“Stop babbling, Elms,” Travis said.
Elms said, “He’s going to judge us.”
Christ said, “If anyone hears my words and does not keep them faithfully, it is not I who shall condemn him, since I have come not to condemn the world but to save the world; he who rejects me and refuses my words has his judge already.”
“There,” Elms said, nodding gravely.
Frightened, Agneta said to the figure, “Go easy on us. The three of us have been through a major trauma.” She wondered, suddenly, whether Travis and Elms remembered that they had been killed, that their bodies had been destroyed.
The figure smiled, as if to reassure her.
“Travis,” Agneta said, bending down over him as he sat at his console. “I want you to listen to me. Neither you
nor Elms survived the accident, survived the basalt particles. That’s why he’s here. I’m the only one who wasn’t-” She hesitated.
“Killed,” Elms said. “We’re dead, and he has come for us.” To the figure he said, “I’m ready, Lord. fake me.”
“Take both of them,” Travis said. “I’m sending out a radio H.E.L.P. call. And I’m telling them what’s taking place here. I’m going to report it before he takes me or tries to take me.”
“You’re dead,” Elms told him.
“I can still file a radio report,” Travis said; but his face showed his resignation.
To the figure, Agneta said, “Give Travis a little time. He doesn’t fully understand. But I guess you know that; you know everything.”
The figure nodded.
We and the Earth Board of Inquiry listened to and watched this activity in Rautavaara’s brain, and we realized jointly what had happened. But we did not agree on our evaluation of it. Whereas the six Earthpersons saw it as pernicious, we saw it as grand-both for Agneta Rautavaara and for us. By means of her damaged brain, restored by an ill-advised robot, we were in touch with the next world and the powers that ruled it.
The Earthpersons’ view distressed us.
“She’s hallucinating,” the spokesperson of the Earthpeople said. “Since she had no sensory data coming in. Since her body is dead. Look what you’ve done to her.”
We made the point that Agneta Rautavaara was happy.
“What we must do,” the human spokesperson said, “is shut down her brain.”
“And cut us off from the next world?” we objected. “This is a splendid opportunity to view the afterlife.
Agneta Rautavaara’s brain is our lens. The scientific merit outweighs the humanitarian.”
This was the position we took at the inquiry. It was a position of sincerity, not of expedience.
The Earthpersons decided to keep Rautavaara’s brain at full function with both video and audio transduction, which of course was recorded; meanwhile, the matter of censuring us was put in suspension.
I personally found myself fascinated by the Earth idea of the Savior. It was, for us, an antique and quaint conception-not because it was anthropomorphic but because it involved a schoolroom adjudication of the departed soul. Some kind of tote board was involved, listing good and bad acts: a transcendent report card such as one finds employed in the teaching and grading of elementary school children.
This, to us, was a primitive conception of the Savior, and while I watched and listened-while we watched and listened as a polyencaphalic entity-I wondered what Agneta Rautavaara’s reaction would have been to a Savior, a Guide of the Soul, based on our expectations. Her brain, after all, was maintained by our equipment, by the original mechanism that our rescue robot had brought to the scene of the accident. It would have been too risky to disconnect it; too much brain damage had occurred already. The total apparatus, involving her brain, had been transferred to the site of the judicial inquiry, a neutral ark located between the Proxima Centauri system and the Sol system.
Later, in discreet discussion with my companions, I suggested that we attempt to infuse our own conception of the Afterlife Guide of the Soul into Rautavaara’s artificially sustained brain. My point: It would be interesting to see how she reacted.
At once my companions pointed out to me the contradiction in my logic. I had argued at the inquiry that Rautavaara’s brain was a window on the next world and, hence, justified-which exculpated us. Now I argued that what she experienced was a projection of her own mental presuppositions, nothing more.
“Both propositions are true,” I said. “It is a genuine window on the next world, and it is a presentation of Rautavaara’s own cultural, racial propensities.”
