All of this happened, is happening, because of something a preacher found in the ruins of Los Angeles, after the Cataclysm.All of this happened, is happening, 200 thousand years ago. Let me tell you what I know. There isn’t much time.
Background: I was born and reared on a planet remote from Earth. I am not wholly human but some of my forebears are. I have dreams and desires. I am in awe of my planet’s seasons. My sensory apparatus is mutable. Outwardly, I possess the characteristics of a small tree or shrub (bark, leaves, rounded shoulders) such as once played a part on Earth. Sparrows like me. (We have some approximation of the Earth variety here.) I will add that I have an agreeably woody scent. My flowers should be better known.
To drive the point home: I am part man, part plant—as are all of this planet’s inhabitants, to one degree or another.
But, so far as I know, I am the only one to have made contact with the preacher. Which I did (a profound mystery in “I did”) without knowing of him or the city or the Cataclysm.
And now the preacher is being brought here.
To be honest, I am afraid.
There is a ship. The two-man crew, human. (But that will change, is changing.) The cargo…
In a dream it was revealed to me that I had brought into existence, remotely, on Earth, five replicas of myself, in a clearing in the ruins of a city. (The dream felt like a dozen sparrows asleep inside me.)
The preacher seemed to understand right away what it was he’d come upon—five companionable shrubs—and so he sat down among them. He said, What brings you here? What is your purpose? And they answered: On both counts, to keep you company. At one point he went off, and when he came back he saw that there were four holes in the ground. The shrub that was left said, Don’t worry. There are other preachers besides yourself that wander in this neighborhood. Why don’t you go get something to dig me up, and a bucket? But instead the preacher got down on his knees and set to digging with his fingers. When the task was done, he cradled the shrub and carried his new friend out of the clearing.
I saw and heard all of this. But I never knew beforehand what the shrub was going to say to the preacher.
***
From The Confessions:
Ned and I were moving a cargo that neither of us was supposed to know anything about. There were sealed orders into the bargain and—two months post-launch—still no word on the location of the destination planet. How hasty our departure had been! We were to bide our time and let the autopilot do the work; only upon detection of a hostile ship was the seal was to be broken.
From Base we had been receiving regular assurances that the details were close to being worked out, but with each such report I believed less and less.
My curiosity about the contents of our cargo bay and of the sealed orders increased, as did my agitation.
I was agitated, for I had begun to sense that the religious activities I had secretly been engaged in (in the past 18 months on my own time) had become known.
I was doubly agitated, for I had begun to sense the presence of a hostile force directed at me.
Another week passed. One day Ned, stretching his legs after lunch, said he had a good story. Let’s hear it then, I said. He said: it’s a true story, one I heard told in N- by someone called K- who’d gotten it from a certain D-. How very interesting, I said. Then Ned said: I also know what’s in the cargo.
He stretched again and said mildly, You are my prisoner, by the way.
I decided to take his word for it.
I said, And now I bet you’re going to tell me what’s in those orders.
Oh, no, no, no. Those stay sealed. Unless—
I said, I’d like to hear the story. There is a story, isn’t there?
To which Ned replied, Indeed there is. But now he seemed a little perturbed.
He said with a small but perceptible quaver in his voice: Your skin is changing.
And indeed it was.
***
From The Cataclysm:
The preacher took me everywhere with him. He told me I was his God. He sang songs in praise of me. He prayed, he wept. He asked me why the Cataclysm had come. I tried to answer as best I could. In truth I did not know. Whatever I said, however foolish or inadequate it sounded to my ears, he would cry out, All praise to you! When he preached, he would repeat the things I had said to him.
***
To be continued …
