Cradle. Part 18

"You mean that's it? We're done?" Carol asked. Troy nodded. "This is the most overrated experience since my first s.e.xual encounter," Carol commented.

Nick was walking across the room, moving directly away from the splash pool and his two friends. "Where are you going?" Troy asked.

"I paid a hefty admission price," Nick replied. "I'm at least ent.i.tled to a tour." Carol and Troy followed him. They crossed the empty room and walked through an exit between two wall part.i.tions on the opposite side. They entered a short, dark, covered corridor. They could see light at the other end. They emerged into another room, this one circular and significantly larger. It had the high cathedral ceilings that Carol had liked so much on her last visit.

This room was not empty. Sitting in its middle facing them was a gigantic, enclosed, translucent cylinder, about twenty-five feet high altogether and ten feet in diameter at its base. A horde of orange pipes and purple cable sheaths attached the cylinder to a group of machines built into the wall behind it. There was a light green liquid filling the inside of the cylinder and eight gold metallic objects floating at different heights in the liquid. The objects were many different shapes. One looked like a starfish, another like a box, a third like a derby hat; the only thing the objects had in common was their gold metallic outer covering. Upon close inspection of the cylinder, thin membranes could be seen inside the liquid. These surfaces effectively part.i.tioned the internal volume and gave each of the golden objects its own unique subvolume.

"All right, genius," Nick said to Troy, after he stared at the cylinder for almost a full minute. "Explain what this is all about." Carol was in a photographer's paradise. She had nearly finished recording all hundred and twenty-eight pictures that could be stored on one minidisc. She had photographed the cylinder from all angles, including a close-up of each of the objects suspended in the liquid, and was now working on the machines behind it. She stopped taking pictures to listen to Troy's reply.

"Well, Professor . . ." Troy started. His forehead was knitted as he tried to concentrate. "As far as I can make out from what they've been trying to tell me, this s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p is on a mission to a dozen planets that are scattered in this part of the galaxy. On each planet the aliens leave one of those golden things you see in the cylinder. They contain tiny embryos or seeds that have been genetically engineered for survival on that specific planet."

Carol walked over beside them. "So the s.h.i.+p goes from planet to planet, dropping off these packages containing seeds of some kind? Sort of a galactic Johnny Appleseed?"

"Sort of, angel, except that there are both animal and plant seeds inside the container. Plus advanced robots that nurture and educate the growing things until they reach maturity. Then the creatures can flourish on their own without help."

"All in that one little package?" Nick asked. He looked again at the fascinating objects floating in the liquid in the cylinder. He loved the golden color. All of a sudden he thought of the trident. He imagined thousands of tiny swarming embryos inside its outer golden surface and in his mind's eye he projected the growth of the swarm into the future. There was something fearsome about creatures genetically engineered to survive on the planet Earth. What if they are not friendly?

Nick's heart sped up as he realized what had been bothering him, partly subconsciously, since he started believing Troy's story about the aliens. Why did they stop on the Earth in the first place? What do they really want from us? His mind raced on. And if that trident contains beings destined for Earth that are extremely advanced, he thought, then it doesn't matter if they are friendly. We will be finished sooner or later anyway.

Carol and Troy were talking in general terms about the way an advanced civilization might use seeds to colonize other planets. Nick wasn't listening carefully. I can't tell Troy or even Carol. If the aliens know what I'm thinking they will stop me. I'd better do it soon.

"Troy," he heard Carol say as she began to take another set of pictures of the objects in the cylinder, "is it just co-incidence that the trident we found on Thursday looks so much like one of these seed packages?"

Nick did not wait for Troy to answer. "Excuse me," he interrupted in a loud voice. "I forgot something very important. I must go back to the boat. Stay here and wait for me. I'll be right back."

He burst out of the room, down the corridor, and across the room with the low ceiling and the window on the ocean. Good, he said to himself, nothing is going to stop me. Without even pausing to put on his diving gear, Nick took a huge breath and dove through the window. He was afraid that his lungs were going to explode before he reached the surface. But he made it. He climbed up the ladder and onto the boat.

