Judgment Day (36 page)

CHAPTER 66 SACRIFICE

Who are those who will eventually be damned? Oh, the others, the others, the others!

—
THE ROY CROFT DICTIONARY AND BOOK OF EPIGRAMS
, ELBERT HUBBARD

T
he little devil statue that Crow bought at a gas station and then painted red was on its pedestal overlooking the ceremony chamber. Thirteen figures in black robes surrounded the man on the altar. He was stretched taut, hands and feet bound by leather thongs, his chest heaving, his face tear-streaked. The man's head rocked back and forth as he watched the figures around him, terrified of what was coming and helpless to stop it.

The chanting was low, but building, Crow leading the others who echoed replies. Eyes wild with fear, mouth taped, the man on the altar watched Crow hold up the knife, caked black with the blood of dozens of sacrifices. Bringing the knife down slowly he touched it to the man's pounding chest. The man began to weep.

Now the coven chanted while he traced a pentagram on the man's chest, at the same time planning the incision. He was well practiced now, and could remove the heart whole before it stopped beating. He liked the feel of a warm, wet, pulsating organ. The chanting built, Rachel and the others working themselves up to the moment, voices joined in praise of the master of the underworld.

The sacrifice would not be missed by society. His body ravaged by alcohol and drug abuse, he looked much older than his thirty years. His skin was gray, his hair sparse and brittle, his face and body covered with open sores. Rachel had lured their victim into her van with the promise of liquor. Only when sobered up for the sacrifice did he finally understand what was happening. There was little satisfaction in sacrificing drunks. The best sacrifice so far had been a teenager Rachel found passed out in an alley. Hollow cheeks, track marks on her arms and legs, she was an addict, but her body still retained some of its youthful vigor and her heart pulsed in Crow's hand nearly twice as long as any other.

It was time and he raised the knife high above his head, aiming below the heart so that he wouldn't damage it when he made the first incision. The intercom buzzed before he could plunge the knife into the man's chest.

Frustrated, he looked to Rachel, who stepped to the wall to respond. Then she was back, whispering to him.

"It's Simon. He says it's urgent."

"It better be," Crow growled, "or he'll be on the altar next month."

Silencing the others with a wave, Crow punched the intercom. "What is it, Ash?" he growled.

"I'm terribly sorry to disturb you, Senator, but I thought you would want to know the news about the cult."

"Well, what is it?" he demanded.

"CNN just reported that they've discovered another planet with life on it. That's where the
Genesis was, and
they've brought back specimens."

Unlike the rest of the world, Crow's shock wasn't over the news of travel to another star, nor over the discovery of life on another planet. Crow's shock was over his inability to stop them. Hadn't he been called by the Master to this purpose? Yet even the human sacrifices hadn't brought him the favor he needed—the power. He looked back at the man tied to the altar and saw him for the first time for what he was—human filth. He'd been sacrificing human garbage to his Master. Winos, drug addicts, and prostitutes were insults, not offerings. Suddenly he knew what he had to do. Striding across the room, the victim's eyes widening with each step, Crow plunged the knife into the man's heart. Severed nearly in half, the heart's contractions finished tearing the chambers apart and with a spasm of pain the man lost consciousness, his blood ceased to circulate, and the brain began the four-minute dying process.

Crow was back on the intercom shouting orders at Ash.

"Get my office staff on the phone. I want the public health aspect of this looked into. Contact the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, and the Surgeon General's Office. Also get me the names and phone numbers of every department of health in every state where the Fellowship has property."

With a quick "Yes sir," Simon hung up.

Rachel was awaiting orders.

"Get rid of that filth," he said. "We're not insulting the Master anymore. You don't sacrifice the worst of the flock, you sacrifice the best."

"Or the young," she said, her black eyes shining. "But remember, no one searches for the street people, but they do for their children."

Crow knew the more connections one of their sacrificial lambs had, the more questions that would be asked. Kill a bum, and they look for the killer for a day. Kill a workingman and they look for a month. Kill a child and they'll look for a year.

"There's a way to kill two birds with one stone," Rachel suggested. Now she ran her tongue across her lower lip as if tasting her delicious plan.

"Ira Breitling is behind the Fellowship's technology."

"You want to sacrifice him?" Crow asked.

"No, not until we have his secrets."

"He would never talk."

"To save his wife's life he might."

