"You said that as a statement and not a question and

  you're right."

  "How big is this monster;

  "It's not a monster and it's not that big. Um., think of

  a 747 expanding in size to about five times its width,

  length and height,"

  "Goddamned big bird."

  "That, then, is this ship," she explained. "Only this

  was a scout.

  "A scout?" He shook his bead. "Goddamnit, forgive

  me, Rebecca, I must sound like a parrot repeating

  everything it bears."

  "It's a scout," she repeated. She looked about her, a

  haze of sadness seeming to appear about her. "One of

  sixteen the main ship held."

  -HoN@,, bloody big is the main ship?"

  "Think of a small city. That's bow big."

  .1 . c @1 - I - _@)`

  270 Martin Caidin

  Sadness increased; she- shook her head slowly. -No,

  we can't. It was destroyed. An impossible, on-e-in-a-

  trillion sort of accident."

  "An accident destroyed this ship?"

  "This flight deck is all that remains. Oh, the rest o','

  the ship is here. Mangled, crushed, mostly melted.

  She drifted back in time. "It was our first landing here.

  In the scout. We drifted low across the countryside.

  Gods to the natives; obviously. We drifted across some

  low hills. We didn't know one of them was a volcano. it

  exploded directly beneath us. Our pilot, he . . . he was

  killed instantly- I suppose it was molten magma, but it

  came upward at some insane speed and it speared into

  the ship. Our ventilators were open. We'd tested the

  air and it was acceptable. We'd bring in local air, move

  it through the purifiers, and then let it into the ship.

  But the ventilators were open and that left us exposed.

  Normally, when the ship is sealed, even an atomic

  bomb can't hurt us. Force fields; that sort of thing."

  "Ub hub, - be said.

  1@ The flight deck took a direct hit. I was just aft of the

  deck. Wearing an armored pressure suit-full environ-

  mental control screen s-preparing to lower to the sur-

  face. When the volcano ripped into us, it sent the

  magma--burning lava-into the ship. Everyone in the

  flight deck died. The ship went out of control just as I

  left beneath and to the right. The ship went down, very

  bard, and everything aft of the flight deck exploded or

  was crushed and melted. Really, all of that sort of thina

  happened."

  He held his silence for a while. He heard dim sounds

  of machinery above them. He'd forgotten completely

  about the battle. It didn't matter. The -Manturu were

  dead. The choppers would he -in the air bunting down

  any survivors. How insane; he walked through the flight

  deck of a master scientific race and right over their

  heads his men were decapitating the locals. Terri c.

  "What about the natives?"

  "The Manturu were the lead group. The ship ex-

  P,oded in their midst. A great many of them died. But

  DARK MESSIAH

  271

  and they considered their casualties a guarantee of their

  ticket to heaven."

  I bet they don't think that way anymore, he thought

  of the grisly events above them.

  " They made the crash the religious event of their

  history," she went on.

  11 What happened to you?"

  I was in shock. Everyone aboard this vessel was

  closer than family or lovers to me. We all had that kind

  of empathy. The loss was devastating."

  "How old are you, Rebecca?"

  "In your years, Doug?"

  "They're the only years I have, lover."

  "I hate to say this . . . "

  "I'm a big boy now, lady."

  "I was a thousand of your years old when we reached

  this planet," she said, barely audible.

  His head reeled. "But but that was two thousand

  years ago!"

  "Doug, the longevity of the human race not so long

  ago was perhaps thirty years, Neanderthal era, before

  and just after. It's three times that now. Ninety years.

  Your next real jump will be like so many others. Your

  medical science will learn the body's controls for aging.

  You'll triple lifespans again. I don, t know why but that's

  how it happens. It triples, You've already

  . gone from

  thirty to ninety. The next jurnp will keep people alive

  from two hundred to three hundred years. And the

  jump -after that will bring them close to a thousand.-

  "The planet will tip over, for Christ's sake," he told

  her,

  "Nature abhors more than a vacuum," she answered.

  "It also abhors and eliminates a glut."

  "Okay, okay. Let me get back to you. What happened?"

  "The suit . . . I stayed in the suit. I was fully pro-

  tected. I had regenerative systems, full sanitary faciti-

  ties, temperature control, unlimited power, food and

  drink, I could live in that suit for more than a year. I

  couldn't leave. Imagine, Doug, try to imagine, all those

  people aboard this ship who expected a normal life span

  -47 -- -inJ, if -@- mm-ll lonver than inine-and in

  272 Martin Caidin

  an instant they died horribly. All that life, snuffed out,"

  "There's a whole bunch of life just got snuffed up-

  stairs," he reminded her.

  "Do you mourn the butterfly that has a lifespan of

  one day?" she asked, a chill in her words.

  "No. "

  "Then don't concern yourself ,Aritb butterflies that

  don't have wings," she told him, dismissing the carnage

  as incidental.

