Child of Earth (9 page)

The Linneans had a nasty word for things that despoiled the Mother; they called them
maizlish.
The word meant unclean or evil or hurtful—things that were infused with the dark spirit of a
maiz-likka
. The maiz-likka were demon-spirits. They didn't come from the Mother and they owed her no allegiance. They were the spirits of coldness and death; they came out of the dark between the stars, hungering for warmth and light, of which the Mother had plenty.

Like parasites, the maiz-likka burrowed deep into the Mother's flesh, drinking her blood, killing her eggs and poisoning her children. The maiz-likka thrived in dirt and corruption, they lived in cesspools, in rotting carrion, in pus and vomit and plagues. The maiz-likka hunted beyond the edge of the horizon or high in the mountains; they circled the world with the night, always fleeing the dawn. They dived out of the darkness to prey on warm-blooded life of all kinds. The maiz-likka caused illness and death in boffili and emmos, and even in kacks. Wherever the Mother's children died, it was caused by something maizlish—and if it was serious enough, it was the work of a maiz-likka. What the maiz-likka most liked to do was infect human beings and let them do maizlish things, so human beings constantly had to watch themselves for maizlish tendencies.

According to the Linneans, the maiz-likka hated the Mother and all her children and would not return to the dark between the stars until the Mother was dead and cold, a barren rock. Therefore, it was the responsibility of all human life to seek out anything maizlish and neutralize it. Maizlish things couldn't be killed—because killing was a maizlish act—but they could be neutralized. Although sometimes the way the Linneans did it, there wasn't a lot of difference between killing and neutralizing. Many Linneans believed that the maiz-likka were so powerful and so hard to stop that eventually they
would
succeed in destroying all life, and after that the Mother herself, so they tended to be a little fanatic about maizlish stuff.

But somewhere along the way, about a thousand years ago, somebody figured out, or realized in a vision—or maybe just made it up—that the Mother had some pretty powerful defenses of her own. Whenever the Mother felt uneasy or upset or threatened by dark demonic forces, parts of herself broke off and went out into the world to act like antibodies to
neutralize the maiz-likka. The Linneans called these antibodies
eufora.
The word meant
mother-piece
or
mother-spirit.

The same way the maiz-likka demons could infect human souls, so could the eufora. The Linneans believed that the eufora visited every human during his or her life, not just once but many times, and always during moments of great emotion or joy, like when you fell in love or when you got married or when you gave birth to new life. When the eufora visited you, you would feel overwhelming happiness and peace and clarity of vision—because in that moment, you would be at one with the Mother herself. Just as the maiz-likka lived in the darkness, so did the eufora live in the sky. Their job was to watch over Linnea and her children and invigorate all life with the spirit of the Mother's grace. The Linneans had a blessing which translated simply as, “Life celebrates life.”

A lot of the Linnean scripture detailed the encounters of human beings with the eufora. Sometimes people sought out the eufora; sometimes the eufora selected you, whether you wanted to meet them or not.

Sometimes also, the maiz-likka took someone over and sent warnings to all humanity through his or her voice. And sometimes the eufora sent messages too, sometimes even direct from the Mother—not exactly commandments or laws, but parts of an ever-growing covenant between the Mother and her children. The Linneans didn't have commandments—they had
agreements
.

The way it worked, if a prophet went up onto a mountain and came back with a pair of stone tablets, he wouldn't say things like, “Thou shalt not kill,” or, “Thou shalt not steal.” He would say, “I will not kill,” and, “I will not steal.” If you accepted those agreements and made them part of yourself, then you accepted that part of the covenant with the Mother. And if you didn't, well then, maybe you were a parasite on the Mother....

Apparently, not all Linneans accepted all the agreements. And that was the source of a lot of social unrest over there. But the Linneans had an agreement that they wouldn't force themselves on others, so if they disagreed, they moved on. They moved to communities that had agreements they could honor. Or they kept moving on. Settlements on Linnea weren't very big, and most of them were scattered.

