Even more unprecedented is the new dichotomy of the people that is taking place at a faster and faster rate. There are the scientists, and there are the masses. Space agencies wear the purple today.
Today I revisited the ship. Many things there have changed also since my last visit to the site. There is a five-thou sand-acre. park there now, with a ten-lane highway leading to it, and parking space for fifty thousand cars. The land has been donated to the U.N. and is patrolled by a UNEF unit of thousands.
There is a torus-shaped building about the ship and daily thousands of tourists file into it. Inside there are murals and dioramas depicting our space programs, those of Russia and other countries, as well as a quickie course in astronomy. You make a circuit of the building before you enter the ship. And it is big, bigger than the old Queen Elizabeth II. After five years it still isn’t known how the ship was propelled; where it came from; what the many pieces of equipment are for; what the crew ate; what they did for recreation. In short nothing has been learned that wasn’t guessed when the ship first arrived. We haven’t begun to decipher the alien language. We have found no Rosetta Stone for it.
One man alone has profited from the efforts of the corps of scientists who work day and night on the mystery of the alien ship. He Is Emmanuel Curlew. Curlew has written a book that is climbing high on the best seller lists of most countries: It is a book of international curses.
Chapter Four
OBIE looked over the coliseum carefully. “Up there.” He pointed as he spoke, and Billy nodded and made a note on the pad he held.
“Twenty?”
“Yeah, that’s enough from up there. And a dozen or so from the other-side, half way up. Separated from each other.” Obie turned, studying the mammoth hall with narrowed eyes. “You got two hundred lined up? For sure?”
“Sure, Obie, Ten bucks a head.”
“Okay. About thirty scattered among the others in the first five rows directly in front of me. They’re the first to move, right? And don’t let them clump this time, Billy. Separate them.”
“Right.”
They finished spotting the converts throughout the audience, then retired to Obie’s dressing room. It was an hour before show time. They both thought of it as show time. Dee Dee was already dressed in flowing white robes that contrasted nicely with her long dark hair, waiting, for them in the room.
“Merton called,” she said viciously. “You lousy liar. You told me you were dropping it.” Merton was the private detective Obie had hired.
“Shut up, Dee Dee. Where’s the return number?”
“He said he’ll call back. For God’s sake, what’re you going to do With the kid if you do get him? A kid, for crissake!” Obie slapped her, not too hard, not hard enough to leave a mark that wouldn’t fade away by show time, but enough to shut her up. Dee Dee reached for the bottle, and Billy moved it out of reach.
“Later, kid,” he said. He turned to Obie with a worried pucker. Billy was fatter than he had been even last year. Each year he picked up three, four, or five pounds, and he couldn’t lose them again. He perspired all the time, and he panted. “Obie, don’t do anything rash about the child. Remember our talk about him. Remember what I told you. You can get by with a lot, but not with an illegitimate child. They wouldn’t forgive you that. You want to lose it all?”
Obie swung around and smiled at Billy, his evangelical smile that held the power, and Billy swallowed hard. Obie said softly, “I want my kid, Billy. I’ll make them take it. He’s a genius, Billy. I got a feeling about him. Like that feeling I got five years ago; that feeling that put this whole show on the road. We play it my way, Billy. Every time. Don’t you forget that.”
Billy nodded. Obie’s smile deepened. “Brother,” he said softly, exultantly, “the Lord gave me a child; I confessed that I had sinned, that I had fornicated, but little did I know that out of my sin a child was born, and now revealed to me. The Lord said to me, ‘Obie, retrieve your child from the hands of the nonbelievers and bring him unto the Lord, thy God. I will teach him many things, and through this child will the world be saved from damnation.’”
Billy stared at him for a long moment, then shook his head. “I don’t think so, Obie. It won’t wash that easily. Not this time.”
Obie laughed. “Then another way. We’ll get a marriage license and make it all legal as hell. Let me tell you something, Billyboy. I seen the kid teaching his mutt some tricks. He sat on the ground with that mutt standing in front of him, and he talked to that goddamn dog like he was a kid, like he could understand every word. And the dog turned around and went and got a stick and brought it back with him. The kid never moved, but the dog knew what he wanted. He sent him off again, and the mutt brought him a ball. Then he laid down and rolled over a couple of times, and the kid rassled with him and that was that.” Obie stopped and half turned from Billy then and said, “Something else, Billyboy. The kid looked up at where I was standing and watching him, and I felt it coming out of him. The power. The way he looked at me, like he knew who I was, and what I was after, and if I washed my feet that morning. I never felt anything like it before, never. Soon’s I get him on that stage and have him look over them people, they’ll believe anything I tell them about him. Watch and see.”
There was a light tap on the door; it opened slightly and Everett Slocum’s face was there. “Ah, Brother Cox, any last instructions? The choir is gathering and waiting for you, Sister Diane.” Dee Dee left without glancing again at Obie or Billy. Everett Slocum didn’t enter the room; he never did unless he was directed to do so. His face was reverential as he continued to watch Obie for instructions.
Obie waved him away. “Just get the ministers down front like always. And invite them for coffee after the sermon. They won’t come, but invite them.”
Everett bobbed his head and withdrew murmuring prayers for the visiting ministers. They would be given Grace eventually, he knew. They would see the light, hear the word being spoken by Brother Cox, and they would be granted the rebirth of soul that would allow them to understand. They came to scorn now, but one day, one day…
“Beat it,” Obie said to Billy after Everett was gone.
“Place your stooges, and then get back here and be here when Merton calls. I want the address where that chick is hanging out, and I want it soon. Real soon.”
The choir, one hundred voices strong, opened the show, followed by a solo in which Dee Dee’s lip sync was perfectly in time with the recording; another group hymn with the congregation joining’ in the choruses; then a throbbing hum from the choir accompanied Obie’s entrance, and there was a sudden dousing of all lights except the one spot that made IDs hair look almost like a halo, and made his beard gleam brilliantly.
Obie had a full house that night. His message was “Fear the Stranger, Prepare for Armageddon.”
Obie prayed first, and as he spoke his prepared words, he began to feel the emotions of his audience. Wonder, awe, but most of all fear. These people had been living in the shadow of the ship for five years, and they were afraid of it and the strangers it had brought. They didn’t like the antlike scurrying of the foreigners in their outlandish clothes; they didn’t like having the UNEF swarming about. Obie felt strength gathering in him and his voice rose and commanded their attention, focused all their thoughts on him and his words, and it was as if the random thoughts had been channeled through a funnel, to concentrate on Obie and within him. He spoke of fear in his prayer, and there was an answer of fear from the audience. He came back to it again, then again, and each time it was amplified. By the time the prayer was over, Obie was ready to launch into his sermon; the audience was ready to receive the sermon.