Nick went immediately to the bottom drawer underneath the racks of electronic equipment. He reached in and grabbed the golden trident. He could feel that the axis rod had thickened considerably. It was now nearly twice as thick as it had been the first time that he held it. Carol was right. d.a.m.nit, why didn't I listen to her at the time? He pulled the object completely out of the drawer. The sun was just about to come up behind him. In the dawn light Nick could see that the trident had changed in several other ways. It was heavier. The individual tines on the fork end were much thicker and had almost grown together. In addition, there was an open hole into a soft, gooey interior on the north pole of the larger of the two spheres.

Nick examined it carefully. Suddenly he felt powerful arms wrap themselves around his chest and upper body, forcing him to drop the trident on the floor of the boat. "Now just hold steady," he heard a lightly accented voice say, "and turn around slowly. We won't hurt you if you cooperate."

Nick turned around. Commander Winters and a tall, fat seaman that Nick had never seen before were standing in front of him in wetsuits. Lieutenant Ramirez was still holding him from behind. Ramirez gradually released Nick and bent down to pick up the trident. He handed it to Winters. "Thank you, Lieutenant," Winters said. "Where are your companions, Williams?" he then asked Nick. "Down there with my missile?"

Nick didn't say anything at first. Too much was happening too fast. He was having difficulty integrating Winters into his scenario for returning the trident to the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p. As soon as Nick had felt the changes in its outer surface, he had known for certain that the trident was one of the seed packages.

Winters was studying the trident. "And what's the significance of this thing?" he said. "You guys have taken enough photographs of it."

Nick was doing some calculations. If I am delayed here very long, then Carol and Troy will undoubtedly leave the s.h.i.+p. And the aliens will launch. He took a deep breath. My only chance is the truth.

"Commander Winters," Nick began, "please listen very carefully to what I'm about to say. It will sound fantastic, even preposterous, but it's all true. And if you will come with me, I can prove everything to you. The fate of the human race may well depend on what we do in the next five minutes." He paused to organize his ideas.

For some reason Winters thought about the ridiculous carrot story that Todd had told him. But the earnestness he was seeing in Nick's face persuaded him to continue to pay attention. "Go ahead, Williams," he said.

"Carol Dawson and Troy Jefferson are right now onboard a super-advanced extraterrestrial s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p that is directly under this boat. The alien vehicle is traveling from planet to planet depositing packages of embryonic beings that are genetically designed to survive on a particular planet. That golden thing in your hand is, in a sense, a cradle for creatures that may later flourish on the Earth. I must return it to the aliens before they leave or our descendants may not survive."

Commander Winters looked at Nick as if he had lost his mind. The commander started to say something. "No," Nick interrupted. "Hear me out. The s.p.a.cecraft also stopped here because it needed some repairs. At one time we thought it might have found your missile. That's partially how we got involved in the first place. We didn't know about the creatures in the cradle. So we were trying to help. One of the things the aliens needed for their repairs was gold. You see, they only had three days - "

"Jesus K. Christ!" Winters shouted at Nick. "Do you really expect me to believe this c.r.a.p? This is the looniest, most farfetched story I have ever heard in my entire life. You're nuts. Cradles, aliens who need gold for repairs . . . I suppose next you'll be telling me that they are six feet tall and look like carrots - " "And have four vertical slits in their faces?" Nick added.

Winters glanced around. "You told him?" he said to Lieutenant Ramirez. Ramirez shook his head back and forth.

"No," Nick continued abruptly as the commander looked completely confused. "The carrot thing wasn't an alien, at least not one of the superaliens who made the s.h.i.+p. The carrot was a holographic projection . . ."

The perplexed Commander Winters waved his hands. " I'm not listening to any more of this nonsense, Williams. At least not here. What I want to know is what you and your friends know about the location of the missile. Now will you come with us over to our boat of your own free will, or do we have to tie you up?"

At that moment, six feet above them, a ten-legged, black, spiderlike creature with a body about four inches in diameter walked unnoticed to the edge of the canopy. It extended three antennae in their direction and then leaped off the side, landing on the back of Lieutenant Ramirez' neck. "Aieee," screamed the lieutenant during the pause in the conversation. He fell down on his knees behind Nick and grasped at the black thing that was trying to take a sample chunk out of his neck. For a second n.o.body moved. Then Nick grabbed a large pair of pliers from the counter and thwacked the black thing once, twice, and even a third time before it released its grip on Ramirez' neck.

