Back to the Original Fiction Index
	Back to Story Page

God Seeker

By Thalia Drogna

“I want to climb the sky. That is all I have ever wanted to do. When I was young the steps seemed hundreds of miles from the ground, but now I know that they are closer, so that the bravest of us have already taken the leap; some of them succeeded and some of them failed. We speak in lowered tones of those who tried but died, for they are to be honoured in the highest possible terms, but to be praised more are those who have succeeded. One day the steps will touch the ground and then the whole of humanity will climb upwards to our heavenly destiny, and patience is our only virtue until then. No one has ever returned from the steps to tell us what awaits us, but it is known that we must climb to achieve our great place in the council of the stars. For the existence of this bubble of life is only temporary in the scheme of things, the steps will bring us to a larger realisation of our universe.”

The temple rang with the words of the priestess of the Taris community as she spoke the Creed of the Climbers to those who stood, crowded in, beneath her. The temple was little more than a huge square building, with a stage set up at one end so that the priestess was respectfully higher than the worshippers. It was made of brick held together with a primitive mortar, and roofed with slates. High windows were positioned on three sides of the building to allow air to ventilate the structure in the heat of the area. It was a simple structure, dedicated to only one purpose - religion. No one in the surrounding settlements missed the temple service unless they were too ill to get out of bed. Everyone could see the object of their worship, the huge staircase of the sky that the worshippers watched. And reaching towards the distant staircase was the tower that everyone helped to build. The tower, that dwarfed the tiny temple by its side, encircled by scaffolding which could hardly bear the altitude of the structure it supported, its height was inconceivable but their religion had made its construction a necessity. When a religion can see the object of its worship to be real and true there is no reason not to worship it, those who worshipped the steps had very little need of faith as their scriptures were very explicit about the nature of the object of their religion.

As the priestess spoke of those who had made the leap she looked down at the first row of worshippers, the young men and women who stood at the front of the congregation, for these were the bravest of the community and were prepared to jump to the steps. A great sense of loss found her when she realised that maybe only two or three of the twelve would make the leap successfully. They repeated the mantra she had just recited as was the ceremony.

“We want to climb the sky. That is all we have ever wanted to do. When we were young the steps seemed hundreds of miles from the ground, but now we know they are closer, so that the bravest of us have already taken the leap; some of them succeeded and some of them failed. We speak in lowered tones of those who tried but died, for they are to be honoured in the highest possible terms, but to be praised more are those who have succeeded. One day the steps will touch the ground and then the whole of humanity will climb upwards to our heavenly destiny, and patience is our only virtue until then. No one has ever returned from the steps to tell us what awaits us, but it is known that we must climb to achieve our great place in the council of the stars. For the existence of this bubble of life is only temporary in the scheme of things, the steps will bring us to a larger realisation of our universe.”

One of those who repeated the creed was Kallista and she believed in it to her very soul, it was the reason for her being. Here she finally stood chanting the creed of the climbers, ready to make her ascent up the tower just as her ancestors had done before her. Kallista was the youngest of the twelve and this meant that she would be the last to make the leap, but everyone knew that in the summer games the year before she had been the winner of the long jump and was the most likely to succeed in their task. She had trained hard for that event and Kallista found it easy to remember the adrenaline and nerves the moment before she began her run, then the proud elation of the winning leap and the freedom it had given her. It was as if she could rejoice in the fact that she had been well made. Her tall and slim body, lightly boned and long legged was perfect for the long flight needed to jump from the tower to the steps. Now it was time for her to put her body to the use it was intended for; the leap to the steps.

“We know that great things wait for those who climb the steps, for they go to seek our god. The one who gave us the steps that we might meet him and devine his holy intention. It was written that each year twelve of our community shall jump from the ancient tower built by our ancestors to the steps of god. They are our ambassadors and shall be our best and most beautiful children, go with our blessings,” said the priestess and raised her arms in the gesture of bidding.

The priestess left the stage, exiting the temple and leading the twelve young hopefuls towards the tower. The congregation grouped themselves round the base of the tower, leaving the way clear to the long flight of steps that the leapers had to climb to reach the jumping off point. The crowd sung the “Climbing and Leaving” song that was proscribed for the occasion of this ceremony, and gave flowers to the leapers as they began their climb. Parents cried for their lost offspring, knowing that whether they completed the jump or not they would never see their children again. At the same time they believed with all their heart that the leapers were going to a better place no matter how they made the journey, religion is no longer a thing of debate when the object of that religion can be seen and felt. The children of the Taris community never died in vain, for each and every one achieved their heavenly destiny. Don’t argue with god when his back door is held high in the sky above you.

The twelve began their climb, the oldest in the lead, Kallista bringing up the rear. The climbers sang the “Goodbye to Taris” chant that they had learnt for this occasion; they sang out loudly until the climb had drawn all their breath and they could sing no longer. But by that point the people below them were little more than a mass of sun browned flesh and the notes which had drifted down to them were too faint to be made out. The wind grew stronger as they climbed higher, blowing Kallista’s long hair into knots around her ears and callously throwing it into her eyes, but there was further to go yet, onward and upward. The steps spiralled round and round the outside of the tower, encircling the brickwork. Finally the tower began to narrow and the top became visible, almost within reach of an outstretched arm but Kallista had to wait for those in front of her to get to the summit before she could gaze out over the pastoral green of Taris. There, before the twelve, was the stage from which they would make their leap, the round top of the tower, and slightly above that were the steps themselves. There were more prayers now, lead by the eldest boy who had headed the procession up the stairs, they asked for good luck and protection. One by one they made their way to the edge of the tower, judged the distance, took their run up and leaped high across the divide of air towards the steps.

