I’m a bit behind schedule; unlike 2008, I have to work for a living and spending twelve hours out of the day earning my keep doesn’t leave much time in the evenings for noveltry. Additionally, my anticipated plot took a hard left turn as soon as I started putting it to paper (as it always does), so I’m having to feel my way through uncharted territory.
CLADE
While Sarah Woods labors to deliver her last child in a two hundred year old bed, technicians deep within the Gobi Desert are working feverishly through their checklists, placing their thumbprints on a series of glowing squares that change from red to green as their reputations certify completion. The mattress she lies on is cradled in a two hundred year old bed frame planed from actual forest-grown wood, with hand-carved pine cones adorning the head board and posts. The midwife dismisses Samuel Woods from the room with the smallest motion of her hand and a look of remorse so imperceptible he believes for a moment that he’s simply misconstrued her, the same moment mission control receives its clearance to launch.
A million liters of water spill into a vast trough beneath a concrete launchpad as the baby’s head crowns and Sarah’s body shakes through its final contraction, bringing forth life. The highest expression of Chinese astrotechnology rises from the moonlit sand on a pillar of flame and steam at the exact moment that a son is borne unto her among the wilds of the Appalachian Indigenous Enclave. Both events pass unnoticed by a large percentage of the world.
Sarah Woods, forty-three and strong as a Cherry Birch, dies before the Gan De clears the ionosphere, but not before she names her baby Ezekiel.
It has been said that God does not play dice with the universe, but if he does, they are most certainly loaded.
Gan De falls away from Earth in a broad curve – actually a highly eccentric solar orbit with an extremely long period. The Asian Harmony certainly has the technological capability and financial power to launch the craft on a direct, non-orbital path, but cost considerations outweigh the time saved by doing so. The Harmony is nothing if not patient.
Ezekiel is six months old and just learning to crawl when Gan De successfully navigates the asteroid belt. Certain jingoistic politicians in the European and North American Unions float the idea of a joint mission in their respective parliaments, but it is roundly rejected by their peers as a profligate waste of scarce income and resources with little return, and derided publicly as a nostalgic attempt to replicate the barely-remembered American-Soviet Moon race of half a century earlier.
AHSA technicians lose contact with Gan De for several months, during which the Wet War and its aftermath ravage the globe. Ezekiel doesn’t notice; he’s too busy learning to talk and cut off from events at large by the simple virtue of location of his birth. Mission control receives a stream of telemetry on a hastily improvised dish at around the same time he manages his first words. The Harmony’s engineers are the finest in the world and built well; their tiny explorer required no human assistance during their absence.
Ezekiel is two, but there is no celebration of the day in his particular ethno-religious stream and the day goes without notice for him. It happens to be the same day Gan De completes a complicated series of aerobraking maneuvers and course corrections against Jupiter’s atmosphere and achieves a stable Europan orbit. The procedure has been tested and refined using Mars and Phobos as a proving ground, but performing the same feat from three-quarters of a light hour away is an order of magnitude more difficult. The Harmony, already awash in the patriotic fervor of a successful war, erupts in jubilation.
Several days later ASHA receives permission from the People’s Congress and deorbits Gan De. This is no controlled crash landing but a gentle descent through Europa’s tenuous atmosphere. Gan De alights within centimeters of its designated target, extends its instrument boom and begins sending preliminary findings back to the desert from whence it came through a highly encrypted, high bandwidth connection. What it reports exceeds all expectations and ensures the Greater Asian Harmony an eternal space in the history of human achievement.
Union politicians view the claims of their adversaries with a mix of skepticism and consternation; those among them who were ridiculed for suggesting a competitive program years earlier find their prospects for reelection suddenly improving as their constituency, inundated with nonstop coverage of the discovery, demands action.
All of this goes as unnoticed within the indigenous enclaves as does everything that happens outside their borders, and Ezekiel’s youth continues uninterrupted.
One
“Look to the Revelation of John, brothers and sisters!” Brother Sam paces the stage and eyes his congregation, gauging their attentiveness and their emotional state with a practiced eye. This is the most important sermon in his entire career. Sam is not so presumptuous to question the Will of God nor His timetable, but he fears this might be the very last sermon he ever preaches and fervently believes the spiritual well-being of his flock and the fate of their eternal souls hinges on his words. It’s hard work. Sweat glistens on his high forehead and stains his shirt. He lowers his voice to capture their complete attention.
“Make no mistake, friends, not at this late hour. The prophet said there would be wars, pestilence, and famine. He said there would be strange portents in the sky, that the rivers and seas would be poisoned, that the forests and grasses would die.” Brother Sam pauses. “Have we not seen these things?”
The congregation murmers assent. Ezekiel squirms in his seat. At six years old, he does not know what pestilence and famine are, although he’s heard them spoken of often enough when grown folk believed him out of earshot. He nods along with his aunt and older brother, wedged between the two of them to ensure he behaves and stays quiet during the sermon.
Brother Sam continues, letting his voice grow louder with each word. “I don’t have to enumerate the wars, the sicknesses which mankind has brought upon themselves in fulfillment of prophesy, the blasphemy which the so-called Harmony has visited upon the heavens for you good people to recognize the SEALS have been BROKEN and the TRUMPETS BLOWN!
“The revelator said a third of mankind would PERISH! And we see it is so.” Sam grows quiet again. “I know many of us have lost loved ones to that cleansing, and the loss is deeply felt. I know we counted every one of them among the ones who would share God’s heavenly kingdom with us, our husbands and wives and children, fathers, mothers and dear friends.” He lets the tears come now, and the tears are real. “I ask you, I pray to Jesus, brothers and sisters, that you not let this pain harden your heart against the judgment of God, but to be certain in your faith and surrender yourself to His divine will.
“Though we cannot know the time, have no doubts among you that the hour is late. We have witnessed the Ark of the Covenant restored to the Temple Mount. We have witnessed the Dragon persecute the people of God; we are living that prophesy now, here today, and we have seen the Beast of the Sea make war upon them.” Brother Sam’s voice booms. “We are at the END of DAYS!”
“My question to you is simple, brothers and sisters. Will you have the Name of the Father written upon your forehead when His angels pour out the bowl of His wrath upon the Earth, or will you be stricken with the Number of the Beast?”
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