The Voice of Many Waters



This 11,500 word novelette will be released by Blue Leaf Publications in October 2009.  It will be available at http://www.blueleafpub.com/store.htm

cmsloSummary:

A beautiful race, the Humana lack war, jealousy, and other human vices; however, they also have virtually no religious or aesthetic sense. Peter, a Neo-Catholic priest, wishes to change this so he calls upon Xanthu, a SoulSinger, in the hope that the insect-like creature can awaken the Humana’s souls and help them to find not only their love for art, beauty, and deep emotion, but, above all, their love for God…yet as the silver-stringed instrument of the SoulSinger rises in a nest of claws and its first pure bell-like notes ring forth, what terrible, irreversible truth will be brought to light and will this alien Eden–or Father Peter–ever be the same?

Excerpt:

Call me Peter.

I’m a Neo-Catholic priest here on Duran, where the air’s sweet as incense but the natives aren’t ripe for conversion. Moral and upright though they be, they have about as much religious or aesthetic sense as a sand flea. They’ll break their equivalent of bread with you and shelter you for the night, but mention salvation or Jesus on a cosmic cross, and they’ll tilt their heads as if you’d spewed the purest form of nonsense.

Take my word for it, it gets frustrating.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not new to the missionary calling. Between interstellar trips at the speed of light, I’ve sought to bring alien souls to Christ for four decades and know that sometimes the Lord sees fit to try your faith and patience with a recalcitrant, backsliding race. I’ve been to a score of worlds and preached to beings of every description, some so vicious and unspiritual I trembled in their presence. I even converted a fierce Muran warlord with two heads and no heart. Bathing those horny heads with their reptilian mentalities in the blood of the Cosmic Lamb made me weep with love and gratitude to our Creator. If I’d ever had doubts about my calling, his hissed, duo recital of the 900th Psalm after I baptized him would have banished them. I felt blessed, supremely blessed, to be allowed to travel throughout the galaxy, spreading the Word.

But that was before I met the Humana.

Their name itself is ironic, for they are both more and less human than we. Physically, they’re similar but taller and more beautiful. Most importantly, they lack our vices. War, violence, jealousy, betrayal are virtually unknown to them as they live peacefully in their efficient villages and cities. But on the other side, religion, deep love, art, and aspiration are virtually unknown too. Their emotions are as mild as the Duranian climate, which is that of a godless Eden where there is little sickness and the gravity is only eighty-eight percent that of Earth’s.

“Father Peter,” Kiri says, his double-pupilled eyes gazing calmly into my own, “do you really believe that one of your race was sent by a god to redeem you all and later rose from the dead?”

“I do,” I answer. “But He was sent not by a god but by the one and only God.”

Kiri moves off a few steps, his two meter frame slim and supple. Like all Humana, he wears a plain, functional robe yet always looks elegant, perhaps because of his graceful form.

I take a deep breath of the sweet air. In this valley called Li outside their city of Tebbe, exquisite red Peona blossoms drift and flavor the spring wind. Soon, they will return to the earth and die, to be reborn in flowering shrubs the following spring.

“Do you also believe,” Kiri says, “that this Christ visits worlds throughout the galaxy and offers them redemption in return?”

“He comes in many forms,” I tell him. “He goes wherever a sentient race exists with the spark of soul to receive Him. Sometimes he appears as human, sometimes as one of them, but always, the form itself is irrelevant. On Lanura, Christ appeared as a Lanuran, who, as you know, resembles your four-legged Tarzi. Elsewhere—”

“But surely,” Kiri says, “these visitors could be pretenders. Your ancient writings, I believe, warn more than once of false prophets.”

I hesitate, thinking of how our faith as evolved in the millennia since we reached the stars.

“Whatever His manifestation,” I say, “whatever the form He chooses to adopt, He is still the Cosmic Christ. As stated in the Bible Galactica, Book of Jora, first chapter, seventh verse, ‘He may come in many guises, but He is always the one true Evangel.’ Or even better, consider the stirring promise of verse twelve, where His divine diversity is affirmed: ‘We are the light of many worlds: those that followeth us shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.’”

Kiri gazes at me, his placid, beautiful features courteous and respectful, but I know that if he were a human skeptic, he would laugh in my face. Humana, though, don’t laugh or deride, and all their Doubting Thomases keep their own counsel…

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