All four men watched it fall to the deck, scuttle rapidly over to the cradle that Commander Winters had put down so that he could a.s.sist Ramirez, shrink its size by a factor of ten, and disappear into the cradle through the soft gooey opening on the top of the sphere. Within seconds the goo hardened and all the external surfaces of the cradle were again rigid.

Winters was flabbergasted. Ramirez crossed himself. The seaman looked as if he were about to faint. "I swear to you that my story is true, Commander," Nick said calmly. "All you have to do is come down with me and see for yourself. I left my diving gear down there so that I could hurry up here to retrieve this thing. We can go together with my last working tank and share the air supply."

Winters' head was spinning. The ten-legged spider was the straw that broke the camel's back. He felt that he had now entered the Twilight Zone. I have never seen or heard anything even remotely like this before in my life, Winters thought. And only half an hour ago I had wild hallucinations with musical accompaniment. Maybe I am the one losing touch with reality. Lieutenant Ramirez was still on his knees. It looked as if he were praying. Or maybe this is finally my sign from G.o.d.

"All right, Williams," the commander was surprised to hear himself say. "I'll go with you. But my men will wait here on your boat for our return."

Nick picked up the trident and raced around the canopy to prepare the diving equipment.

It took Carol and Troy a few seconds to react to Nick's abrupt departure. "That was strange," Carol said finally. "What do you suppose he forgot?"

"I have no idea," Troy shrugged. "But I hope he hurries back. I don't think it's very long until launch. And I'm sure they will throw us out before then."

Carol thought for a moment and then turned back to look at the cylinder. "You know, Troy, those golden things are exactly like the trident on the outside. Did you say - "

"I didn't answer you before, angel," Troy interrupted. "But yes, you're right. It is the same material. I hadn't realized until we came down here today that what we picked up on that first dive was the seed package for Earth. They may have tried to tell me before; maybe I just didn't understand them."

Carol was fascinated. She walked over and put her face against the cylinder wall. It felt more like gla.s.s than plastic. "So maybe I was right when I thought it was heavier and thicker . . ." she said, as much to herself as to Troy. "And inside that trident are seeds for better plants and animals?" Troy nodded his head in response.

There was now some motion inside the cylinder. The thin membranes separating the subvolumes were growing what appeared to be guidewires that were wrapping themselves around the individual golden objects. Carol reloaded her camera with a new disc and ran around the outside of the cylinder, stopping in the best positions to photograph the process. Troy looked down at his bracelet. "There's no doubt about it, angel. These ETs are definitely preparing to launch. Maybe we should go."

'We'll wait as long as we can," Carol shouted from across the room. "These photographs will he priceless." They both could now hear weird noises behind the walls. The noises were not loud, but they were distracting because they were erratic and so totally alien. Troy paced nervously as he listened to the gamut of sounds. Carol walked over beside him. "Besides," she said, "Nick asked us to wait for him."

"That's great," Troy answered, "as long as they wait as well." He seemed uncharacteristically nervous. "I don't want to be onboard when these guys leave the Earth."

"Hey there, Mr. Jefferson," Carol said, you are supposed to he the calm one. Relax. You just said yourself that you think they'll throw us out before they leave." She paused and looked searchingly at Troy. "What do you know that I don't?"

Troy turned away from her and started walking toward the exit. Carol ran after him and grabbed his arm. "What is it, Troy?" she said. 'What's wrong?"

"Look, angel," he replied, not looking directly at her, "I just figured it out myself a minute ago. And I'm still not sure what it means. I hope I haven't made a terrible - "

"What are you talking about?" she interrupted him. "You're not making any sense."

"The Earth package," he blurted out. "It has human seeds in it too. Along with the trees and insects and gra.s.ses and birds."

Carol stood facing Troy, trying to understand what was bothering him so much. "When they came here a long long time ago," he said, his face wrinkled with concern, "they took specimens of the different species and returned them to their home world. Where they were improved by genetic engineering and prepared for their eventual return to the Earth. Some of those specimens were human beings."