  "You stayed. Would you tell me," he asked gently,

  hat happened then?"

  By the time I regained my senses-I suppose I was

  in very deep shock for a long time-the Manturu had

  already begun their new religion. To me it was ghastly,

  disgusting beyond belief."

  "I don't understand-"

  "Our pilot was dead. But be was a god to these

  people. They dissected him, very carefully and %vitb

  veneration. They ate him to gain his godly strength."

  She swallowed. "They feasted on him piece by piece.

  Heart, eyeballs, ears, nose, all his organs, every last bit

  and substance, and then they melted down his bones in

  some incredible, choking porridge, and they ate that.

  They believe what they did was right. When they fin-

  ished, only the arbatik remained."

  "Wait; wait a moment," be broke in, as the ancient

  drama began to reveal itself from ordinary, expectable

  extrapolation. And he didn't know how much he was

  receiving from this woman himself.

  "The Messiah Stone . . , it was their Godstone. It

  was real to them! It became their vod!"

  "It glowed. It shouldl)", have glowed, but it did. And

  t gave them strange powers. Natives who came to learn

  what bad happened came within reach of the arbatik

  and fell under their power. The legend," she added

  slowly, "had begun and it was real."

  "But . . . but it glowed, you said. And you two were

  the only ... I mean, you were the only survivor. How

  could it glow? What gave it its life? It needed a neu-

  ronic system with a living form, with iDtelligence, to

  n1l L@Ihl 1-- 11

  DARK MESSIAH

  273

  She had slipped off her combat tunic, her sharksuit

  and the clothing beneath. Her bra came away next, he@

  full breasts heaving free. "Turn out your light, Doug,

  she said softly. "Close your eyes for a few moments so

  you can acclimate better to the dark."

  He did as she asked. "All right, Doug."

  He opened his eyes. The room wasn't dark.

  Almost, but not quite. He stared at a soft orange

  glow, reflecting on globular shapes to each side of the

  glow, and a dim reflected light above and then he

  realized he looked at her breasts, and her face bathed

  in the soft glow that cantefrom within her chest.

  "YOU . . . you have one . . . of these he

  stammered.

  "Think hard at me, Doug. Think very hard."

  He squeezed shut mental eves and tried to transmit,

  although he hadn't even the remotest idea of how to

  transmit, to send out his feelings on this kind of basis,

  and then, suddenly, he relaxed, and he felt as one with

  the great "diamond" in his hand, and light flickered,

  then brightened and grew steady, and the arbatik glowed

  a magnificent yellow.

  "You had questions," she said.

  "A thousand. A million," he responded.

  "But you had a specific question."

  "Yes. For this moment."

  "The answer is also yes. I'll do the surgical implantatio 1.

  He thought long and heavy on that one. No matter

  how good she was, no matter how incredi-)le all that

  was happening. surgery would necessarily he perforrned,

  with instruments that to her science would be as crude

  and clumsv as a stone axe. And the idea of leaving

  hirnself befpless on any table, surgical or otherwise, cut

  deeply and wrongly to the bone. Instinctillely he thought

  of his time-honored protection: I die and you die, very

  slowly and very painfully. A fat lot of good that would

  do against this woman who had managed to sur-..,*ive

  here for more than two thousand years!

  Again the enormity of his own thoughts streaked in

  -Til-k inin;4of T*h(- re;@lization of what had

  274

  Mar-tin Caidin

  just run through his mind was so staggering he'd faik,_I@

  to grasp its true worth.

  More than two thousand vears old! Impossible, in,

  credible, crazy, impossible vet absolutely plausq

  ble, and the flight deck of this ship, well, it blew away

  any defenses he had that it wasn't not only possible, but

  real, actual, literal. A burst of sardonic laughter whipped

  through his mind, mocking him; be recognized himself

  ridiculing himself.

  You're so fucking smart! So know-it-all! You kill with

  ease, you rule the minds and bodies of men and women,

  you're a splendid savage with your weapons, a king oJ'

  technocracy and suddenly you find yourself a poor,

  simple babe!

  That wasn't all true, and his own psyche had gone

  overboard in its sharp-bladed self-immoiation. Put the

  average man in today's world naked, in a jungle or a

  desert, and you had lunch for insects and animals just

  waiting to be served up. Put a skilled survivalist in the

  same situation and you had a survivor. All men for all

  things in all places and at all times; was that it? No.

  Adaptation, swift and certain was the key.

  And it's the smart man wh@ knows when it's time to

  run away so you can figb1* another day. What was that

  line for all fighter pilots? And I'm a goddamned great

  fighter pilot ... You never fight the other man's fight

  or you get your ass waxed.

  "Do we need to stay, here any longer?" he asked her

  suddenlylicaught by surprise that she had dressed and

  stood by im fully clothed.

  "No. Not really," she said with that sweet sadness of

  hers. "This ship is a buried monument. I told you I

  Couldn't explain it before in words. You bad to be here

  to see, feel, touch, drink it in."

