The two men walked down the long central corridor of the starship, their white robes rustling gently with their movements. They each wore a short red cape which came down to their waists, based on the cloaks the Cardinals of the now-defunct Terran Roman Catholic church wore, and on the back of each cape was a symbol of a flattened crescent moon. The corridor was cold, dark and empty, and their footsteps echoed loudly off the black, brittle walls. The starship was bleak and austere to the extreme, showing practically no physical comforts for its occupants. The people on this vessel were expected to be in a state of penitence and atonement constantly, in an unending cycle of making amends and reparations for transgressions both real and imagined.
They said nothing to each other; nothing needed to be said. Summoned by their leader, they knew their input was not needed; rather they were called to bear witness to what was about to transpire.
As they approached the central command area, the doors silently slid open. They walked into a large room with a lower level containing the control area for the ship. Two sets of stairs on either side climbed up toward an observation level with numerous large windows. The two men moved toward a group of other Cardinals and Foundation officials standing on one side. They silently took their places next to the others and no one said a word. Above them, in the shadows and darkness of the upper level where none of them dared go, was a single figure who stood silent and motionless, staring out the large picture window which ran from the top level all the way to the lower level. The ice blue glitter of the galaxy’s stars outlined him in a silvery light that seemed nearly as rarified as the vacuum of space outside. The figure, that of a young man, continued to look out on the boundless depths of the universe as if he were in communication with some higher power, praying to some nameless god who could only speak through the frigid light of distant stars.
Several long minutes passed in total silence; none of the assembled persons on the lower level would dare speak. In fact, they barely breathed. In this dark church of cold light, all eyes were focused on the man at the window. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the figure slowly turned around and said, “Bring in the faithless one.”
Somehow a signal went out silently and seconds later the muffled sound of voices and footsteps could be heard approaching the command center from without. The doors opened and two guards harshly pushed a heavy-set, robed figure into the large room. The figure had streaks of gray running through his hair and wobbled unsteadily on his feet. Nearly losing his balance and falling to the floor, the robed figure began loudly spewing out curses in his native Kellurian language.
“Each of you will be flayed alive and fed to a pack of wild ghurrups on my world,” the robed figure fulminated. Ranting and raving, the figure screamed invective and threats for nearly two minutes before he finally stopped. A stifling, enveloping silence quickly descended on the room and filled every available cubic inch of space.
“Ambassador Craethon of the Kellurian Empire,” the figure on the upper level began, “you had been brought here to be given an opportunity to gain forgiveness for your many sins and save your soul from being lost in the eternal darkness.”
“WHAT sins, you blathering idiot?” the ambassador shouted. “You have a lot of nerve, talking about MY sins! Just who do you think you are?”
Retaining his almost preternatural aura of calm and reserve, the figure continued. “You have been counseled and encouraged to admit your sins and allow the mercy of The Father to descend upon you as the healing rain descends upon the desert. Still you refuse His ministrations.”
The ambassador was not intimidated. “When my government finds out about your outrageous violations of diplomatic protocols,” he sputtered, “they will hunt you down and turn this space ship into rubble. And if you think ‘The Father’ is going to help you, then I suggest you give it a try!”
The figure on the upper level turned and slowly headed for a small set of stairs which led to the lower level. “Blasphemy and irreverence will only work to alienate you from the divine and condemn you to the profane,” the figure said.
“Why is it you Cusp Foundation people absolutely refuse to make any sense at all?” the ambassador thundered. “Why don’t you stop hiding behind all the elliptical oratory and deadheaded symbolism and try talking like normal humans for a change?”
The figure from above came to the bottom of the stairs and for the first time walked out into the dim orange and yellow light of the control area. The ambassador finally got to look into the face of the person who had ordered an attack on his private vessel, fired upon it and disabled its engines. This was the person who boarded his vessel, which would normally be considered sovereign territory of the Kellurian Empire and therefore untouchable, killed his crew and security personnel, kidnapped him, brought him to this starship, and held him in near total isolation for almost four days. Ambassador Craethon looked on to the face of a young human male, approximately twenty-five years of age with short dark hair, a slender but strong build and large, dark eyes which almost seemed to have an exotic, feline quality to their inky depths. The ambassador could not be sure, but somehow this young man reminded him of someone he knew. Looking the ambassador directly in the eyes, the young man said quietly, “There is truly no one blinder than he who will not see.”
That simple, low-key pronouncement sent the ambassador into another torrent of insults, threats and curses. “I demand to know why I am being held here against my will,” he bellowed. “I demand to speak to a representative of my government immediately!”
The young man kept eye contact with the ambassador and said quietly, “Your government has been a source of great distress for us. Their interference in our activities on the planet Dreen 7 has rapidly moved from a minor annoyance to a major problem for us. We consider you and your government to be hindering and undermining the work of The Father, and that we cannot allow.”
“What are you talking about?” the ambassador demanded. “What happened on Dreen 7?”
