Jack Chalker - Melchior's Fire

“What did you say your name was?” the anthropologist asked, disappointed but realizing the impracticality of using audio channels to speak to a telepath.

“Thomas Cromwell,” he responded crisply, some of the old military snap suddenly back in his voice and stance.

“Got him on the list of Woodward’s people from the archives,” the captain said to them, but not for broadcast. “That’s not his real name. Said to have been a spit-and-polish naval admiral with a totally ruthless outlook on orders and duty. He is said to have been responsible for the death of whole inhabited planets during that period. Then, something happened. Nobody knew what, but it was profound. He resigned, joined Woodward as security chief, and became dedicated to Woodward and Woodward’s view of the Christian godhead. A very mysterious character and still considered very dangerous when he served Woodward’s flying mission.”

“So what was his real name? Is it somebody so infamous we’d have heard of it?” Queson asked.

“Possibly. Probably. But we don’t know it. This material is gathered anecdotally and indirectly. I’m sure intelligence and military groups know it, but it’s as if he were wiped out of the public and general private records. A man powerful enough to get that kind of official cover is somebody who can unbury every secret body of everyone in power this side of the Silence. A man they’re so scared of they didn’t even dare kill him.”

“Maybe they were right,” Sark noted. “I mean, according to him, he was shot dead and even that didn’t stop him.”

Nagel turned and looked at the big man. “You really believe that story?”

“Cromwell’s got a dozen or so aliens within a couple of hundred meters of him right now,” An Li noted, pointing to the signatures. “We haven’t even picked them up on camera; he’s been living with them for decades. How many aliens have you ever met, Jerry? Spacefaring aliens. Technological aliens. Who knows what they can do? Hell, we could probably have brought him back if the shot was just so.”

“Yeah, provided he was shot in the hospital, right in the casualty ward,” Cross noted. “Still, there’s no reason not to believe him. Funny, too. Haven’t heard a goddamn religious term yet!”

Queson thought about that, and opened the channel. “Mr. Cromwell, what about your and Doctor Woodward’s theology? Has encountering all these other races and points of view changed things?”

“Only in amplification,” the gray man responded. “Nothing changes. Most people never read or gave any thought to religion; it’s the one complex field where everybody is a self-styled expert even though they’ve done not the most basic study of it, not any more than the twisted and vile traditions they grew up with or the wrong-headed visions they were taught by those same ones. And when God throws a fast one at them, or kills their innocent loved one, something like that, they lose what little faith they had and curse God or ignore Him. The Doctor was one of the few who studied religion the way he studied physics, and drew his own conclusions.”

“Yeah? And what does he say to somebody when their kid dies even though that person prayed to God to let the kid live?” Nagel asked.

An Li rolled her eyes and hoped she could head off any theological arguments here.

“The question to ask isn’t why God didn’t cure the child, but why God should cure the child,” Cromwell responded. “You see, God’s our boss. We work for Him, and we’re stuck with whatever He demands of us. What did we do that makes us deserve special attention? He’s not a magic genie granting wishes, He’s not Daddy in the Deep Universe, He’s God. It’s not a popular vision, but that’s why our Bible says that so few people will ever make it to Heaven. God knows this isn’t it. We didn’t have much choice or time to explore, you see. We were in bad trouble and had to land, knowing we almost certainly would be stuck, unable to take off on our own. The Doctor picked this one for the same reason any of us would, and he was fooled. He has never forgiven himself for it.”

“Well, it still looks a lot nicer than the other two,” An Li put in, thankful to be able to steer the talk away from theology, even though she could see Nagel just primed to go off on some angry rant.

“Yes, it does, but it’s the easy way. You don’t have to work here. There is food everywhere, and water, and fruit for juices, and you can even ferment things. There are no natural predators, virtually no biting things, and the climate runs from extremely hot to very warm. The other races who crashed here are not hostile, just stuck like us. It’s quite boring, you see. Kind of a sweet Hell, which is why we think of it as Limbo. You can’t build much, you can’t do much for posterity, you can’t look to the future because the future’s most likely to be the same as the present. And, as I demonstrated, even using someone else’s ship, we aren’t going anywhere. Here, at the crash site, is the only repository of human knowledge, the only source of human and theological writings, the only place where you can learn anything and at least keep some things alive. We can’t stay here, though—the place floods every couple of years and we have to come and dig the old ship out—yet the seals are good enough to protect the knowledge inside and the energy cells, with some solar help, can go for a very long time. So we gather at set times, and we learn from the Doctor and from those he’s trained, and we pray together and keep our faith and our identity. But we can’t do much else.”

“And your ship’s unmovable? Even short distances?” Cross asked him.

Cromwell nodded. “It suffered major damage to the drives. Only God’s will got us down in one piece, but we’re stuck here.”

“And you and the Doctor still think you’d have been better off on either of the other moons?” Queson asked him, fascinated.

“The Doctor certainly does, although we can’t know if we’d be as stuck there as here. Do you?”

“We only surveyed Kaspar, the cold one, and we attempted no landing. Crashed alien craft on the surface, though, so it doesn’t bode well,” Cross told him.

“Yes, perhaps. Perhaps not. You are the first ship to seem to manage a safe passage, at least so far, so you may learn and return. If and when you do, please contact us before leaving. We have a list. I don’t know how we’d pay you, but perhaps someone would.”

“A list? Of amenities?”

“Not exactly. Recordings, books, plays, all sorts of things like that. Learning and study machines. This is a noncelibate monastery of sorts. We need material.”

“Our boss was born without a heart, so we can’t promise anything, but we’ll certainly take the list,” Randi assured him. “In the meantime, there is nothing down there that is of any value in the Three Kings legendary traditions?”

“No. Not that we’ve ever seen. A wealth of aliens, with their own technology and such, but nothing native.”

“What about Melchior?” Nagel asked, having calmed down and getting back to business. “Any of your aliens know anything about it?”

“I suspect you may be able to get down and back,” Cromwell told him. “At least one of the races here stopped there first and managed it. That was why they were so easily suckered into landing here. I know through exchanges of information that the legendary Magi gems come from there, but where and how I can’t say. That’s certainly worth your trip, though, if you can get them and get back.”

This was interesting. “Any sign of any habitation there, like here?”

“There is habitation on all three worlds,” Cromwell told them. “We have seen the evidence from here when the other two rise in the night sky. Moving lights, huge but regular vegetation areas, that kind of thing. Melchior is often hidden by its smoky atmosphere and volcanic activity, but you can definitely see evidence of what seems to be artificial things using simple optical scopes from here. Be cautious, though. It’s got to be a greenhouse down there, hotter than you can imagine with all that volcanism, and we’ve seen huge patches through those clouds where the very continents seemed to break into irregular jagged islands floating on bright lava cracks. You don’t see much, but we’ve had a lot of time and, as I’ve said, nothing much else to do.”