Yet each of those things was untrue, because he could find no understanding of that which was true.
It ended as abruptly as it had begun, either a microsecond or a million subjective years after. It left him numbed, but newly alive. And it left him dead as no man had ever been hopelessly dead before.
He knew only that before him was the Lord God Almighty, who had made a covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and with their seed; and that mankind had been rejected, while God now was on the side of the enemies of Abraham’s seed, and all the nations of earth.
Even that was too much for a human mind no longer in touch with the Presence, and only a shadow of it remained.
Beside him, Amos heard Doc Miller begin breathing again, brushing the white hair back from his forehead wonderingly as he muttered a single word. “God!”
One of the Mikhtchah priests looked up, his eyes turning about; there was a glazed look on his face, but it was leaving.
Then Smithton screamed! His open mouth poured out a steady, unwavering screaming, while his lungs panted in and out. His eyes opened, staring horribly. Like a wooden doll on strings, the man stood up and walked forward. He avoided the draperies and headed for the Light behind the veil. Abruptly, the Light was gone, but Smithton walked toward it as steadily as before. He stopped before the falling veil, and the scream cut off sharply.
Doc had jerked silently to his feet, tugging Amos up behind him. The minister lifted himself, but he knew there was no place to go. It was up to the will of God now…. Or…
Smithton turned on one heel precisely. His face was rigid and without expression, yet completely mad. He walked mechanically forward toward the two priests. They sprawled aside at the last second, holding two obviously human-made automatics, but making no effort to use them. Smithton walked on toward the open door at the front of the church.
He reached the steps, with the two priests staring after him. His feet lifted from the first step to the second and then he was on the sidewalk.
The two priests fired!
Smithton jerked, halted, and suddenly cried out in a voice of normal, rational agony. His legs kicked frantically under him and he ducked out of the sight of the doorway, his faltering steps sounding farther and farther away. He was dead—the Mikhtchah marksmanship had been as good as it seemed always to be—but still moving, though slower and slower, as if some extra charge of life were draining out like a battery running down.
The priests exchanged quick glances and then darted after him, crying out as they dashed around the door into the night. Abruptly^ a single head and hand appeared again, to snap a shot at the draperies from which Smithton had come. Amos forced himself to stand still, while his imagination supplied the jolt of lead in his stomach. The bullet hit the draperies, and something else.
The priest hesitated, and was gone again.
Amos broke into a run across the chapel and into the hall at the other side of the altar. He heard the faint sound of Doc’s feet behind him.
The trap door was still there, unintentionally concealed under carpeting. He forced it up and dropped through it into the four-foot depth of the incompleted basement, making room for Doc. They crouched together as he lowered the trap and began feeling his way through the blackness toward the other end of the basement. It had been five years since he had been down there, and then only once for a quick inspection of the work of the boys who had dug the tunnel.
He thought he had missed it at first, and began groping for the small entrance. It might have caved in, for that matter. Then, two feet away, his hand found the hole and he drew Doc after him.
It was cramped, and bits of dirt had fallen in places and had to be dug out of the way. Part of the distance was on their stomachs. They found the bricked-up wall ahead of them and began digging around it with then-bare hands. It took another ten minutes, while distant sounds of wild yelling from the Mikhtchah reached them faintly. They broke through at last with bleeding hands, not bothering to check for aliens near. They reached a safer distance in the woods, caught their breaths, and went on.
The biggest danger lay in the drainage trench, which was low in several places. But luck was with them, and these spots lay in shadow.
Then the little Republican River lay in front of them, and there was a flatbottom boat nearby.
Moments later they were floating down the stream, resting their aching lungs, while the boat needed only a trifling guidance. It was still night, with only the light from the moon, and there was little danger of pursuit by the alien planes. Amos could just see Doc’s face as the man fumbled for a cigarette.
He lighted it and exhaled deeply. “All right, Amos—you were right, and God exists. But damn it, I don’t feel any better for knowing that. I can’t see how God helps me—nor even how He’s doing the Mikhtchah much good. What do they get out of it, beyond a few miracles with the weather? They’re just doing God’s dirty work.”
“They get the Earth, I suppose—if they want it,” Amos said doubtfully. He wasn’t sure they did. Nor could he see how the other aliens tied into the scheme; if he had known the answers, they were gone now. “Doc, you’re still an atheist, though you now know God is.”
The plump man chuckled bitterly. “Fm afraid you’re right. But at least I’m myself. You can’t be, Amos. You’ve spent your whole life on the gamble that God is right and that you must serve Him—when the only way you could serve was to help mankind. What do you do now? God is automatically right—but everything you’ve ever believed makes Him completely wrong, and you can only serve Him by betraying your people. What kind of ethics will work for you now?”
Amos shook his head wearily, hiding his face in his hands. The same problem had been fighting its way through his own thoughts. His first reaction had been to acknowledge his allegiance to God without question; sixty years of conditioned thought lay behind that. Yet now he could not accept such a decision. As a man, he could not bow to what he believed completely evil, and the Mikhtchah were evil by every definition he knew.
Could he tell people the facts, and take away what faith they had hi any purpose in life? Could he go over to the enemy, who didn’t even want him except for their feeding experiments? Or could he encourage people to fight, with the old words that God was with them—when he knew the words were false? Yet their resistance might doom them to eternal hellfire for opposing God.
It hit him then that he could remember nothing clearly about the case of a hereafter—either for or against it. Wtrat iappened to a people when God deserted them? Were they only deserted in their physical form, and still free to win their spiritual salvation? Or were they completely lost? Did they cease to have souls that could survive? Or were those souls automatically consigned to hell, however noble they might be?
No question had been answered for him. He knew that God existed, but he had known that before. He knew nothing now beyond that. He did not even know when God had placed the Mikhtchah before humanity. It seemed unlikely that it was as recent as his own youth. Otherwise, how could he account for the strange spiritual glow he had felt as an evangelist?
“There’s only one rational answer,” he said at last. “It doesn’t make any difference what I decide! I’m only one man.”
“So was Columbus when he swore the world was round. And he didn’t have the look on his face you’ve had since we saw God, Amos! I know now what the Bible means when it says Moses’ face shone after he came down from the mountain, until he had to cover it with a veil. If I’m right, there’s little help for mankind if you decide wrong!”