by Paul Anlee
“How do you know?” she mouthed back.
He was working on an appropriate answer, when the tunnel brightened and they pulled into a station. He raised his eyebrows and jerked his head to indicate the landing platform outside.
She ignored him, turned to Janice and said, “Here we are,” in the bright singsong she reserved for her friends. The four disembarked near the front of their group.
Last-on, first-off—Rick thought. They exited the loop station on the edge of the largest plaza Rick had ever seen.
“Wow,” Janice said. “This is even bigger than the plaza in Washington.” Janice liked to remind her friends of the time her husband took the family to D.C. for summer vacation instead of camping in Yellowstone National Park like everyone else.
Rick knew she didn’t mean anything by it; it was just the farthest she’d ever been from home, and the most important trip of her life. At least it had been, until she emigrated to Vesta with the rest of her YTG congregation.
She was right. The plaza stretched at least a mile to the left and the right. Two kilometers—Rick corrected himself—the colonies worked on metric.
He admired the skyscrapers of the new city rising in all directions. Those have to be prime real estate—Rick mused, as he contemplated how he might get hold of a suite or two as an investment.
The plaza was paved in white and grey interlocking blocks arranged in a complex, repeating pattern. The stark plaza was softened by trees and shrubs in raised boxes and built-in benches everywhere he looked. A narrow river, not much bigger than a creek, split the length of the rectangular open area and widened into ponds every 500 meters or so. Small pedestrian bridges studded with lantern-shaped night lights arced across the river. The overall effect was surprisingly charming, welcoming, and pleasing.
Loop stations were spaced along both sides of the terraced area. Rick could just make out the flow of passengers pouring out of another station a kilometer away across the mostly-empty square in front of them.
“Sheeyit,” he drawled. “We’re over a mile from the main stage.” Whoever was coordinating the movement of people had offloaded the early arrivers near the front, and stopped each train progressively farther away. From this point, he could barely see if there even was a main stage. He could tell where it was set up, though, by the ten-story tall golden cross towering over it at the far end of the mall.
“No sweat.” Leonard pointed off to the left.
Rick followed the extended index finger. Giant, LED flex-screens, were strung between pairs of flagpoles. Three of the screens were spread at even intervals across the width of the plaza. Two more were emerging nearer the main stage. They were huge.
“Jesus! We’ll be able to count the hairs in his nose from a hundred yards away on those things,” Rick joked.
“Don’t you take the Lord’s name in vain. Not today,” Lorene scolded.
Truth be told, she was the true believer in the family. Rick had been a reluctant attendee at the local YTG Church in Memphis, and carried on the habit mainly to keep peace in the family.
As far as he was concerned, he’d always kept the Lord’s Commandments well enough by occasionally attending the same church his parents had supported.
The arrival of Alum and the YTG Church had changed all that, first for Lorene and, over time, for the whole family. Turned out to be a good thing in the long run, I guess, or we wouldn’t be here now.
He had to give Lorene credit. It had been her obsession with finding “God’s true voice on Earth” that saved them from being destroyed with the rest of the planet. And it was her dedicated volunteer work, first with the Memphis ministry and then with their local community here on Vesta, that had earned them today’s invitation. If he were being honest, the better part of his moderately privileged position here was due to his wife’s devotion. He smiled apologetically and shut up.
The plaza was filling up fast. Thousands at a time poured out of the loop stations and pressed forward toward the stage. Rick’s group migrated toward a flex-screen and claimed an empty bench at the edge of a planter.
The influx slowed and the screens flickered to life with a view of the main stage. Rick could feel the excitement building.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome,” boomed an unseen voice. The audience responded with scattered, polite applause.
“Today’s presentation will begin with a few songs from everybody’s favorite Christian rock group. Please put your hands together for The Yeshu-way!”
The unexpected musical treat brought the crowd to its feet. The appreciative audience filled the square with enthusiastic applause and stamping feet that vibrated through the leaves on the greenery. They remained standing through the band’s three most popular songs, swayed happily, and sang along with the simple, upbeat music.
Caught up in the moment, Rick and Lorene stood shoulder-to-shoulder, hugged, and smiled giddily. For Lorene, this was when life was best, when she felt most connected to the world and to her husband. The lyrics filled her with the love of the Lord, and spilled into the world around her.
Rick thought most of The Yeshu-way’s lyrics were silly and repetitive, but he was joyful for the respite they gave him from Lorene’s sanctimonious glare so he smiled and sang as loud as he could.
The band finished with its latest song, which had been the most popular Christian rock tune ever recorded before Earth was obliterated by the eternal darkness. With the crowd worked into a small frenzy, the band followed up with a spirited rendition of “How Great Thou Art.” The first verse ended with Alum walking out onto the stage.
The crowd went wild to see their beloved leader singing along with Lucas, the band’s star attraction. As the energy built toward the second refrain, the full Guardians of Light choir entered, formed three tiers from edge to edge behind the band, and added their powerful harmonies.
Alum had not spoken at a large public gathering since the Sunday right after the great miracle, when God gave the asteroid colonies over to His people.