What we had, in essence, was a model into which we could introduce carefully selected variables. We could introduce into Rautavaara’s brain our own conception of the Guide of the Soul and thereby see how our rendition differed practically from the puerile one of the Earthpersons.
This was a novel opportunity to test out our own theology. In our opinion the Earthpersons’ theology had been tested sufficiently and had been found wanting.
We decided to perform the act, since we maintained the gear supporting Rautavaara’s brain. To us, this was a much more interesting issue than the outcome of the inquiry. Blame is a mere cultural matter; it does not travel across species boundaries.
I suppose the Earthpersons could regard our intentions as malign. I deny that; we deny that. Call it, instead, a game. It would provide us aesthetic enjoyment to witness Rautavaara confronted by our Savior, rather than hers.
To Travis, Elms, and Agneta, the figure, raising its arms, said, “I am the resurrection. If anyone believes in me, even though he dies, he will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
“I sure do,” Elms said heartily.
Travis said, “It’s bilge.”
To herself, Agneta Rautavaara thought, I’m not sure. I just don’t know.
“We have to decide if we’re going to go with him,” Elms said. “Travis, you’re done for; you’re out. Sit there and rot-that’s your fate.” To Agneta he said. “I hope you find for Christ, Agneta. I want you to have eternal life like I’m going to have. Isn’t that right, Lord?” he asked the figure.
The figure nodded.
Agneta said, “Travis, I think-well, I feel you should go along with this. I-” She did not want to press the point that Travis was dead. But he had to understand the situation; otherwise, as Elms said, he was doomed. “Go with us,” she said.
“You’re going then?” Travis said, bitterly.
“Yes,” she said.
Elms, gazing at the figure, said in a low voice. “Quite possibly I’m mistaken, but it seems to be changing.”
She looked, but saw no change. Yet Elms seemed frightened.
The figure, in its white robe, walked slowly toward the seated Travis. The figure halted close by Travis, stood for a time, and then, bending, bit Travis’s face.
Agneta screamed. Elms stared, and Travis, locked into his seat, thrashed. The figure calmly ate him.
“Now you see,” the spokesperson for the Board of Inquiry said, “this brain must be shut down. The deterioration is severe; the experience is terrible for her; it must end.”
I said, “No. We from the Proxima system find this turn of events highly interesting.”
“But the Savior is eating Travis!” another of the Earthpersons exclaimed.
“In your religion,” I said, “is it not the case that you eat
the flesh of your God and drink his blood? All that has happened here is a mirror image of that Eucharist.”
“I order her brain shut down!” the spokesperson for the board said; his face was pale, sweat stood out on his forehead.
“We should see more first,” I said. I found it highly exciting, this enactment of our own sacrament, our highest sacrament, in which our Savior consumes us.
“Agneta,” Elms whispered, “did you see that? Christ ate Travis. There’s nothing left but his gloves and boots.”
Oh, God, Agneta Rautavaara thought. What is happening? I don’t understand.
She moved away from the figure, over to Elms. Instinctively.
“He is my blood,” the figure said as it licked its lips. “I drink of this blood, the blood of eternal life. When I have drunk it, I will live forever. He is my body. I have no body of my own; I am only a plasma. By eating his body, I obtain everlasting life. This is the new truth that I proclaim, that I am eternal.”
“He’s going to eat us, too,” Elms said.
Yes, Agneta Rautavaara thought. He is. She could see now that the figure was an Approximation. It is a Proxima life form, she realized. He’s right; he has no body of his own. The only way he can get a body is-
“I’m going to kill him,” Elms said. He popped the emergency laser rifle from its rack and pointed it at the figure.
The figure said, “The hour has come.”
“Stay away from me,” Elms said.
“Soon you will no longer see me,” the figure said, “unless I drink of your blood and eat of your body. Glorify yourself that I may live.” The figure moved toward Elms.