Aurora, however, was close enough to see what she wanted to see. She reached over and grabbed Hamilton, and ignoring the blood and the sweat, kissed him as no woman had ever kissed a man since Ariel expressed her love to Patroclus, the bravest and the noblest of the heroic sons of Theseus.
Freya stood by the landing strip, scanning the horizon for any late arrivals escaping from the city. As Acting Director of the Universal League Humanitarian Commission, it was her job to rescue all she could. In desperate hope she had kept one final transport waiting on the ground, pushing the time for departure to the last possible minute.
The commander of the detail of Weegee Space Marines who were protecting the landing area approached her. “Reverend Commissioner,” he said. “It is time to go.”
Freya looked at the Ear th’s star, which was now glowing red just above the western horizon. “No,” she said. “We will go when the local star is hidden from view, not before.”
The officer grunted. “That won’t be long.”
Suddenly, in the distance, Freya made out a machine. Her hope flared and then died, as it became apparent it was an Earthling truck. The officer saw that too. He spoke to his hyper com. “Sergeant Locratus, this is Lieutenant Critus. We have Earthlings approaching. Please be good enough to focus a thumper on that vehicle coming up the road.”
Freya put her hand on the officer’s sleeve. “No wait,” she said. “I’m not picking up any hostile thoughts. Scan it for weapons before you
squash it.” Critus seemed irritated by her interference in what was clearly his job, but he complied with her wish. Looking at his scanner, he shook his head. “No weapons.” He reopened his hypercom. “Hold off on that thumper for now,Locratus,” he said. “We’ll let these approach. But stand prepared in case they try anything.”
The truck pulled up to the landing strip, and a small Earthling woman descended from the side opposite the driver. She approached Freya.
“I am looking for Commissioner Freya,” she said.
“I am Freya. Who are you?”
“My name is Melissa Berger. I have a message for you from someone youknow.”
Freya said, “All right. Give it to me.”
“It is in my mind. She told me to tell you to look in the fourth quad- rant of my outer mind.”
Freya was surprised. This was certainly an unusual way for Earthlings to transmit messages. Curious however, she entered the Earthling’s outer mind, and went to the indicated location, where she received an incredible surprise
Aurora was there, in the form of a psychic recording. “Speak,” she told the mental simulacrum, initiating its sequencing.
The simulacrum of Aurora spoke. “Freya, my dearest friend. Please honor this, the last request I will ever make of you. The Earthling who stands in front of you is Melissa Berger, the Director of the Kennewick Children’s Hospital. She has with her several other hospital personnel, including Nurse Susan Peterson and rescue vehicle driver Charlie
Malone, as well as a group of thirty children who were injured in the course of the conflict in Kennewick. Please take them all to one of the Norc refugee planets. The adults are protorational, and while Earthlings, they have big hearts, and could do much good working for the Norc refugee agency. The children are insane, but with proper care, their minds and bodies could be healed. Please save them, heal them, and give them to kind Norc families for adoption. Thank you old soul mate, I know you will do this. With Reason and Love I embrace you. Yourfriend, Aurora.” Freya walked to the back of the truck and looked inside. She saw dozens
of frightened Earthling children with big dark eyes, and an Earthling
woman of middle years who was trying to comfort them. The woman wore a white uniform and had a kind face. Freya spoke to her. “Come,” she said. “The transport awaits.”
Freya turned and faced Melissa Berger, who had followed her to the rear of the truck. “Why did Aurora not come as well?” she asked.
“She says she has found a higher calling,” Melissa answered. Freya looked to the east, where the stars were beginning to come out. “Good luck, old friend,” she whispered. “May Minerva protect you.”
Epilogue
Aurora sat in the living room of the Hamiltons’house in Peekskill and looked at the odd piece of folded tree-flesh that had been handed to her by Mrs. Hamilton. It was a thing the Earthlings called an envelope, and used to contain messages that were meant to be transmitted very slowly. The front of it was addressed to “Alice Hamilton, 14 Pine Street, Peekskill, New York,USA.” The rear contained what was known as a return address. This one read “P3C Urania, Inca Ruins, Peru.” Could it be? She opened the envelope and examined its contents.
