"O great Juju-Kuxtil. Oh, take, we beseech you, this sacrifice of our youngest, our purest, our finest daughter. Find this sacrifice worthy of your mighty eyes and defend us from the yellow rain. If this sacrifice be good in your eyes, give us a sign."
Achum bowed his head in unbroken silence. He prayed, "If she should be spared, who is my own daughter Malya of only sixteen summers, O great Juju-Kuxtil, give us a sign."
The Hopeful's laundry fell on everybody.
Pandemonium. Achum and Malya and the congregation all struggled and fought their way out from under the laundry. "Achum!" the worshipers cried. "Achum, what's happening?"
"A sign!" Achum shouted, spitting out socks. "A sign!"
A worshiper with a greasy work glove rakishly atilt across his forehead cried, "Achum! What does it mean?"
"I'm not sure exactly what it means," Achum answered, looking around at this imitation of a rummage sale, "but it sure is a sign."
A worshiper pointed upward. "Achum, look! From the sky! Something huge is coming!"
"As I understand it, Ensign Benson, these are a religious people."
Councilman Morton Luthguster, stout and pompous, representative of the Galactic Council on this journey of discovery and reunion, sat in his stateroom in prelanding conference with Ensign Kybee Benson, social engineer, the saturnine, impatient man whose job it was to study the lost colonies as they were found and prepare reports on what they had become in the half millennium of their isolation.
"Well, Councilman," Ensign Benson said, "they were a religious people five hundred years ago. The colony here was founded by the Sanctarians, a peaceful, pious community determined to get away from the strife of the modern world. Well, I mean, what was then the modern world. They named their colony Heaven."
"Charming name," Luthguster said, nodding slowly, creating and destroying any number of chins. "And, from what you say, a simple, charming people. I look forward to their acquaintance."
"Landing procedure complete," said the loud-speaker system in Billy Shelby's animated voice.
"Ah, good," Luthguster said, heaving himself to his feet. "Come along, Ensign Benson. I wonder if I recall the Lord's Prayer."
The Hopeful's automatic pilot had set the ship gently down on a wide, barren, rocky plain, similar in appearance to several unpopulated islands of the coast of Norway. A door in the side of the ship opened, a ladder protruded itself slowly from within, like a worm from an apple, and once it had pinged solidly onto the stony scree, Councilman Luthguster emerged and paused at the platform at the ladder's top. Captain Standforth, Billy Shelby and Ensign Benson followed, and all four stared down at the welcoming committee below.
Who were Achum, his unsacrificed daughter Malya and all the worshipers, every last one of them decked out in the Hopeful's laundry. And when Achum looked up at that fat figure atop the ladder and recalled the god statue in his church, hope became certainty: Prostrating himself, with his forehead on the ground, he cried out, in a voice of terror and awe, "Juju-Kuxtil! Juju-Kuxtil!"
The other worshipers, quick on the uptake, also prostrated themselves, and the cry went up from one and all: "Juju-Kuxtil! Juju-Kuxtil!"
"Not very much like my religion," Luthguster said and led the group down the ladder to the ground, where the worshipers continued to lie on their faces and shout out the same name. The instant Luthguster's foot touched rock, Achum scrabbled forward on knees and elbows to embrace the councilman's ankles. "Here! Here!" cried Luthguster, not at all pleased.
Achum half rose. "Hear, hear!" he shouted. "Hip, hip -"
"Hooray!" yelled the worshipers.
"Hip, hip -"
"Hooray!"
"Hip, hip -"
"Hooray!"
Ensign Benson had approached one of the prostrate worshipers, and now he attracted the fellow's attention with a prodding boot in the ribs. "Say, you. What's going on around here?"
"Juju-Kuxtil!" answered the wide-eyed worshiper and nodded in awe at Luthguster. "God! It's God!"
Achum was on his feet, prancing around, crying, "A feast for Juju-Kuxtil! A feast! A feast!"
Luthguster, beginning to get the idea, looked around and visibly became more enamored of it. Frowning at him, Ensign, Benson said, "That's God?"
"He's shorter in person, isn't he" said the worshiper.