Rachel had long advocated kidnapping Ruth Breitling, but Crow had resisted, thinking it too risky. Even now he doubted Ira Breitling would betray the Fellowship to save his wife. Still, the thought of a terrified Ruth Breitling stretched across his altar pleased him.

"There's another purpose she can serve," Rachel said, a cruel smile on her lips.

When Crow heard Rachel's plan for Ruth Breitling, he knew it would please both him and his Master.

CHAPTER 67 QUARANTINE

It wasn't the white man that wiped out the Native American nations, it was white man's disease. Given that the most likely life form to find on another planet is a microbe, care must be taken not to bring alien diseases to Earth or we could suffer the same fate as the Native Americans.

—
ALONE IN THE VOID?
, WILLIAM JEFFERS

T
he Council met as soon as the word of the discovery had been shared with the rest of the Fellowship. Gathered in the Christ's Home compound were Sally Roper, financial manager, Shelly Strong, Floyd and Evelyn Remple, Ira Breitling, Mark Shepherd, and Micah Strong.

"The first leg of the flight was based on the direction of the marker we found on Pluto," Micah said.

Mark shifted in his seat, uncomfortable with the word "marker."

"Basing direction on a pointing rock is inaccurate over short distances," Micah said, "and over stellar distances the error margin approaches infinity. Still, we identified five stars similar in magnitude to our own and mapped our course to move from nearest to farthest star. The first had only three planets, all gas giants."

Floyd turned on a wall screen and the blue screen flickered, a planet filling the screen. It was a swirling mass of clouds, red the dominant color.

"As you can see, the planet is a near twin of Jupiter, although we couldn't find anything similar to Jupiter's giant red spot. We have no idea what that means."

A fuzzy image of another planet appeared, a green gas giant.

"We took this video long-range as we were leaving orbit. This is the second planet in the system, nothing particularly remarkable about it."

Mark was struck by how easily Micah dismissed his astounding discovery. Now a third planet appeared, it too dominated by green coloration.

"We detoured to get a closer look at this one when we noticed something peculiar. It's pretty much like the last one except its moons are interesting." The video changed and a large bright dot appeared in the middle of the screen, with several smaller dots nearby.

"You can see its moon is a mini solar system. The moon has several smaller moons itself. What you can't tell from this tape is that there are nine smaller moons circling the large one."

"Just like our solar system," Sally said. "It's another sign."

"Let's not jump to conclusions," Mark cautioned. "I'm still not convinced the hand on Pluto was a sign, and if it wasn't a sign then this is just a coincidence."

The faces of the others told him he was preaching to deaf ears.

"The second star is coming up next," Micah continued. "We're eight months into the voyage at this point—eight months your time."

A new planet appeared; this one filled the screen like the others, but it was an airless body, its surface pockmarked from meteor collisions.

"This system had six planets. This one is the nearest to its sun—about fifty million miles away when we encountered it, although we suspect its orbit is eccentric and it's much closer at perihelion. The planet doesn't rotate and the far side has been liquified recently. It's only about half the size of the Earth."

Another planet appeared, similar to the first.

"This is the second planet. It orbits at about the same distance as Earth but has no atmosphere." Micah paused, waiting for the next planet to appear. "We were pretty frustrated at this point. Ten months in space, claustrophobic, and our second disappointment."

Now the next planet appeared. This one was blue.

"This one seemed possible at first," Micah explained. "It has an atmosphere, but the blue you see is carbon dioxide ice. There's no free water on the planet and the atmosphere isn't much thicker than Mars'. There's another gas giant in this system with double rings . . . here it is."

Micah paused to let the others take in the beauty of the ringed planet. It was a green giant surrounded with two Saturn-like rings. Breathtakingly

beautiful, the planet was a jewel in God's creation but not what the
Genesis
was looking for.

"We didn't visit the other two planets since they were on the far side of the star and too distant from the sun to be livable."

"So there was no sign in this system," Mark prodded.

"None that we found," Micah conceded.

Mark studied Micah's face—he was holding something back.

"Of course, we had to deviate quite a distance from the direction of the pointing finger to get here." Then the image on the screens changed. "Here comes the winner," Micah said. "The third star had what we were looking for."

The screen showed the now familiar planet from the original video.

"It has one small moon, breathable atmosphere, and is teeming with life. There are four other planets in the system. Two gas giants and two planets very similar in size and shape to this one. One of the other planets orbits nearer the star and is hot like Venus—not habitable. The other planet is the most interesting—here it is."