The letter read as follows:
“Dear Aurora;
I can’t tell you how glad I was to find that you were still living here
on Earth. Perhaps I could visit you sometime. Allow me to tell you a little about my adventures since we last saw each other in LaGuardia Airport. I’m sure you heard about how I was taken prisoner by Earthling theology students, who cut off my fingers and toes and tortured me in the hope that they could thereby induce the galactic media to report on their cause in a more favorable light. I have to say that I did not enjoy this at all. However, fortunately, when the Weegees intervened to evacuate New Minervapolis they also sent a detail of Space Marines to New York to rescue me, turning much of northern Manhattan into a light-textured finely ground dust in the process. I saved some of this material, as I think it may have unique potential for use as an artistic medium.
Anyway, after I was rescued, your old friend Danae was very kind to me, and had the excellent Weegee fleet doctors restore all my amputated appendages. They offered me a ride back to the Northern Confederation, but I felt that someone needed to stay behind to protect the Inca artifacts, so I returned to Earth, this time traveling incognito.
I am now living in Peru, where I am taking advantage of the unique opportunity to study the Inca ruins in-situ. My data should prove invaluable in insuring accurate reconstruction when it comes time to relocate the ruins to a more accessible location at Anthropo.
You will be interested in knowing that despite being reduced by psioray bombardment over a year ago, many of the Peruvians are still alive. I protect the good ones from birds and lizards, and accordingly they worship me as a goddess. The bad ones, such as those who were members of the planet assassin groups formerly based here, I capture and torture at length in various ingenious ways. I do this not out of malice or desire for revenge, but to help instill proper values in the others and thereby discourage similar tragic misconduct in the future. This educational program may not work, since the savages are very stupid, but I do what I can, and anyway,it’s fun.
If you get tired of living in Peekskill, perhaps you can move to Iowa. I understand they have an opening for a goddess there as well.
Please write me and tell me all about your new life among the Earthlings. Is it really true that you decided to marry your study specimen? You have to be the most dedicated scientist I have ever met. I deeply admire you.
So let’s get together as soon as possible. It’ll be great talking about old times.
Love,
Urania”
Aurora put down the letter and sighed to herself. Urania was such a flake. Still, it would be nice to have an old friend to correspond with.
Harry Hamilton walked into the living room and switched on the news.
“This is Kolta Bruna reporting from the primitive planet Earth. I am speaking to you live from Washington DC, the capital of the principal Earthling tribal despotism. The scene here today remains one of pure chaos, one week after an Earthling mob led by the so-called Radical Opposition seized control of the capital. The rampaging mob murdered all of the country’s duly elected government leaders except for the President, who escaped by helicopter and whose whereabouts are currently unknown.
“According to the Radical Opposition leaders who led this coup, the rev
olution was motivated by the discovery that the many horrendous economic problems that beset this country were caused, not by the Minervan occupation of Kennewick, but by the corruption of the President and his cohorts in the ousted administration. The RO claims that this is proven by the fact that the nation’s hyperinflation has continued, and in fact worsened, over the year since the Minervans abandoned their foothold here. Knowledgeable observers contacted by this news service dispute this view, however, pointing out that the Minervans, who have now reconstituted their settlement on the neighboring planet Mars, still have the capability to cause most of this planet’s ills.”
Aurora shook her head. Kolta Bruna would never give up.
The broadcast continued. “In other news, it was revealed today that former high-ranking Weegee officials Ambassador Junea and Commercial Counsel Fedris, after escaping custody on Cepheus, apparently sought refuge with the Eastern Galactic Empire. The Western Galactic Empire has demanded their prompt return for trial. However, according to Eegee Prison Commissioner, Her Eminence Gita, this will only be done after their brains have been dismembered for proper analysis. Inside sources tell the GNS that the Weegee government plans to accept this answer.”
“Meanwhile, in the world of high society, everyone is buzzing about the upcoming marriage between Princess Minaphera and the Grand Duke AdmiralDanatus…”
Aurora rose and excused herself from the room. It was time for the meeting.
She opened the door and walked down the steps to the basement. The girls were there, all twelve of them, Sally’s brightest friends. They greeted her warmly.“Good morning, teacher.”
“Good morning,girls”Aurora responded.“Now who here can tell me the true story of Mary, which you all were asked to study lastnight?” Every hand went up. Aurora selected Karen, a pretty brunette of 16.
Karen began her narrative eagerly. “Mary was the mother of Jesus, of whom we read much in the New Testament. Mary was a goddess, and
sent her son to Earth to teach us the path to wisdom. However, being male, Jesus’ understanding was imperfect, and his teaching was confused. But fortunately, Mary also had a daughter, named Penelope, who wrote down her teachings exactly.”
