Pascale's Wager: Homelands of Heaven

by Anthony Bartlett

  PASCALE'S WAGER

  HOMELANDS OF HEAVEN

  Anthony W. Bartlett

  What people are saying about Pascale's Wager

  Anthony Bartlett's new novel transports readers into a utopia/dystopia full of drama, moral complexity, and imagination. When you finish the last page, you'll return to the “real world” with a new vision of what's actually going on. Highly recommended. - Brian D. McLaren, author/speaker/blogger

  This is one roller coaster of a novel! Right from the start it plunges us into a boldly imagined, futuristic universe that will have you shivering one minute and sweating the next. This is one fun read! But it is also much more. Bartlett has created in novelistic form a profoundly philosophical, even theological, meditation on what it means to be human. The pages of this novel reveal the spectacular destruction of an age-old way of constructing human identity, a way which sacrifices the other in order to establish “us”; and the creation of a new way of being human, a way that erupts unexpectedly out of unimaginable suffering and abandonment. But, once again, there is also fun in this book – sheer old fashioned, can-hardly-wait-to-turn-the-page excitement. - James Warren, author of Compassion or Apocalypse?

  At the end of this taut, white-knuckled adventure readers are haunted by the suspicion that what is true about Pascale’s world, may also be true of our own. In the tradition of C. S. Lewis, Bartlett uses story to engage his readers in theological questions about life, death, heaven, and hell in ways that will hold their imaginations for years to come. - Suzanne Ross, author of The Wicked Truth: When Good People Do Bad Things

  Pascale’s Wager

  Copyright © 2012 Anthony William Bartlett

  All rights reserved. This includes the right to reproduce any portion of this book in any form.

  Published in the United States by Hopetime Press, Syracuse, New York, 13210.

  Original cover art by Susannah and Christopher Bartlett. Background cover photo Alaska North Slope from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, by Rear Admiral Harley D. Nygren.

  First Edition 2014

  LCCN: 2014903704

  1. Science Fiction. 2. Dystopia. 3. Coming of Age. 4. Religion.

  This is a work of fiction from the author’s imagination and any resemblance between its characters and actual persons living or dead is coincidental.

  To all Pascales, everywhere

  With special thanks to Amber Lough, Cathy Gibbons, Susannah Bartlett, Linda Bartlett and Jim Warren for their astute reading, essential editing, and instant belief.

  Part One

  1. Day 97

  2. Weather

  3. Holo-cast

  4. Friend

  5. Frostbite

  6. Day 98

  7. Menace

  8. God Talk

  9. Flight Risk

  10. Search

  11. The Lie

  12. Vigil

  13. Holy Day

  Part TWO

  1. Touch Down

  2. Ice Camp

  3. Conspiracies

  4. Instruction

  5. Architecture

  6. Break Out

  7. On The Run

  8. Philosophy

  9. Borderlands

  10. Doblepoble

  11. Entry

  12. Rave

  13. Welcome

  PART THREE

  1. Surprise Party

  2. Nocturnal

  3. Lovers and Mentors

  4. Dream Time

  5. Venice

  6. Poisoned Banquet

  7. The Canyons

  8. Star Student

  9. Sierra Ride

  10. Cutting Edge

  11. Detective Work

  Part FOUR

  1. Pitching Tent

  2. Wilderness Camp

  3. Story Telling

  4. Brief Encounter

  5. A God Is Dead

  6. Heavenly Rite

  7. Hell’s Fires

  8. Plague Bringer

  9. Volunteering

  10. Brothers In Arms

  11. Sacrificing The Idol

  12. Changing Places

  Part FIVE

  1. The Plague

  2. Wedding Day

  3. Gathering Chaos

  4. Canyon Thunder

  5. Rock Bottom

  6. Riding Alone

  7. Stavros

  8. Crossroads

  9. Heaven’s End

  10. Fire In The Hole

  11. Masterpiece

  12. End Of Time

  And the Sibyl, with raving lips uttering things mirthless, unbedizened, and unperfumed, reaches over a thousand years with her voice, thanks to the god in her.

  Heraclitus

  Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.

  Proverbial

  If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.

  Albert Einstein

  Love counts faster than light. It is the universal constant.

  PART ONE

  1. DAY 97

  The sun rose, an angry red disk over an icecap waste. The frozen Homeland shivered. Nobody inside the Total Energy Pockets wished to wake to face another day. Even in their sleep, they knew the diurnal systems were about to come on: lighting, heating, music, holograms and announcements. Inside their dreams their souls tensed, trying to hold back the moment.

  Cal did not dream. She gazed at the harsh light of dawn creeping through the skylight at the top of the sealed hemisphere. She was willing it to reach the middle line of ceiling rivets before the display of Systems Ignition lit up. There was no reason to want this. It was just a game she played in her head. A way to gain a small advantage over her day, waking early to watch the thin band of light bend across the room before the daytime world clicked itself into life.

