There were two church pews with cushions for kneeling. Father Hogarty was the only one there, kneeling in quiet prayer. When Matt and Martha came in, he unfolded painfully and offered Matt his hand.
“This will be a wondrous time for you, my son. I envy you. The first is always the best.”
“You talk with Jesus often, Father?”
“Only when he needs to tell me something. Perhaps once every two years.”
“So how—”
“Please, please, take my place. He’ll only come to you alone. We’ll wait outside.” With Martha’s help, he pulled closed a door that must have been eight inches of solid oak.
Matt knelt where Hogarty had been and self-consciously put his hands together in an attitude of prayer, not sure what to expect. Belatedly, it occurred to him to be afraid.
Jesus cleared his throat. “Welcome to my house, Matthew. ”
He looked just like the pictures, which was no surprise. Handsome, thirtyish white guy with shoulder-length hair and a short beard, both neatly trimmed. White robe with a belt of rough rope. It made Matt think uncomfortably of Giordano Bruno.
“I’ve been expecting you,” the image said. It was definitely a holographic projection. “Ever since I saw you appear up in New Hampshire.”
“You were expecting me?”
“I see everything. But yes, you appeared less than two meters from where you were expected, and within about nine seconds of when.”
“So you knew I was coming. But nobody here did?”
He smiled. “I’m God, Matthew, or at least one aspect of Him. That you don’t believe in Him doesn’t alter the reality of His existence. Nor of His omniscience.”
“If you’re omniscient, tell me what I’m going to do next.”
“You have free will. But I suspect you’re going to throw something at me, which will pass through, exposing me as a hologram.”
Matthew loosened his grip on the piece of chalk he had taken out of his pocket, ready to throw. “You claim not to be a hologram?”
“I don’t make any claims.” Jesus picked up a paper clip and tossed it at Matthew. It bounced off his chest. “Maybe you need to see me as a hologram. I’m all things to all men.”
Matthew’s brain was spinning with trying to explain the paper clip. “Could you walk out into the sunlight? That’s what I really need to see.”
There was a sudden sharp pain in his chest, and he couldn’t breathe. He tried to rise, but some force held him down.
“Don’t be petty, Matthew. God doesn’t do your bidding, and He certainly doesn’t serve unbelief.”
“Okay,” he croaked. “Let . . . me . . . breathe?”
“Gladly.” Air seeped back into his lungs.
Nothing supernatural. A pressor field that thumped him over the heart, then squeezed his chest. Same thing that tossed the paper clip.
It could kill him faster than being burned at the stake. “Thank you . . . Jesus.”
“You do believe in me, then?”
“Of course I do. This world belongs to you.” With his breath, he was getting back his equilibrium. “But I’m curious . . . what happened between my time and yours, here? I can’t find an actual history.”
Jesus smiled indulgently. “There is no history. This is a world without end. Without beginning, so without history.”
Like a closed strange Gцdelian loop. If he used the machine, which had never been invented, to jump out of this world, after affecting it. It wouldalways be, without beginning or end.
“But I’ve read about the One Year War and the Adjustment. Those must have been real.”
“There’s only one book you have to believe.” Matt felt a gentle pressure on his ribs. “Everything else is in error.”
“I understand,” he said quickly. “But you allow those other histories to exist.”
“For moral instruction. Don’t mistake it for literal truth.”
Without moving his arm, Matt flicked the chalk toward the image. When it was inches away, it suddenly spun up toward the ceiling.
An invisible slap spun Matt’s head sideways so hard his neck cartilage popped. “Stop trying to prove that I’m not real. I’m more real than you are, here.”
“I know you’re real,” Matt said, rubbing his neck, “but I was just trying to find out whether you were materialas well. I take it that you aren’t. That if I walked over and tried to touch you—”
“You would die.”
“I’m sure that’s true, and I wouldn’t try it in a million years. But I suspect that if I did try, my hand would be pushed away by a pressor field. We had those in my time, you know. They used them for security in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.” He swallowed hard, but continued. “And if the pressor field wasn’t turned on, my hand would go straight through your holographic image.”
“If that’s what you have to believe. As I say, it’s a manifestation of free will. When you come to judgment, your apostasy will be weighed along with all your other sins. Weighed against your good works; your service to God and man.”
The closest Matt had ever come to serving God was passing the plate at his aunt Naomi’s Seder table, which he never attended willingly. If you asked him, he would say the only connection between free will and religion in his life was the fact that he hadn’t set foot in a synagogue since he turned eighteen.
But he had to admit that this apparition was totally believable in a world that didn’t even have words for hologram and pressor. And since they evidently had total control over education and research, there was no way that was going to change.
Unless he did it.
After half a minute of silence, Jesus spoke. “You should now ask, ‘How may I serve you, my Lord?’ ”
“All right. What do you want me to do? Since you can obviously hurt me at any whim. Kill me, I suppose. I’ll do whatever you want.” He almost said, “within reason,” but that would be meaningless.
“Bring the time machine here in one hour. I want you to destroy it in front of me.” Jesus flickered and disappeared.
Well, that was interesting. Jesus didn’t know the time machine was right here in Matt’s bag. So he was all-seeing except when there was a roof in the way.
Matt put his shoulder to the heavy door and pushed out into the light, dazed and dazzled.
Father Hogarty and Martha were waiting expectantly. “You saw Him?” she said.
“Uh . . . yes. Yes, I did.”
“What did he ask you to do?” Father Hogarty’s eyes were bright.
“You were listening?”
“No, no. Whenever He talks to someone here, He asks him to do something. To prove his faith, usually.” He touched his face. “Every mark of rank I have, past the first, was at his request. Did he require that of you?”
“No, not yet. Father, does he always appear here?”
“Yes, of course.”
“In the chapel? Not in the other parts of the church here?”
He nodded. “Only the Elect may see him. And you,” he added quickly.
That made sense. The room was wired for the pressor field and the holograph projector.
“But Hesees all,” Hogarty continued. “He knew you had come before you arrived here. He told me.”
“He mentioned that,” Matt said. “He saw me appear when I came from the past, up in New Hampshire.” He didn’t appearthere because he couldn’t. But any spy satellite could home in and read the taxi’s license plate.
“If not a mark, what did he require of you?”
“Nothing yet. He’ll see me later.”
The old man studied him. “Matthew, don’t be afraid of the pain. It is fleeting, but the joy of service is eternal.”
It took him a moment to decode that. “He didn’t say anything about getting a scar. That will come later, I suppose. ”