The feast was outdoors and vaguely Polynesian in effect, with the visitors and the natives all sitting in a great oval. At the head of the oval, at Councilman Luthguster's right hand, the priest Achum stood and began the feast with a speech: "The time foretold by the sacred writings has come! Juju-Kuxtil is here to save us, as it was written! We have put on the sacred raiment, and we shall be saved from the yellow rain!"
Sotto voce, while the speech went on, Councilman Luthguster asked Ensign Benson, beside him at his other hand, "What's happening here?"
"Apparently," Ensign Benson murmured, "some physical disaster struck this colony quite some time ago and drove these people from an advanced society, with modern religion, back to primitive paganism."
"But what should we do?"
"Go along with them, at least for a while. Until we learn more."
"But what's this yellow rain he's going on and on about?"
"We can't ask questions," Ensign Benson said. "We'll find out later."
Achum was finishing his speech: "Soon the great Juju-Kuxtil shall begin his mighty work; but first, we shall feast. A feast of welcome to Juju-Kuxtil and his angels!"
Cheers rose from the assembled natives. Achum took his seat, and platters of food - lumpy, anonymous brown stuff that smelled rather like mildew - were distributed. Hospitably, Achum said to Luthguster, "I hope you like dilbump."
Luthguster blinked at his plate. "It looks quite, um, filling."
Billy Shelby had seated himself next to the prettiest girl at the feast, who happened to be Achum's daughter Malya. Smiling at her, he said, "Hi. My name's Billy."
"Malya."
"What's the matter? You aren't eating."
"I wasn't planning on dinner today," Malya explained, "so I had a big lunch."
"No dinner? Why not?"
"I was about to be sacrificed when you all got here."
Billy stared. "Sacrificed! Why?"
Wondering but not quite suspicious, Malya said, "For Juju-Kuxtil, of course. Don't you know that?"
"Oh! Um. Well, I'm glad it worked out this way, and now you don't have to be sacrificed, after all."
She pouted prettily. "Don't you want me to live forever with you on the Great Cloud?"
Sincerely, he said, 'I'd like you anywhere."
She gave him a sidelong look. "You don't seem very much like an angel."
"I can be surprisingly human," he told her.
The fourth voyager on the Hopeful also at the feast was Chief Engineer Hester Hanshaw, a 40ish, blunt-featured, blunt-talking person who was much happier with her engines than at any social occasion, including religious feasts. She kept her eyes firmly down and did little more than poke at her soup and her dilbump until the native on her left said, "Excuse me."
Hester looked at him. He was middle-aged, with a keen look about the eyes and the gnarled hands of a worker. "Yeah?"
"I was looking at that cloud you all fly around in."
"I hope you didn't mess it up," Hester said.
"It's hard to the touch. I thought clouds were soft and fluffy."
"It isn't a cloud," said Hester, who didn't believe in going along with other people's misconceptions. "It's a ship."
"Make a nice lamp."
Hester stared. "What?"
"I'm a carpenter," the native said. "Name of Keech."
"I'm Hester Hanshaw. Ship's engineer."
"What's that?"
"I keep the engines running."
Keech looked impressed. "All the time?"
"I mean I fix them," Hester told him, "if something goes wrong."
Looking skyward, Keech said, "All those clouds have engines? Fancy that."
/> Covering her exasperation by a change of subject, Hester said, "What kind of carpentry do you do?"
"Oh, the usual. Sacrificial altars, caskets, suspended cages to put sinners in."
"Cheerful line of work."
"Tough to build things that last," Keech commented, "with the yellow rain all the time. But we won't have that anymore, will we, now that Juju-Kuxtil is here?"
"You mean Councilman Luthguster?"
"The million names of God," Keech said solemnly. "Which one is that?"
"Number eighty-seven," Hester said. "What's in this soup? No, don't tell me."
On Achum's other side sat Captain Standforth, brooding at his soup, and on his other side sat Astrogator Pam Stokes, brooding at her slide rule. "Fascinating," she mumbled. "That asteroid belt."
"Pam?" The captain welcomed any distraction from that soup; things seemed to be moving in it. "Did you say something?"
