The Voices of Heaven

by Frederik Pohl

  In spite of the fact that I was brand-new at the game, Madeleine and I were about the first ones back. Madeleine gave me a motherly grin of satisfaction. She chose two branches of roseberries out of a basket and handed one to me. "First ones finished get to loaf while the others catch up," she told me, her mouth full of fruit. "Are you going to the rejoicing tonight?"

  "The what?"

  "The services for that Khaim-Novello boy. It's like a funeral, sort of, but the Millenarists call it a 'rejoicing.' I imagine most people will be there."

  I said, "I hadn't really thought about it. Madeleine? Would you mind if I asked you some questions?"

  "What kind of questions?"

  "Well," I said, trying to juggle all the questions in my mind into some sort of order of priority. "The thing is, I keep wondering why you people haven't made a better job of being here. Obviously you need more electric power than you've got. After all this time, why don't you have it?"

  She gave me a kind of good-humored, skeptical, grandmotherly look. "Oh, right, Barry. You're the one who's going to show us how to run the colony, aren't you?"

  It hadn't occurred to me that I was already beginning to get a kind of a reputation. I wasn't sure I liked it, but I pressed on. "Well, why?"

  She gave me a serious answer. "We knew what we needed. We weren't stupid, you know. We did have plenty of hydroelectric power, for a while. Then the dam broke. That really set us back. That was pretty discouraging, especially because we'd just about used ourselves up on getting it built; we didn't have the resources to do it over again."

  "All right, I understand that. But then, why was the dam built in an earthquake area in the first place? You had a couple of trained seismologists to warn you about the risks."

  "No, you're wrong about that. We didn't, at least not when it was started. The Sperlies didn't get here until we'd already got the cement plant going and the cofferdam built and most of the foundations already poured. We talked about it, but it was too far along to move it."

  It was even worse to go ahead with it and then have the whole damn thing washed away, but I didn't say that. "Then what about a fossil-fuel plant? There's supposed to be oil down the river somewhere; the factory orbiter could probably make pumps and pipes to get it to Freehold."

  "Make them out of what raw materials, Barry?"

  She had finished the roseberries and was sitting propped against one of the big wheels of our car. She looked sweet and kind, which she was; I tried to be tactful with my next question.

  "If you'd built those ships Captain Tscharka was expecting to find here we could probably convert one to a space tug for mining the asteroids."

  That made her blink at me. "Ships?"

  "Short-rangers. To explore the Delta Pavonis solar system."

  "First I heard of it," she said thoughtfully. "Sometimes people talk about exploring the other planets, but I never knew Garold was planning to do it."

  That was the second time I'd heard that. I wondered if Tscharka had deliberately lied to me, and I wondered why.

  "Anyway," Madeleine was saying cheerily, "now we've got all that extra fuel; maybe things will get better." She stood up, spry as ever, and ruffled my hair in a friendly way. "I guess everybody's like you, the first month they're here, full of great ideas. Well, good for you. Let's hope you can work them out. Meanwhile, excuse me for a minute, because I have to go into the bushes to pee."

  By then the rest of our party was straggling in, five or six of them sitting against tree trunks or walking around in the fading sunshine, nibbling sushi and roseberries and chatting while we waited for the others. A couple of them were talking about Jubal Khaim-Novello's funeral "rejoicing," which was not a subject I cared to discuss. Two of the others were new colonists like myself, or even newer, in the sense that they hadn't had the experience of going out into the field with Theophan Sperlie. The woods were all fresh and surprising for them. One of the old-timers had shown them how to get a drink out of a water tree, and they were excitedly talking about that and all the other funny new things they'd seen, like the spiderweb plants that threw retractable nets into the air to catch bugs and spores. "But they aren't plants exactly," the old-timer was explaining. "Pava doesn't exactly have plants and animals; the spiderwebbers are warm-blooded, you know."