One by one they fell to their deaths far below, down the hundreds of metres that they had spent so long climbing, away below the clouds and were stopped harshly against the solid ground. They tried but did not reach the steps, all twelve, except for Kallista.

Kallista had been shocked when the eldest of the climbers fell, but knew that they took a shorter route to meet god than she did, and she prayed for them. She focused herself and put all her energy into her run and then the springboard takeoff. Sailing through the air she had a moment of panic before she surprised herself by landing on the steps, so badly that she also nearly took the faster route to meet her god, but determination and resolve kept her firm enough that she was able to stand. Pain shot through her ankle from the awkwardness of the landing and each step she took up the stairs made the joint throb with protest.

Kallista climbed upwards through the airy ether, coldness and moisture blowing about her, until suddenly a change came upon the atmosphere and she found herself in a tunnel of shining metal. The walls glittered like the midnight stars and were cold to the touch but the air itself was warm. Kallista turned to look behind her and saw the bright blue of the sky that she had just left, but, even as she watched, the aperture became smaller and smaller until the portal was completely sealed. There was no turning back, this was heaven and no one had ever returned to Taris from there. All she could do was to walk forward, towards the light that illuminated this tunnel, a pure white light that perhaps was god. No one had ever seen god so Kallista did not know what to expect, the scriptures taught that god was good and even-handed, but said nothing about the gender or appearance of the deity. But the scriptures also taught that the steps were set in place by god to test the Tarisians, to help a chosen few of them meet god and take their place among the Council of the Stars. However, this cold, metal tunnel was not the image that had been foremost in Kallista’s mind when she thought about heaven.

Kallista walked into the bright light at the end of the tunnel and everything went black, plunging her into frightening darkness. She could no longer see to walk forwards or backwards and everything was obscured from her eyes, she even began to wonder if there was a floor beneath her, it was only the pain of weight on her ankle that made her believe she stood on anything at all.

“God!” cried out the fearful child of Taris. “Where are you? I need you!” she shouted out into the blackness as she stumbled forwards, hands outstretched in front of her groping for something to cling to. Not knowing whether she was walking forwards, backwards or in a circle she tentatively shuffled her feet onwards. She had never been this scared before in her life, somehow the primordial fear of the dark had taken control of her mind and soul, she remembered childhood dreams of darkness making her wake in the night but never had she felt so completely wracked with dread. She stumbled and fell, cursing herself as she did so, determined that the black darkness would not overcome her.

Just as the absence of light began to play tricks on her eyes, making dark patterns of black, someone took hold of her hand and pulled her into dim light. Before Kallista stood a woman, that woman was Kallista. It was not that she looked like her, it was deeper than that, the second woman was another Kallista.

“Who are you?” asked the original Kallista.

“I am you,” replied the second Kallista. “Welcome to the afterlife, Kallista. Follow me.” The second Kallista led the first forward into brighter light. Beside her were rows of clicking machines that hummed in the half light and blinked lights at the two Kallistas as they walked by. “These are computers, they are machines and they are generating the image that you now see of yourself. You are not expected to understand this only to listen. You are the first of your community ever to survive the test of crisis.”

“The blackness was a test?” asked the original Kallista.

“The final in a series of many.”

“Were the steps also a test?”

“Yes, the act of building the tower high enough to reach the steps meant your civilisation had reached the correct stage to allow you to enter the door. Your society was directed towards only one purpose.”

“Are you God?” the original Kallista asked desperately.

“In a way,” replied the second Kallista. “If you consider the problem, good and evil are only two aspects of the same object. The makers of these machines have the power of life and death over you, to many that is enough to make them into gods. In this case I would be nearer to the devil. Many hundreds of years ago my race sent a probe to your planet in case it had the possibility of producing or sustaining life, my race expanded quickly and had great need of planets to expand onto. There was no life on your planet at that time but in the event that life ever was to develop this program was left running. The program produced a computer image like this one, of a suitable figure to hand down a religion to you and then produced the steps in the sky. If your race was ever able to pass all the tests and reach this point a new program was initiated. The problem our race faces is that it is old now and is running out of planets to expand to, Taris is not far down the list of new planets to be colonised and whilst you are children of peace we are children of war. Perhaps we might share a planet with a race that is weaker than us and shows no signs of growth but civilisations that beat the tests are a threat to us. There is almost irony in our methods.”

“What will happen to us?” asked Kallista, tentatively.

“There are rules even to exterminating a society such as yours, breeding pairs must be kept to continue the race, we are not allowed to wipe you out completely. The Tarisian survivors will be placed on another planet that we do not want and more than likely they will die out after a few generations. You will probably be killed. Kallista, you are the cleverest of your race and therefore cannot be allowed to survive. We have destroyed hundreds of civilisations like Taris, each year, as we grow closer to the rim of the universe we discover less civilisations and one day we will be alone in the universe. But that is our nature, what we do not understand is best not allowed to live.”

“Then we will all die because we believed in our God. Everything we ever believed in is a lie, no one goes to heaven and the stairway is a trap for innocents. Who is your race that you take the power of God for yourself?”

“Our race? We call ourselves Humans.”

	Back to the Original Fiction Index
	Back to Story Page