Zach Hughes - The Stork Factor

dean, in his wisdom, said, «You are both cadets. The fact that one of you is Brother-born has no bearing. The gist of it is that we have a basic

disagreement. So we will settle this with Christian finality.» He got out two

Bibles. Luke swore on his Bible that he had never touched the girl, that she had told her parents that it was Kyle Murrel who raped her. Kyle Murrel swore that he had never spoken to the girl, that he had not, of course, raped her or anyone. «There is serious blasphemy here,» the Brother dean said. «One of you has just lied on a Bible.» Luke waited for the roof to split asunder, for lightning to punish the lying Kyle Murrel. That did not happen. What did happen was that Luke

was called before a jury of his peers, a board of cadets and instructors and was dismissed from University One, without appeal, for telling a lie on a Bible. He took it with a growing fury and a determination to do something

about the gross injustice of it. It wasn't just the girl now, although she'd suffered, God knows. It was he and his father, who had his heart set on Luke's being a full Brother. There was only one thing to do. He ran to the restricted portion of the campus and slipped by the guard of Brotherfuzz and entered Colonel Ed Baxley's house by a French window. Awed by being in the great hero's quarters, he almost retreated, but he heard sounds from an adjoining room and pushed on, his heart pounding. He recognized Baxley from having seen him on the screen so many times. The colonel was talking with a group of important-looking brothers in ceremonial dress. If Luke had not been desperate he would never have had the courage to break in, but he was being kicked out of the University and it wasn't fair. He knew that the colonel would be a just man, that the colonel would do something about it. He stepped into the room. One of the Brothers saw him, halted his words in midstream. «What the infernal are you doing here?» Five faces, four stern Brothers and Baxley, looking at him, indignation, surprise, anger. Only Baxley was calm. «Guard!» one of the Brothers yelled. «Sir,» Luke cried out. «Sir, I have to talk to you.» «Get him out,» one of the Brothers said angrily. «It's life or death, sir,» Luke cried out. Two Brotherfuzz rushed into the room and seized Luke roughly. «Get him out,» said the tallest Brother. «And find out what idiot let him in!» «Please sir,» Luke said, looking at the Colonel. «I've got to talk to you.» He was being hustled out, his feet barely touching the floor. «My dad marched with you!» he yelled. «Wait,» Colonel Baxley said. The guards stopped at the door. «What's your name?» «Luke Parker, sir.» «Parker, Parker,» the colonel mused. «John Parker, right?» «Yes sir. I have to—» «Turn him loose,» the colonel said. «Really, colonel,» the tall Brother said. «I am here to help my cadets,» Baxley said. «And this young man sounds as if he has some problems.» He smiled at Luke. «You'll have to talk fast, boy.» «Yes, sir,» Luke said. «Well, you see, they say, I mean—» «Can't this wait, colonel?» the tall Brother said coldly. «My time is valuable, you know.» «Brother Murrel,» Baxley said, equally as cold, «There is nothing more important to this Republic than the future of its cadets.» Luke was stunned. Baxley had called the Brother Murrel. What a tough

break, to get to the colonel only to find him with the father of Kyle Murrel, for now Luke recognized the badge of office hanging on the tall Brother's robe. It was Class One, meaning very high. And Kyle Murrel's father was Secretary of the Republic. «All right, son,» Baxley said. So Luke told it. He stumbled at first, but he told it. He got as far as the charge of rape against Kyle Murrel and the Secretary of the Republic blew up, anger making his face red. «This is the Lay who swore false witness on the Holy Bible,» he yelled at the colonel. «And you're wasting my time and yours by listening to his lies.» «Please sir,» Luke begged. «I couldn't lie on a Bible.» «I have the report,» the colonel said, not unkindly. «And it's quite evident that someone lied.» «Well, it wasn't me, sir.» Luke said tearfully. «As God is my witness—» «More blasphemy,» Murrel said. «Guards—» «This is my home,» Baxley said quietly. «I give the orders in my home.» The Secretary's face turned a shade more ruddy, but he didn't speak. «You were tried,» the colonel said to Luke. «You were found guilty.» «By them sir,» Luke said. «They were all Brothers. And I was only Army—» «Now he is insinuating that—» But Baxley didn't allow Murrel to finish. «I know what he's insinuating,"' Baxley said. «Look, son, there is nothing I can do.» He sighed. «There isn't even anything I want to do, because the record says you swore falsely on the Bible.» «If I had,» Luke blurted, «wouldn't He have blasted me right then?» Baxley sighed again. «Not always, son. He moves in mysterious ways.» «I'll prove it,» Luke said, his voice breaking with his tears. «God,» he prayed, looking up, «Show them, God. Show them who lied. If I'm the liar blast me, send down your lightning, God. Prove to them who is the liar.» But God, having failed him once during the swearing ceremony, was not to be moved. «Help me, God,» he prayed. «God, help me.» «You'll have to go now, son,» Baxley said quietly. «I didn't lie,» Luke said. «I wish I could believe you,» Baxley said, «but there is the evidence.» «I'll show you,» Luke said, as the guards seized his arms. «Someday I'll show you. Someday I'll have that sign from God. Someday He'll punish the

real liar.» But by that time he was outside, being hustled roughly out of the colonel's quarters onto the quad and then out of University One. He went back to Old Town with the beginnings of the ability to read and a new cynicism which made him doubt the very existence of God. The cynicism, and his unreduced rank of Apprentice Brother, Third Class, made it possible for him to go into the ministry, rather than into the already overcrowded ranks of Techs, Fares, or Lays. He used the privilege well, learning his trade on crowded street corners, preaching to anyone who would listen. He struggled through the simplified Bible, improving his reading skill as he went. He told the old Biblical stories and studied the techniques of the big, preaching Brothers who traveled the country holding revivals. Then he stumbled onto the faith-healing gimmick. His fine voice, his good looks, his youthful enthusiasm made him a success. He became skilled in picking those who suffered from psychological ailments and, with a combination of faith and mind control amounting almost to hypnotism, he effected cures. And then he began, at rare intervals, to actually feel the power. There were isolated times when he felt that he really could heal. And then the night when God opened the heavens and gave him a sign and he did heal, did pull back into place dislocated

intestines and healed them and then sutured the slit belly lining with faith and power and now he was kneeling at his bedside praying with complete sincerity for the first time in many years, a young man of nineteen years, old in his society, mature, more than halfway through his expected lifespan, praying, asking for a clarification of his power and not caring about the ache in his knees, for there was, for the first time since he'd been kicked out of the University, hope. He had had his sign. If he could repeat it, repeat the sign or the miracle in the presence of a witness, a Brother, the colonel himself, he would show them who had lied so long, long ago. He would show them upon whom God cast his favor and they would have to clear his name; they'd have to give him the cloak of Brotherhood. Reveling in new faith, joyful in hope, awed by what had happened Luke did not know that his sign from the heavens was merely the dying explosion of man's last foothold in space. He would learn this and there would still be the miracle. That would not be taken from him. But out beyond Pluto a sensor thing, newly activated by the first firing of a fire gun outside the damping mantle of solid rock, was sending a signal through space which was not even imagined by men such as Luke Parker.