Starfist FR - 03 - Recoil Read Online Free PDF

government, are you? That we abandon him? I think he was given to us for a purpose, Zechariah, and if we reject him before we know what that purpose is, we’re defying God’s will.”
    Zechariah snorted. “Funny, how whenever someone wants to do something really foolish they claim they’re only obeying God’s will.”
    “Zechariah!” Hannah stamped a foot on the floor, a habit she had when angry.
    “All right! All right! I’m sorry I said that.” Zechariah sighed and wearily passed a hand across his face. “All this government business up in Haven has, well, secularized me a bit, I guess. But you should hear the excuses some of these sects up there give for not cooperating with perfectly reasonable government reforms! Let me ask you this: What do the others here think of this Moses?”
    At first nobody answered. “Well, they haven’t been around much,” Hannah finally admitted, “except for the black woman and her family.” She meant Judith Maynard, her husband, Spencer, and their boy, Chisi.
    “The rest are wary of him, aren’t they?”
    “Yes, I guess so, Zechariah. Nobody’s said anything because this is your house and nobody’s going to go directly against you or your family; everyone respects you too much for that.”
    “Father?” It was Samuel. “Jedo already can speak a few words.”
    “I doubt that, son. You just think those grunts and mumbles mean something. It’s like people who believe in ghosts; they see them everywhere.” He smiled and playfully swatted the boy’s head. “Okay, here’s what we’ll have to do. I don’t have to return to Haven for a few days, but before I go we’re going to settle the issue of this creature. Tomorrow I’m calling the entire congregation together and we’re going to let everyone speak his piece about this thing here. If the majority votes to
    keep him among us then so be it. Otherwise I take him back to Haven with me and we turn him over to the government. You know perfectly well we’ve never been able to capture one of these things alive or dead. What he can tell us in captivity about his species will be invaluable when and if the big ones ever come back. We can’t in all justice withhold that information from humanity.”
    “His name is Jedo,” Joab said sullenly. He did not like the way his stepfather kept referring to Jedo as a “thing.”
    “Well, we ought to call him ‘Moses,’ because you found him down by the river,” Hannah said, and from that moment on the name had stuck.
    Meeting House, New Salem, Kingdom As was the custom with the City of God sect, each member of the community had a voice in deciding what to do with Moses. Samuel Sewall, the eldest member of the sect and, next to Zechariah Brattle himself, the most highly respected, moderated the debate. Samuel and Joab Brattle were the first to speak, telling how they’d found Moses abandoned by the stream and how they had come to think of him as their little companion—not quite a brother, not quite a pet. They testified to his gentle, harmless, playful nature and urged the congregation to let him stay with their family. But because of their impressionable ages, their testimony was largely ignored by the assembled adults. Many felt giving him the name of Moses amounted to blasphemy. Thereafter the arguments ranged widely as speakers referred to biblical texts to support their points while the rest of the congregation furiously turned the pages of their own books to follow along or to find other scriptural evidence to support new arguments. Most of the congregation was against keeping Moses in New Salem. The people had not forgotten that the Skinks had ruthlessly killed their friends and neighbors, almost destroyed the City of God, and, as one of them pointed out, to forgive them for that would be like forgiving Satan himself. That Moses had had no part in that massacre was considered moot; he was clearly one of them. But it was Zechariah himself who pointed out that at the