Does what we do today really have an impact on the future?
One by one the telltales and instrument lights came on, a choreographed light show culminating with the opening hiss of the Cryo Chamber. I sat up stretching and scratching, coughing and hacking, crawled out and went rummaging through a cabinet, looking for something to wear. A quick trip to the 'refresher' and a five minute warm shower produced a semi-presentable human being who grabbed a container of liquid refreshment and flopped down into the command chair, sipping the beverage while hitting the "on" button for the view screen. My voice was dry and raspy.
"Okay, HAL, I guess we're here or you wouldn't have warmed me up."
A soft metallic voice filled the room. "We are 12 hours from Epsilon Delta Epsilon Nu, our programmed destination, Dave."
Actually, my name isn't Dave. It's Steve Behr. We spacers are allowed to program our companions with our choice of voice and personality. Most choose a spouse or favorite actor, but I'm a 20th Century history buff so I picked the HAL 9000 from a popular video of the time.
By trade, I'm a WAG Field Tech. That's W.A.G., for Williamson Atmosphere Generator, named for the literary giant, Jack Williamson, who first coined the concept of Terraforming back in the 20th Century. The WAG is manufactured by SONY (what isn't these days?) and is the single most important link in spreading the human population among the stars. Find a planet of sufficient size and rotation, the right distance from a sun, soft-land a WAG on it, wait, oh, 10 to a 100 years, depending on its initial atmosphere, and voila, another Earth. WAGs are so well engineered they rarely fail and they come with a lingual capability that makes servicing easy-- you just ask it what's wrong. That's why I'm here. The mental giant who shipped this WAG suddenly disappeared and BIO is concerned about its umpteen-billion dollar baby.
To fill the time before planet fall, I fed Epsilon's data disc to HAL's display and the more I read the more curious I became. This planet is so far off the beaten path that its effective chance of being discovered is virtually zero, yet not only did someone find it, that someone had the power to grant it a WAG. It has but one continent and its mineral wealth is quite low. Unless some bigwig wanted it for a personal water sports rec world, its uses are very limited. No Settler Group would consider it worth the Claim investment. A WAG Programmer must know about his planet in order to set his parameters, but he doesn't choose the planet. That decision is made higher up, at Parsec Central. No one has the money or power to create their own world.
As we approached the world, I got my second shock of the day: there was another ship already in orbit! An old cargo ship hanging in the blackness, its running lights the only sign of life. Since the ship's shields were down, I beamed over and found no life forms. It was clean and still had over 93% in its engines so they weren't stranded. Its lander was in its bay, so that meant the trespassers had invaded the planet and sent the lander back on remote. They planned to stay forever if they didn't have a satellite hook-up. That made me mad! There was a hand-lettered sign lying on the console; 'The Ark' it read and it tickled something in my head but I didn't have time for that now. There are certain procedures for settlement: first, a WAG Tech certifies the planet habitable, next Survey sends a BIO Team to map it out, then Central decides if the planet should be kept out of circulation for any number of reasons, and if not, finally it is released for Claim. None of this had occurred, so these were claim-jumpers! I parked next to the cargo ship and took my lander down to the planet.
I spotted the WAG at the edge of a clearing and landed nearby. When I exited the airlock, I was hit by a wall of warm, fragrant air. Not only did this planet possess a near perfect temperature of 75 degrees and lush vegetation, branches weighed down with colorful fruits, it was also blessed with a rich, black soil able to grow about anything. I saw brightly colored birds in the trees and small quadruped ruminates grazing in the tall grass. I didn't see any weeds. This place was a paradise, and since a WAG couldn't create these things, one of the approaching humans must have been with BIO.
As I waited, I calculated their numbers and made my observations. Roughly eighty humans, of mixed race, age, and gender, several children gamboling around the edges of the group. They all wore flowing robes of various colors, and the older males affected long facial hair, beards I believed they used to be called. They walked with practiced ease, and seemed untroubled by my landing. The man I assumed to be their leader carried a walking stick, or staff, and wore a peaceful smile as he spoke.
"Welcome, Brother Behr, we have been expecting you. I am Moah, and we are the Chosen of God. We offer you refreshment and rest from your long journey."
