Jack L. Chalker The Messiah Choice

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than you or anyone has dreamed by now. We can access the data banks upon which
they rely, make a saint into a KGB spy, order suspicious probers to duty in
Greenland or Antarctica from a dozen military forces. We can cause
diversions wars in the Middle East, for example, and other threats to vital
areas that will take their minds off us. And we do not have to do it forever,
only for a short while. Three or four months. People believe their computers.
They depend upon them and the telecommunications networks that tie them
together. You would be shocked at what we can do without any resort to the
supernatural."
"What are you?" she practically screamed at him. "Are you a man? A demon? The
devil himself?"
The Dark Man laughed. "Perhaps I am none of those. Call me John the Baptist,
if you will."
"You profane and mock the sacred!"
"Well, it has always been the fashion to do so. Perhaps you have been too
insulated. The world goes around saying, 'Jesus Christ!' at the slightest
provocation, and 'God damn!' is probably the second most popular profanity
humanity uses. The world is full of the profane. Hell is rampant, as it always
has been. And do you know why? Because that's the way God ordered it to be.
He's supposed to be all-seeing, all-knowing, omniscient and omnipresent, yet
He's never gotten over the fact that He made humanity in His own image and
humanity proceeded to screw itself up. He ordered humanity tested, and
humanity failed, so He ordered humanity to be tempted, tormented, and
punished, rather than face the fact that He, Himself, was obviously imperfect
or mad, in that
He created an imperfect thing."
"It is you who are mad! There was war in Heaven before the Fall!"
"A later invention; a rationalization by his more intelligent followers to
explain the contradiction. It is not so, and Job proves that Hell served God's
will by God's command. Nothing is clearer."
"You can not judge God by man's standards! It is impossible for any lesser
being to understand
God's will and ways!"
"I will agree that madness is a relative term. By our lights we are sane and
God, and God's followers and defenders and rationalizers, are mad. It is a
point of view. Consider the evil that
God knows of and allows. Consider that He must know what is going on here, yet
does nothing to help, nothing to stop it. His solution to the mess was to
crucify Jesus in agony. Since that time, the Christian church has primarily
venerated its martyrs and been dominated by the charlatans and the power-mad.
He allowed the Holocaust and condemned His chosen people who survived to
eternal warfare. His other aspects are as bad. Many have sacrifice, including
human sacrifice, and all sorts of cruel rites. The Japanese Shintoists
actually looked forward to suicide under certain conditions. The Shi'ites
venerate masochism and beat themselves with chains. The Hindus use Him to
freeze society in an odd variation of the divine right of kings. The only
thing as stupid and wasteful as a Crusade is a Holy War. This is madness. This
is a universe based upon madness."
"And in the name of restoring sanity you reduce people to animals, kill,
torture, maim, send monsters to crush people to death, cause wars, do all that
you boast of doing! That is some sanity!"
"In World War II, millions were sacrificed by much of the world to defeat
Hitler, who was the greater evil. We feel that the entire universe is at
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stake. All of humanity, and countless other races out there among the stars.
The innocent will suffer and pay the price as it always has been in wars. As
to our methods, we are constrained to use them. God's rules, you know. We must
play by the rules, as must you, until the battle is joined. The war against
Heaven, you see, has not yet been fought. God will not intervene here on
Earth, and for a cold, practical reason. It means nothing to Him.
You mean nothing to Him. We threaten only the Earth, not Heaven. But it is
here that it must start according to the rules. We must make a move here first
in order to attack His seat of power.''
"And you will lose! That, too, is the rules!"
"Will we? Would we even attempt it if we didn't believe we could attain
victory? John of
Patmos warned Christians to shape up because God was returning soon and it
would be too late.
Yet here we are, two thousand years later, more or less, and 'soon' has lost
its meaning. John was a fanatic and a mystic and he was certainly either
insincere or wrong on his timetable. There is no reason to believe his
outcome, either. We know Him. We know His location and His weaknesses.
And even if we lose, which we do not intend, we would rather lose and suffer
the true death of oblivion than to live under a God like that."
She was shaken and stunned by his statements. Her initial terror had subsided
now, and she felt in control once again. She would still have gone after him
if she could, but it was useless. He had far too much power, and had to be
fought by ways she did not know. What was most chilling was his matter-of-fact
brazen blasphemy and his commitment to Armageddon and beyond even if it meant
losing.
He sensed her confusion and despair, and jumped on it. "Think of it this way,
my dear.
Armageddon is coming, as was prophesied and commanded by God. The time is now
truly soon.
Is it blasphemy to oppose or prevent it when it is so clearly God's will? It
is an interesting point, and one we may debate off and on in the times to
come. Now, we must deal with the more immediate and intimate situation. We
must deal with you."
She wasn't sure whether she was gratified or not by that change of subject.
"This island is constraint enough for you. We've tried with your nocturnal
sojourns to built up your muscles and restore your coordination and balance,
and I think that has succeeded. To keep you at the Lodge we would have to keep
you immobile and perhaps also incommunicado. This
would take a staff as large or larger than we have used to date, and might
result in a contest of your inheritance on the grounds of incapacity. Better
that you be somewhere else to everyone here not involved in our business, and
that you be here and in control of everyone outside the island. It is most
convenient just to stick you over here, with the basic needs, and allow you to
get used to being a whole person once again."
That was yet another shock and surprise. "That's all? Just leave me here?"
"Oh, I know what you're thinking, so we will dispose of those thoughts right
now. A few small restrictions spells, if you like, curses if you don't to
insure a harmonious retreat. First and foremost, you will find it impossible
to speak to anyone but me or one in my service. Should you attempt to write
something, you will find your hand frozen, unable to do it. It would make
little difference, anyway. Everyone knows that you are paralyzed and couldn't
write and so would doubt the notes, but it is better to be safe than sorry.
Should you think about trying to leave the island, I would think again. First,
if we discover it and stop you, you will pay a dear price.
Second, even if you somehow evaded everything and made it and I remind you
that you never did learn how to swim the paralysis of your voluntary actions
would not only return, it would be total. You would become a human vegetable,
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unable to communicate in any way, and your paralysis would last the rest of
your life unless I, personally, were to lift it."
That was sobering. She was still relishing the very fact that she could feel
her whole self once more. God help her, she didn't know if she could give up
that freedom again willingly. Damn them!
"Finally, we can't have you just walking into town or the Lodge. Too many
messy questions.
Stretch out your arm, now that you can, and watch."
She did as instructed, not daring to guess at what he planned to do. There was [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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