• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 441 0

Dr Kelly. Not only is it my legal right to shape this place so it brings glory only to the Church, it's my duty. This is God's gift to the world, and it can only be fully appreciated through the Holy Mother Church. Ever since Rome established the Institute of Miracles to show the hand of God in the world, the Holy Mother Church has been waiting for a gift like this. This sacred stone will allow us not only to validate miracles but create them. By controlling miracles we'll make the entire world believe in God. There'll be no reason not to. This will bring salvation to every single person – unite them under the one true God. Don't you understand, Dr Kelly? This sacred stone may have given life to this planet. It may have given birth to every one of God's children. But now it'll do something even more important. It will save their souls.'

Torino's blinkered need to twist everything to suit the Church reminded Ross of Pizarro's arrogant chaplain who had helped subdue the last Inca emperor in Cajamarca by asserting that his only hope of salvation was to surrender his empire, swear allegiance to Jesus Christ and acknowledge himself a subject of Charles V.

'Haven't you heard a word I've been saying?' he said. 'You're going to destroy the garden, and kill every living creature here, simply because it contradicts your church and your infallible pope. Don't you see how irrational that is? How ludicrous?'

'It's not ludicrous to protect faith. Purging this place is a small price to pay for saving the souls of all humanity. This garden – including its living creatures – is an unfortunate aberration that encourages meddling scientists like you to make irrelevant and confusing pronouncements on evolution and creation. It creates distracting white noise that can and must be removed. Nothing must be allowed to give succour to our enemies. Even if you don't agree with my mission, you must understand it.'

'All I understand is that your faith must be very weak if it can't handle the truth.'

'My faith isn't the issue. It's the faith of others I must protect.'

'When you say "others", you mean those who prefer to think for themselves and come to their own conclusions, based on evidence. Hell, if a person's faith is strong enough they're not going to let this put them off. They'll just interpret it differently. Sister Chantal's faith is intact because she doesn't believe in the rigid way that you do.' Ross could no longer control his anger. The man was beyond reason. 'But, of course, that's why you can't trust your flock to see this. Your goddamn doctrine isn't about nurturing faith. It's about controlling exactly how and what people believe.'

Torino's two-way radio crackled in his backpack and as he reached in to retrieve it Ross saw a black box: the detonator control for the incendiaries. The priest put the radio to his ear.

Bazin's voice: 'I can't reach Gerber. But I can see Hackett and Quinn in the garden. They've got Gerber's stuff and they're heading for the incendiaries. I think they're trying to sabotage your contingency plan.'

Torino's eyes never left Ross's. 'Stop them, Marco. Shoot them if you have to. I'll be down soon.' He clicked off the radio.

Ross kept his gun levelled at Torino's head. 'You've told Marco it's a contingency plan? He still doesn't know what you intend to do?'

Torino shrugged. 'We've talked enough.' He reached for the hammer and levelled it at the monolith.

'That's not a good idea,' said Ross. He remembered how the nymphs had kept their distance from the Source and used the pitch of their voices to break off a fragment. He dreaded to think what would happen if brute force was used on it. 'Don't do it.'

'Why?' Torino sneered. 'Are you going to shoot me? Do you honestly think God has led me here and entrusted me with this sacred rock only to let you kill me?' He turned to Fleischer. 'Shoot him and Sister Chantal if he tries to stop me.' Then, in a fluid movement, he brought the hammer down on the monolith, chipping off a slab of crust by the trunk of the hydra.

As it broke away from the Source, it set