Carol's heart quickened as she realized what Troy was telling her. So that's it, she said to herself. There are superhumans inside that package we've found. Not just better flowers and better bugs, but better people as well. But unlike Troy, Carol's immediate reaction was not fear. She was overwhelmed by curiosity.

"Can I see them?" she asked excitedly. Troy didn't understand. "The superhumans, or whatever you want to call them . . . ," she continued, "can I see them?"

Troy shook his head. "They're just tiny zygotes, angel. More than a billion would fit in your hand. You wouldn't be able to see anything."

Carol was not dissuaded. " But these guys have such amazing technological ability. Maybe they can . . ." She stopped. "Wait a minute, Troy. Remember that carrot on the base? It was a holographic projection and must have come somehow out of the information base on this s.p.a.cecraft."

Carol walked away from Troy into the middle of the room. She raised her arms and looked up at the ceiling thirty feet above her. "Okay, you guys, whoever you are," she invoked in a loud voice. "Now there's something that I want. We risked our a.s.s to get what you needed for your repairs. You can at least reciprocate. I want to see what we might look like someday . . ."

To their left, not too far from one of the large blocky machines connected to the cylinder, two of the wall part.i.tions moved apart to form a hallway. They could see light at the other end. "Come on," an exultant Carol called to Troy, who was again smiling and admiring her a.s.sertiveness, "let's go see what our superaliens have created for us now."

At the end of the short corridor, there was a softly lit square room about twenty feet on a side. Against the opposite wall, illuminated by a blue light that gave the entire tableau a surrealistic appearance, eight children were standing around a large, glowing model of the Earth. As Carol and Troy approached, they recognized that what they were seeing was not real, that it was simply a complex sequence of images projected into the air in front of them. But the diaphanous picture contained such rich detail that it was easy to forget it was just a projection.

The children were four or five years old. All were wearing only a thin white loincloth that covered their genitals. There were four girls and four boys. Two of them were black, two were Caucasian with blue eyes and blonde hair, two were Oriental, and the final boy and girl, definitely twins, looked like a mixture of all humanity What Carol immediately noticed was their eyes. All eight children had large, piercing eyes of brilliant intensity that were focused on the glowing Earth in front of them.

"The continents of this planet," the little black boy was saying, "were once tied together in a single gigantic land ma.s.s that stretched from pole to pole. This was relatively recently, only about two hundred million years ago. Since that time the motion of the plates on which the individual land ma.s.ses rest has completely changed the configuration of the surface. Here, for example, you can see the Indian sub continent tearing away from Antarctica a hundred million years ago and moving across the ocean toward an eventual collision with Asia. It was this collision and the subsequent plate interaction that lifted the Himalayas, the highest mountains on the planet, to their current height."

As the little boy was talking, the electronic model Earth in front of him demonstrated the continental changes that he was describing. "But what is the mechanism that causes these plates and land ma.s.ses to move with respect to each other?" the tiny blonde-haired girl asked.

"Psst," Carol whispered in Troy's ear. "How come they are speaking English and know all this Earth geography?" Troy looked at her as if he were disappointed and made a circular motion with his hands. Of course, Carol said to herself, they've already processed the discs.

". . . then this activity results in material being thrust upward from the mantle below the Earth's crust. Eventually the continents are pushed apart. Any other questions?" The black boy was smiling. He pointed at the model in front of him. "Here's what will happen to the land ma.s.ses in the next fifty million years or so. The Americas will continue to move to the West, away from Africa and Europe, making the South Atlantic a much larger ocean. The Persian Gulf will close altogether, Australia will drive north toward the equator and press against Asia, and both Baja California and the area around Los Angeles will split off from North America to drift northward in the Pacific Ocean. By fifty million years from now Los Angeles will start sliding into the Aleutian Islands."

All of the children watched the changing globe with complete attention. When the continents on the surface of the model stopped moving, the Oriental boy stepped slightly out from the group. "We have seen this continental drift phenomenon that Brian has been describing on half a dozen other planets, all of them bodies mostly covered by a liquid. Tomorrow Sherry will lead a more detailed discussion about the forces inside a planet that cause the sea floor to spread in the first place."