  Well, I at least did know that, sort of, because Jacky Schottke had already explained to me what the early settler was now explaining to her audience: that on Pava the main divisions between large living organisms was between photoautotrophs (which lived largely on sunlight) and heterotrophs (which lived entirely on other living things); if you called them "plants" and "animals," he said, then you had to get used to the idea that some of the autotrophic "plants" could run faster than a human being.

  "So if these, what do you call, heterotrophs eat things—" one of the greenhorns started to say.

  "It's easier if you call them animals," the woman said helpfully.

  "All right, if these animals eat things, are they dangerous?"

  "No. Not really. The whistling snakes bite, but they'll run away if you give them a chance. The only ones that ever seriously hurt a human being are the killer ants and the dinos—dinowolves—and you aren't likely to see any of those."

  Madeleine was back and listening. "What the predators mostly ate was lep larvae, but my father did get pretty badly bitten by a dino once. They worried about the children, though, so they had a bounty on the predators, as long as they lasted. We've just about wiped the dangerous ones out around here—that's why," she said, smiling down at Eleanor of Aquitaine, "there are so many leps in this area these days."

  If she expected Eleanor to respond she was disappointed. The lep just "sat" there, with a couple of others, listening and not joining in. I didn't expect Eleanor to speak, since she didn't know the language, but the other leps were silent, too. One of them was a young male, I judged, third instar or so by the amount of red in his coloring. His arms and hands were well developed, which made him about the equivalent of a human teenager. Like any other teenager, he was playing. He had one of the little animals they called flying rats in his hands, tossing it into the air as he listened and catching it again. The thing was squeaking and trying to spread its bat wings.

  I noticed him particularly because it had never occurred to me that leps would have pets . . . and because I saw that he was watching me, too.

  I knew that three-star leps had their language skills pretty well formed and wondered if he spoke English. "Hi," I said. "I'm Barry di Hoa. What's your name?"

  He looked at me with those great, weird eyes for a moment. Then he said, quite clearly, "I'm called Geronimo," and, without warning, he fired the flying rat at me.

  I knew what flying rats were by then, because Jacky Schottke had shown them to me, too. They didn't have any real teeth. Their bills were soft—I guess the only Earthly things like that are platypuses—and all they ever ate was that stinking rot that collects in wet places that Jacky said was called "elephant snot." So, although I was a little startled, I caught the thing and held it in my hand for a moment. It wasn't warm—well, it wasn't a mammal—and it didn't struggle very hard, just squeaked protestingly and drooled on my hand.

  "Throw it back," Geronimo shrilled. I did. Then he threw it to me again, and we had a little game of catch-the-flying-rat between us for a while, to the amusement of Madeleine and the others . . . until I missed my catch and the little thing flew away, beeping triumphantly.

  "Sorry, Geronimo," I said.

  "It does not matter, Barrydihoa," he told me. "I will catch another. Do you have candy?"

  I looked in my pockets, though I knew the answer already. "I'm afraid not."

  He stood there silently—well, leps don't stand, but you know what I mean; he kept the forward part of his body elevated to look at me at nearly eye level for a moment. Then he said, "Will you have candy tomorrow?"

  "I could. Well, sure, I'll get some, then."

  "I will see you tomorrow," he said, and
turned away and stretch-slunk into the woods.

  Madeleine was smiling at me. "Looks like you've made a friend," she said, and you know? I felt as though I really had.

  So we'd had a nice day in the woods, and then, when we'd got back to Freehold, there was the question of what to do with the evening.

  I didn't really intend to go to Jubal Khaim-Novello's "rejoicing." I certainly wasn't a Millenarist. The trouble was that, if you didn't care to go to some religious service or other, there wasn't much else to do for entertainment on Pava, once you'd got tired of playing cards or watching old vid tapes. I couldn't even take somebody aside to pump them with my questions, because it looked like the whole town was intending to go to the party.

  So when dinner was over and people began to gather for the rejoicing I went, and the day that had been all cheerful sunshine turned into a very down night.