White clouds covered most of this planet, but patches of blue and brown could be seen through breaks in the clouds.

"The orbit of this planet would put it somewhere between the Earth's orbit and Mars'. It would be cooler than Earth but there are wide temperate zones. The atmosphere is nitrogen-oxygen—about the right mix—there is soil, water, and plenty of sunlight. Yet the planet has no life. Not even microscopic forms."

"It's like a garden waiting to be planted," Sally said.

"Our thought exactly," Micah said. "With enough time we could virtually duplicate Earth's ecosystem on that world. Moving to its neighbor means struggling to fit into an ecosystem that has no niche for people. On this world we could build it to fit us."

"If we had the time," Mark said, "but these aren't mutually exclusive ideas. We can work with this world and live on the other. Perhaps both were meant for us."

Now Micah and Floyd exchanged looks.

"There are two more things you need to know," Micah said. Then turning to Ira he said, "Ira, tell us again about your vision."

Ira looked startled, then leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table, his head resting in his hands. Then his good eye stared at the tabletop and he talked as if he were seeing the vision as vividly as he had the first time.

"There was a white dot that got bigger and bigger, turning yellow as it did. Then there were more bright dots, circling the larger yellow dot—six of these. The three outer dots turned green. The three inner dots changed color too. The one closest to the center became silver, the next green, and the third red."

Blinking his good eye, Ira broke his stare and looked up at Micah.

"This solar system doesn't match your vision, Ira," Micah said. "There are only five planets and only two gas giants. In your vision there are three gas giants."

"It could be interpreted other ways," Evelyn said. "God gave us the ability to go into space, and pointed the way. We followed God's direction and found a planet we can live on. It couldn't be much clearer," she said. Others at the table nodded in agreement.

"There's one more thing you need to see," Micah said.

Floyd changed digital recordings and soon a new image was on the screen—an airless body, its surface heavily cratered. Soon the image filled the screen as the sphere that did the recording raced toward the surface.

"This is the moon orbiting the planet," Micah said. "It resembles some of the big asteroids we visited in our own system, although it is nearly perfectly round—unusual for an asteroid. It also has huge crevices that cut nearly to its core. We shot this next footage just before we left orbit. We wanted to make sure the moon wasn't unstable and would create havoc on the planet it orbits. Then we found this," Micah said.

The surface of the alien moon was indistinguishable from the lunar surface—craters, boulders, a bright reflection and deep shadows. Those at the table strained to pick out what Micah referred to. Then Shelly gasped.

"Did you see it?" Shelly said.

The image changed as the sphere shooting the video banked and then climbed, rotating to reverse course. From the higher altitude they could all make out the feature below—it was another pointing hand.

Now everyone was mumbling and praising God, and Mark moved quickly to control the meeting.

"Let's not jump to conclusions," Mark said. "Yes it looks something like the formation on Pluto, but not exactly. Freeze the image, will you, Floyd?"

The pointing hand was fixed on the screen.

"It's imperfect," Mark pointed out. "It's not proportioned correctly. I can make out only four fingers. It may be we see a pointing hand because we want to see one. If we flew over the Earth's surface looking for hands it's likely we'd find one here too."

"But we haven't," Sally pointed out. "Not on the Earth, not on the moon."

"But we weren't looking for one," Mark pointed out.

"We weren't looking for it on Pluto," Shelly said. "And we weren't looking for it here either."

"I'm not saying we can ignore it, but let's not abandon the planet we have—maybe two—just because of a rock formation." The others looked skeptical so he turned to Ira for support. "What do you think, Ira?"

Ira had always been the practical one, the rational counterpart to Mark's emotional impulses. Together they had managed to keep the Fellowship focused on its mission. He needed that rational half now. Ira spoke without hesitating.

"I think we should find out what it's pointing at," Ira said.

The others were nodding in agreement when the door burst open and Paul rushed in, breathless.

"It's on CNN," Paul blurted. "They know we've been to another planet and we brought animals back. The governor has declared a state of emergency. We're going to be quarantined."

Mark sighed. They had hoped to keep it secret a little longer, knowing it would get out eventually, and when it did, they knew government interest would increase. Several branches of government had already been used against them, but the real power of the government had been kept in reserve. Now Mark worried that reserve of power would be released.