We had a big argument about all that. Eventually, it came around to asking how did the Linneans know if a prophet told the truth or not? Anyone could say he was a prophet and come out of the wilderness
with all kinds of outlandish stories. How could you know? Maybe all the prophets had been liars or delusionaries? And of course, that's when the discussion got really interesting because Big Jes said, “Well, maybe that's true about all the prophets in the Old Testament, too ... even Moses.” Oops.

The Dobersons didn't like hearing that at all. They'd been very uncomfortable during the entire discussion of Linnea the Mother-Goddess, asking lots of questions and arguing and just fussing in their chairs at having to listen to such heathen ideas. They said that all they needed to know about God was in the Bible; so when Big Jes said that about all the prophets being liars or madmen, Jim Doberson took it as a personal affront. He stood up and said, “Jes, you know that I won't tolerate blasphemy in my presence, or in the presence of my wives and children. I would appreciate it if you would keep a G
od-fearing
tongue in your head.”

Novotny clucked at that and held up a hand. There wasn't any way to say “God-fearing” in Linnean, and Jim Doberson's construction had been clumsy and grammatically incorrect. It was hard to explain without switching to English, but finally Novotny made it clear that some words weren't allowed to be used with some other words. Words that were negative—like
angry
or
frightened
or
crazy
—couldn't be used with the words for Mother or Linnea. If you tried to talk about someone being “afraid of the Mother” like Jim Doberson had just done, they would look at you as if you were crazy. Or worse, a parasite. Doberson scowled at that.

Novotny waved at Jes. “Go ahead, now. Continue with your discussion.”

The interruption had only amused Big Jes. He just grinned at Jim Doberson and said something in Linnean, which really didn't translate well, but made everybody laugh anyway. “You can put a ribbon on it if you want, but that horse turd still stinks.”

Novotny gave him two points for using a Linnean phrase, and took away three points for using it inappropriately, and we all laughed at that too. “Better you should have said, ‘Why do you bring old turds into the barn when we have plenty of fresh ones?'”

And that's when Jim Doberson got really angry. I think he was angrier about being embarrassed in front of the whole class than he was at the blasphemy, but he made it sound like he was angry on behalf of God. He accused Big Jes and Novotny and everybody who laughed of disrespecting God. And he was ready to do some “God-fearing” of his own, if
that's what it took to stop the swearing in here. He shook his fist in the air and glowered at anyone who dared to laugh at him again.

Novotny didn't back down and neither did he apologize. If the stories were true, he'd faced a lot more scary things than Jim Doberson. He waved everybody back down into their seats and waited until we'd all stopped talking at each other. By now, we knew the drill. He was going to tell us something important.

“Forget God, forget Jesus, forget Buddha, forget Muhammad, forget the angel Moroni, forget Confucius, forget Elron, forget Manson, forget all of them. Where you're going, they don't exist. The Linneans do not tolerate heresy against the Mother.” He said this next part directly to Jim Doberson, stepping right up to him. “Are we asking you to abandon your religion? No, we are not. Are we asking you to keep it private? Yes, we are. Keep it as private as how often you masturbate, or which hand you wipe your ass with. Keep it even more private than that. Because if you don't, if you give the Linneans a reason to suspect you of treason to the Mother, you can be expelled and exiled. Or worse, tortured and burned.”

“I'm not afraid to die for Jesus,” said Doberson. “I would be proud to stand with the martyrs.”

Novotny's face clouded. The rest of us didn't have to be told that was the wrong answer, and things had just gotten very serious in the room. “Perhaps then, you should rethink your goals, Citizen.”

“How so?”

“What you profess is pure selfishness. If you die, that's your choice. I have no argument with that. But dying as a public martyr endangers others—especially your family.”

“I speak for my family. We will be proud to die for Christ.”

When he said that, I snuck a look at his wives and children, and while a couple of them were nodding in agreement, some of the rest looked scared. How could he say that without asking them what they thought?