"This system contains an asteroid belt," Pam told him, "much like the one in our own Solar System."
"Oh, the asteroid belt," the captain said, his mind filling with unhappy reminiscence. "I always have a terrible time navigating around that. You barely take off from Earth, you're just past Mars, and there it is. Millions of rocks, boulders, bits of broken-off planet all over the place. What a mess!"
"Well, the asteroid belt in this system," Pam said, "has an orbit that's much more erratic. In fact. . . ." Swiftly, she manipulated her slide rule. "Hmm. It seems to me. . . ." She gazed skyward, frowning.
So did the captain, though without any idea what he was supposed to be looking at. He blinked, and a yellow stone dropped into his soup, splashing oily liquid in various directions.
"Of course!" said Pam, pleased with her calculations.
A stone bounced off the table near Councilman Luthguster's right hand. A stone thunked into a platter of dilbump and slowly sank. A paradiddle of stones rattled in the center of the circle of feasters.
"The yellow rain!" cried Achum in sheerest horror.
Screams. Terror. The natives fled into handy burrows while the people from the Hopeful stared at one another in wild surmise. More stones fell. Achum dropped to his knees beside Councilman Luthguster, hands clasped together: "Juju-Kuxtil, save us! Save us!"
"It's a meteor shower!" Ensign Benson cried.
"No," Pam said, utterly calm, "it's the asteroid belt. You see, its eccentric orbit must from time to time cross this -"
Clambering clumsily to his feet, Luthguster shouted, "Asteroids? We'll all be killed!"
Taken aback, Achum settled on his haunches and gaped at the councilman. "Juju-Kuxtil?" Meantime, more stones fell.
Bewildered, the captain said, "Pam? Shouldn't we take cover?"
"According to my calculations," Pam answered, "this time we're merely tangential with -"
A good-sized boulder smacked into the earth at Luthguster's feet. In utter panic, spreading his arms to keep from losing his balance, he shrieked, "Stop!"
Still calmly explaining, Pam said, "it should be over almost at once. In fact, right now."
She was right; no more rocks fell. Slowly, the natives crept back out of their burrows, peeking skyward. Achum, faith restored, bellowed, "Juju-Kuxtil did it! He did it!"
"Juju-Kuxtil! Juju-Kuxtil!" the natives all agreed. Then they joined hands and danced in a great circle around Luthguster, singing, "For he's a jolly good savior; for he's a jolly good savior."
After the adoration, Luthguster and the captain and Pam and Ensign Benson met on the command deck of the Hopeful for a conference. "I think it's obvious what's happened here," Ensign Benson began.
"They think I'm God," Luthguster said complacently.
"Heaven has become debased, degenerate."
"I beg your pardon," Luthguster said.
Captain Standforth cleared his throat. "Uh, Billy says they have human sacrifice."
Luthguster assumed his most statesmanlike look. "I don't believe we should be too harsh in our judgments, Captain. These people aren't all bad. We shouldn't condemn a whole society out of hand."
"Of course not," Ensign Benson said. "First, we have to understand why a society behaves a certain way. Then we condemn it."
"According to the old records," the captain said, "they were perfectly nice people when they left Earth - cleaned up after their farewell picnic and everything."
"But no small settlement," Ensign Benson said, "could survive a constant, unpredictable barrage of rocks from the sky. Everything they ever built was knocked down. Every machine they brought with them was destroyed. Every crop they planted was pounded flat. No wonder they returned to barbarism. You have to be hit on the head with a lot of rocks to think the councilman here is God."
Luthguster puffed himself up like a frog preparatory to an answering statement; but before he could make it, Hester came in with Keech. Each carried an armload of yellow rocks. "Captain," Hester said, "request permission to show a visitor around the ship."
"Nice cloud you got here," Keech said.
"His name's Keech," Hester explained. "He's a carpenter; seems a little brighter than most. Thought I'd try to explain engines to him."
"Certainly, Hester," the captain said. He never denied anybody anything. "What are you doing with all those rocks?"
"Going to analyze them," Hester said.
"Very good idea," the captain said. He didn't know what analyze meant.