  Someone stirred in the communal bed. She waited for the movement to subside, praying, hoping for this precious time to last just a few minutes more. The bed was warm and soft, sealed in a thermal envelope. The silvered fabric covering her family was filled with thousands of capillaries which distributed heat equally throughout its skin, siphoning it off to storage cells should it get too warm, or boosting it should the temperature drop. Lifting her head she could see her brother, sister and parents. Their heads, like hers, encased in zippered hoods of the same silvered material. They looked like one of the strange sea creatures, recorded from the old world, which she’d seen sometimes in the holograms.

  Before the exhausted light of the sun reached the rivets, the Ignition clicked on. A flashing red spot on a display console set in the wall. Cal knew she had fifteen seconds to go.

  ***

  The Word and Image Announcer appeared simultaneously on two walls of the dwelling. The ritual greeting repeating at set intervals in between a continuous soundtrack of music. There was no way to escape its sound and visuals.

  “Welcome to day 97 of our current cycle. All residents of the Homeland are invited to begin this day with hope in everlasting life and an attitude of kindness toward each other.”

  “That damn WIA!” Cal’s brother muttered savagely to himself. “Invited, she says. Really what choice have I got? ”

  Their twelve year old sister woke up to his voice. “First thing I hear Danny’s complaining. It’s like he believes he’s better than the rest, like he was an Immortal or something.”

  Cal's mother jerked upright in bed. “Don’t talk like that, Sam! You do not speak about Immortals that way. It's blasphemy!”

  “Me? He started it!”

  Danny laughed as he slid from the silver cocoon with the grace of a cat. “They can come get me anytime. I'm ready.”

  “What did you say, Danny?
” Cal's mother, a small olive-skinned woman, swiveled toward him nervously, as she levered out of the bed. Beside her, her husband groaned. He spoke with his eyes half-shut, struggling to prop himself on his elbows.

  “Take no notice. He's just doing it to rile you. Come on, everyone, let's begin the day!”

  His voice, with its devout religious tone, seemed to hit a switch in each of them. Everyone began to move with well-drilled precision—even the rebellious Danny. Unzipping themselves from the bed they used the bathrooms and food dispensers that were set into the walls and dressed themselves in thermal suits with a seamless movement in which each person did something different in sequence with the others. It was a well-choreographed dance and even attained a strange kind of beauty because of the holograms that streamed among them. White surf and golden beaches flowed around their bodies and seagulls hung in the air between them as they followed each other across the living space. All the while between bursts of music the voice intoned: “Welcome to Day 97...”

  The only person out of step was Cal. She turned to watch the others as she pulled on her suit. She gazed at a seagull swooping by her shoulder. Most of all she watched the sputtering display lights as they kept track of all the systems and functions of the Homeland. Bars and indicators showed heating, water, food, tasks for the day, transport status and time to arrival. Cal counted the frantic blinks in the red and amber alerts before the green lights came on. They flashed at manic speed but she kept count. The counting soothed her and was another of her secret games, one she played everywhere she went.

  Cal did not have her brother's feline beauty. Sam, although snide, had spoken the truth. He had something about him that was exceptional. Well-formed, with dark eyes and sculpted features he did seem completely out of place in the confined synthetic space of the TEP (the abbreviation always used for Total Energy Pocket). He was like a caged animal waiting to be free. Cal did not stand out in the same way. She was slightly younger, strong but slim, with softly stated feminine curves. She had dark hair and eyes and some of her brother’s natural grace. But there was also a distraction in her manner, a wandering gaze during conversation, which blunted the interest of others. It let her see a great deal of the world while deflecting attention from herself.

  At this moment her gaze was directed at the flashing light which said a Sector Communication Vehicle was about to arrive. The display was flickering crazily. Cal already knew in her mind the number of pulses before the communications vehicle hit the port to the TEP and was ready to board. Once the amber light came on there were forty five blinks to go.

  ***

  Outside in the frozen dawn, building shapes that had, moments before, been almost indistinguishable from their icy background glimmered suddenly with a million points of light. The port lights of the TEPs shone in an enormous branching fan, an endless series of stretched arms linked by a monorail system. The rail connected each individual dwelling on its arc with a great central grid of much bigger, dome-like structures arranged down the spine of the fan. Shortly after the lights came on, the communication vehicles appeared like a swarm of electronic beetles. They were small mobile capsules moved on the rails by tractor energy, each having independent destinations and typically holding four persons. The energy was relayed by tall pyramid shapes raised at points along the lines. The communication vehicles—or Bubbles as they were known informally—waited trembling outside the TEPs, vibrating in their equalized energy streams.

  They would wait for seventy five seconds and not a second longer. The TEP dwellers had that amount of time to exit and board. If they missed the ride they had to put a call into Communications Central and be fined heavily for the dispatch of a second vehicle. Hence the necessity of each family unit working like clockwork the moment ignition fired. It was a matter of conserving energy, something of near mystical value in the Homeland. The conservation of energy lay behind the TEPs austere design, and behind the organization of time, parceling out the precise inputs needed to maintain life. These inputs always had to be balanced against the vast amount of energy required in the production of the permanent arctic climate. The demand for energy shaped everything in the Homeland.

  “Your Sector Communication Vehicle has arrived.”

  Cal heard the announcement as the green light for transport flicked on. She and her brother were scheduled for the Training Center, as always.