Everyone understood that he’d been terribly busy setting up the New Administration and figuring out how to turn Vesta, Ceres, and Pallas into God’s Kingdom, now that Earth was gone forever. They appreciated the monumental demands being placed on him, but they still yearned to see their leader.
Seeing him here in the flesh, standing before them all, broadcasting his message to what remained of humanity, the people revelled in joy.
Tears coursed down Lorene’s cheeks. Even her cynical husband couldn’t help but get caught up in the emotions of the moment.
As the start of the final verse, technicians dimmed the lights across the length of the new habitat. Upon the joyous closing refrain, they ignited a magnificent fireworks display.
Rockets set every five hundred meters along the sides and back of the plaza marked the celebration with noise, light, and excitement. The crowds all but exploded with exuberance.
Rick half expected Lorene, being so caught up in the spectacle, might faint. But she didn’t. Her gleaming face was filled with love, excitement, and a bliss he hadn’t seen since she came to Vesta.
“We are finally and truly home amongst our own,” she sighed.
17
“Truly, Lord, how great Thou Art.” Alum stood alone at the microphone in the center of the main stage.
The Yeshu-way band and the Guardians of Song choir had vacated while the fireworks reached a crescendo, and technicians had increased the circulating fans to clear out some of the smoke before it settled onto the waiting crowd.
Alum’s calm face—broadcasting crystal-clear and larger than life on the numerous display screens set up in every public square in all of the habitats on all three asteroids—looked out over his adoring public.
The crowd filling the plaza was still cheering loudly. The concert and pyrotechnic display had worked the hordes into a receptive mood.
Good—he thought. I’ll need that.
Tonight, with this speech, he would begin the transition f
rom spiritual leader to de facto Head of State over what was left of humanity. Or he might be relegated to the historical junk heap of ambitious, failed dictators. It could go either way.
In preparation for the event, he’d read every relevant historical text, everything worth reading on social psychology, marketing, and political manipulation. He’d even skimmed fictional biographies for creative angles on how to best sell his ideas to his followers.
Today was the test. Compared to things like physics or chemistry or even biology, trying to predict how people would respond to proposed change was frustratingly complex and frightfully unpredictable.
“Friends, welcome.” He lifted his hands to deliver a blessing to the assembly. “Let us praise God for bringing us to this place, for saving us from the wrath He has visited upon the sinful Earth and for giving us, His true followers, another chance to prove humanity is worthy of His love. Amen.”
“Amen,” they echoed.
“Friends, I know our escape from the disaster that befell our old home was rushed. I know the adjustment to life in a new place is hard, especially when that place is still under construction and not yet fitted with the comforts of your old home. I know many of you have been patiently living with friends, relatives, or total strangers in the temporary lodgings we assigned to you. I know sharing one washroom among four people is not easy.”
Alum waited for the crowd to laugh and nod in acknowledgment of this small but uncomfortable truth. They did.
Satisfied, he raised his arms and shifted his gaze toward the distant end of the new colony tunnel.
“My friends, for many of you, the current hardships will be eased today as we open the first new habitat completed under this Administration. Welcome to Pallas Three.” He spread his arms as if to welcome all to the new habitat.
A cheer arose from the masses. He’d thought to release doves and balloons, but who wanted to clean up that kind of mess? He waited a minute and then held up his hands to quell the cheers.
“This is not only a new day for those of you assigned new housing in this city; it is also a new day for every one of us in the three asteroids.
“A little over a year ago, the Reverend LaMontagne, appointed me to lead the people of this Church and, since that time, you have rewarded me with your faith in my guidance.”
He paused for the applause to die down, drawing out the silence that followed. The crowd hushed themselves, and waited expectantly. He bowed his head and focused on the front rows. He lowered his voice to an intimate near-whisper, knowing the sensitive sound system would pick it up and boom it out in amplified clarity across plazas in all of the colony habitats.
“I thought of Reverend LaMontagne as a father,” he confided. “Not only in the sense of my legal guardian, but in a spiritual sense, as the man who woke the love of Yeshua within me. Thanks to him, when our Lord spoke to me and told me to assemble His people in our churches so they could be saved from the destruction of our planet of origin, I was ready for His love to shine bright within me.”
He lifted his head, and let his voice soar. “And you, you were there to receive the light of His blessing.”
The crowd rewarded him with more loud cheering, forcing Alum to raise his voice over them, practically yelling.
“Our Lord cast out those who sought to claim this kingdom for their own, the kingdom He had caused to be made in the heavens for His people. He returned the usurpers to that planet of sin, where they could be thrown into the pits of Hell along with the other unbelievers. He gave these places to us, His loyal followers, to preserve His Holy message of hope and love in His universe.”
Alum looked out on the waving, shouting, happy masses in the square. With his lattice, he tapped into video cameras showing the reactions of people in city squares all over the asteroid habitats. Everywhere, it was the same, so many jubilant faces greeting his message.
Time to get down to business.
