The CRES code

Chapter Seven - Vix

"I'll believe that when I see it."

"I doubt that. You'll find some reason to doubt and sneer. Your kind always does." She gently disengaged herself from Wilks, having recovered enough to be able to walk on her own again. She gave him a smile of gratitude and he smiled back.

"So, tell me abet yesel," said the local man. "How long hev ye been ill?"

Randall tuned the conversation out of his conscious awareness and shivered with the cold. He searched his mind for something to think about that would take his mind off his discomfort. The sky was clear above them, a deep shade of blue as the sun approached the western horizon, and VIX was rising in the east. The former businessman watched the satellite as it shone like the lights of an approaching aircraft, but moving much slower. A creeping slowness that gave it a kind of majesty as if it were something vast and terrible, only appearing small because it was thankfully far away.

Wilks saw him looking up at it and smiled. "Aye, there He is," he said. "God Himself, wetching over es. Mekking sure we're safe. Who cen doubt the truth o God when He's reet there where even the mest sinful cen see him?"

They all stared at him, even Jane. "God is invisible," said the young woman. "And everywhere. God is not seen in idols, in man made objects. God is in the sunrise and the dew on the morning flowers. He is in tall mountains and thunderstorms and the crying of a new born baby."

"Whet are ye telking abet, lady?" said the local man, sounding genuinely confused. "There is God. Right where yez cen see Him. All the priests say so and so sez I anall."

"Let's not argue with our host and benefactor, shall we?" said Randall to Jane in a low voice. He took her elbow and pulled her back to walk a short distance behind the others so they could talk privately. "Even back in the days of religion, God was different things to different people. Why should things be different now?"

"You pray to a model Christ nailed to a model crucifix, don't you," added Loach, also dropping back to join them.

"We don't pray to the crucifix," Jane replied indignantly. "The crucifix is merely a symbol of the invisible, ever present creator of all. That's what we're really praying to. Nobody claims that the crucifix actually is God."

"But someone watching one of your sermons might get the mistaken belief that that was the case," the former crime boss pointed out. "Maybe it's the same with this guy. He knows it's not literally God, but it symbolises God for him, and why shouldn't it? It's a big, bright light up in the sky. Christians used to say that God lived up in the sky, right?"

"It was a metaphor. Only people with a simple, primitive concept of God actually believed such a thing."

Loach lowered his voice to make even more sure that Wilks couldn't overhear. "Simple primitive folks? Such as our new friend here?"

Jane grinned and nodded. "Yeah, you're right," she said. "And I'm sure God will forgive him his delusions so long as his motives are pure."

"I'm rather surprised it's still there," muttered Randall to himself, still staring up at VIX as it climbed higher up the sky. "It was never supposed to be there for more than a couple of decades and I think it's pretty clear we've been asleep longer than that. Just a metal rich asteroid. Hauled from its orbit inside the orbit of Mercury and parked in orbit around Earth so it could be mined. Completely automated. Completely self sufficient machinery with one of the most powerful computers ever created in charge. Powerful back then, that is. I would imagine the state of the computing industry has also moved on during the decades we've been asleep."