Greg Bear - The Forge of God

“Would it be done all at once, a cataclysm? Or could it begin in one place, spread out, like a war?”

“I don’t really know.”

“Could it begin first in the Holy Land?”

“There don’t seem to be any bogeys in the Holy Land,” Hicks said dryly.

Ormandy acknowledged that with a nod, his frown deepening. “Could there be a way of saying, scientifically, whether aliens can be considered angels?”

“No,” Hicks said, smiling at the absurdity. But Ormandy did not see the absurdity.

“Could they be acting on behalf of a higher authority?”

“If they are indeed robots, as they seem to be, then I presume they are acting on the authority of biological beings somewhere. But we can’t even be sure of that. Civilizations based on mechanical—”

“What about creatures that have gone beyond biology — creatures of light, eternal beings?”

Hicks shrugged. “Speculation,” he said.

Ormandy’s childlike face exhibited intense agitation. “I am way out of my depth here, Mr. Hicks. This is not clear-cut. We’re certainly not dealing with angels with flaming swords. We’re not dealing with anything predicted in apocalyptic literature.”

“Not in religious literature,” Hicks corrected.

“I don’t read science fiction much,” Ormandy said pointedly.

“More’s the pity.”

Ormandy smirked. “And I’m not in the mood to cross knives with you or anybody else. What I’m saying is, I’m not sure I can present this to my people in a way they’ll understand. If I tell them it’s God’s will…How can I be sure of that?”

“As you said, there seem to be Godlike forces at work,” Hicks offered. Perverse, perverse!

“My people still think in terms of angels and demons, Mr. Hicks. They dearly love halos of light and brilliancies, thrones and powers and dominations. They eat it up. They’re like children. And no one can deny there is beauty and power in that kind of theology. But this…This is cold and political, deceptive, and I don’t feel comfortable attributing such deception to God. If this is a work of Satan, or of Satan’s forces, then…The President, with my help, I admit, is about to make a tremendous mistake.”

“Can you get him to change his mind?” Hicks asked, less eagerly than he might have.

“I doubt it. Remember, he called me, not the other way around. That’s why I say I’m out of my depth. I’m not so proud I can’t admit that.”

“Have you told him your misgivings?”

“No. We haven’t met since I…became unsure.”

“Are you fixed in a theological interpretation?”

“Emotionally, by all that my parents and teachers handed down to me, I must believe that God intervenes in all our affairs.”

“What you’re saying, Mr. Ormandy, is that when push comes to shove, and the end of the world comes on apace, you no longer yearn for apocalypse?”

Ormandy said nothing, but his frown intensified. He held out his beseeching hands, ambiguous, opinion fixed neither one way nor the other.

“Can you talk to the President again, at least try to get him to change his mind?” Hicks asked.

“I wish he’d never involved me,” Ormandy said. He hung his head back and massaged his neck muscles with both hands. “But I’ll try.”

Arthur was in a late night conference with astronomers in Washington, discussing the appearance of the ice objects and their possible connection with Europa, when word came that William D. Crockerman was projected to win election as President of the United States. Nobody was surprised. Beryl Cooper conceded the next morning, at one a.m., while the conference was still proceeding.

No conclusion was reached by the astronomers at the meeting. If the ice chunks had come from Europa, which seemed undeniable given their paths and composition, then their present almost straight-line orbits had to be artificial, and some connection with the extraterrestrials could be assumed. The facts were clear enough: both were fresh, almost pure water-ice; the smaller of the two, barely 180 kilometers in diameter, was traveling at a velocity of some 20 kilometers per second and would strike Mars on December 21, 1996; the larger, some 250 kilometers in diameter, was traveling at about 37 kilometers per second and would strike Venus on February 4, 1997. Whatever had caused Europa’s destruction had not warmed the objects substantially, perhaps because ablation had carried away the heat. Both were quite cold and would lose little of their mass to vaporization by the sun’s energy. Consequently, neither would show much of a cometary coma, and both would be visible only to sharp-eyed observers with telescopes or high-powered binoculars.

Arthur left Washington the next day, convinced that his team now had solid evidence for making a connection. He had sufficient time, he thought, to prepare a case and present it to Crockerman, that all of these events were linked, and that some grand strategy could now be worked out.

He could not convince himself the President-elect would listen, however.

Major Mary Rigby, the latest in their series of duty officers, buzzed them all at six-thirty in the morning to listen to the radio. Shaw bunched his pillows up and sat in his cot as “Hail to the Chief” played — a true Crockerman touch — and the Speaker of the House listened gravely to the announcement of the appearance of the President-elect of the United States.

“Maybe the old fart’s going to write our ticket out of here,” Minelli said, his voice raspy from a night of protests and shouting. Minelli was not doing well at all. This infuriated Edward. But cold, subdued fury had been his state of mind for the last two weeks. This experience was going to leave all of them warped in one way or another. Reslaw and Morgan said very little anymore.

“Mr. Speaker, honorable members of the House of Representatives, fellow citizens,” the President began. “I have called this emergency conference after weeks of deep thought, and many hours of consultation with trusted advisors and experts. I have an extraordinary announcement to make, and a perhaps even more extraordinary request.

“You have no doubt been following with as much interest as I the events taking place in Australia. These events in the beginning seemed to bring hope to our stricken planet, the hope of Godlike intervention from outside, of those who would act to save us from ourselves.

We began to feel that perhaps our difficulties were indeed only those of a young species, faltering in its early footsteps. Now these hopes have been dashed, and we find ourselves in even deeper confusion.

“My sympathies lie with Prime Minister Stanley Miller of Australia. The loss of the three messengers from outer space, and the mystery surrounding their destruction — perhaps self-destruction — is a deep shock to us all. But it is time to confess that it has been less of a shock to me and to a number of my advisors. For we have been following a similar series of events within our own country, kept secret until now for reasons which will soon become clear.”

Disembarking from a shuttle bus at Los Angeles Inter: national Airport, on his way to Death Valley and then to Oregon for three days’ rest, Arthur entered a lounge area to await his taxi and heard the President’s voice. He sat before a color television with eleven other travelers, his face ashen. He’s jumping the gun.

“Late last September, three young geologists discovered a hill in the desert not far from Death Valley, in California. The hill was not on their maps. Near this hill they found an extraterrestrial being, an individual in ill health. They brought this individual to a nearby desert town and notified authorities. The extraterrestrial being—”