He returned his voice to a normal level and asked, “How are we to be good stewards of these lands God has given us? Are we to repeat the mistakes of those who perished on Earth for their greed and their abuse of God’s great gift?”
“No! Never! Praise be! Yeshua show us the way!” shouted the people gathered in the square.
“What sins did the people of Earth commit that their entire planet should be taken from them forever? Did they forget to honor their Lord and Creator? Certainly. Did they lust? Did they murder? Were they adulterous thieves?”
“Yes! Amen! Save us Lord!” they cried.
“Yes! They were guilty of all these. But, above all, there were two sins they were guilty of breaking, the two most important of God’s Ten Commandments.”
He ticked the sins from his upheld fingers. “First, they placed the false god of money ahead of the true God of Creation. Second, they raised graven images and temples to that god.
“We called those images by many names: dollar, yen, Euro, Gold Eagles. We constructed great temples to these false gods. We called them banks. And the worst, the very worst, of these false gods we called Central Banks.”
The gathering of people grew silent. They were confused by this unexpected turn. They knew the old sins and sinners well: homosexuals, abortionists, evolutionists, scientists, and liberals. But this was something new.
For decades they’d felt a sense of righteousness associated with the creation of wealth. That message had grown in popularity and been given a name: the Prosperity Gospel. If you did alright, it meant God was smiling down on you, rewarding you for your piety or, at least, that you believed in the right things. How was that suddenly wrong?
“Oh, don’t mistake me. Money, by itself, is not evil. Money is nothing more than a tool, a medium of exchange, a store of the value of our labor and our goods. Working hard, saving, and investing responsibly are all fine, Godly endeavors. But some powerful forces, evil forces, distorted the real value of money on Earth. They put it above God, above Yeshua, and God saw how a simple thing had become perverted by evil.”
“Debt, my friends. I’m talking about debt, interest, currency exchange, making money from nothing but other money.
“Matthew 21:12 says: ‘And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.’”
Alum shook his head and his face clouded over with disappointment. He cast his eyes downward.
“A den of thieves,” he repeated, more quietly this time. He looked out over the audience. “‘But weren’t they just simple merchants?’, you ask. Weren’t they well-meaning venders lending a hand to worshippers by selling them pigeons for sacrifice, and exchanging coins stamped with graven images for ones that could be used in the Synagogue? Weren’t they just good businessmen?’
“Don’t you be fooled, my friends. They weren’t simply trading coins, they were profiting from the exchange, skimming a little off each transaction. Why? What value did they contribute?
“What value did the money changers and lenders on Earth contribute to their economies, to the richness of human activity? Oh, sure, they were able to finance consumer purchases, corporate acquisitions, even governments and wars. But they exacted their pound of flesh from each and every one of those transactions. At the end, when they had sucked the life out of all human activity, when everyone was indebted to them, they lived high, and they let the common man go hungry.”
An uncoordinated murmur of resentment arose.
“How did we get there? How did we mortgage our houses, our vehicles, our work, our very lives to those who did nothing but provide us with an opportunity to play in the game; a game of their own design, a game whose sole purpose was to bind us to them?
“In ancient days, strong armies would arrive at the doors of the weak and the innocent, demanding their taxes. They would use force to lay claim to
land on which families had hunted and farmed freely for generations. We called them kings or lords, though they were no better than thugs and extortionists. The old churches, not much better than the criminals they legitimized, gave their false blessings to these rulers. They were not of God, but of Satan.
“Over time, the wicked expanded their preposterous claims of ownership over the land God gave to all. They built factories, limiting what could be manufactured, where, and by whom. They claimed ownership over all of our works, and returned a pittance to those who performed the labor.”
The people were listening closely now. Hadn’t most of them suffered with little or no work, at wages that barely afforded them food and shelter? On the other hand, Alum’s words were sliding dangerously close to something they might have heard from a union organizer, and everyone knew unions were a bad thing, ranking right up there with socialists.
“And when it was no longer enough that they owned our land and the food it produced, our hands and the goods they produced, and our minds and the ideas they produced, the elite found a way to claim everything else.
“Our desire to improve our lives is insatiable. Who among us, whatever our station in life, doesn’t want better lodging, better transportation, better clothing, communications, and entertainment? Who doesn’t wish for an easier life, for more fun and less strife?
“The lenders recognized that need, that addiction to acquiring things before we’ve earned them. They found a way to play to our basest, most common desires. They invented the loan. They gave incentives for saving, and then used the money of hard-working savers to lend to others who wanted to jump ahead a little. No harm in that. Isn’t that simply good economics, putting excess money to work for everyone?”
Practically every adult in the audience had had a consumer loan or credit card in their lifetime; they’d incorporated the concept of banks as facilitators of happy times into their lives and dreams.
“And when our savings weren’t adequate to satisfy growing demand for a better life, they invented the fiat: money generated from nothing, created for the sole purpose of driving people deeper and deeper into financial slavery. This new ‘money’ wasn’t tied to anything. Not to gold, or silver, or oil. Not to the general growth of the economy.”
