CHAPTER 33
Shake off all fears and
servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her
tribunal for every fact, every opinion.
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because if there be
one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded
fear.
- Thomas Jefferson, 1787
When Sarwin came upon the gory scene, he had
less than two minutes to board the ship before the saucer would fly off on its
own, with or without him. He was
relieved to notice upon reentering the hangar was that Renoldson had, indeed,
gotten the outside door open. The
invisible saurian could see the dim glow of predawn light outside the massive
opening. He saw no human soldiers
guarding the area and that made him feel both relieved and apprehensive.
Hoping Renoldson was already waiting
on the ship, Sarwin was going to make a straight run for the saucer, but then
he noticed the gruesome sight over in a corner near the bottom of the wide ramp
leading to the outside. Moving closer,
he saw what looked like the remains of two human soldiers. It was hard to tell how many at first,
because they had been efficiently sliced into chunks, the parts having fallen
into bizarre piles. Apparently,
Renoldson had the mettle to use the laser torch after all.
The next thing Sarwin saw made his
heart sink. Slumped up against a
nearby, bullet-pockmarked wall was Renoldson and he didn't look in much better
condition than the other humans. He had
clearly been hit at least twice by their primitive bullets; once in the leg and
another, obviously fatal, shot to the chest.
A thin trickle of blood snaked down from the corner of the portly
corpse's mouth. Sarwin could still
smell the charred flesh of the humans and the smoke of their firearms. This clash had occurred only minutes before
he arrived.
He noticed Renoldson's body was not far from
a set of levers, which Sarwin assumed were the controls to the door. Renoldson had managed to open the exit, but
in doing so he betrayed his presence to the humans. Apparently, the preacher did not surrender himself up to the
soldiers quietly and in the resulting firefight, the two parties had
simultaneously killed each other.
Sarwin regarded his dead friend
despondently, but then realized he had to get to the ship, and right away.
"Thank you for what you have
done for me, my friend," he said, quietly, "I will not forget
you." Sarwin turned to leave.
"It's true, isn't it?"
The raspy voice was so faint that
Sarwin almost didn't hear it. He turned
and saw that Renoldson's eyes were open.
Barely. The human was still
alive!
"I know you're there," the
human wheezed, reviving the blood flow from his mouth, "I heard you. Show yourself."
Sarwin looked around. He could see no soldiers anywhere around, so
he thought it safe to honor the request.
I was the least he could do for the human who had sacrificed his life for
him. He touched the control on his belt
and the shroud field faded, revealing the gray skinned saurian.
"I am here, Renoldson," he
said.
"Did you find your wife?"
asked Renoldson, choking on his own blood.
"Yes," replied Sarwin,
"and No. I was too late."
"I'm sorry," coughed out
the dying man, "You'd better get going or you'll miss your flight. Your friends are waiting for you."
"So they are," answered
Sarwin, "I regret that I must leave a friend behind."
"If I was able to come with
you, would your people treat me any better than we treated Siverelle?"
Sarwin shook his head, sadly,
"Probably not."
The human laughed, but he quickly
began to choke again. "Then I
guess it's a good thing I'm in no condition to travel!" he joked, once he
recovered, "But don't worry about me.
I am going to a better place than this.
I'm not afraid. I know you think
I'm a religious fool, Sarwin, deceived by a false god; but I know I have
something waiting for me after this. If
that makes me a fool, then I accept it gladly."
"I envy your comfort in that
sentiment," replied Sarwin.
"I know what you're going to
do," said the human, "I just want you to know... it's alright. I understand. I would
probably do the same, if the situation was reversed."
Sarwin was stunned. He didn't know what to say. What did the human know? And how did he know it? Had he figured it out himself? Had these soldier humans told him before
they shot him? It didn't really
matter. He was not in a position to
tell anyone and in a very short while it wouldn't matter anyway.
"Renoldson... I...." he started to say.
"Just go, Sarwin," wheezed
the human, shaking his head weakly, "You're out of time and so am I. And don't envy me. Time catches up with all of us, my friend. But there's enough room in heaven for both
our worlds. And I don't just mean
humans and your people. I mean the
faithful and the skeptics. Some believe
there is a place upstairs for anyone with a good heart. I hope they are right. If so, perhaps we will see each other
again... someday."
Sarwin didn't know what to say. When he first arrived on this inside-out
world, he would never have guessed he would feel affection for one of these
creatures. He bent down and touched the
man's shoulder.
"Now go," the dying human
continued, "before I take my one good foot and kick you in the... kick you
in...." The man's eyes rolled up
into his head and he let out one last sigh, before his head sunk and fell
forward onto his chest.
Sarwin stood up and regarded the
corpse of his only human friend.
"Good journey, George
Renoldson," he whispered.
A whining sound from behind broke
Sarwin from his morbid trance. The
saucer! It was about to take off! The saurian turned and bolted for the door
of the craft, which he could see was beginning to close. He leaped inside just as it slammed shut.
Sarwin quickly strapped himself into
the main chair. The ship was on
automatic, so he didn't need to do anything.
A motion caught his eye and he looked out the view port. He could see that a few human soldiers had
now appeared up at the top of the ramp.
One of them ran down the ramp and over to the control panel near
Renoldson's body. He threw one of the
levers and the great outside door began to move downward.
Sarwin overrode the autopilot with a
brainwave pulse to the control panel and commanded the craft to fly now. As he felt it begin to move, he heard a
cacophony of screeching metal outside, as the scaffolding the humans had erected
around the saucer fell away from it.
Once that sound ended, Sarwin heard
a new sound on the hull, like someone was outside, banging madly on the ship
with a hammer. He then noticed the
muzzle flashes of the soldiers on the ramp and he realized they were shooting
at him. He wasn't worried about
that. Their feeble bullets would never
penetrate his hull, but that descending door was another matter entirely! In a few seconds, it would block his escape.
"Go... now!" he unconsciously shouted
at the ship, as he sent a brainwave communicating the same thought.
Sarwin was thrown back in his chair
as the craft lurched quickly toward the shrinking exit. The humans scrambled and dived to get out of
the way, but Sarwin heard a dull thud as the ship hit one of them as it squeezed
through the opening just in time.
Sarwin shot out of the hanger and
rocketed skyward, his ship glistening in the burgeoning brilliance of a
magnificent sunrise. If Sarwin's plan
worked, it would be the last sunrise a human would ever see.