  They had turned on the big floodlights so we could see each other and the platform. It was a pleasant, warm twilight to be out-of-doors in (I was grateful that Pava had never evolved mosquitoes!) which probably accounted for part of the attendance. All the same, I was astonished to see how many people had come to celebrate Jubal's passing: standing around, sitting on benches or folding chairs, or stretched out on the mossy ground. Bearing in mind that Pava's human population was less than nine hundred, any nongovernmental gathering with a turnout of what had to be four or five hundred people was a wild success.

  I am sure a lot of the people were there just for the lack of something better to do, like me, but it was obvious there was a hard core of real Millenarists at work. They had decorated the platform with greenery. They had put robes on Friar Tuck and Captain Tscharka, who shared the spotlight—white with a gold cowl for the reverend, bloodred for the captain. The widow sat demurely, maybe even a little proudly, between them. They even had music—two guitars, a saxophone, and several keytones—and a choir of six people. I recognized Tscharka's first officer, Jillen Iglesias, as the lead soprano, looking earnest and virginal and pure, and when they sang their first hymn (it was "Rock of Ages"), Tscharka joined in, with a surprising, pleasant warm baritone.

  Rock of Ages, cleft for me.

  Let me hide myself in thee. . . .

  And Tscharka came down heavy on the "hide" with a look of yearning on his face that spelled it all out: Hide yourself where? Hide yourself in death.

  It was grisly, when you thought of it.

  It seemed to me that most of the people there weren't thinking, though. They were feeling. I have to admit that, in a sweet-sad, wistful way, it felt good. It felt like being dirty and travel-stained and worn, and suddenly seeing the promise of a warm shower and a soft, welcoming bed. . . .

  I had to remind myself that the bed the Millenarists were inviting us to share was a grave.

  They didn't stress the dying-for-your-sins part of their doctrine, though, at least not at first. They took turns in preaching at us, the two of them: Tscharka dark, deep-eyed, mystical; Tuchman the loving, jolly, welcoming Santa Claus, like everybody's favorite grandpa.

  Please understand that I'm doing my best to give you a fair, objective account of what went on. It isn't easy. I wasn't objective then and I'm even less so now; I was gritting my teeth and wondering just what kind of fools all these people were.

  It was an impressive performance, though. They had the whole thing choreographed. After the hymn it was Tuchman who welcomed us all, beaming fondly at the crowd, as he complimented the musicians and the choir and told us how happy he was that he had found the road to salvation—the road that his dear brother Jubal had taken the night before. And he patted the widow fondly on her proud, bent head.

  Then it was Tscharka who thundered at us: "What Jubal Khaim-Novello knew is what we all must learn, my brothers and sisters! We rejoice together tonight in his deliverance, but all the joys of the world are a trap. The real joy is not here, for as long as we are here we all share the certainty of sin. We did not seek to be shiners, but we cannot avoid it; we are stained with it as long as we draw breath. While we live we must do the work God has given us; but, oh, how we long to escape this vile world and enter into His holy kingdom!"

  And Friar Tuck told us, grinning ruefully, apologetically, at his own weakness, how many times he had taken out his flask of sacred release—he held it up to show us, a bottle of poison pills for God's sake!—because he was weak and yearned for his own escape . . . but, he said sternly, then he had put it away again, because there were still souls to be saved.

  That was when he surprised me. Two men, in different parts of the crowd, suddenly began struggling forward, reaching for the deadly little bottle. And, to my surprise, Tuchman held it high away from them, refusing them their escape into death—I'd been prepared, for one shocking second, to see a couple of additional suicides right in front of me.

  Tuchman denied them their chance, sorrowfully shaking his old white mane. He stood tall and silent for a moment, the bottle of poison pills high over his head.

  Then he brought his arm slowly down. Gazing reverently upon the bottle of poison pills, he said, in tones of mourning, "The time for us is not yet, my beloved ones. We must be strong awhile, so that we may carry the word to our brothers and sisters. We must rescue as many as God gives us the power to do . . . and then we can cleanse ourselves all at once, rejoicing. Until that blessed day, in the name of Saint Jones, be strong."