A projected image of a warden entered the scene from the left and removed both the Earth globe and several other unidentified props. The small boy waited patiently for the warden to complete his task and then continued, "Darla and David now want to share with us a project they have been working on for several days. They will play the music while Miranda and Justin perform the dance they ch.o.r.eographed."

The mixed twins turned eagerly to their cla.s.smates. The girl spoke out. "When we first learned about adult love and the changes that we all can expect after we pa.s.s p.u.b.erty, David and I tried to envision what it would be like to find a new desire even stronger than those we already know. Our joint vision became a short musical composition and a dance. We call it 'The Dance of Love.' "

The two children sat down away from the group, almost at the side of the image, and began moving their fingers rapidly as if they were typing on the floor. A light synthesized melody, pleasant and spirited, filled the room. The blond boy and the Oriental girl began to dance in the center of the group. At first in the dance, the two were totally separate, unaware of each other, each child completely absorbed in his own activities. The boy knelt down to pick a beautiful flower, its red and white coloring s.h.i.+mmering in the holographic projection. The girl bounced a large bright blue ball as she danced. After a while the little girl noticed the boy and approached him, somewhat tentatively, offering to share the ball. The boy played ball with her but ignored everything except the game.

This is magic, thought Carol as she watched the children's images moving with grace and deft precision in front of her. These children are wonderful. But they can't be real. They are too orderly, too self-contained. Where is the tension, the strife? But despite her questions she was profoundly moved by the scene she was witnessing. The children were acting in concert, as a group, flowing in harmony from activity to activity. Their body language was open and unafraid. No neuroses were blocking their learning process.

The dance continued. The music deepened as the boy began to pay attention to his partner and she began arranging her hair with his favorite flowers for their brief encounters. The body movements changed as well, the sprightly, exuberant bounces of the initial stages giving way to subtly suggestive motions designed to awaken and then tease the budding libido. The tiny dancers touched, moved away, and came back together in an embrace.

Carol was entranced. How would my life have been different, she wondered, if I had known all this at the age of five? She remembered her rich friend at soccer camp, Jessica from Laguna Beach, whom she had seen occasionally in subsequent years. Jessica was always ahead, always had to be first. She had had s.e.x with boys before I even started my period. And look what happened to her. Three marriages, three divorces, just thirty years old.

Carol tried to stop her mind from drifting so that she could pay complete attention to the dance. Suddenly she remembered her camera. She had just taken her first pictures of the children when she heard a noise behind her. Nick was coming toward them through the corridor. And he was carrying the trident in his hand.

Nick started to say something but Troy hushed him by putting his finger against his own lips and pointing at the dance in progress. The tempo had now changed. The two mixed children had somehow put the music on automatic (it seemed to be repeating some of the early verses, but with additional instruments in a more complex pattern) and joined the blond boy and the Oriental girl in the dance. Carol's first impression before Nick spoke out loud was that the dance was now exploring friends.h.i.+ps between the paired couple and other people.

"What's this all about?" Nick said. The moment he spoke the entire projected tableau vanished. All of the children, the dance, and the music disappeared in an instant. Carol was surprised to find that she was disappointed and even a little angry. "Now you've blown it," she said.

Nick looked at his companions' stern faces. "Jesus," he said, holding up the cradle, "such a greeting. I bust my b.u.t.t to go retrieve this d.a.m.n thing and you guys are p.i.s.sed when I come back because I interrupt a movie of some kind."

"For your information, Mr. Williams," Carol replied, "what we were watching was no ordinary movie. In fact, those kids in that dance are the same species as the ones in your trident." Nick looked at her skeptically. "Tell him, Troy."

"She's right, Professor," Troy said. "We just figured it out while you were gone. That thing you're carrying is the seed package for Earth. Some of the zygotes in there are what Carol calls superhumans. Genetically engineered humans with more capability than you or me. Like the kids we just saw."

Nick lifted the cradle to eye level. "I had figured out myself that this thing was a seed package. But what's this s.h.i.+t about human seeds?" He glanced at Troy. "You're serious, aren't you?" Troy nodded his head. Troy nodded. All three of them stared intently at the object in front of them. Carol kept glancing back and forth from the trident to where the image of the superchildren had been. "It still doesn't seem possible," Nick added, "but then nothing else has for the last - "

"So what did you forget, Nick?" Carol interrupted. "And why did you bring that thing back?" There was no immediate response from Nick. "By the way," she smiled, "you missed the show of a lifetime."