“And how about Jes' family? Or Milla's? Or mine, for that matter?
Your
blasphemy—yes, I use that word deliberately—puts all the rest of us at risk too. Should we die for your faith too?”

“God accepts all sinners,” said Doberson. That time, some of us had to work hard to stifle our laughter, because this was getting pretty silly now.

Novotny looked more sad than angry. “That kind of attitude will endanger the entire mission.” He waved his hand as if to indicate the entire
Linnea Dome and everyone in it. “You would throw away ten years of preparation and ten years of work that casually? Is your faith so important that it gives you the right to discard all the hard work of others?”

“The word of God takes precedence over everything,” said Doberson, and a lot more stuff in that same vein. “We do not have the right to set aside God's commandments.” And a lot of people groaned and rolled their eyes upward.

But Novotny held up his hands for silence again. As silly as this had been a minute ago, the silliness was over. This was very serious business now. “Citizen,”—and he used that word deliberately—“the strength of your faith in your God is no less than the strength of the Linneans' faith in their Goddess. As willing as you are to die for your beliefs, that's how willing they are to kill you for them.”

“What they believe is pagan superstition—”

“And they would say the same about what you believe. The Son of God, born to a virgin? He died and came back from the dead? Not exactly great theology when you compare it to some of the other great faiths. Kind of a slap-dash put-together-in-a-political-hurry thing, eh?”

Doberson was bristling. I thought he was going to punch Novotny, but he held his temper. “You try to goad me, sir. I refuse to turn angry.”

“No, I do not goad you, Citizen. I challenge you to think about this.” Without hesitation, he pushed on. “Do you understand the principles of the Contract?”

Doberson sniffed in annoyance. “Of course, I do. Everybody does. We start learning it in first grade.”

“Tell me about the Contract.”

“After the war—as part of the treaty—the leaders of all the great faiths signed the Contract of Human Rights, promising to respect everyone's right to his or her own faith.” If he had stopped there, he would have been all right. But he didn't stop. “But not everybody signed the Contract, you know. A lot of people saw the perfidy in that document.”

“The perfidy ... ?”

“The Contract requires a prohibition on evangelism. As such, it gives a tool to unbelievers for the suppression of the true faith.”

“You may see it that way,” said Novotny. “But the existence of the Contract protects your right to believe, free of the evangelism of others. Your faith is respected under the Contract, whether you accept the Contract or not.”

Doberson shrugged and muttered something about one horse turd being like every other. Novotny gave him three points for that, then
turned back to the issue at hand. “You will not have the protection of the Contract on Linnea. The Linneans have no Contract. They have only one faith—the Covenant with the Mother. The agreements may vary from place to place, but the Covenant is near-universal in every place we have explored. I tell you this in sorrow, not anger, because I respect the intensity of your belief; but you will have to set aside your commitment to Jesus and replace it with a commitment to the Covenant—or you will never cross over to Linnea. You choose, Citizen.”

“Don't threaten me.”

“I threaten no one. You make your own choice.”

Doberson glowered and muttered darkly. “And so will you. You'll come before the judgment of the Lord soon enough. All of you who serve Satan's purposes....”

“What was that, Citizen?” Novotny had heard him well enough. We all had, but Novotny apparently believed in giving a person more than enough rope with which to bungee jump....

This time, Doberson thought better of it and sat down, smoldering.

That wasn't the end of it, of course. Doberson and his family fussed and complained for days, calling it religious prejudice and communism and everything else they could think of. It was weird, really, because the Doberson family was the best disciplined of all of us. They were always head of the curve, learning the language and all the other skills of farming and building. They were the best students of all. Da-Lorrin said it was because they were bringing a preexisting discipline to their Linnean lessons. So for Jim Doberson to become so abruptly resistant was like his brain had all suddenly seized up. Mom-Woo said only, “His head is full. It can't hold any more.” And then she told us to drop the subject.