drunken songs, laughter, and televised sporting matches interrupted their conversation.
When the noise faded behind them, Tem continued. “Maybe there was no beginning in the way we think of it. The honest answer is that we don’t know. Maybe such things are impossible for us to know.”
“But the fact remains that you can’t create something from nothing.”
“Physicists as far back as the twenty-first century proved matter and energy are created from the simple stretching of space itself. That is essentially creating something from nothing, just like in the Big Bang that scientists theorize created our universe.”
“But someone had to create the laws of physics in the first place.”
Tem waved at a group of unicorns chatting with a few centaurs. “People once claimed the motions of the planets required God’s direct intervention, before the laws of gravity and physics explained it by natural means. Or the idea that demons caused disease before the discovery of microbes. Just because we don’t know the answer doesn’t mean it has to be God.”
“I guess I see your point.” Kayla chewed her lower lip.
“What of Aquinas’s fourth proof?” Tem asked.
“You’re just making fun of me.”
“I only seek your opinion.”
Kayla sighed. “Aquinas’s fourth proof is The Argument from Degree, and it says that differing degrees of something suggest an ultimate form of the thing being measured—and I now realize this is the same circular reasoning of Saint Augustine’s proof.”
“Exactly,” Tem said. “It would be like saying that, because some feet smell worse than others, this proves the existence of an ultimate stinky-foot somewhere in the universe that could never be topped. All hail the great and powerful Stinky-Foot!”
Kayla laughed. “Your mind is twisted.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
A wooly mammoth lumbered over, and they exchanged a few pleasantries before moving on.
“Let’s switch sides in this discussion,” Tem said. “I’ll describe Aquinas’s final proof, The Teleological Argument, and you try to argue against it.”
“But I don’t want to—”
“Just for argument’s sake,” Tem said. “I’m not trying to make you say you don’t believe in God. Just to see it from my viewpoint.”
“Okay, I’ll try, but I warn you that I’ll not be bowing to Stinky-Foot.”
“Don’t you dare blaspheme the Great Stinker!”
They both laughed.
“I think Aquinas’s fifth proof is his best one,” Tem said. “It is essentially the same argument made much later by William Palely by proposing that the complexity of living creatures proves the existence of a “designer” in the same way a watch found on the beach proves a watchmaker. Let’s see you explain that away!”
“Well, I suppose you’d say that it was only a good argument until Darwin showed how evolution, through the process of natural selection, could create something as complex as living organisms.”
“But that assumes evolution is true,” Tem said. “Isn’t that just as much a matter of faith?”
“Exactly!” Kayla said.
“Remember which side you’re arguing.”
“Oh, right.” Kayla knitted her brow. “Well, the assumption that evolution is true is based on hard facts and evidence independent of the claim itself.”
“But the Bible gives facts directly from God, who is all-knowing,” Tem said.
Kayla frowned. “The Bible is true because the Bible says it’s true is circular.”
Tem smiled. “Well, you’ve won the debate.”
“You’re not even trying!” Kayla laughed. What a joy to talk openly, with no subject off-limits.
“You backed me into a logical corner,” Tem said.
“I’ve answered your questions, now answer one for me.” Kayla thrust her chin out as if challenging him to refuse. “Is there any god you do believe in?”
He stopped walking and looked at her with a serious gaze. “There is a sacred scripture I trust above all others,” he said. “It is even older than the Bible, and there is at least as much evidence to back up its divine claims. Maybe even a little more.”
“So you do believe in God,” Kayla said. “Is this the religion of your people in Mongolia? What does the book say?”
Tem looked around as if to assure privacy. Then he leaned close and whispered, “There are a lot of similarities to the story of Chr
ist.” His lips hovered just beyond her right ear, and Kayla’s heart fluttered. Was Tem aware of the effect he had on her?
“It’s called The Life and Commandments of Stinky-Foot.”
“You idiot!” Kayla shoved him away, and Tem doubled over with laughter.
The next day, Kayla made one final attempt as they walked through a deserted section of Middilgard.
“I suppose you’re familiar with C.S. Lewis?” she asked.
“Who doesn’t like Turkish Delight?”
“Huh?” Kayla said.
“Never mind.” Tem waved a hand. “I know who you mean. The writer who became an atheist after World War I, then was talked back into Christianity by fellow author, J. R. R. Tolkien, and went on to offer a rational Christian perspective through modern logic and reason.”
“You certainly are well-read,” Kayla said.
“I’ve had a lot of time on my hands.”
Kayla nodded. “In his Argument from Desire, Lewis proposed that the universal human yearning for joy beyond the natural must have a supernatural object, which we call God.” Kayla glanced at the walls of the tunnel as they entered a portion sparkling with crystals embedded throughout the rock. “Such a universal yearning can’t be coincidence.”
“Coincidence has nothing to do with many things that are alike,” Tem said. “Our fear of death creates a yearning for a life after this one because our brains are wired similarly.”
“You must admit that belief in God has been nearly universal for most of human history.”
“As was the idea that the sun went around the Earth,” Tem said. “Just because everyone believes something doesn’t make it true.”
“There are other sorts of evidence beyond the scientific,” she said.
“Such as?”
“Miracles on a personal level.”
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