A bloated, skin-like vessel and a woven reed basket of fruit were placed at my feet. Never one to pass up a real meal, I nodded thanks and sat in the shade of my lander to eat. The group sat around me, except for Moah, who remained standing. The silent children stared with wide eyes at my body armor and weapons. I wouldn't need them here.
"How did you know I was coming?" I asked between bites.
"Our God, Who led us here and provides all things, told of your coming," said Moah.
I picked up the skin thing and looked it over. It was obviously filled with some kind of liquid, but if I removed the cap it would run out all over.
“Let me help you,” came the lilting voice of a young woman who knelt before me. She was absolute perfection with the biggest, softest brown eyes I had ever seen and my heart raced. I was mesmerized and must have looked the fool sitting there with my mouth open. “Hold it thus,” she explained as she laid the vessel on her upraised bent arm, pantomiming the raising of her arm with the stopper near her sculptured lips.
I did as she said and was rewarded with a stream of golden liquid, some of which squirted into my mouth and the rest down my chin. The children giggled and were hushed by adults as the woman produced a cloth and wiped my face. I felt myself falling hopelessly into her smile. Whatever the liquid was, it was delicious.
The woman made to stand but I touched her arm and she stopped. “What is your name?” I asked, lamely.
“Rachael,” she replied, her smile growing warmer.
“Thank you, Rachael,” I stammered. The tittering of the children brought me back to reality, if this was indeed reality.
Composing myself I turned to the leader. "May I meet this God?"
"We will take you to the Son, as none may meet the Father except through the Son."
‘Whatever’, I thought. I searched for memories of old Earth history and recalled a "Testament" connected with certain beliefs or "religions". Those practices were fairly prevalent in bygone days, but had been replaced with modern pragmatism. Give me money anytime, I can believe in the Religion of Profit.
A short pilgrimage brought us to the WAG, and then an unexpected ritual occurred. The people all bowed low at the waist and backed out into the clearing, leaving me alone with the WAG. It appeared normal except for the "Y" in the manufacturer's logo was missing. I waved my ID in front of the sensor and nothing happened. No acknowledgement, no sound, no nothing. Puzzled, I reached for my toolkit and belatedly wondered if these people would attack me for defiling their God. Maybe I should have kept my weapons. I looked back toward the group but they were all gone, except for Rachael, who was approaching with her ever-present smile.
“May I help you in some way?” She asked.
“This is a machine, it is not a God. It’s a chemistry lab that processes a planet’s atmosphere and re-combines the molecules it finds into ones that can support human life. It’s just a machine.”
“If you say so,” Rachael replied.
“I’m going to open it up and look inside.”
Rachael merely shrugged.
I removed the fasteners on the hermitically sealed computer access door, broke the seal and looked inside. The shock of my life! There was nothing inside! No computer, no power grids nothing, just dangling connectors and a speaker. Without the electronics the WAG was just a big composite warehouse. Yet, the door had been sealed and special equipment was required to re-seal it if opened. Puzzled, I examined the WAG but could find no other means of entry.
“This thing talks to you?” I asked, incredulously.
“Yes, when God has something to tell us.”
I was skeptical. “Did one of you open it and remove the insides?”
“Oh no,” Rachael gasped, dropping her smile. “The Son is sacred to us.”
I tried a different tack. “What did you do before you came here?”
“In my previous life I was a botanist.”
“Previous life?”
“Before I was saved, by the Grace of God, into this life.”
“Then you have an education?”
“Yes.”
“And you know machines can’t talk, at least machines with nothing inside them.”
“Of course, silly.” This smile was one of amusement.
“Then how can you tell me that this empty machine talks to you?”
“The machine doesn’t talk, God talks THROUGH it. In our Scriptures we read of God talking through a burning bush to Moses millennia ago. This is not so different.”
“Will it talk to me?”
Rachael’s eyes positively twinkled over her smile. “God, not the machine, will talk to you when He is ready.”
“And when would that be?” I asked.
She shrugged her shoulders again. “In His time. Your coming here was foretold to us. God has a plan for you, and He will reveal it when you are ready to hear it.”
“Suppose I don’t wait around to hear it?”
“That is between you and God.”
Typical, I thought. Put the onus on me and their God remains inviolate. I matched the WAG’s ID plate with the info I had. Yep, this was the right one. No use resealing the computer compartment so I just put the fasteners back in.
