David Farland - Lords of the Seventh Swarm

Orick had been expounding upon the Beatitudes, and he quoted, “`Blessed are the poor in spirit who come unto me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Then Orick added, “This is God’s promise that He will strengthen us, regardless of our weaknesses, so that we can withstand His presence.

“‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.’ This is God’s promise that all things shall be given to those who submit to His teachings.

“‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost.’

“This is God’s promise that He will not leave you comfortless, in moments of trial, but shall grant His spirit to meet your needs.”

Felph groused, “Speaking of tribulation, how is a man to sleep, Orick, with your incessant babbling?”

“I was just telling Tallea and Athena here about the life of Jesus,” Orick said.

Felph sat next to Orick, wrapped his arms around his legs. Felph’s eyes were a bit puffy, swollen, and his face looked drained, tired. Yet he stroked his short beard thoughtfully and studied Orick from under heavy lids. “Ah, yes, a venerable enough chap, I gather. But I find other gods more intriguing.”

“Other gods?” Tallea asked. “You mean there are stories of other gods?”

Orick got an uneasy feeling. The Bible mentioned such gods-Baalim and Asteroth, Moloch and Diana. To worship them was forbidden. On Orick’s world, nothing was known of their ways. Orick believed God wanted to keep it this way.

“I always found Asteroth fascinating,” Felph said, watching Orick’s reaction. “I loved the way her worshipers used fetishes, and all the delightful sacred orgies they threw. Devotion toward the divine mother-with all her creative forces, and her concern for hearth and home those make so much more sense to me than worship of a war god. Don’t you think, Orick?”

“God is not a god of war,” Orick said, “but of peace.”

“Yes, well, tell that to the Canaanites, and the Hittites and Jebusites, and the Perizites and the Ammonites and the Philistines. I’m sure I’m forgetting a few, but those were just some of the nations the Israelites slaughtered under inspiration of your God of Peace.”

“I’m sure He had a good reason,” Orick countered. “God could not simply allow His people to die at the hands of their enemies. He must protect them.”

“Protect them, of course,” Felph said. “Now if I recall correctly, with the Hittites, Joshua slaughtered their men, their women, their children, all their flocks and herds, then burned their cities, melted their idols, and ground the gold into dust and threw it into the rivers. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes,” Orick admitted glumly.

“I can understand discarding the gold, and I suppose cities were dirty enough back then that burning might have been in order. Personally, I’d even back that God of yours on his decision to kill the children in the cities. But for the life of me, Orick, I can’t figure out what the poor sheep did so wrong! Really, was it their fault if those shepherds had unwholesome amorous preferences? Oh, and let’s not even mention the babes-Sock it to those mewling infants, Jehovah!” Lord Felph cackled horribly at his own jests.

Well, whatever presence of the Holy Spirit Orick had felt, it had about all fled by now. It wasn’t as if Orick didn’t have answers to Felph-he believed that God ordered the flocks destroyed so the Israelites would not be tempted to fight over the spoils of war. As for the babes, who knew what had really been done? The Bible was so old, it was probably filled with some inaccuracies. An uninspired scribe might have thrown in the thing about the babes. But Felph was throwing out questions of such moral complexity they were difficult to answer, especially for someone like Tallea, who needed to receive the milk of the gospel before she could tolerate the meat.

“There are answers to the questions you pose,” Orick said.

“Ah, those who have ears, let them hear!” Lord Felph joked.

Athena saw how Felph annoyed Orick. She said, “You were telling us about the Sermon on the Mount…”

“Yes,” Orick tried to remember where he’d left off.

“Are you certain your Jesus wasn’t an impostor, Orick?” Felph asked. “None of his ‘miracles’ seem very miraculous to me. Their effects would be very easy to accomplish with modern technology.”

“But they didn’t have modem technology back then,” Orick countered.

“Perhaps, but imagine this, Orick: imagine that a modern man went back in time, with the idea of posing as the Son of God. Using modern equipment, he could have easily performed the ‘miracles’ you describe.”

“What of turning water into wine?” Orick asked.

“Nanotechnology,” Felph said. “A small tablet filled with nutrients and the proper nanoware, and in moments your water turns to wine.”

“What about healing the sick or raising the dead?”

“Who knows how sick those people really were?” Felph argued. “Nanodocs can work wonders.”

“What of walking on the water?”

“An antigrav sled, floating just below the surface. I’ve accomplished the same effect myself.”

“What of calming the troubled seas?”

Lord Felph fell silent, considering. “Weather satellites. Jesus knew when the storm would end.”

“I don’t accept that answer,” Orick said. “Even after a storm calms, the seas stay rough. So what about it, how about calming the seas?”

“I don’t know-yet,” Felph admitted. “Such technology doesn’t exist at the moment.”

“And here is another question for you,” Orick said. “Can a man travel back in time that far?”

“Time travel is possible, though the technology is strictly controlled,” Felph said. “One can go back in time, a few days-even a week.”

“But we’re talking twenty thousand years.”

“If we had an energy source large enough, one that he could carry with him, so that he could duplicate the effort over and-” Felph began.

“It’s not possible, is it?”

“No,” Felph admitted. “It’s not, by modern standards. But you’re missing my point entirely, Orick.”

“Which is?”

“I’m getting to that. I’m not saying that a man went back in time-either from our present day, or from some future. I simply wanted to say this: that as a species, we are evolving into something equal to your god.”

Orick found the statement befuddling. “Look at me,” Felph continued. “I’ve been alive for four thousand years. I’ve worn out thirty clones, and lost another fifty by accident. I’ve been ‘raised from the dead’ some eighty times. I won’t live forever, but who knows how long your ‘God’ lived. And though I’m not omniscient, as your god supposedly is, I could gain something near that. I could collect all the knowledge of mankind into one huge Omni-mind, as the Tharrin do, and use it to help me rule the stars.”

“But that isn’t the same as what I’m talking about.”

“Yet it is very near,” Felph said. “One might argue that, as god’s children, we are naturally struggling toward godhood ourselves-seeking the same rights and powers you ascribe to your god. So, my question is this, Orick. Who is to say that this isn’t all your god wants of us? Perhaps he created us, knowing that just as a salmon will swim upstream, or that a gosling will take to the air-perhaps in the same way, he knew in time we would evolve into gods. Perhaps that is all he wants.”

Orick considered the idea, rejected it as pure fantasy. Too often, he’d felt God’s spirit, promptings that told him his life, his actions, mattered deeply. He didn’t buy for a moment the notion that virtually without any struggle on his part, his children would someday become coequal to God.