“Very good, Karen. And what,” Aurora asked the class, “is the First Commandment of Mary aswritten down by Penelope?”
“Respect the Mind,” the class answered all together.
“And what is her Second Commandment?”
“Seek the Truth, for the Truth will Set You Free,” all the girls said.
“And the Third?”
“Accept the Truth.”
“And the Fourth?”
“Reject the False.”
“The Fifth?”
“Let Not the Herd-Mind Lead You.”
“And the Sixth?”
“Think!” the girls shouted as one.
Aurora nodded. “Very good, girls. I can see you have all been doing
your homework.”
Karen raised her hand. “Yes, Karen?” Aurora said.
“Teacher,” Karen said.“I have noticed that since I have started studying with you, that I can occasionally see what boys are thinking. Will I get better atthis?”
Aurora nodded. “Yes, Karen, provided you study hard and discipline your mind to follow the teachings of Mary and Penelope, you will soon be able to read the thoughts of all boys all the time, as well as those of any girls who fail to embrace the faith.”
The girls all looked at each other and smiled. The power a liberated mind gave to its user was a strong inducement to study. They would all work hard, and become not only believers, but missionaries, and innumerable other girls would want to join them. The new faith would spread. Eventually, even males would enlist in droves.
There was a loud crashing sound. Aurora recognized the noise as gunfire, three huge blasts. Alarmed, she ran upstairs to see what was going on. Sally ran right behind her.
Harry Hamilton stood on the back porch, his shotgun in his hand. The bloody corpse of the trespasser lay prone under the apple tree.
“That will be a warning to those crooks to stay out of myyard,” Harry said.
His son walked over to the corpse and turned the body over. “Hey dad,” he said. “It looks like you just nailed the former President.”
“Yeah, I recognized him.” Harry commented. “Serves him right. It’s bad enough the way he raided the country’s treasury. Now the bum thought he could come here and steal my apples. Well I guess Old Betsey and I showed him a thing or two.” He kissed his gun tenderly.
“Good shooting, dad,” Sally said.
Aurora turned and shooed the girl downstairs. It was all well and good for people like the Hamilton menfolk to go around shooting the President and others of his ilk, but she and Sally had serious work to do. If Earth was ever to be saved, its people would have to be taught to believe in Reason.
She resumed her place with the circle of young women. “Now girls,” she said. “Who here can explain the meaning of these first six command-
ments?”
All the hands shot up.
Aurora smiled at her eager charges. With eyes as big and wide open
as young owls preparing for their first flight, they were stretching the wings of their minds. They would make fine priestesses someday. The young men of Peekskill would soon be in for some amusing surprises. While strictly speaking it was not the purpose of priestess training to enable such girlish pranks, the opportunity to indulge in them was a nice perk that encouraged recruitment, which was certainly ineveryone’s best long-term interests. In any case, Aurora knew it would be unrealistic to expect the acolytes to refrain entirely from using their newfound powers to rectify prior imbalances.
After all, they were only human.
THE END
About the Author
Dr . Robert Zubrin is an internationally-renowned astronautical engineer and the acclaimed author of The Case for Mars, which Arthur C. Clarke called “the most comprehensive account of the past and future of Mars thatI have ever encountered.” NASA has adopted many of the fea- tures ofZubrin’s humans-to-Mars mission plan. A former senior engineer at Lockheed Martin, Zubrin is president and founder of Pioneer Astronautics, a successful space technology research and development firm. Zubrin is the author of over 100 technical and non-technical papers in the areas of space exploration and nuclear engineering, and holds two US patents. His other books include the non-fiction Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization, Mars on Earth, and the hard science fiction novel First Landing. The Holy Land is his first work of satiric sci- ence fiction.
Commenting on The Holy Land, Zubrin said, “One of my favorite science fiction books has always been War with the Newts, the 1936 work by Czech humanist Karel Capek which ridiculed the appeasement policies of the great European powers. Looking around the world today, I think the charades associated with the current‘War onTerrorism’are ripe for similar treatment. Science fiction has an important role to play in such matters. Sometimes the truth needs to be made fantastical in order to be seen.”
Dr. Zubrin lives with his family in Colorado.
The Holy Land: Fanatical Earthling planet assassins are spreading chaos through the galaxy. Is there any nice way to stop them? Page 36
