The Missionaries

by D.G. Compton

Genres: Science Fiction; Alien Contact; Dystopian; Genetic Engineering

Synopsis

The spaceship landed on the planet Earth to bring it the message of a new religion and a new way of life that would fit the terrestrial barbarians to take their place in the great community of the Galaxy. Their motives were beyond reproach. Their objectives were honourable. It was not their fault that humanity distrusted their motives, repudiated their objectives - and did its best to drive the missionaries back into space . . .

Release date: July 25, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 219

Sample

…We made the island in the London Missionary Society’s brig Camden, on the morning of the 8th of April, 1841. All the forenoon we kept close into the shore, looking anxiously for the presence of friendly beings; nothing of this kind, however, appeared: huge coral barriers seemed to warn us off, and nothing to encourage could be discerned…

Rev. A. W. Murray. 1885.

Item from the Missionaries’ Inter-Galactic Handbook.

Once the gravitational field of Planet 4276 has been reached, the M-ship will arrest itself and go into orbit. When a convenient orbit has been established, internal life systems will be activated and missionaries’ life pace will automatically increase to that of full consciousness. After a suitable interval for reorientation, a roll-call is recommended. (See Appendix I if any losses are found to have been incurred during passage.) Missionary captains are issued with full procedural instructions. Following the roll-call a short prayer of thanksgiving should be offered for the safe arrival. (As above, see Appendix I if thanksgiving is to be tempered.)

Once the gravitational field of Planet 4276 was reached the M-ship did indeed arrest itself and go into orbit. After nudging itself dutifully here and there with little surges of power, it established the promised convenient circuit and internal life systems were activated accordingly. The missionaries’ life pace automatically increased to that of full consciousness.

They woke up.

The roll-call that followed was brief but heartening. Four missionaries had set out and four had arrived. (Thus Appendix I mercifully would not be needed.) Armoured in their faith—and in the best I.G. hardware that the Mission could provide—they had journeyed unimaginably across perilous oceans of time and space to make at last this obscure, almost whimsical landfall. This planet, Planet 4276, of all the myriad planets, was the one capable, hopefully, of receiving the intensity of their message. The captain, his procedural instructions in front of him, led the little band in their short prayer of thanksgiving.

As ships went in those days, the M-ship was small: an eggshaped container just large enough for the four missionaries and their necessary equipment. Movement within it was difficult and anyway unnecessary, since—the missionaries being technologically hopeless—all pilotage decisions were taken and acted upon in total electronic stasis by their necessary equipment. They had nothing to do but gaze uneasily down at the alien atmosphere whirling fearsomely beneath them and at occasional bilious glimpses of the planet itself through all the turmoil. Trained as they were in trust, their doubts—unspoken but shared nevertheless—hung tangibly in the life systems about them. Could they, could anything, really live in such a place? To die, vainly to lose their tiny sparks of sanctified uniqueness on such a shore, to journey so far and then accomplish nothing, would be bitter indeed.

To them, suddenly, all their necessary equipment, their proud and comprehensive inventory of gadgets subtler a thousand times than they—yet subservient, most certainly subservient—their travellers and traxinodes, their g-simulators, paralabes, pacifiers, their terrain analysers, communicators, quangs, form synthetisers and transmaterialisers, their structure controllers, hypno-conversion units, dagrameters, abreactors, portlescopes and symbolisers …all these, their shields against the huge unknown, all these were suddenly presumptuous, worthless, the gestures of a meddling fool. And, historically speaking, fools who meddle came depressingly often to unpleasant ends.

Item from the Missionaries’ I.G. Handbook.

Planet 4276 will seem strange, possibly even unwelcoming. This is a purely subjective impression. Long range analysis indicates that Planet 4276 has sustained intelligent life for many thousands of years. Therefore we and it are as one. The light-years between us are as nothing. We must go down and join it gladly.

The missionaries—as is often the case—were not over-equipped with imagination. Nor with the humour to see irony in that word gladly. Nor yet with the carping sort of mind that resents handbook-compilers who sit smugly at home and exhort others to great deeds. The missionaries knew they had no choice in the matter. Once the M-ship’s terrain analysers and portlescopes had done their respective jobs, the M-ship would suitably descend. If life were there, the missionaries would inevitably join it. Whether they were glad or otherwise was hardly relevant.

Or was it?

They told themselves truthfully that they were not afraid of death. Like pain and joy, it was necessary. It was what differentiated them from their necessary equipment, a thousand times subtler than they. (And those who might have thought this a differentiation of doubtful value would never have lasted through M-college.) Neither were they afraid of scientific error, of finding lifeless, deathless places within the wind-tortured shell of clouds below. Their journey had been a gesture of certainty, of life reaching out to life across immense silences, a gesture that by its very nature could not fail. Content therefore both with the prospect of death and with the difficulties of life, they would go down to the planet unafraid.