  “Sector Communications Vehicle for Danny and Cal Anders now ready for boarding. You have seventy five seconds.”

  Both already knew that. It was the same mathematically exact message every day they went to Training: Cal for technical services, Danny for food supply. But Cal knew it in her bones. She had counted down the last ten seconds before the transport arrived, shooting a swift glance over to Danny to make sure he was ready. Without a word the two of them passed through the vacuum-powered seals as they hissed open and closed, first into the port and then into the vehicle. It had sealed itself hermetically to the port’s external door, opening directly into the enclosed space. Nevertheless a blast of cold air always hit the Teppers emerging from their cabins. It was sixty degrees below zero outside and the unheated port air immediately registered a shock. But in their therm-suits the effect was momentary. The doors hissed shut, and, at once, the trembling craft rocketed into motion.

  Back inside the TEP the Word and Image Announcer intoned: “Five minutes to Sector Communications Vehicle for Luci Anders, destination Food Production Unit 23. Twelve minutes to Sector Communications Vehicle for Benn Anders, destination Worship Center Five.”

  Cal’s mother was employed in one of the standard greenhouses and hydroponic units which grew the Homeland's food supplies. Her father had much more weighty employment: he was a Sector Worship Leader. Every day he went to work to lead devotional events and conduct private programs for those in need. Benn fulfilled his duties with eager faith, an essential qualification for his job. The Worship Center was an integral part of everyone’s life in the Homeland. Almost everyone attended, and there were dozens of Worship Leaders like Benn scattered throughout the zones of the Sector. No one seemed to know where the religious faith of the Homeland came from, but that was never a problem. They lived within a system of religious belief just as they lived within the rigid schedule of the TEPs, and the unquestioning certainty of their Leaders was a central pillar of their world. Benn and his colleagues kept the Homelanders’ hopes fastened to an afterlife of endless warmth, good health and happiness.

  Benn stood in front of the port door, waiting with pious calm for his Bubble to arrive.

  2. WEATHER

  “Wait for it! Here comes the smoke-and-mirrors. Here comes the big lie!”

  Cal was sat in place for her first class of the day, in a high, brightly-lit, windowless theater. The circular seating looked across to a raised platform where the professor was speaking. It was one of a range of courses providing technical knowledge needed for Homeland existence, from Energy Production and Conservation, through Propulsion Systems, to Genetic Stocks and Synthetic Food Studies. This one was Climatology and the banks of seats were nearly all filled with students.

  The derisive voice whispering fiercely on her neck was Poll's, in the seat directly behind. Without a doubt he was the most brilliant student in the Sector training program but he had been held back for two years for his persistent negative questioning. He would harangue the lecturers, continually deriving opposing arguments from their data. He had sat behind Cal on other occasions, talking to her over her shoulder, but she'd always managed to ignore him, and eventually he'd been told to be quiet by students nearby. This morning, however, despite the crowded auditorium the space around them was somehow empty of other students, and his burning string of comments seemed unstoppable.

  “Here it comes, the huge gap in his universe!”

  Cal turned and hissed “Shut up!” She tried to look like she was focusing on the lecture.

  “Our human survival depends on the Global Weather Shield. As you all k
now, it is the brilliant invention of Samuel G. Tenet, the scientist sent by God so many years ago: the great ring of nuclear-powered refrigeration plants surrounding the Homeland. Powerful enough to reduce surface temperature it creates a stable area of high barometric pressure, keeping out the chaotic storms destroying the rest of the earth. It’s what used to be known as a 'Siberian High' a massive pile of cold air blocking cyclonic activity. Outside the borders of the Global Weather Shield there is a constant hurricane. Inside there is calm. Our task today is to derive the air mass per cubic kilometer and the refrigeration coefficient needed to secure the barrier. It is an essential formula to know and keep in mind. Our survival depends on it. But first to underline the point here's the standard demonstration I'm sure you've all seen before, but it never grows old. Here it is one more time, just for the simple joy of it! ”

  Stepping away from his podium the lecturer strode toward a table. He grabbed a large empty glass and, inverting it, plunged it into a big transparent basin of water.

  “If I keep the glass steady no water enters it. The pressure of air in the glass keeps the water out. This is what Tenet foresaw. A stable climate achieved not by a solid glass giving form to the air. Rather it is the density and pressure of a column of air itself which never allows warmer air to create convection and push it away. As I said, this is what was done, the technology that created our Homeland. A place where we sustain human life as we await the promise of Heaven!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Poll muttered viciously two inches from Cal's back. “Forget about the heaven crap, what about the data? You can’t stabilize a storm system that way. It will break through any barrier you create. There’s gotta be something…”

  “Poll Sidak, please leave the lecture hall. I will not tolerate your interruptions.” The professor’s voice broke angrily into Poll’s tirade. The security guards at the door snapped to attention. They glanced knowingly at each other. Poll had a reputation as a damaged item, someone who did not fit smoothly into the Homeland's system. His dismissal from lectures was a regular occurrence and the slightest hint of resistance earned him a rough-handling from the guards plus twenty-four hours in the lock-up. But this time he left his seat without protest.