arrived and our consciousness hungered to explain the things we couldn't understand, including our own existence. So we created religion. We created God.
'First, we worshipped the sun and the moon. Then we made our gods up. The Greeks and Romans had one for everything. Finally, a few thousand years ago, Abraham had a revelation: there was only one God. But even this single God seeded three distinct religions: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Each divided again, with each subdivision claiming that they, and they alone, worshipped the one true God. If that doesn't sound man-made then I don't know what does.
'Father General, your Christ appeared on the timeline a mere two thousand years ago, less than a microsecond in the context of the history of life on this planet.' He pointed at the monolith. 'Yet you put your religion before something that's not only been here since the dawn of life, but was its genesis. Its powers are greater than any invisible god's. If anything's worth worshipping, this is it. So don't tamper with it or exploit it. Respect it. Protect it.'
Torino was incensed by the scientist's blinkered arrogance. 'How can you understand the power of faith and the need for religion?'
'I do understand. My religion was Big Oil. I had total faith in its power: without it there'd be no fuel, no plastics, computers, paints, golf balls – everything vital for the prosperity of modern civilization. My dogma was simple. Find more oil at any cost. Nothing was more important. I didn't care about the consequences – even though my wife continually challenged me. I didn't care that oil, which had taken millions of years to create, would be consumed within a few hundred years of man's discovering it. After all, man had total dominion over the world. Our God gave it to us to do with it as we wished. Isn't that what all religions claim?'
Torino was growing weary of this. 'You're a hypocrite. You talk about protecting the Source, Dr Kelly, yet you're happy to exploit it to save your wife.' He glanced at the tunnel and shouted, 'Feldwebel, I need your help.'
When Fleischer appeared and saw Kelly he did a double-take and raised his submachine-gun. Kelly, however, had already levelled his pistol at Torino's head. 'Perhaps I was a hypocrite,' he said evenly. 'But I have a proposal for you.'
75
Ross tried to ignore the black barrel of Fleischer's Heckler amp; Koch and keep his own gun steady. He had forced himself to remain calm while trying to reason with the man who had done so much harm to his wife and friends. However, he needed to summon all his reserves to voice what he needed to say next.
He kept thinking of when he had died, when everything had been stripped away and Lauren had appeared before him. 'Ross,' she had said, frowning in that intense way of hers, 'you must protect the garden and the Source, whatever the cost. Not for mankind but from mankind.' She had then told him exactly what he must do and made him promise to do it.
'So what's your proposal?' Torino asked.
'Before Marco shot me, you told me I couldn't take one of the crystals with me because this place was more important than saving my wife.'
'Yes.'
'Perhaps you were right. I'll accept that this place might be more important than what I love most in the world. But only if you're prepared to do the same.'
Torino said nothing.
Ross swallowed. 'I vow to leave this place, take nothing from it and never speak of it to anyone ever again – even though it means my wife and child will die.' He heard Sister Chantal exhale sharply behind him. 'And you must vow to do the same – even though it means you and the Church can never exploit its miracles.'
Torino laughed. 'You're seriously comparing your wife's life to the Holy Mother Church? You really think they have the same value?'
'No,' said Ross. 'Lauren's life is infinitely more valuable than any church. But I know you intend to destroy everything here except the Source, and I know Lauren would value this place above everything. If we leave this garden untouched, undiscovered, it need pose no threat to your precious doctrine.'
Torino frowned. 'You must understand something, 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 in train a series of events so fast they seemed to happen at once. A violent tremor rippled from the hydra's trunk, through its branches and throughout the chamber. The nymphs screamed. Ross leapt at Torino and pushed him to the floor. Fleischer fired at Ross – or where Ross had been