Put gladly? Gladness demanded love: love of life in whatever monstrous forms it might present itself. And it contained the possibility of its prideful opposite, of martyrs dragged to execution. It was disquieting. It made the missionaries examine their souls. Three of them found a sort of love. The fourth, sad but unsurprised, found only duty.

When the M-ship had scanned the planet’s surface and fed sufficient environmental data into terrain analysers and portlescopes, it went into one smooth confirmatory orbit. Then it plunged, gathering a tail of fire. On entering the atmosphere they were tracked the whole way down by radar receiving centres from the Canary Islands to the frozen wastes of Siberia and Jodrell Bank.

…We united in prayer. Five men made their appearance, approaching us by the beach. Taking it for granted that their intentions were hostile … we landed with our guns and walked towards them, and when within a few paces, we knelt down upon the beach and committed ourselves to the mercy and protection of our heavenly Father. They stood still, without uttering a word, while we were in prayer, and appeared to be held in some degree of restraint.

Rev. Allen Gardiner. 1847.

Item from the Missionaries’ I.G. Handbook.

The M-ship’s programmed landfall will be in a position isolated but near to a minor centre of intelligent population. Once environmental adjustment procedures have been carried out missionaries’ first priority will be to locate suitable intellect levels among the indigenes. I-readings in the 147-163 range will be satisfactory for missionary purposes. If higher levels are found, they will at this stage be avoided—not on account of religious message inadequacy but rather because they will almost certainly have developed effective counters to existing pacificatory technique.

As it turned out, the nearest centre of intelligent population to the ship’s landfall was the little Devon village of North Molton. With a population of around eight hundred it was rather less than three miles away as the crow might fly, but rather more than six as the indigenes might hobble. A further eight miles away by winding lane lay South Molton, population 2,950, market day Thursday, last post 6.30 on weekdays. The ship in fact settled gently into a hollow on the moors just above the main Taunton-Barnstaple highway. And—if it had to land anywhere—where in the whole universe could be better than Exmoor, in the county of Devon, England? Lorna Doone country. Densely green valleys, narrow lanes, high hedges, moorland purple with September heather and, on this particular night—darkness being computer-chosen as the better condition—sodden with September rain.

That night the fairy-light lit car park of the Hunter’s Moon down on the main road was as crowded as always. By going common and taking vulgar advantage of the inn’s position, the landlord had trebled his turnover inside four years. Beneath dark-beamed duck or grouse ceilings Mr. Wilcox served instant good cheer across easiwipe rustic bars to passing motorists, rich farmers’ sons and a few deaf and blind regulars. And in a new cedarwood annexe at the side he offered the paler delights of Pepsi and standardised sandwiches to the lower orders. In addition Mr. Wilcox had fruit machines, coffee/tea/soup/chocolate machines, Tampax machines in the ladies, Durex machines in the gents, a telly, a stereophonic jukebox, and—on a new green and white paved terrace—timberised tin tables, bent tube chairs and little green-and-white plastic umbrellas. On this particular night, the weather being against him, his chairs and tables and umbrellas were stacked, wet and windswept, in the ineffective lee of his finely equipped new convenience.

The hurrying clouds were low and thick and leaky. Beneath them the night pressed wetly on lighted windows, on car headlamps, on the fairy-light lit red and blue and pink of the Hunter’s Moon car park.

Outside the annexe, separate from the ruck and distinguished by the precision of their parking, stood three large motorcycles, each identically slanted to the white line, their handlebars identically slanted, their chromium gleaming red and blue and pink. Dacre Wordsworth, son of Brigadier Gordon Wordsworth, ret., his leathers very wet and shiny, rode into the car park, coasted his machine to the end of the line and parked, correct to a millimetre. He canted the heavy Harley Davidson onto its stand and swung himself smoothly, all man, off the saddle. He stood for a moment in the steady drizzle, very erect, unobserved but more man than ever, pushing his perspex visor up over his black-and-silver striped helmet. Then he crashed in through the double doors of the cafe annexe.

Dacre was nineteen. He saw others and himself sharply and played with both. Except for his father. He never played with his father, not because his father was Brigadier, ret., but because his father was dying and deserved better from him.

Inside the cafe he was brought up sharply by the solid weight of an unnatural silence. He paused as the doors flapped to stillness behind him, taking off first his helmet and then his gloves. He examined the not unfamiliar situation.

