Double Cross (18 page)
Or think that you should be able to solve them all.
After I finished writing in my journal, I found Dad in the quiet common area of our minidome.
I rolled my wheelchair up to where he sat, drinking coffee and staring at nothing in the darkness.
“You couldn't sleep either, huh?”
“No,” I answered.
We sat together for a while, neither of us speaking. I had too many thoughts in my head. I didn't know where to begin.
“I wish I didn't have to go,” he said. “I'm going to miss you.”
In a few days he'd be leaving again, on another shuttle run to Earth. And taking Blaine Steven and Dr. Jordan with him. Now that Rawling knew Dr. Jordan had been sent here for a weapons test, he'd ordered him deported to Earth.
“I'm going to miss you, Dad. A lot.”
More silence.
He put his hand on my shoulder.
“In my thoughts, I keep hearing some of the last things Ashley ever said to me.”
Dad waited.
I heard her words clearly up on the telescope platform, the night before the Hammerhead's test mission:
“Tyce, I can't tell you. It would hurt too many others. Even that is saying too much.”
“There was a lot about her we didn't know,” I said.
Ashley's words rang in my head:
“Please help me. Telling you what I know could cost me my life.”
I had not helped her. I had not trusted her. And that made me incredibly sad. I owed her more than that, even if she wasn't here. It had taken her life to make me want to help.
“Remember I told you I grew up in Denver. I didn't. That's what I'm supposed to tell everyone.”
“Would you help me, Dad?”
“Yes,” he said. “With what?”
In the darkness, I blinked back tears. Dad hadn't asked me first with what. He'd simply said yes. He trusted me.
“There are others. Like us. And we are their only hope.”
“I want to find out about Ashley. Where she came from. Who she really is. When you get back to Earth, can you do what you can and send e-mails?”
Dad squeezed my shoulder. “I'll do everything I can. You have my promise.”
“Thanks.”
“There are others. Like us. And we are their only hope.”
I didn't know who they were. Or where they were. Or what they needed to give them hope. But Ashley was gone.
That left me.
I didn't sleep well that night.
Dreams I couldn't remember kept waking me up.
I sat up once, calling Ashley's name into the darkness. Then it came back to me what she'd done. I cried into my pillow for a long time.
In the morning, I didn't want to get out of bed. Getting dressed and getting into my wheelchair would mean that the day had started. And when the day started, I'd have to admit to myself that Ashley was gone.
Except, when I finally pulled myself into sitting position, something shiny caught my eye on the seat of my wheelchair.
It was tiny and silver. In the shape of a cross.
An earring. Like the one on a silver chain around my neck.
I felt for mine, wondering if it had somehow fallen off.
It hadn't. It was still there. With the matching one on the seat of my wheelchair. As if someone had placed it there while I slept.
Ashley?
You've probably noticed that the question of God's existence comes up in Robot Wars.
It's no accident, of course. I think this is one of the most important questions that we need to decide for ourselves. If God created the universe and there is more to life than what we can see, hear, taste, smell, or touch, that means we have to think of our own lives as more than just the time we spend on Earth.
On the other hand, if this universe was not created and God does not exist, then that might really change how you view your existence and how you live.
Sometimes science is presented in such a way that it suggests there is no God. To make any decision, it helps to know as much about the situation as possible. As you decide for yourself, I'd like to show in the Robot Wars series that many, many peopleâincluding famous scientistsâdon't see science this way.
As you might guess, I've spent a lot of time wondering about science and God, and I've spent a lot of time reading about what scientists have learned and concluded. Because of this, I wrote a nonfiction book called
Who Made The Moon?
and you can find information about it at
www.whomadethemoon.com
. If you ever read it, you'll see why science does not need to keep anyone away from God.
With that in mind, I've added a little bit more to this bookâa couple of essays about the science in journals one and two of Robot Wars, based on what you can find in
Who Made The Moon?
Sigmund Brouwer
JOURNAL ONE
CAN WE EXPECT
SCIENCE TO BE
OUR SAVIOR?
Q: What's ahead?
A: For the first 10,000 years of recorded human history, the fastest that any human could travel was the speed of a galloping horse. (Unless someone wanted to jump off a building or a cliff !) Horse-drawn wagons were very slow, wind-powered ships were slow, the first trains were slow, and even the first automobiles were slow.
It's only in the last hundred years or soâthe tiniest sliver of timeâthat technology has allowed us to travel faster. Some cars go as fast as 200 miles an hour. Airplanes can go faster than sound. A journey that took the early American settlers weeks or months by wagon over dangerous territory, we can accomplish in hours on an interstate in air-conditioned comfort.
