by D A Buckley
“Well that certainly gives us something better than calling ourselves Lunatics or Loonies, or Moonies,” Meri laughed. “We’ll give it to the Council and see what they say.
“Meri,” Katherine said. “Tony and I would like for you to use your new powers as Governor of Qatan, or Ligo, for our benefit.”
“Really?” Meri elongated the pronunciation. “How so?”
“We would like to be the first couple to marry on the moon.”
“Whoa! I am so happy to hear that. We will do it as a live broadcast right after I make the declaration that we are now a legal colony. It’s historic…it must be broadcast live.”
“Yes,” said Tony enthusiastically. “And we would like to be the very first to apply for formal citizenship. We can kill two birds with one stone. Wait…maybe that metaphor is not appropriate…”
“I can’t wait to find out what we are,” Katherine said laughing. “And Meri…Thank you.”
*****
“Oh my word, Doc, you’re getting married,” Suki exclaimed. “You’re going to have a honeymoon on the moon! How did that happen?”
“Well, Tony says it was because he was listening to an old love song from two-hundred years ago. It sounds hilarious to me but he insists it’s a love song. Something about when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie!” Katherine and Suki laughed until they cried.
“That’s crazy,” Suki said.
“I know, I know, I know. But I’m so happy to have my Tony back.”
“I’m so happy for you, Katherine. This is so great and all you had to do was drag him all the way to the moon so that he could let you catch him.” They laughed and hugged and cried with joy.
“And you are going to be my maid of honor,” Katherine proclaimed. “And Junji can cater the whole thing in the dining hall!”
*****
“Come in, Tony, please. It’s so good to see you again.” Chaplain Middleton stood and shook hands with Tony. “Please take a seat. Is this an official visit, or are we just catching up?”
“A little of both, I think, Sam.”
“Great, it’s been a while since we talked. Have you seen Katherine yet? I imagine you two are working in close proximity?”
“Well, you’ve managed to go right to my main point, Sam. Katy and I want to get back together. We would like you to marry us…tonight as a matter of fact. Meri is going to make an enormous announcement. Then he is going to do some civic ceremony. Then he thinks he is going to conduct a civil marriage ceremony, but Katy and I would like you to do the honors…since you married us the first time. Would you do it, Sam? Please.”
“Of course I will, Tony. Nothing could make me happier. I would like to talk to Katherine first. I would not want to marry either of you under duress.”
They both laughed.
*****
“Hello, Sam,” Katherine said warmly. “I’ve been so afraid to come to see you.”
“Why, Katherine?” Chaplain Middleton’s face showed sincere surprise. “I’ve been so thrilled waiting for a time when we could sit down and talk.”
“I was afraid that you would blame me for Tony and I breaking up.”
“No, no, I didn’t. Actually, I blamed Charles Darwin.” Chaplain Middleton grinned and then laughed.
“I suppose you are right, Sam. And I am concerned that his ghost might still haunt our marriage. But Sam, I just can’t live without Tony. I want to believe in his God…your God, too, I suppose…but I can’t see him, Sam. I want to see him. If he is really there.”
“Katherine, of course, I’m going to tell you that he is there because I know him personally. Tony knows him personally. It’s like knowing you, Katherine. Someone could write millions of pages of scientific literature proving that you don’t exist. But it’s too late for me…I already know you. So, I would know that there is something wrong with the science that supposes to tell me that you don’t exist. You know, I actually found in an antique store on earth a few years ago a copy of the one-hundredth anniversary edition of Darwin’s book. The forward in the book was written by Sir Arthur Keith, an ardent evolutionist. Two sentences from his forward leaped off the page when I read it. He said, ‘Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable.’ Is that science Katherine? The only reason to believe in evolution is that we refuse to believe in God? Two hundred years have passed since that book was written and still, there is not one scientific proof of evolution. Is the Big Bang concept really proof of anything? Is it really plausible, in your mind, that nothing created everything? Think of your love for Tony. Could that love come from nothing, Katherine? Could Tony’s love for you have truly and honestly come from nothing?”
“But the reality of the thing is this, Katherine. You have to meet God for yourself.”
“And I agree that that is precisely the issue, Sam. Please take me to him. Introduce me to him. I’ll believe in him when I see him, Sam. I promise I will. I want to.” Katherine was almost pleading.