  It was really astonishing how cuddly-warm the Millenarists could make the idea of mass suicide sound.

  That was when I got up and left. People looked at me in disapproving surprise, but I didn't meet their eyes. I just took off. I didn't wait for the promised refreshments. I didn't have any appetite for them, and even less for listening to more of that sad, horrid preaching—maybe, I think, a little bit because it was all beginning to sound almost reasonable to me.

  I still say human beings aren't basically insane, but I can see how you might think they are.

  I walked around the empty streets of Freehold for a while, looking for lighted windows. There weren't many. Most of the people I knew, Millenarists or not, had been at the services; the party part had begun, and I could hear singing and laughter from it.

  I wasn't really sure I wanted to talk to anybody just then anyway. When I found myself on the bank of our little branch of the river I sat down and tossed a few rocks into the water, listening to the distant chirps and hoots from the forest. Nobody was around.

  It was a pleasant, warm night, and Pava's constellations were bright in the sky overhead. I wondered which star was Earth's sun, but couldn't find it. Perhaps it was on the other side of Delta Pavonis in that season, I thought. Very likely it would be too faint to pick out, at eighteen-plus light-years away.

  That pleasant day in the woods had faded from my memory. I was—not depressed; certainly not in that clinical sense that came with my little genetic problem—but pretty thoroughly dejected. I had, I have to say to you, some pretty dismal feelings about my own human race.

  After a while I persuaded myself that things would look better in the morning, so I stood up and headed home. When I got back to the apartment I turned on the vid without looking at it. It was some sort of musical story, out of Pava's huge library of old recorded performances. People in bright costumes were laughing and dancing on the screen, but I cannot tell you what the story was about.

  I turned it off when I heard Jacky Schottke coming in. "Oh," I said. "Is the rejoicing over?"

  He looked shamefaced. "I guess so. I wasn't exactly there. I was listening to most of it, though. I hid behind the toolshed."

  I didn't need to ask him why—because, no doubt, as a backslider he wasn't sure of his right to be there. I didn't even ask him if he'd been tempted by Friar Tuck's little bottle of lethal joy. But I couldn't let go of the subject. "Is it possible," I asked him, as the closest available expert to help me confirm my suspicions, "that what Tuchman and the captain really want to do is convert everybody—and then try to get everybody here all
to commit suicide at once?"

  He looked unhappy. He didn't deny it, though.

  "That's really insane," I said. "No group of normal people would do that."

  "Oh, yes," he said quickly. "It's happened before. Didn't you hear what he said about Saint Jones?"

  "I don't know who Saint Jones is."

  "Well, you would if you'd ever been a Millenarist. Jones was one of the early prophets, a long time ago. He took his whole flock to someplace in Central America, and they all swallowed poison together. Even the babies. Saint Jones is one of the central martyrs in the church, you know."

  I said, "That's bloody sickening."

  "Only if you don't believe," he said, looking mournful. "They're not going to force anybody to do it. Only—well," he said, his voice tragic, "it would certainly be pretty lonesome for the survivors."

  14

  YOU have stated that the Millenarists are only one "religious" sect among many such, and not a large one at that. Why then are there so many on this planet?

  Yes, well, when I got here that struck me as pretty strange, too. I'd never seen so many Millenarists in one place.

  The thing is, there are a hell of a lot of human beings—more than you can imagine—so even a tiny splinter cult like the Millenarists probably has hundreds of thousands of members.

  No more than that, of course; their doctrines don't encourage growth. Millenarists don't want to inflict original sin on any helpless infants, so they hardly ever have children.

  But a few hundred thousand are barely a pimple on the human race. We are both numerous and diverse. There are probably a hundred thousand or so of almost any kind of improbable human being you wanted to name—left-handed albinos who are more than two meters tall, for instance—and still you'd be pretty surprised if you saw very many of those people in one place.