"The trident was what I forgot," Nick answered. "It occurred to me, while I was studying the gold objects in the cylinder, that our trident might be a seed package. And I was worried that it might be dangerous . . ."

The sudden sound of organ music flooding down the corridor from the large room behind them stopped their conversation. Nick and Carol looked at Troy. He put the bracelet up to his ear as if he were listening to it and cracked a large grin. "I think that's the five-minute warning," Troy said. "We'd better make our last touchdown and clear out of here."

The trio turned and walked back down the corridor to the room with the cylinder. When they arrived. Carol and Troy were astonished to see a figure in a blue and white wetsuit on the opposite side of the room. He was kneeling reverently right next to the cylinder.

"Oh, yeah." said Nick with a nervous laugh, "I forgot to tell you. Commander Winters came back with me . . ."

Commander Winters had felt quite comfortable in the water even though he had not been down on a dive in five years. Nick had gone freestyle, swimming right beside the commander and using the emergency mouthpiece connected to the air supply on Winters' back. Despite his sense of urgency, Nick had remembered that Winters was basically a novice again and had not rushed the first part of the dive. But when Winters had refused several times to follow Nick up close to the light in the ocean, Nick had become exasperated.

Nick had then taken a final deep breath from the ancillary mouthpiece and grabbed Winters by the shoulders. With gestures, he had explained to the commander that he, Nick, was going to go through the plastic stuff or whatever it was in front of the light and that Winters could either follow him or not. The commander had reluctantly given Nick his hand. Nick turned around immediately and pulled Winters into and through the membrane that separated the alien s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p from the ocean.

Winters had been completely terrified during his tumble on the water slide inside the vehicle. As a result he had lost his bearings and had had great difficulty standing up after he landed in the splash pool. Nick was already out of the pool and anxious to find his friends. "Look," Nick had said, as soon as he could get the commander's attention, "I'm going to leave you now for a few minutes." He had pointed at the exit on the opposite of the room. "We'll be in the big room with the high ceilings just on the other side of that wall." Then he had left carrying the strange golden object from the boat.

Winters was left alone. He carefully pulled himself out on the side of the splash pool and methodically stacked his equipment alongside all the rest of the diving gear. He looked around the room, noting the curves in the black and white part.i.tions. He too felt the closeness of the ceiling. Now according to Williams, the commander thought to himself, I'm in part of an alien s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p that has temporarily stopped on Earth. So far, except for that clever one-way entrance that I did not have time to a.n.a.lyze, I see no evidence of extraterrestrial origin . . .

Comforted by his logic, he eased across the room toward the opposite wall and into the dark corridor. But his newfound sense of comfort was totally destroyed when he walked into the room dominated by the enormous cylinder with the golden objects floating in the light green liquid. He arched his back and stared at the vaulted, cathedral ceilings far above his head. He then approached the cylinder.

For Winters, the connection between the trident that Nick had been holding and the objects inside the cylinder was instantaneous. Those must be more seed packages, destined for other worlds. Winters thought, his crisp logic disappearing in a quick leap of faith. With six-root carrots and who knows what else to populate a few of the billions of worlds in our galaxy alone.

The commander walked around the cylinder as if he were in a dream. His mind continually replayed both what Nick had told him right before they descended and the amazing scene he had witnessed when the spiderlike creature had shrunk up and jumped into the golden object. So it's all true. All those things the scientists have been saying about the possibility of vast hordes of living creatures out there among the stars. He stopped for a moment, partially listening to the strange noises behind the walls. And we are only a few of G.o.d's many many children.

Organ music, similar in timbre to that which Carol had heard when she had finished playing "Silent Night," but with a different tune, began to sound in the distant reaches of the ceiling above him. It reminded Winters of church music. His reaction was instinctual . He knelt down in front of the cylinder and clasped his hands together in prayer.

The music swelled in the room. What Winters heard in his head was the introduction to the Doxology. the short hymn that he had heard every single Sunday for eighteen years in the Presbyterian church in Columbus, Indiana. In his mind's eye he was thirteen years old again and sitting next to Betty in his choir robes. He smiled at her and they stood up together.