The silence emanated from Mr. Wilcox, motionless, six-foot six, seventeen stone, back straight, eyes small and bloodshot, his timing automatic and faultless. The silence was, in its own way, quite as bulky as its originator. Although it paralysed everybody in the cafe, it was directed principally at Rocky and Crud and harelipped Bright Boy, mesmerised round the jukebox. It must have afflicted them, Dacre knew, some time in the previous five or six seconds, sprung ready-armed out of some quiet, deceptively quiet, painfully quiet, remark from the radioactive Mr. Wilcox. Mr. Wilcox could now afford to wait, to draw it out tighter and tighter before breaking it himself, instinctively, just before anyone else did. The flap of the doors behind Dacre passed unnoticed, annihilated in the intensity of Mr. Wilcox.

Dacre watched him gathering the others’ fear in through his pores. Feeding himself. Stoking his fury. Soon he would shout, spit would spray from his mouth, and his whole body would jerk. But Dacre—for all he was his father’s son—could do nothing to stop him. Mr. Wilcox was far away, caught in a private fit, a standing epilepsy of rage. His unreason was terrible. It could break out only in its own way and in its own time.

Mr. Wilcox filled his lungs, holding the air ready. At that moment his hands were too large and red to be human. One day, perhaps, he would die suddenly and ridiculously of his passion.

“YOU… MAKE… ME… SICK…” Delivered in an aimless, toneless cockney bellow. “SICK… PUTTING THE BOOT IN, ISN’T THAT WHAT YOU CALL IT? ISN’T IT…?” Arms at his sides, thumbs down the seams of his trousers. “ISN’T IT?”

They had to be made to answer, otherwise their degradation would be incomplete. It was Rocky who gave way first.

“Bloody thing went on the blink,” he said. “All we did was—”

“IT WOULDN’T WORK, SO YOU STARTED KICKING IT? IS THAT WHAT YOU MEAN?”

“Not kicking it. All we did was—”

“When a boot is on a foot…” quiet now, straining the ears of his victims, “and when that foot is swung so that the boot comes into sharp contact with some other h’article, most people, laddie, would call that kicking. I know I would. Laddie.” Still motionless, still without expression. Dacre wondered what thought, what conscious processes could possibly be taking place behind those veined, nonseeing eyes. “THAT YOUR MOTTO THEN? WHEN SUMMING DON’T WORK JUST PUT THE BOOT IN? IS THAT IT…?”

This time no answer seemed to be expected. Mr. Wilcox turned his head fractionally.

“Tell me, lad. You with the pimples, do you work?”

Crud had been hearing the noise, not the words. He jumped. “Course I work, Mr. Wilcox.”

“WORK, I SAID, WORK… NOT FART-ARSING AROUND IN SOME PONCEY SHOP…” He cared. The really terrifying thing about Mr. Wilcox was that—like God—he could always be bothered. Like God, nothing was too much trouble … God lowered his voice, was suddenly gentle, coaxing. “If I decide you don’t work and I come round and put the boot in, is that right? Is that fair? Is that what ought to happen? Do you really think we should all go round kicking things that don’t work proper? Do you?”

Dacre moved forward. The worst was over, the rest would be unimpressive squalor. And he’d let his boys suffer long enough.

“My father”—vile reminder—“my father had a TV just like that once, Mr. Wilcox. Sometimes a short sharp belt was just what it needed.”

Mr. Wilcox shifted the beam of his displeasure. It lost intensity in the move. “A short sharp belt is one thing, boy. A dirty great boot is quite another.”

Argumentation weakened him visibly. Dacre stared him in the eye. “My boys payed their money, Mr. Wilcox. They were quite entitled to—”

“THEY WERE NOT ENTITLED TO…” He faltered under Dacre’s young, stoney eye. “…To kick my bloody jukebox. The repair bills I get on that bloody thing, they ain’t bloody funny.”

No doubt it was a sort of apology, but far too late. Dacre wasn’t Rocky or Crud or Bright Boy. Dacre was his father’s son. You could ask Dacre to do things, you could tell him off, you could even call him a flaming bloody nig-nog, but you didn’t shout at him. You accepted that he was different, of a different world. He was the brigadier’s son and you didn’t shout at him. You might hate his bloody guts but you didn’t shout at him. Especially not now, with the brigadier dying and you going most mornings to drink his tea laced with his whiskey and talked about regimental old times. You had more respect.

Dacre understood all this, and used it. Against ex-RSM Wilcox all weapons were permitted. To the cafe crowd, and almost to himself, this gave him power. He stood now on powerfully booted legs and began pulling on his powerful gloves. He spoke to the boys, his eyes still on Mr. Wilcox.