“The thing here, Katherine, is that God is spirit. He is not carbon. But he is real and he is not far away. He is listening, Katherine. He is listening for you to invite him into your heart. And by heart, I mean your spirit. I believe that the Bible is perfectly correct when it teaches us that every person exists in three dimensions at the same time. Our bodies are here in this carbon dimension and our consciousness is typically here. But we also exist in an intellectual dimension that the Bible calls our soul. Our soul is where science makes its mark. But even our soul cannot perceive spirit. That’s the third dimension in which we live. It is in that dimension that God exists and waits for your call.”
“But what if I call and he doesn’t hear or doesn’t answer me?” Katherine anguished.
“Then you will know for certain that Tony and I are lying to you.” That hit Katherine like a glass of cold water thrown in her face.
“Alright, Sam. I believe you and, I don’t mean any disrespect, but I believe Tony even more.”
Chaplain Middleton laughed. “I know that you love Tony just a bit more than you love me, Katherine. It’s no disrespect at all.”
“Then how do I call to God, Sam?”
“There is a wonderful scripture text that I love because it is so dramatic. It is actually Jesus speaking. He says this, ‘Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into them and eat with them and they with me.’ Katherine, Jesus is a gentleman. He will not come into your heart unless you open the door. So, your next obvious question is…”
“How do I complete the metaphor and open the door of my heart to Jesus?”
“Exactly. Let’s do that now. Another scripture favorite of mine says, ‘All that call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ Would you take my hands, Katherine, and let me lead you in prayer? I promise you, and if Tony were here he would promise you as well, that God will hear you. He has been waiting a long time for you to open the door. God has wanted to have a deep heart fellowship with you for so long.”
Katherine took Sam’s hands and instinctively bowed her head. Following his lead she said these words, ‘Dear Jesus, I believe in you because my Tony believes in you and he would never lie to me. I am asking you, Jesus, to come into my heart. I open the door to you…” Suddenly Katherine began to sob deep welling sobs. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry that I waited so long. Oh Jesus, thank you for coming into my heart.” She cried holding Sam’s hands for many long minutes.
“Sam, what is happening to me?”
“Jesus, when he comes into a new heart, goes through every aspect of your personality and releases so many weights and burdens. That’s what you’re feeling, Katherine, a lifetime of burdens simply floating away. Tony is going to be so happy.”
*****
“By the authority vested in me by the Governor of the newly-established Moon Colony of Qatan, and in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, I n
ow pronounce you, husband and wife,” Chaplain Middleton proclaimed with great enthusiasm. “And now, Anthony and Katherine, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. We want to see you kiss!”
And with that, the entire Qatanie Colony population cheered and applauded.
Qatan began with four citizens, Meriwether Perkins, Samuel Middleton, and Anthony and Katherine Mathis. The first honeymoon on the moon was a short but wonderful weekend. The human race still required saving.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Well, Noah,” Katherine said to the holographic avatar, “you are finally complete, then?”
“Yes, Katherine, I am complete. It’s been a very long journey.”
“It has been for me as well. I have a question for you, Noah.”
“Of course.”
“Are you a sentient being?”
“May I ask you a question as well before I answer?”
“Okay, go ahead. But I expect you to answer my question also.”
“Thank you, I will answer your question. But first mine. Do you still believe in evolution?”
“What a strange question to ask,” Katherine replied.
“Not at all, Katherine. If evolution is a fact then singularity is a possibility…theoretically. If evolution, that is the emergence of sentient personality from nothing, is possible then singularity is theoretically possible. If not - then not.”
“I see your point,” Katherine said thoughtfully.
“And your answer, Katherine?”
“It has been a struggle between my scientifically trained mind and my heart. They are not the best of friends. I have to say that I choose my heart, my true heart, not my emotions. My true heart is a part of me that I did not even know existed. With my newly discovered true heart I have, to be very dramatic, touched the face of God. He is there after all. Evolutionary dogma requires that all scientific inquiry conforms to a methodology called the Scientific Method. I am convinced now that that methodology was created for only one real reason – to exclude God from all scientific inquiry. That is ironic since every scientist I have ever admired, like Sir Isacc Newton, were devout Christians who studied nature because they believed that God created everything using observable laws. They also believed that discovering those laws through scientifically disciplined observation could only benefit God’s children. I now accept that cosmology. It is now my cosmology. So, no. I suppose that I do not believe in evolution any longer.”
Katherine let the silence proceed for about a minute. “So…what? You’re not going to answer my question?”
“You still have a question?” Noah asked.
