Course: Science Fiction & Religion
Lecture #5: Reading #5
Proselytes
By Gregory Benford
It's difficult to avoid hyperbole when discussing Gregory Benford. He is regarded by most as one of the finest (if not simply the finest) hard science fiction writers working today, a writer who has introduced higher literary values to the sub- genre than any before him. He has won the Nebula Award twice, along with the British Science Fiction Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and the Australian Ditmar Award. His widely-popular and highly-acclaimed novels include the Spectra titles In the Ocean of Night, Across the Sea of Suns, Great Sky River, and Heart of the Comet (which he wrote with David Brin) along with Timescape, Artifact, and others which unfortunately do not appear under the Spectra imprint. He will have a new novel out in early 1989 which, as we write this, is still untitled. Greg lives in Laguna Beach with his wife and two children and he is a professor.
Proselytes
It was the third time something had knocked on the door that evening. Slow, ponderous thuds. Dad answered it, even though he knew what would be standing there.
The Gack was seven feet tall and burly, as were all Gacks.
"Good evening," it said. "I bring you glorious word from the stars!"
It spoke slowly, the broad mouth seeming to shape each word as though the lips were mouthing an invisible marble. Then it blinked twice and said, "The true knowledge of the universe! Salutations of eternal life!"
Dad nodded sourly. "We heard."
"Are you certain? I am an emissary from a far star, sent to bring—”
"Yeah, there's been two others here tonight already."
"And you turned them away?" the Gack asked, startled.
Junior broke in, leaving his homework at the dining-room table. "Hey, there's been hundreds of you guys comin' by here. Fur months.”
The Cax suinker ut aty nate te sau tat iad given the aliens ter namen, barking seeze. Something in earth's air irritated their large, red noses. "Apologies, dear ignorant natives, from a humble proselyte of the One Patriarch.”
Dad said edgily. "Look, we already heard about your god and how he made the galaxy so you Gacks could spread his holy word and all, so—"
"Oh, let the poor thing finish its spiel, Howard," Mom said, wiping her hands on a towel as she came in from the kitchen.
"Hell, the Dodgers' game'll be on soon-"
"C'mon, Dad," Junior said. "You know that's the only way to get 'em to go away."
The Gack sniffed appreciatively at Junior and started its rehearsed lecture. "Wondrous news, O Benighted Natives! I have voyaged countless of your years to bring ...
The family tuned out the recital. As Dad stood in the door- way he could see dozens of Gack ships orbiting in the night sky. They were like small brown moons, asteroid-sized starships that had arrived in a flurry of fiery orange explosions. Each had a big flat plate at one end. They were slow, awkwardly shaped, clunky-- like the Gacks themselves.
They had come from a distant yellow star and all they wanted was free reign to "speak to the unknowing, as their emissary had put it. In return they had offered their technology.
Dad had been enthusiastic about that, and so had every government on Earth. Dad's half-interest in the Electronic Won- derland store downtown had been paying very little these last few years. An infusion of alien technology, whole new racy product lines, could be a bonanza.
But the Gacks had nothing worth using. Their ships had spanned the stars using the simplest possible method. They dumped small nuclear bombs out the back and set them off. The ship then rode the blast wave, with the flat plate on one end smoothing out the push, like a giant shock absorber.
And inside the Gack asteroid ships were electronics that used vacuum tubes, hand-cranked computers, old-fashioned AM radio ... nothing that humans hadn't invented already.
So there would be no wonder machines from the stars. The sad fact was that the aliens were dumb. They had labored centuries to make their starships, and then ridden them for millennia to reach other stars.
The Gack ended ponderously with, "Gather now into the outstretched loving grasp of the One True Vision!"
The Gack's polite, expectant gaze fell in turn on each of the family.
Mom said, "Well, that was very nice. You're certainly one of the best I've heard, wouldn't you agree, Howard?"
Dad hated it, how she always made him get rid of the Gacks. He began, "Look, we've been patient--"
"They're the patient ones, Dad," Junior said. "Sittin' inside those rocks all those years, just so they could knock on doors and hand out literature." Junior laughed.
The Gack was still looking expectantly at them, waiting for them to convert to his One Galactic Faith. One of its four oddly shaped hands held forth crudely printed pamphlets.
"Now, now," Mom said. "We shouldn't make fun of another creature's beliefs. This poor thing is just doing what our Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses do. You wouldn't laugh at them, would you?”
Dad could hold it no longer. The night air was cold and he was getting chilly, standing there. "No, thanks!" he said loudly, and slammed the door.
"Howard!" Mom cried.
"Hey, right on, Dad!" Junior clapped his hands.
"Just shut the door in its faith," Dad said, making a little smile.
"I still say we should always be polite," Mom persisted. "Who would've believed that when the aliens came, their only outstanding quality would be patience? The patience to travel to other stars. We could learn a thing or two from them," she added sternly.
Dad was already looking in TV Guide. "We should've guessed that even before the Gacks came. After all, who comes visiting in this neighborhood? Not that snooty astronomer two blocks over, right? No, we get hot-eyed guys in black suits, looking for converts. So it's no surprise that those are the only kinds of aliens who're damn fool enough to spend all their time flying to the stars, too. Not explorers. Not scientists. Fundamentalists!"
As if to punctuate his words, a hollow thump made the house creak. They all looked to the front door, but the sound wasn't a knock.
Another boom came down from the sky and rattled the windows.
When they went outside, the night sky was alive with darting ships and lurid orange explosions.
Junior cried, "The Gack ships! See, they're all blown up!"
"My, I hope they aren't hurt or anything," Mom said. "They're such nice creatures, truly."
Among the tumbling brown remnants of the Gack fleet darted sleek, shiny vessels. They dived like quicksilver barracuda, sending missiles that ripped open the fat bellies of the last few asteroid ships.
Dad felt a pang. "They were kinda pleasant," he said grudgingly. Not my type of person, maybe, and their technology was a laugh, but still--"
"Look!" Junior cried.
A sleek ship skimmed across the sky. A bone-rattling boom crashed down from it.
"Now that's what an alien starship oughta look like," Junior said. "Lookit those wings! The blue exhaust--"
Behind the swift craft huge letters of gauzy blue unfurled across the upper atmosphere. The phosphorescent words loomed with hard, clear purpose:
GREET THE CLEANSING BLADE OF THE ONE ETERNAL TRUTH!
"Huh?" Junior frowned.
Dad's face went white.
"We thought the Mormons were bad," he said grimly. "Whoever thought there might be Moslems?"