“Let’s go,” he said.

There was a possible ambiguity. Mr. Wilcox sought peace terms and tried for the laugh that once had never failed. “Fart-arsing around like a lot of pregnant fishes in a thunder storm,” he said.

But the cafe was watching Dacre now. Dacre walked slowly to the table where the four girls were sitting. The silence was his now. The girls looked up at him, sexual bike accessories, with lashes painted down their cheeks and wet excited lips. Unworthily he played the silence out to the last tawdry moment. Tawdry place, tawdry people, tawdry moment.

“Coming?” he said, and went quickly out through the double doors. Self-disgust was waiting for him.

The increasing drizzle was black against the red and blue and pink fairy lights. He sat astride his bike and let the drops wet his face and hair. Lord of the Pepsi bars … king of the small-town leather boys … Seigneur to four scruffy, frightened, thrilled to be frightened, little girls … at least he despised not them but himself. If it was compassion that kept him there by his father, compassion for a man waiting not so patiently to die, if it was really compassion and not pleasure in his tiny empire that kept him there, why was his compassion so small? It was strong enough to keep him at his father’s side even in the repulsiveness of gradual death. Why could he not feel it then for all of them? For Rocky, for the girls, even for bull-brained ex-RSM Wilcox? Especially for ex-RSM Wilcox who, no longer one thing, had not the capacity ever to be another? He longed to get away, for his father to die quickly so that he could get away.

The word in his mind that month was compassion. But this modishness made its lack no less painful, its failure no less real.

The boys came sidling stiff-legged out through the double doors, followed by the girls. They gathered round him where he sat astride his motor bicycle.

Item from the Missionaries’ I.G. Handbook.

Once suitable intellect levels have been located, population specimens should promptly be obtained for analysis and dagrametric reconstitution. It is to be hoped that these will be found within a reasonable distance from the M-ship, since their possible size and weight may put a considerable burden on the power resources of transporters. The captain may, at his discretion, beam in high-grain traxinodes to this end.

“Shit,” said Rocky. “We could’ve torn the place apart.”

Bright Boy had his knife out, clicking the blade nervously. Bright Boy hated Mr. Wilcox. Harelipped, he hated too many people.

“I’d of stuck him,” he said. “Honest. Another minute of that an’ I’d of stuck him.”

“Why didn’ you let us?” said Rocky. “We could’ve torn the place apart.”

“So could a crowd of ten-year-olds.” Dacre clouted him on the side of the head in the expected tribal gesture. “Didn’t I tell you to stay out of trouble?”

“That shit Wilcox ought to get some new records.”

“When I say stay out of trouble, I mean it.”

They were pathetic. A gang—the word, too, was pathetic—with nothing in common but boredom and motorcycles. He wouldn’t hold them under him much longer, not without an exploit, a shared enemy, some pointless adventure that wasn’t worth devising. He told himself he didn’t care—there had to be something better he could do with his evenings.

One of the girls sighed theatrically. “Honestly,” she said, “not another bloody confab. Not another bloody confab out in this pissing bloody rain.”

“No confab.” He kicked up his footrest, answering the group’s need for action. “First one of us to Hamblyn’s Mill gets choice of bird. Choice of fuck, and no argument.”

It was the best he could manage—a chase through the darkness with a manufactured thrill at the end of it. A chase he had already decided not to win. There had to be something better he could do with his evenings…

He leaned his weight on the kickstart, felt the resistance, and stamped down. His engine always started first kick, as befitted a leader’s. Hamblyn’s Mill was eight miles over the moor, derelict in a little wooded valley, with mouldy cellars and an air of dangerous secrecy. The others scrambled for their bikes, the girls sorting themselves out piecemeal. They hardly had names—the machines, Honda, Norton, Triumph, possessed far greater individuality. Headlamps flicked on, showing the hardly significant rain suddenly become a downpour blown every which way by the wind.

Dacre felt the back of his bike sink a few inches and a girl’s arms fasten round his waist. It was mad, an eight-mile dash along narrow winding lanes on such a night. And he wasn’t even sure why… He adjusted his helmet, shielding his eyes from the headlights to see that the others too were ready. No route to Hamblyn’s was the quickest; three at least were viable, and a fourth if the steep track by Upper Taggarts could be risked in these conditions. He was detached; he found himself imagining the unpleasant feel of his wet leather jacket against the girl’s cheek. It was mad, an eight-mile dash along narrow winding lanes on such a night. He raised a hand, lowered it, and they were off.

At the entrance to the car park an approaching. . .