“I’m going to have to return to my ship and straighten this mess out. You people don’t belong here and I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave.”
Her smile didn’t waver. “If you say so.”
“You seem confident, but you’ve never dealt with the government, have you?
“No, but you’ve never dealt with God, have you?”
There was no use trying to convince Rachael of anything not in her beliefs. What a shame, a woman of such intelligence and beauty wasting it on a nothing planet on the edge of nowhere. Sad, but I had a job to do.
Rachael showed me the way back to my ship, but I was strangely reluctant to leave. It wouldn’t hurt to spend a few days here, I had the time and it would take awhile for Central to get back to me with a decision. Still, I couldn’t do my research or report from here. There was no one around my ship and I warned Rachael to stand aside as I lifted off. She stood demurely, hands clasped in front of her, eyes downcast as I placed my hand on the door reader.
Nothing happened! The door didn’t open. I tried again. Nothing. I searched my pack for the remote. It didn’t work either.
I turned to Rachael. “Nice trick. How’d you do it? One of your people a ship tech?”
She shook her head. “No one has touched your ship, that is not our way.”
I don’t know why I believed her, but I did. It was getting dark and I didn’t feel like disassembling the lock in the dark. “OK, now what?”
“I can offer you the hospitality of the people. Please follow me.” Rachael led off in the direction we had just covered but led me to the other side of the clearing to their ‘village’. It was a collection of wooden houses and shops and it was quite primitive; even colonists had pre-fab buildings. If front of a large ‘meeting house’ Rachael opened the door and bade me enter.
The room was long and low and was fairly lit by scores of burning sticks along the walls and on the tables. Men and children sat together on long benches and the women served them delicious smelling food. She led me to a place at the head of a table and seated me beside Moah, then left to join the women, returning in a few minutes with a heaping plate that she placed in front of me.
The boisterous noise quieted and the women joined the table, Rachael to my right, around the corner. Moah stood and the group bowed their heads while he gave Thanks to his God. Rachael was watching me out of the corner of her eye.
Moah sat and the room returned to joyful repast as the people passed food and the events of the day. Many of the people and all of the children watched me to see what I would do. I did what I do best, eat.
It was a meat that I could not identify but it was delicious! Fresh vegetables and fruits and warm bowls of bread. The people might live like peasants but they ate like kings. Rachael kept my plate and mug full during the repast and I felt like I could get used to service like this.
“This feast is in your honor, Brother Behr, a gift from our God.” Moah said.
The ‘Brother’ irritated me but the food was too good to complain. “Then you don’t normally eat this well?”
“We eat as God provides and it is always enough.”
“I don’t suppose you know why I can’t get into my ship?”
“No, but I do know that tomorrow you will be able to do what you wish.”
I wasn’t going to fall into the trap and ask him how he knew that - - I knew what his answer would be.
In fellowship after the feast I met many of the people and the children and I’ll have to say that they were the finest group of people I’ve ever met. Every one of them, down to the youngest child was happy and full of love for one another and some of it slopped over on me, I’ll admit. I began to wonder what it would be like to live on a world such as this, especially if I had a woman like Rachael to come home to.
Rachael led me to the ‘guest house’ as they called it, a small bungalow near the trees. The two small moons in the heavens (what?) shone on her beautiful face and tomorrow was the last thing I was thinking about. We sat on the porch steps and talked of her previous life and of my current one and found a common ground, or at least I thought we did. For the first time in my life I began to know what ‘peace’ was.
After she left I tried to sleep and though the bed was very comfortable I just couldn’t drift off, something very unusual for me. I decided a walk in the woods would calm me down and I walked for an hour before I found myself standing, inexplicably, in front of the WAG.
Its great bulk almost blotted out the night sky and I felt small in its presence. In the moonlight it somehow seemed more than a machine. When it spoke, I was totally blown away!
“Welcome, Steven.” The voice came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It was an empty machine, yet it was talking to me. I started to tremble uncontrollably, dropping to the ground, afraid to look at the WAG.
The voice was in my head and I began to understand that it had nothing to do with the WAG, it only held a place. The voice knew me right down to my very soul and it cut me lovingly into pieces and reassembled me again. The rapture I felt was complete and I could have listened to that voice forever, but I fell asleep instead.
