A Creed for the Third Millennium Read Online Free PDF Page B

and the other
Christians were not yet sure what he meant by it. However, each night that went
by saw him less concerned with the abstract, and more concentrated upon the
personal.
    'How can it be me?' he asked. 'I am here
in Holloman, and is Holloman the centre of the human universe? No! It's just
one of a thousand old industrial assholes pathetically farting their way into a
mass grave, waiting for the bulldozers of some future time to push them down and
plant forests. They tell us we have a few centuries to go yet before the
glaciers bulldoze the trees down. Time enough for forests. But once — ah, once
Holloman made shirts as well as scholars, it made typewriters and guns, scalpels
and piano wire. It fuelled learning, it clothed bodies, it propagated words, it
mowed men down, it cut out cancers and it made music possible. Holloman was a
distillation of where Man had arrived at the dawn of the third millennium. And
that's why maybe it's fitting that a man from Holloman could be
chosen.'
    No one knew what to answer, but three of
them tried.
    'We're with you, Josh,' said James
softly.
    'Every inch of the way,' said
Andrew.
    'And may God have mercy on us,' said
Mary.

     
     
    'Sometimes,' said Miriam slowly, teeth
chattering as she divested herself of her layers of clothing and climbed into
her Dr Denton's, 'I think he cannot possibly be human.'
    'Oh, Mirry, you've known him for so many
years, and still you can say that?' asked James, already in the bed with his
feet hogging the hot-water bottle. 'Joshua is the most human person I've ever
known.'
    'In an inhuman way,' she insisted, then
added quietly, 'He's getting worse. There's been a change this winter. Now he's coming straight out
and asking how can it be him?'
    'He's not getting worse, he's getting
better,' James said drowsily. 'Mama says he's coming into his full
strength.'
    'I don't know which one of them frightens
me more, Joshua or Mama, so I'm going to echo Mary's comment. May God have mercy
on us, Jimmy-boy! Oh, oh, where are you? Put your arms right around me, I'm so cold!'

     
     
    Martha the Mouse scurried into the
kitchen, terrified that she might find Mama still reigning there; every night
she waited patiently until she thought Mama must surely have lain down her
sceptre and gone regally upstairs, then she would make her foray kitchenward to
prepare the hot chocolate Andrew liked to drink once he was tucked up in
bed.
    At first she thought the big black shadow
on the white wall was Mama, and her heart galloped, took a flying jump and
missed, pittered away faintly.
    But the shadow was Mary's, its author
standing at the stove watching a saucepan of milk.
    'No need to go, little one,' said Mary,
tender-toned. 'Keep me company and I'll make your chocolate for you.'
    'Oh, no! Don't trouble — I'll do it,
honestly!'
    'How can it be trouble when I'm making
some for myself anyway? And why don't you send Drew down for a change? Do him
good to wait on you. You spoil him as much as Mama used to, Mouse.'
    'No! No! It — he — I volunteered,
honestly!'
    'Oh, honey, why are you always so
scared?' Mary smiled into the surging contents of the saucepan, added powdered
chocolate, stirred well, turned the gas off, and demonstrated that she had
anticipated Martha's advent by pouring not one but three, full mugs of hot
drink. 'You're such a nice little thing,' she said, putting two of the mugs on a
small tray. 'Too nice for us. Far too nice for Drew. And our Joshua will end up
making mincemeat out of you.'
    The meek little face lit at mention of
the magical name. 'Oh, Mary, isn't he wonderfull?'
    The moment the Mouse uttered her ecstatic
superlative, all the animation died out of Mary. 'Yes, indeed, he is certainly
that,' she said tiredly.
    Her reaction was not lost on Martha,
whose face dimmed. 'I've often wondered—' But she lost courage, couldn't
finish.
    'Wondered what?'
    'Don't you like Joshua?'
    And Mary went stiff,