  "Okay," he said, forcing strength back into his mind.

  II ve seen, felt, touched and drank it in and my bead's

  spinning. Besides, we've got the reality of right now

  still going on above us. We set off enough explosives to

  carry sound for fifty miles. These fires have been seen

  for a hundred or more. Right now this place is the

  nf @A+PnH,1, C",

  DARK MESSIAH

  27 5

  army is on its way here, and that means we've got to

  clear out now. I've got a million questions for you,

  Rebecca, but we're in the wrong place at the wrong

  time. 11

  "Agreed.

  He looked about him. "I don't want this found like

  this. Let this cat out of the bag, lady, and every top

  government and military power in the world will be

  after us day and night." He thought furiously. "We

  could use one of those small nukes-"

  "A hundred kilotons? That's crazy," she rebuked him.

  "With radioactivity drifting downwind and-never mind,

  Doug. That's out."

  He grabbed his radio. "Hammer, this is Stargazer."

  "Where the hell you been, you crazy son of a bitch?"

  Marden's voice burst through the speaker. "What's going

  on down there? That woman with you? What-"

  "Shut up, Skip, and listen. Get every magnesium and

  thermite flare from every chopper through that en-

  trance we used to come down here. I want them brought

  to where my cover team is waiting. They are not to

  come any farther than that, got it? Anything that will

  bum on that scale I wan". I want it now. Don't question

  me. just do iC'

  "Okay. We've still got three tanks of that electric j4as.

  You want that?"

  "Yes. Immediately. Move it. babe."

  "It's on its way."

  Twenty minutes later the cornbat teams were in the

  helicopters, the wounded were aboard and the dead

  were stacked neatly with the living. Stavers and Weinstein,

  looked behind them, through the splintered 'log en-

  trance, to the splendorous flight deck of an entombed-,

  shattered starship, Spread across the deck and against

  the bulkheads were ninety-two violently-explosive in-

  cendiary flares. Three tanks spilled cold gas t1irough the

  deck and began to reach upwards. Doug Stavers knelt

  down and set a timer. He looked up at. Weinstein.

  "Fifteen minutes."

  Her face was unreadable. "Set it and let us go," she

  276

  Martin Caidin

  He set the timer and activated the system. Digitc.@,!

  numbers began to flash. They turned and ran along the

  tunnel, upward to the entrance. They ran to the lich-

  copter with its door open waiting for them. Marden'.@

  hand reached out and he swept Weinstein into th,-,

  Polotov, Stavers; right behind her. Stavers motioned to

  Marden.

  "Move out," Marden called, and the message went to

  all the choppers. They rose like giant locusts in the

  light of early dawn and raced away at top speed.

  Stravers and Weinstein looked back, waiting, silent.

  Along the horizon a yellow-orange glow appeared, an

  inverted bowl of light, silently growing and then fading.

  Rebecca sat in a corner of the helicopter cabin, knees

  drawn together, arms crisscrossed on her knees, her

  face buried in her arms.

  Doug Stavers didn't need to look at her to know she

  wept'

  He felt her tears in his mind.

  It was like hearing angels crying.

  Chapter 21

  s of the

  Stavers looked out across the peaks and valley

  mountains that formed the spinal backbone of Colo-

  rado. He leaned back in an easy chair, his favorite cigar

  L

  in one hand and a snifter of brandy in the other. His

  room lay within granite walls. Behind the balconies and

  viewing windows of the "Colorado ski resort" spread

  the most modern and best-equipped surgical center in

  the world. Most of its equipment bore familiarity to

  surgeons, Not all-, some had been modified to the or-

  ders of Rebecca Weinstein. Or whatever the hell her

  name is.

  He turned at the sound of a door opening and clos-

  ing. Before he turned he knew it was Rebecca. She

  took the seat by his side, sharing the view with him.

  "Ifs lovely' " she said finally. "Lovely and native and

  quite rare. This planet is reniarkable and also quite

  rare.

  " Sure," be aareed witbout inuch caring to share her

  tourist's view of the world. "But right now it's going

  bananas. I bad no idea this church gimmick would take

  off like it has." He shifted in his seat to turn more

  directly to her. "The Vatican's declared a great moral

  crisis, the baptists are screarning about demons, the

  Jews-"

  "That's the negative side," she broke in. "The posi-

  tive side of all this is that the Church of the Ascension

  now has more than a billion members. They support

  Ascension heart and soul. Much more to the point," she

  smiled, "youT people are very effective. Many of the

  ,_1

  278

  Martin Caidin

  church members are rocket scientists and engineers,

  politicians in the right places. TO sav nothing of states-

  men and generals. it has been an e)'(traordiriarily effee-

  tive campaign, A religion with its heavenly lights visible

  to us in the night sky. Pale moon and orange Mars. I

  haven*t seen anything like it since the message of Christ

 

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