Hester and Keech left, and Ensign Benson turned to Pam, saying, "Do these rockfalls happen often?"
"Very."
"Every day?"
Pam shook her head. "Not necessarily. According to my calculations, the planet's orbit intersects the asteroid's orbit so frequently, in such a complex pattern, that to most people, it would seem utterly erratic."
"Could you work out the pattern?"
"Of course. As a matter of fact, there should be another brief shower later today."
"Then I'm glad," Luthguster said, we're all in the ship."
"Billy isn't," the captain said. "He asked permission to go for a walk with the human sacrifice."
"Bad," Ensign Benson said. "When the rocks fall, the natives will lose faith in the councilman. They'll want revenge."
In the engine room, Hester explained engines to Keech, who looked bewildered but interested. "And from the generator," she was saying, "electricity is stored in these cells for later use."
"Pretty clever," Keech admitted. "Given the right education and equipment, a human being could do the same stuff you angels do."
"You're beginning to catch on."
Bang, said the ship. Keech look startled, Hester annoyed. Bong, bong, bong, bongbongbong. "Yellow rain!" Keech cried.
"I wish it would lay off," Hester muttered.
"Do you realize," Keech demanded, what all this is doing to my faith?"
On a blasted plain, amid evidence everywhere of prior bombardments, Billy and Malya reclined and kissed. All at once, she pulled back, frowning at him, saying, "Are you sure you're a supernatural being?"
"I'm really not," Billy confessed. "What I really am is a human being."
"A human being?"
"Just like you. Well, not exactly like you. You're a girl and I'm a boy."
"I was beginning to suspect that," Malya said. "But why does Juju-Kuxtil travel around with humans?"
"Well," said Billy. "About Juju-Kuxtil .... "
In rapture, she said, "He saved us from the yellow rain."
"Ahhhh, yes and no," Billy said, scuffing his foot in the rocks.
She frowned at him. "What do you mean?"
"Can you keep a secret?"
"Of course," she lied.
Nerving himself up to blurt out the real story, Billy said, "Well the truth is -"
Bong; a good-sized rock landed on his head. He fell over, unconscious. Rocks suddenly started bouncing all over the place. Flinging herself onto Billy to protect him, Malya cried, "I think I know what you were trying to tell me, Billy!"
In the roofless temple,
Achum led a community discussion, "Now that Juju-Kuxtil has come and stopped the yellow rain," he said, "Heaven is ours. We can build, travel, everything." He gestured with broadly spread hands, smiling. The worshipers smiled back. A small yellow rock landed on Achum's right palm.
Five minutes later, when the rockfall had ended, Achum and the worshipers came crawling back out of their burrows and none of them were happy. Juju-Kuxtil lied!" several shouted.
"Yes!" Achum thundered.
"Achum is a false priest!" one shouted.
"Wait a minute," Achum said. "Hold on there."
"You're a false priest."
"Now, hold on. In the first place, I'm not a false priest, and I'll knock you down if you say that again. And in the second place, that's a false god!"
"A false god?"
"That isn't Juju-Kuxtil," Achum explained. "It's a demon trying to lead us astray. A demon disguised as Juju-Kuxtil!"
"A demon disguised as a god," mused a worshiper. "Hmm. That makes sense."
The captain had decided to go out looking for Billy while the others waited on the command deck. He had barely left when rocks started bonging again. "That's funny," Pam said, bending over her slide rule.
Ensign Benson said, "What's funny?"
The captain entered, looking ruffled, saying, "Gee, are they sore."
"Pam? What's funny?"
"There shouldn't be another asteroid fall," she said, "for two days."
"That isn't asteroids," the captain told her. "They're throwing rocks at the ship."
"Rocks at the ship!" Luthguster was incensed. "That's Galactic property!"
"Actually, it's mine," Ensign Benson said.
"They were hollering, 'Demon! Demon!'" the captain explained. "They think you're a false Juju-Kuxtil."
Luthguster gaped. "Me?"
"Councilman," Ensign Benson said, "you've set back superstition on this planet four hundred years."
Hester and Keech entered, Hester saying, "Captain, I -."
Collected Stories Page 28
