“Why do you have to work so late?” he asked her without getting up from his easy chair. He knew that she would not answer. Could not. Most of her work was so sensitive that she could not discuss it with her husband. But once in a great while, when she was really stumped on a code or a translation, she would let him take a stab at it. Often he failed, but there had been a few times when he’d made a Hero of the Soviet Union out of her.
Maria plopped into the chair closest to the electrical space heater. Little puddles of melted snow started to grow around her boots, soaking into the ancient oriental rug. She glared at the heater. “This thing isn’t working right,” she grumbled.
“It’s the voltage, I think,” Markov said. “They must have lowered the voltage again, to save power.”
“And we freeze.”
“It’s necessary, I suppose,” he said.
She looked him over: her wary, cynical peasant’s gaze of appraisal. Can I trust him? she was asking herself, Markov knew. He could read her face like a child’s primer.
“Do you really want to know what’s keeping me at headquarters so late each night?” she asked slowly.
He pursed his lips. “Not if it involves anything you shouldn’t tell me.” Turning back to the book on his lap, “Don’t let me tempt you into revealing state secrets.”
“I know I can trust you—in certain things.”
Markov concentrated on his reading.
“Kirill! Look at me when I speak to you! I need your help.”
He looked up.
“Nothing like this has ever happened before.”
She was really upset. Beneath her wary exterior he saw something close to fear in her face.
“What is it?” he asked, taking off his glasses.
“You must come with me tomorrow to headquarters. You must be investigated and checked out.”
“Investigated? Why? What have I done?”
She shook her head, eyes closed wearily. “No, it’s nothing like that. Don’t be afraid. It’s a routine security investigation. Before we can show you the data, you must have a security clearance.”
Markov’s heart was thumping now. His palms felt clammy. “What data? If it’s so sensitive, why should I be involved?”
“Because of that silly book you wrote. They want to talk to you about it.”
“My book on extraterrestrial languages? But that was published six years ago.”
Maria opened her eyes and leveled a bone-chilling gaze at her husband. “Nothing like this has ever happened before. The problem was brought to us by the Academy of Sciences.”
“The Academy…?”
“Academician Bulacheff himself. The chairman.”
The reading glasses slid off the book on Markov’s lap and dropped to the carpet. He made no move to pick them up.
“Kir,” Maria asked, “do you know where the planet Jupiter is? What it is?”
“Jupiter?”
“Yes.”
“It’s the largest planet of the solar system. Much bigger than the Earth. But it’s cold, far away from the Sun.”
“There are radio signals coming from Jupiter,” Maria said, her eyes closing again, as if trying to squeeze away the problem. “Radio signals. We need you to tell us if they are a language.”
“A language?” His voice sounded strangely high-pitched, like a frightened boy’s.
“Yes. These radio signals may be a language. From intelligent creatures. That is why we need you to study them.”
Chapter 4
Leading Physicist Says Bible Proves…
ADAM AND EVE WERE ASTRONAUTS
BY JAMES MCCANDLISH
Adam and Eve were astronauts from outer space who landed on Earth 6,000 years ago.
They came in a spaceship that so over-awed the primitive people of that time that the legend of the Garden of Eden was born to explain the amazing event.
That is the startling conclusion of Dr. Irwin Ginsburgh, a leading physicist, who has studied the Bible and ancient religious texts for 30 years.
“My research shows that Genesis is not a myth, but a brilliant scientific report that documents the beginning of creation,” says Dr. Ginsburgh, who published a book on his astonishing findings.
And the world-famous researcher Erich Von Daniken—who presented evidence of ancient astronauts in his book, “Chariots of the Gods?”—told The ENQUIRER: “I am convinced Dr. Ginsburgh’s conclusions are true.”
It was small, even by the standards of high school gymnasiums, but it was packed solidly with people. They sat on hard wooden benches and watched the slim, swaying blondish figure down at the center line of the basketball court.
Microphone in hand, held so close to his lips that every intake of breath echoed off the bare tile walls of the gym, Willie Wilson preached his gospeclass="underline"
“And what is it that Jesus hates?”
“Sin!” cried the eager voices of the crowd. The noise exploded inside the gym, reverberating off the stark walls, pounding at the ears.
“What is it?”
“Sin!” they screamed louder.
“Tell me!”
“SIN!” they roared.
Fred Tuttle, lieutenant commander, United States Navy, clapped his hands over his hurting ears and grinned. He was up on the last row of benches, back to the wall. Unlike the blue-jeaned, tee-shirted crowd around him, Tuttle was wearing neatly pressed slacks and a turtleneck shirt. His jacket was carefully folded on his lap.
“This world is full of sin!” Willie Wilson was bellowing into his microphone. “It’s dying of sin! And who can save such a sinful world? Who’s the only one that can save this dying world?”
“Jesus!” they thundered. “JESUS!”
“Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, that’s entirely right.” Wilson’s voice fell to a hoarse whisper, and the echoes rattling around the tile-walled gym died away. The crowd leaned forward, eager to hear Wilson’s every word. “But Jesus can’t do it alone. Could if He wanted to, naturally, but that is not God’s way. Not God’s way. God isn’t a loner. If God went His way alone, He would never have created man. He would never have created this sinful flesh and this sinful world. He would never have sent His only Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to come amongst us and show us His Way. Now, would He?”
A murmur of “No” rippled through the crowd.
“Jesus God wants to save this world. He wants to save you! He loves you. He made you in His own divine image, didn’t He? He wants you to be just like Him, and with Him, in paradise forever and ever.”
“Amen,” someone called.
“Amen to you, brother,” Wilson answered, and wiped sweat from his brow with his free hand. “Jesus wants to save us. Save the world. But He needs your help. He didn’t design this world for Himself. He designed it for you—each and every one of us. And He won’t save it unless we show Him—prove to Him—that we want to be saved!”
A trim-figured man with close-cropped brown hair pushed along the row of rapt listeners and squeezed down next to Tuttle.
“We got him,” he said, leaning over to speak right into Tuttle’s ear.
The lieutenant commander made a shushing gesture with his lips and held up a hand to silence the other man.
Willie Wilson, sweat drenching his sky-blue denim suit, was finishing his sermon. “This is our world. Jesus God made it for us and gave it to us. He made us to live in it, to be happy, to be fruitful and multiply. To worship Him and hate sin. He made us in His divine image, and when we commit sin—when we turn our backs on Jesus—we distort that heavenly image into something evil and ugly.”