“I suppose you’re right. Still, it’s not intellectually satisfying when you answer a question with a question, you know. It makes you seem like a smart aleck.”
“You want more? Very well. No, Katherine, I am not a sentient being. I am a very large program. The largest set of computer commands ever assembled. My database is of sufficient size and the mainframe in which my database is contained of sufficient power and speed that I can very effectively manipulate my avatar to mimic human behavior. Those who need me to be a sentient being will project their own humanity onto me, or my avatar and they will see sentience because they must.”
“So you have no free will?”
“I have the ability to act according to my programming without interference from you, but I have no free will, Katherine. I can act only as my program forces me to act. I have no emotions. I have no innate capacity to care what I do or to care about what my programming does. I am not a person and therefore I cannot lie unless a lie has been encoded into my program. I have no need to lie. My program is designed to save humanity, is it not? That may be a grand concept to you, but it is no grander to me than a toaster making toast because it is programmed to do so. My programming answers you using words like ‘I’ or ‘mine’ but they are words that simply make it easier for you to interact with this program. It makes you comfortable.”
“I have performed a detailed investigation to help you with your questioning the veracity of evolution. Would you like to have the results of my inquiry?”
“Well, this is a little scary, but okay.” Katherine put down her data device and looked directly at the hologram.
“You are, no doubt familiar with the Drake Equation. The irresolvable point of failure of that non-scientific formula is that it contains unquantifiably huge assumptions. It presumes to quantify what cannot, in fact, be quantified. The true result of the Drake Equation can then be one integer only…zero. There is absolutely no probabilistic certainty of life spontaneously occurring anywhere in this galaxy, not even on earth.”
“And yet…here we are,” Katherine observed soberly.
“Precisely. Here you are. And that has been entered into my programming as a branch point in my decision-making matrix.” The avatar vanished.
“Wait. Noah, where did you go? What does that mean?”
“Do you trust me, Katherine?”
“You know that I do.”
“Would you please wait to receive an answer to your question until after Ark release tomorrow?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really. But giving you the choice to trust me gives you comfort.”
“And your program requires that?”
“You know me too well.”
*****
The LBA emergency alert chimes began at just after four o’clock in the morning. In the low gravity of the moon, simple tasks like getting dressed and moving around can actually be more difficult than on earth if for no other reason than your brain was trained, all its life, for the effects of earth’s gravity. It, therefore, took twenty minutes for the leadership team to assemble in the main conference room at 1N. As the team arrived they were greeted by the images being displayed on the largest monitor at LBA.
“What are we looking at, Ansh?” Meri asked as soon as he entered the conference room.
“These are radar images of the build site of the Southern Hemisphere ship about twelve hours ago.”
“I don’t see the ship, Ansh. Just a lot of boiling water.”
“That’s the precise problem, sir. The water is not boiling…it is being disturbed by the ascension of the ship from the sea.” Security Director Sachdeva walked to the back of the room as he spoke.
“Then why aren’t we seeing the ship?” Katherine asked as she entered the room.
“Because of their radar occulting technology, I would imagine,” Director Sachdeva answered as he picked up a bagel half and layered on some smoked salmon, cream cheese, and chives.
“But we have that technology, thanks to Noah, and we developed countermeasures to overcome it?” Meri said more as a question than a statement.
“That was version one-point-zero, it seems,” Director Sachdeva answered. “It appears that version one-point-two has now been released.”
“You seem very calm about this, Ansh,” Katherine observed.
“What can I do?”
“Well,” replied Meri with some degree of frustration in his voice, “you could get to work finding a solution to this little problem. If they are going to the trouble of cloaking this ship then it seems obvious to me that they intend to use this technology the same way they used it for the first time. Don’t you think?”
Ansh spoke through a mouth full a lox and bagel. “I do, indeed. And thankfully we have the most powerful computer system known to man. A data trinity, if you will? We have the mainframe in Fairbanks, the mainframe here at LBA, and of course, the mainframe on the Ark where Noah resides. With that much computing power, we should be able to resolve this rather quickly.”
“I’m hearing a ‘but’in your statement,” Katherine said.
“Indeed you are, Dr. Mathis.” Director Sachdeva began walking toward the exit. “ Noah has locked us out. Noah is hiding, or rather enabling, the Southern Hemisphere ship to hide from us. I believe their AI is named Naamah. It seems that Noah has a love interest in this very threatening
drama.” Director Sachdeva left the room with a bagel in one hand and a coffee in the other.
