“I was told that you were with the Mars expedition.” The woman made a quick survey of the four arrivals, and by some instinct spoke directly to Celine. “I find that totally fascinating. I have just awakened from judicial sleep. But before I was placed there, six years ago, I recall that there were to be seven crew members. Did the plans for the expedition change?”
She showed no hint of shame at admitting to a crime bad enough to justify her commitment to a syncope facility.
“There were seven of us.” Celine sat down, and Reza, Wilmer, and Jenny followed her lead. “All the way to Mars, and on Mars. We had a problem on our final descent to Earth, because all the people on the space stations are dead and the ground support network is not working. The rest of our crew died attempting atmospheric reentry.”
“That is truly terrible.” The woman had turned her head, and Celine could see two angry red stigmata on her pale neck. “You have my sympathy. But we do not know the ways of God. Comfort yourselves, if you can, with the thought that no one dies without a purpose.”
“It’s hard to think that way at the moment.”
“Impossible, I should think. But give yourselves time. And if there is anything that I can do to ease your grief, please let me know.” The woman leaned forward and extended her hand. “I am Pearl Lazenby. Welcome to the Legion of Argos.”
Pearl Lazenby. Celine knew she would have recalled the name once she was less exhausted. More difficult was the match of the apparently charming woman in front of them with the reputation of the Eye of God. That analysis would have to be postponed until she could think more clearly.
“I’m Celine Tanaka.” She gestured to the others in turn. “Reza Armani, Jenny Kopal, Wilmer Oldfield. I’m sorry if this sounds rude, but the man who brought us here — Eli — was not pleasant at all when he heard we were the Mars crew. He accused us of defiling Heaven.”
Pearl Lazenby had been repeating their names under her breath. Now she nodded. “I’m afraid that he was right. All space beyond Earth is God’s domain.” Her smile took the edge off her remark. “But I’m sure you did not initiate the Mars program, or sell it to a credulous world, or provide any part of its funding. You are merely the brave souls who believed the publicity and volunteered to fly the ship. Eli is wrong if he criticized you. You are to be pitied, not censured, and forgiven rather than punished. Behave acceptably, and you will be treated well here. I guarantee it.”
Wilmer leaned forward. “Eli said that you knew about Supernova Alpha before it happened. That you’ve been preparing for its effects for twenty years. Is that true?”
Pearl Lazenby was filling a cup from the tall painted samovar. At Wilmer’s question she passed the tea to Celine and leaned back.
“That is a very complex question. If I say I knew in 2006 that a specific star would turn supernova in the year 2026, that would not be correct. However, I was certain that some great catastrophe would take place over the whole world in that particular year — this year — and I saw many of the consequences.”
“You mean you foresaw consequences.”
“No, Dr. — Oldfield, was it? I said that your question was complex, and it is.” Pearl Lazenby sat, a little painted cup steady in her hand. She became perfectly still. Her eyes widened, although she was looking at no one. “When I was eighteen years old — nearly twenty-eight years ago, I was hardly more than a child — I began to see. I witnessed events that had never happened. It might be broad daylight, and I would watch a fire at midnight, a woman with smoldering clothes carrying two infants from a burning building. It might be evening, and I would witness a redheaded man’s fevered death by the light of dawn. I dared not drive, because when I saw I could observe nothing else around me.
“You might think that my visions would have drawn wide attention, but they did not. The year that my seeing began was 1998. The world then was full of millennial prophets and vast prophecies, and what I saw was nothing compared with other warnings: Judgment Day,
and World’s End, and Armageddon, and Ragnarok. I saw only smaller events, taking place at a time that at first I could only dimly suggest.
“As the months and years passed, that changed. The millennium came and went, and the universe did not seem to notice. Prophecy went out of fashion. But what I saw became more vivid and more precisely placed in time. I could mark on a calendar what I saw, and when that day or week arrived the media would report it. Little by little, I realized that my gift had been given to me for a reason. At first I had no idea what, only that some great task lay ahead.
“And then, twenty years ago, my fate was revealed. One night I could not sleep. I did not understand why, until in the hours before dawn I saw a thousand disasters. I saw floods sweep away cities and dams and levees. I saw fire run unchecked across a thousand miles of parched forest, jumping rivers and gorges, and man-made firebreaks. I saw dust storms swirling and smothering over a whole continent. I saw icebergs in tropical seas, and great whales basking in summer heat. All these things would happen at once, as the world tottered under a gigantic blow from Heaven. The damage would be made worse by a false faith in new technology, new technology that seemed like magic.
“And the Word came to me. What I saw would happen not then, nor in a week or a month or a year, but in twenty years. The machines of that time, the near-intelligent machines of which their creators were so proud, would fail. And even that was not the worst news. Unless humanity learned a lesson, and cooperated over the whole world, a still greater disaster would come. I could see no details, but all would die. Humankind had only one hope, one way of averting that new catastrophe. The City of God must be created here on Earth. It was my role to lead that building. Humanity must be purged of evil, if necessary by force. It was my role to lead that purging. Humanity must be cleansed of sin, even if it meant scraping to the bone. It was my role to be the Eye of God, to prophesy and define what must be done. Then it would be my task to lead the carrying out of that cleansing. I could not rely on new technology, but old technology would provide me with my tools.
“I did not like the burden laid upon me. I fought against it, prayed that the cup might pass. I tried to reject it and to deny it. I hated many of the things that I knew I would be required to do. But, finally, I accepted my destiny.” Pearl Lazenby turned to Wilmer and offered the cup that she was holding. “Would you like tea?”
He shook his head, and leaned toward her. “You saw disaster in this year, 2026. And you saw a possible later disaster. When? What did you see around 2076?”
“Fifty years from now?” A frown wrinkled the skin of her high forehead. “I saw nothing. Should I have?”
“Yes. In that year, or within five years of it, a second great disaster will arrive.”
“What kind of disaster? Can you describe it?”
“Yes.” Wilmer’s face took on the blank look of Pearl Lazenby’s, five minutes earlier. “Let me put it in terms easy to understand. There will be fire in the sky, as a deluge of high-energy particles hits our upper atmosphere. We will see auroras bright as no one has ever seen them. Worse trouble follows. For a short time the atmosphere will become opaque to visible wavelength radiation — darkness at noon. When sunlight returns, Earth will be unprotected. The ozone layer will have been lost. Ultraviolet radiation will hit Earth more fiercely than we have ever known. And while this goes on, the global temperature will rise. The thermal shock to the planet will be ten times that of the past two months. Civilization, even if it has been rebuilt from today, will crumble and collapse.”