In fact, thanks to science and technology, most of us truly live better than kings did only 100 years ago. We live in heated homes with running water, HDTVs, and washers and dryers. Doctors no longer try to cure us by applying leeches to our heads to suck blood; we can get the best of modern drugs and operations. We're protected by electronic security systems and police forces; we probably don't lie awake at night worrying about barbarians tearing down our town. We store our wealth in electronic binary codes in bank computers, not in piles of gold or silver that armies can steal.
And these improvements in science and technology are happening faster and faster. After all, it was only 40 years ago that a man first stepped on the moon.
Now SUVs have more technology than the first spaceships, and your computer has more calculating power than the computers that placed the first men on the moon. With cell phones and computers, you can instantly communicate through satellites to locations anywhere in the world.
Medicine? Your body can be vaccinated, wired, and soon, cloned.
Even color TVs aren't very old. Now you can entertain yourself with the virtual reality of music videos, computer games, and theater screens three stories tall.
Science and technology are staggering, amazing, incredible. Who knows how many more leaps ahead we will be by AD 2039, the date of this story? And what's even more exciting is that you, like Tyce Sanders and his virtual-reality missions, may be the one who helps discover this new technology!
Q: Can science and technology stop crime? Can they prevent heartache, loneliness, fear? Can they make families perfect? Can they prevent death?
A: The answer to all of the questions is obvious. No.
Although the conditions around you have improved with blinding speed, you can still suffer pain, guilt, heartache, fear, and loneliness deep inside you. Where it matters.
Those who look to science and technology to save us as a human race assume we just don't know enough yet. But learning more about our world and how it works doesn't make problems go away. The answer is all too obvious. All you need to do is read the headlines of a newspaper or watch the daily news to see it.
The real problemâsadlyâis the choices we make. Some are good choices. Others are hurtful, evil choices. Because God loves us, he gives us the power to choose. But then we have to live with the consequences.
The bottom line is that science and technology are incredible tools for exploring what it means to be humanâand for helping other humans, if used properly. But science and technology cannot change anyone's heart. And they'll never give meaning or hope or peace to your life.
JOURNAL TWO
WHY DO BAD
THINGS HAPPEN?
Q: Why does God allow bad things to happen to people he says he loves?
A: This is one of the most difficult questions every person asks sometime in his or her life. And what you believe about the answer is really important. Why? Because if you decide that God allows bad things to happen because he's weak and can't stop them or because he doesn't care about us after all, then you won't really want to believe in God. You'll come to think that he doesn't existâexcept as a character in Bible stories.
Part of why evil exists is because God allows all of us the freedom to make choicesâto do good things or bad things. When you choose to do good things, the world is a much better place. When you choose to do bad things, you hurt othersâand yourself in the long run.
Other people are also making good and bad choices. That's why you'll hear all sorts of bad things happening in the news. (There are lots of good things happening too, but those events hardly ever make the news.)
Q: Do bad things or the news of bad things mean that God doesn't care?
A: Since the beginning of the history of writing, hundreds of books have tried to answer this difficult question.
Perhaps the best and most famous book on the subject is found in the Bibleâthe book of Job. Job loved God, and he was also rich. Then one day, through no fault of his own, he lost his possessions, his children, and his health. No wonder he asked why God allowed suffering.
His friends mistakenly told Job it was because of things he'd done wrong. But Job, through asking questions, learned important things.
He learned that, while suffering might be a consequence of wrong choices, bad things do happen to good people, just as sometimes good things happen to bad people. You can't always control what happens to you, but you can control how you choose to deal with what happens.
Job learned that God was always close to him, even when God might seem far away. This matters a great deal, because we need to believe in God for
who he is
, not what we want him to be. Some people think of God as a Santa or a genie who gives them what they want. But God is really the awesome Creator of the universe who sees the beginning and end of all things. He isn't limited by seeing only this time. And that's why God won't always explain everything to us. There are mysteries we'll never understand while we're on Earth.
What's the greatest thing Job learned? That even when everything was taken away, he could still trust God. Why? Because God is all we have and need. That truth is both sad and hopeful. It's sad, because someday death will take each of us away from our possessions and our health and our loved ones. But sad as death is, we have an incredible hope. We know that life on Earth, with all its pain, is not our final destination.
No matter what happens around you, you can trust God. Nothing can separate you from his love.
Sigmund Brouwer and his wife, recording artist Cindy Morgan, and their daughters split living between Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, and Nashville, Tennessee. He has written several series of juvenile fiction and eight novels. Sigmund loves sports and plays golf and hockey. He also enjoys visiting schools to talk about books. He welcomes visitors to his Web site at
www.coolreading.com
.