Praise G.o.d from whom all blessings flow.

The choir sang the first phrase of the hymn and Winters' brain was bombarded by a montage of memories from his early teens and before, a suite of epiphanic images of his innocent and unknowing closeness with a parental G.o.d, one who was in the wall behind his bed or just over his rooftop or at most in the summer afternoon clouds above Columbus. Here was an eight-year-old boy praying that his father would not find out that it was he who had set fire to the vacant lot across from the Smith mansion. Another time, at ten, the little Vernon wept bitter tears as he held his dead c.o.c.ker spaniel Runtie in his arms and begged the omniscient G.o.d to accept his dead dog's soul into heaven.

The night before the Easter pageant, the first time that Vernon had portrayed Him in His final hours, dragging the cross to Calvary, eleven-year-old Vernon had been unable to sleep. As the night was pa.s.sing by the boy began to panic, began to fear that he would freeze up and forget his lines. But then he had known what to do. He had reached under his pillow and found the little New Testament that always stayed there, day and night. He had opened it to Matthew 28. "Go ye therefore," it had said, "baptizing all nations . . ."

That had been enough. Then Vernon had prayed for sleep. His friendly, fatherly G.o.d had sent the little boy an image of himself delivering a spellbinding performance in the pageant the next day. Comforted by that picture, he had fallen asleep.

Praise Him all creatures here below.

With the second phrase of the hymn resounding in his ears the venue for Winters' mental montage changed to Annapolis Maryland. He was a young man now, in the last two years of his university work at the Naval Academy. The pictures that flooded his brain were all taken at the same place, outside the beautiful little Protestant chapel in the middle of the campus. He was either walking in or walking out. He went in the snow, in the rain, and in the late summer heat. He would fulfill his pledge. He had made a bargain with G.o.d, a business deal as it were, you do your part and I'll do mine. It was no longer a one-sided relations.h.i.+p. Now, life had taught the serious young mids.h.i.+pman from Indiana that it was necessary to offer this G.o.d something in order to guarantee His compliance with the deal.

For two years Vernon went regularly to the chapel, twice a week at least. He did not really wors.h.i.+p there; he corresponded with a worldly G.o.d, one that read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. They discussed things. Vernon reminded Him that he was steadfastly upholding his end of the deal and thanked Him for keeping His part of the bargain. But never once did they talk about Joanna Carr. She didn't matter. The whole affair was between Mids.h.i.+pman Vernon Winters and G.o.d.

Praise Him above ye heavenly host.

The commander had unconsciously bowed his head almost to the floor by the time he heard the third phrase of the hymn. In his heart he knew the next stops on this spiritual journey. He was off the coast of Libya first, praying those horrible words requesting death and destruction for Gaddafi's family. G.o.d had changed as Lieutenant Winters had matured. He was now an executive, a president of something larger than a nation, an admiral, a judge, somewhat remote, but still accessible in time of real need.

However, he had lost his all-forgiving nature. He had become stern and judgmental. Killing a small Arab girl wasn't like burning down the vacant lot across from the Smith mansion. Winters' G.o.d now held him personally accountable for all his actions. And there were some sins almost beyond forgiveness, some deeds so heinous that one might wait for weeks, months, or even years in the anterooms of His court before He would consent to hear your plea for mercy and expiation.

Again the commander remembered his desperate search for Him after that awful evening when he had sat on the couch beside his wife and watched the videotaped newsreels of the Libya bombing. She had been so proud of him. She had taped every segment of CBS news that had covered the North African engagement and then surprised him with a complete showing the day after he returned to Norfolk. It was only then that the full horror of what he had done had struck Winters. Struggling not to vomit as the camera had shown the gruesome result of those missiles that had been fired from his planes, Winters had stumbled out into the night air, alone, and wandered until daybreak.

He had been looking for Him. A dozen times in the next three years this rite would repeat itself and he would wander again, all night, alternately praying and walking, hoping for some sign that He had listened to the commander's prayers. The stars and moon above him on those nights had been magnificent. But they could not grant forgiveness, could not give surcease to his troubled soul.