The young man’s eyes narrowed into small slits. “We know full well of your meeting with a representative of the Galactic Alliance some days ago, in which you discussed the results of our little experiment on Dreen 7. You shared information with this representative was most unfortunate, even going so far as to refer to me by my sacred name, Eosphorus. You also encouraged this representative to travel to Dreen 7 to examine the surface directly.” Ambassador Craethon felt his face flush with warmth. He turned to glare angrily at Dr. William Stromeyer from the Rimdao One science station, who was standing on the side next to one of the Cardinals, a crescent moon emblem under the right shoulder of his uniform sleeve.
“This Alliance representative managed to elude your warships and their spacecraft violated the surface of the planet,” the young man continued. “We have reason to believe they found our scientific property on the planet and may have illegally obtained some sensitive data about us. For some reason, your military personnel decided to fire blindly at the surface, trying to hit the Alliance craft but managing instead to destroy our property. The Alliance craft escaped undamaged with the data, and we have every reason to believe you are responsible for this event.” He put his face close to that of the ambassador. “You and the Alliance representative have interfered with the work of The Father, and for that you must pay the price.”
“You don’t even know what you’re talking about,” the ambassador roared with fury. “You don’t even know this ‘Alliance representative’”. At this, the face of the young man, which had maintained a passive, neutral expression the entire time, became hard and unforgiving.
“I know this Alliance representative much more intimately than you can ever imagine,” the young man said slowly and icily, “and he too will be called to account for his actions.” The young man turned and walked toward the middle of the room. “You, however, will be held responsible for your sins and crimes now.”
The young man turned to look out the large picture window in front of them. Outside, in space, several spacecraft with the crescent moon symbol on their sides moved slowly into view, towing the ambassador’s diplomatic spacecraft with the dead crewmen still inside. The towing cables were dropped, and one of the Cusp craft turned and pointed itself toward the Kellurian craft. A bright blue bolt of light shot out from the Cusp craft and struck the ambassador’s vessel, blowing some equipment off the outside in a flurry of sparks, and burning some dark blast marks into its outer hull.
“What are you doing to my vessel, you maniac?” Ambassador Craethon shrieked. “There’s no one alive on my ship! It is not a threat to you.”
The Cusp craft continued to fire its pulsed lasers upon the ambassador’s ship, damaging it severely but not destroying it. “It never was a threat to us,” the young man said, “and now, it is going to be a help to us. You see, Ambassador, your government is going to find your ship very soon, and onboard will be the bodies of your crew. They will closely examine the damage and burned hull marks on your ship and realize that they were caused by a particular kind of pulsed laser weapon that will match exactly the radiation signature of the ones used by the Galactic Alliance. They will quickly conclude that your vessel had been attacked and your crew murdered by the Galactic Alliance, and they will throw all their resources and attention against the Alliance, allowing us to continue to do The Father’s work undisturbed and unmolested.”
“They will never believe you,” the ambassador howled. “I will inform them of your treachery and subterfuge. They will come after you no matter what you do.” The ambassador suddenly began coughing and wheezing, and struggled to remain standing. “What have you done to me, you and your servants of the devil?” he demanded.
“Ah, the devil!” the young man said, his eyes opening wide. “That is something we haven’t heard of in a very long time. Not for several centuries has the devil been mentioned, not since the last days of the Roman Catholic Church on Terra. But the devil was present in all cultures, was he not? Whether called ‘Satan’ on Terra, ‘Teuf’ on Kellur or ‘Lelvon’ on Rigel, the devil has been around since time immemorial.” The young man walked over to the large window, looking out on a starscape littered with countless blue and white points of light. “But, come the New Dawn, there will no longer be a need for the devil, or for good and evil. Come the New Dawn, there will be nothing but goodness and light and perfection.”
The young man wheeled around quickly on the ambassador, pulling a weapon out of a holster at his side and pointing it directly at his forehead. “Through your sinfulness, you will not be a part of the New Dawn,” the young man snarled. “We actually welcomed your arrival as it gave us yet another opportunity to test our neutrino process on another living humanoid. But now, you have outlived your usefulness. As you can plainly see, this is a Galactic Alliance Plexor weapon set to the highest output power. Your government is going to find your body on your ship, and they will examine you and determine that you died from Plexor weapon fire, further convincing them that the Galactic Alliance is responsible for what will be regarded as a horrendous crime against the Kellurian Empire. The log files of your ship have already been altered to implicate the Alliance at every turn. The evidence in your murder will be overwhelming and incontrovertible.”
The ambassador’s eyes began to bulge out of his face in apoplexy. “You sanctimonious taghekh!” he cursed. “How can you call yourself a religious person if you create such a morass of lies, killings and deceptions?”
The young man continued to hold the Plexor weapon directly at the middle of the ambassador’s forehead. “It truly pains me that you will not be around to witness the New Dawn,” he said in a cold, unfeeling monotone.
He looked into the ambassador’s eyes one more time. “May you find forgiveness in the eternal darkness,” he said, and pulled the trigger.
