Chapter Twenty Three
Intrepid - 3754 C.E.
"Isaac, isn't it?" the Special Operations Officer asked the naked man sitting on a chair opposite him and who was gently restrained by a low intensity force field. "And where do you come from exactly?"
The Holy Crusader might have been defeated but he retained his pride and dignity, despite the humiliation of his continued nudity. "Why should I tell you that?" he responded defiantly.
"A fair question," said Emmanuel reasonably. "There's no penalty for non-cooperation. We shan't reduce your rations, deprive you of sleep or interrogate you further if you don't wish to answer my questions. And what we most certainly won't do, as some of you rebels believe, is torture you. That's been outlawed by the Interplanetary Union from its inception." He paused to study Isaac's face for his reaction. Religious fanatics like him had some very strange ideas about what practices were legal or permitted. "We know a great deal about why you are here and what you tried to achieve. We probably know better than you do the names of those who were responsible for your foolhardy mission and the clandestine means by which your masters managed to acquire the technology that enabled your space ships to remain hidden from the Intrepid's sensors. But we have a duty to return prisoners of warโeven one undeclared and totally unprovokedโto their colonies or planets of origin. For us to do this, we first need to know where you came from."
"Don't you know that?" wondered Isaac who reasoned that if the atheists knew so much already they must surely know the answer to such a simple question.
"Alas, no," said the officer. "We can narrow it down to a couple of dozen of colonies who practise a similar variant of the Christian faith, but we don't maintain a registry of citizens from nations that are unwilling to provide us with the data. Rogue states such as yours are extraordinarily reluctant to allow independent observers within their borders and the Interplanetary Union assiduously observes a policy of non-interference. We know your governments practise methods of indoctrination that are illegal elsewhere. We know that there is a total lack of freedom and normal human rights. But we have no jurisdiction whatsoever over any state that wishes to remain outside the Interplanetary Union. Unless your state should interfere with our affairs, as of course yours has just done, we respect the right of every state to do pretty much whatever they like, notwithstanding how unpalatable it might be."
Isaac objected to the dark skinned officer's characterisation of his home colony. "The Gospel is practised on Holy Trinity with absolute fidelity," he retorted. "There can be nothing unethical, let alone 'unpalatable', in adhering to Holy Writ. As the Lord commands so we obey."
"
Holy Trinity
," mused the special officer. "That's Mercury orbit, isn't it? You are a
very
long way from home."
"I am never far from home when I am in the light of the Lord's charity," said Isaac. "That's something you atheists could never understand."
"Interesting," said Emmanuel. "I imagine it that you believe that I'm an atheist. No doubt your reasoning is that a secular body such as the Interplanetary Union must therefore be home only to atheists. The truth, Isaac, is that I am
not
an atheist. In fact, I am a Christian. It would be nice to say that I was a Christian like you, but that isn't true. The Christianity I practise is so very different to yours that it's very unlikely that you would even recognise it as such."
"Are you a heretic or a Roman Catholic?" asked Isaac who was stirred to curiosity despite himself. "Surely, no true Christian could live amongst the damned and accursed."
"Jesus Christ and His Disciples lived in the company of unbelievers," Emmanuel remarked. "And they preached to those who were sceptical and often hostile. However, my faith is such that although I follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and the tradition of his faith in the manner of most Christians in the Interplanetary Union you'd almost certainly characterise my faith as heresy. I don't, for instance, believe in the Resurrection. I don't believe that Christ was any more the Son of God than any other prophet. I don't believe in Judgment Day. I don't believe in an after-life: let alone one that damns the vast majority of Creation to an eternity of torment. And I don't even believe in what you might call a God."
"Then how can you call yourself a Christian?" asked Isaac incredulously. "You deny all the truths revealed in the Gospels and yet profess to the worst heresies of all."
"Faith is not just creed or dogma, Isaac," said Emmanuel. "I find great comfort in prayer and I regularly attend Church services. My belief in the Christian faith sustains my spiritual needs and provides me with an ethical framework. But my Christian faith is more like the practise of most Muslims, Buddhists, Jews or Hindus in the Interplanetary Unionโwho also no longer profess a mystical belief in eternal life or an anthropomorphic Godโthan it is to the faith practised in Holy Trinity, or indeed to any of the other hundreds of rogue states that profess to one of the many extreme, supposedly Christian, theologies."
"How can you call a Christian society a rogue state?" asked Isaac. "It is the heretics, atheists and pagans who are the rogues in the Solar System."