The Jehovah Contract

collided with a TIE fighter, destroying both. Some manner of plasma weapon beamed hot as the sun for an instant, descending on a town. Eerie screams howled from the outskirts.

'Glorious. Glorious!' He shouted.

'The death?'

'No-death is nothing. Destruction! The sudden change of a pound of gelignite into fire and gas. The house that's a home one moment and rubble the next. The man who changes from a walking, thinking being to a mass of gnarled, bleeding meat in the blink of an eye. Change. That's what you want, right?'

He thought He had me. Ideas raced through me like greyhounds after the elusive fake rabbit. He watched me.

'It's violent change,' I said. 'Unnatural.'

He laughed with vicious delight. It was the sort of laugh one hears in psycho wards. 'A hurricane is natural-and equally as violent.'

'People try to minimize nature's destruction. In war, you increase it intentionally.'

'By the use of science!' He yelled, tossing a hand grenade over the lip of the hole. 'Better killing through chemistry!' The explosion shook mud loose from the walls of the crater. The air smelled of cordite and ozone.

'Science is value-free until it's applied,' I said. A stone axe flew into the pit. I pointed at it. 'An axe can fell a tree or murder a man. A drug can cure or kill. A blanket can warm or smother. There's not a thing in existence that can't be used for evil ends. Even change. War is change accelerated for the purpose of plunder and conquest. Trying to speed up the cy-'

'

Say it and die!

' He pointed the rifle at my head. Right between the eyes.

I raised my hands casually. 'I've noticed that every war on record has had God on both sides. All sides. What's Your game? Divide and conquer?'

'And unite to rule. I'll always be the winner.' He racked the action on the rifle to chamber a round. His aim returned to my forehead.

'Yet every time You win with one side, You lose with the other. The winner's faith is justified, but the loser's faith is diminished.'

'It evens out,' He said.

'Does it? Do You even gain a draw?' I sat back in the mud, lowering my hands to grasp the business end of a hookah that had appeared at my side. I took a puff, exhaled, eyed Him.

'If it evens out,' I said, 'why am I here with You now? Why do You retreat to any polylogical corner You can find? Why are You continuing to rely on Your two favorite tools-faith and force?'

'If you'd only trust me, I wouldn't have to force you.'

I blew a cloud of smoke in His face. Whatever was in the hookah was good herb. 'Your threat of force works only if I believe in Your power. Yet You refuse to provide evidence of Your power, asking me instead to believe the secondhand testimony of men dead for thousands of years. No holy book can serve as proof. I call Your bluff by demanding a demonstration of Your power. Which You refuse to provide unless I'm already convinced. With that scam, You lose every man or woman with the ability to think. And as history continues its

ascending helix-

'

'

Shut up!

' He screeched.

I didn't let it faze me. 'Every contradiction, evasion, and betrayed promise becomes clearer and more evident to more and more people. You're losing-'

'

Never!

' He squeezed the trigger.