Jack Chalker - Balshazzar's Serpent

“What then?”

“We wish to preach, or, more properly, teach, that is true. We do not believe that all need to come, or anybody for that matter, but we will bring God’s message. If it is received, we will be joyous, and we will leave learned, ordained people with you to live and die here and nurture the faith as a farmer nurtures his crops. If it is not received, we will shake off the dust and go on, and not return again. We believe that God chose His people before the universe was formed and that only those He wishes to hear will hear. In any event, so long as we are here our resources are at your service. We will joyfully give you any knowledge, whatever technology we can, all sorts of things that perhaps can make life easier. We will repair things, including your ancient defenses that were no match for us and would be even less so for a raider or rogue military ship. In any event, you will be better off when we leave than when we arrived.”

The big man thought about it. “So,” he said at last with a sigh, “what makes you think God is not already here?”

“We believe he is,” Robey replied. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be here. We know nothing about you, your origins, your customs, or your own religious beliefs. We will gladly learn yours if you will listen to ours. We have no fears in that regard.”

The big man thought a bit more. “We must go back to work now. Not much time for this talk. Priest, you come with me, we will talk while I work. The nun can stay with the village women.”

Robey laughed. “I’m not a priest. I am ordained a minister, but we have no priests—or nuns.”

“You’re not—what is the word? No sex?”

“Celibate? No. That is not a part of our faith.”

He grinned. “Then you will definitely come with us to the fields! And, after we eat the last meal, then we will take this before all the village. I may not buy what you are selling, but we may listen.”

And that was fair enough, they thought. Breakthrough at last. Now they’d have a chance to hear the Doctor and see him descend in Mount Olivet .

That always wowed the crowd.

The women were not used to any strangers, and they shied away from her. Eve knew that she was going to have to do something to break through that wall or it was going to be a pretty lonely wait.

Clearly the puzzle was in why these people were here at all. This wasn’t a colony, or, at least, it wasn’t initially set up as a conventional colony, nor had it collapsed from an advanced state like so many others. Eve was absolutely certain that this wasn’t a bottoming out but the best life these people could manage.

Although many women were out in the fields working with the men, clearly the party left back in the village was part of the cultural division of labor they’d set up. If the sexes were equal in the fields, though, why only women and girls here?

The answer soon became obvious when she followed the women from the cleanup to a large covered area behind the barn. It was a little different than the other structures, with a thick thatched roof and sturdy stone and wooden pillars holding it up, but with only a gauze-type netting around it, possibly more salvage, which allowed air in but kept the inside enclosed and somewhat protected from flying insects and wandering animals. The dogs could probably get in, but, she noted, they were definitely trained not to.

It was a kind of nursery and day-care facility all in one, and for such a small population it was very full indeed. Although many of the new mothers had been field workers and carried at least one baby in a kind of backpack when they’d come in, clearly this treatment was meant for only the youngest, or perhaps certain children. There were many more here, watched over by very obviously pregnant young women, most of whom were far younger than Eve but somehow looked older in the face and particularly the eyes, and clearly they were not first-timers since their swollen breasts were being used for wet-nurse duty on a host of little squealing ones.

The kitchen staff became the day-care types; none of these were obviously pregnant, and some would be unthinkably young for that, and it was they who took the older children, from toddler stage onward, and played with them mostly outside, and tended to their needs. Cotton diapers held with some sort of homemade pins or special ties were for the small infants and for the sleepers and others who might be inside. The toddlers to perhaps four- or five-year-olds who made up the rest of the nursery were stark naked when playing outside, although if one or another started to go they were quickly whisked over to a pit latrine to be conditioned to do the right thing.

Still, two of the younger girls, perhaps no more than ten or eleven, had the unenviable duty of mostly standing around with a homemade broad scoop made from some sort of gourd and an equally homemade whisk broom to clean up accidents. It still stank, but so did the whole place. Eve made a mental note that some kind of odor conditioning should be included in all that training they gave them. These women were born and raised here; they were almost oblivious to the stink. It was certain that you could get used to it, be able to tune it out more or less, but to somebody whose experience was in breathing filtered air in a closed environment where cleanliness was next to godliness this took some getting used to.

Eve decided that if anyone was going to speak to her it would probably be one or both of those miserable girls on the kiddie poop-scooper patrol. Kids either tended to shy away from anybody they didn’t know or become very open. At least these two weren’t going anywhere for a while.

They looked at her when she approached but didn’t say anything nor return her smile. “Hello,” she said, sounding as friendly as she could. “I’m Eve. I couldn’t help noticing you two drawing a less than fun job here.”

One of the girls turned and shrugged. “Beats changing and cleaning diapers,” she noted pragmatically. “Besides, somebody’s got to do it. Otherwise the babies would be steppin’ in it and all. They don’t care.”

The other girl nodded seriously. “Can’t waste nothin’ here. It’s our duty, just like we was out in the fields. Put the part back people can’t use, and it’ll feed the soil and grow stuff people can.”

So that wasn’t a latrine over there, it was a compost heap of sorts. Feces, from the youngest baby crap to the oldest person in the village, was mixed and returned as fertilizer. Eve found the idea both practical and unappetizing. She made a mental note to eat nothing here that hadn’t been thoroughly cooked.

The whole area was filled with lots of nasty looking flying things of varying sizes from gnat through butterfly, but they were neither of those nor anything in between. They served the same purpose as insects, or so it seemed, but they looked very strange and grotesque to Eve, and when they landed on skin or particularly decided to crawl up the sleeve of the robe, they caused itching.

“Do any of these things bite?” she asked nervously.

“Some of ’em, yeah. Mostly give you little pinprick sores or maybe a little rash. They can’t do nothin’ to people, though. Our blood kills ’em, and they only usually bite if they’re protectin’ themselves,” the first girl told her. “In fact, I’m surprised they’re swarmin’ here. They usually don’t like our smells. Must be somethin’ you got on.”

Mental note number two: forget bath oils, deodorants, etc., when landing in primitive areas. They won’t do much good beyond the first ten minutes anyway, and they might attract bugs.

There was one particularly large black bug that seemed a loner but flitted around as if curious. One came suddenly close to Eve’s face and she saw that it was a teardrop-shaped black creature larger than her thumb with countless legs folded up underneath it and wings that moved so fast they seemed nearly invisible but which gave off an almost mechanical hum. What was startling, though, was the head, on the broad top of the teardrop. It looked almost like a face, with two larger than proportional oval eyes with black pupils, a kind of twisted proboscis, and a wide slit of a mouth that seemed to be smiling. She swore that the thing looked right at her with the same studied intensity as she examined it, and then it opened its wide mouth to reveal some nasty, undulating growths that passed for teeth, cocked its head, and sped off.