Rachael found me the next morning and brought me a basket of bread and meat. I couldn’t stop talking about my experience but she said nothing, only smiled that beautiful smile. When I ran out of words she collected her basket and stood.
“What will you do now?” She simply asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “I’ve been given a task and I have no idea how to complete it.”
“Trust and believe and you will be shown the way.”
Alone I returned to my lander and found that it would now open to me. I flew it back to my ship and after a trip to the refresher I sat at the consol and planned my task. God (for I now thought of Him as mine) had given me the job of protecting His world against the godless, hedonistic society in which I lived. In return, I was to sell the cargo ship and keep the profits as my reward, a sum to last me the rest of my life. I felt no joy at this, when 24 hours ago I would have been ecstatic. I had changed and wealth meant nothing to me, and I really wondered at that, enough to slap myself a few times but my feelings didn’t change.
What was I to do? Use the sale money to bribe certain officials? Lie and cheat? Would God want that?
In my mind I kept seeing Rachael’s trusting brown eyes and behind them the gentle, loving people I had met. The society I was from would tear them to shreds and devour them as an evil beast would attack a lamb. I could not, would not allow that to happen.
“OK, God,” I said to my empty ship, “tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” No word was forthcoming so I just started searching the data banks for anything I could find.
My knowledge of the twentieth century gave me an advantage not many other men had, a basis for the laws and behaviors in force today and I was convinced that my answer lay there, in the past. The forces that formed the thinking of today might serve me in saving that which had become most precious to me. I rolled back the digital centuries until, at last, I found my answer. An old earth law. Was it still on the books? I rolled forward to see and found, that in rare cases it was still used today, a quarantine of sorts, and it was inviolate. Thanking my newfound God, I began the paperwork.
#
“So, Mr. Behr, it is your contention that planet Epsilon Delta Epsilon Nu fits the requirements for quarantine under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 of old earth, millennia ago? The people living on this planet can be classified as fish or wildlife?”
“That specification was altered in 2239 due to the discovery of the Setar system, peopled by beings that could be classified as both fish and wildlife and who knows what else, your honor. As my brief shows, sentient beings, if sufficiently different from our own species, fall under the classification of the EPA. I have also included references from Central itself allowing the Act to encompass primitive tribes of our own species, in the Theta system, for instance.”
“And you can prove your contention that these ‘people’ meet those guidelines?”
“Your honor, these people live in the most primitive way you can imagine. They have no electricity, running water or facilities associated with modern man. Their planet has no mineral resources to speak of and the people live in superstitious fear of a being they call their ‘god’. Their story of how they arrived on the planet is as strange and unbelievable as how an unfinished WAG got there. Even Central can’t explain it, which is why they sent me to look for it.
“I see from your brief that you returned the non-functioning WAG and the ‘settler’s’ ship, condemning the people to the planet.”
“It was their wish, Sir, as you can see from their affidavit. They are a gentle, hopelessly superstitious people who are sliding even further toward primal man. They are as useless to our society as their planet is, and only wish to be left to themselves.”
“I see that Central does not wish to contest your brief. Even BIO has recommended that you be given stewardship of the planet and people for scientific study. How do you plan to survive there?”
“My training as a WAG Tech prepares me for such conditions, your honor. I also have degrees in ancient history which will help me understand and care for them.”
“Your lifespan will be cut very short without modern medicine and technology, you are aware of this?
“Yes, your honor, I willingly make the sacrifice for science.”
The judge sighed. “Alright, young man, if you cannot be swayed, and in absence of all opposition from Central, I have no choice but to grant your request. So ordered!” Said the judge, banging his electronic gavel.
#
I climbed into the Cryo Chamber and attached the wires. I was going to be dropped off on E.D.E.N. with the promise of occasional support that I knew would not be forthcoming. I would spend the rest of my natural life there, in the Love of God and the arms of my Rachael. It’s a tough life, but somebody has to do it.
In "A Touch of Your Presence" are words that would inspire, encourage and strengthen one's soul when faced with challenges and difficulties and to know the awesomeness of God's power.
This book consists of a 150 pages of Christian poetry about the end of time and the Second coming of Jesus Christ not as a servant but as a King, the King of kings. To bring righteousness and peace to the earth and restore the government of God! Peac
