Alien Evangelist 2

"I think the Lord is calling us to go to Planet Thaarg," said Neville, to everyone who was sitting in the lounge, gazing at the stars that they were beautifully racing past the window.
"No," said Magnus. "The Lord wants us to go to Andromeda."
"That's in completely the opposite direction," said Neville.
"The Thaarg have heard the gospel already," said Kelvin. "They rejected the kingdom. That is why they are persecuting Christians."
"What do you want to go to Thaarg for?" asked Jonas. "They'd kill you just as soon as you said you were a Christian."
"I have been reading about the life of Brother Andrew," said Neville, "a man who lived hundreds of years ago, a hundred thousand years ago now. There's so much he did to help persecuted Christians. He smuggled Bibles, he spoke to governments, the Lord told him to, 'awake and strengthen what remains and is at the point of death.' We should do the same for the Christians on Thaarg."
"Our mission is to boldly go where no person has gone before," said Magnus, "and preach the gospel to planets as far away as possible, where no one has ever heard the gospel."
"It'll take 2.6 million years to get to Andromeda."
"It'll only feel like a few weeks."
"The Magellan Cloud and Planet Thaarg would feel like a couple of days. Can't we go there first and then go to Andromeda?"
"No," said Magnus. "The course to Andromeda has already been set, we're already on our way there."
There was something like a camera flash, if people born in the 24th century could possibly have imagined a camera with a flash gun.
"What was that?" asked Kelvin.
"It was a supernova," said Neville. "See all the rings of clouds scattered around that star? They weren't there before."
"Those rings of clouds represent matter being ejected from the explosion at very high speed," said Magnus.
"I can see it moving," said Neville. "There must be lots of it. At what sort of distance is a supernova dangerous?"
"Is it dangerous?" asked Jonas. A loud noise like a series of fireworks exploding could be heard. Each one caused the whole ship to shake.
"Yes," said Magnus. "A supernova is dangerous. It creates a huge amount of debris travelling close to the speed of light that obliterates everything within 50 light years. That debris just collided with the ship." The steady motion of the stars through the lounge window stopped. "Our engines have stopped and we're drifting."

For several weeks the spacecraft drifted slowly through space. The stars outside the window no longer seemed to zoom past but instead slowly drifted.
"This is boring," said Jonas. "I thought we'd be in Andromeda by now."
"Well, even drifting across the Magellan cloud at one tenth of the speed of light is actually quite exciting," said Magnus. "Ten times faster than a flying saucer and further out than anyone has been before."
"I like having nothing to do," said Neville, "it gives me plenty of time to read my book."
Neville gazed at the ten inch tablet he was carrying.
"Your book looks ancient," said Jonas. "That's like something from hundreds of years ago."
"That's because it is from hundreds of years ago," said Neville.
"Why do you have to read it?" asked Kelvin. "Can't you get it to talk to you?"
"If I find a sound recording or a video it will talk to me."
"Why don't you then?"
"I actually enjoy reading, Kelvin."
"Neville," said Jonas, "since the age of the talking iwatch few of us have enjoyed reading. If you can get the tutor to talk to you on the screen, if you can get audio/video files on the same subject, why bother?"
"You have to read sometimes," said Neville. "When you take an exam, don't you have to read questions and answer them?"
"Yes," said Jonas, "and you have to write essays. But why read at any other time?"
"Because if you don't read, you will have a terrible vocabulary and, when you take your exam, you'll have forgotten how to spell."
"That's rubbish," said Magnus. "I hardly ever read and I'm good at passing exams."
"Well, that's what they taught me when I went to school in the 21st century."
"Neville, that's simply not true," insisted Kelvin. "People who have a poor vocabulary and can't spell need therapy for their dyslexia. It's not because they never read. It's not laziness. It's not poor teaching. It's an illness."

A siren wailed on the spacecraft. A face appeared on the screen in the small equipment office that Magnus called the cockpit. It was a face like a huge insect with compound eyes and a suction tube. Magnus screamed.
"Didn't think I was that ugly," said the creature.
"No, not ugly," said Magnus. "Different."
"You're not so good looking yourself, mate. If I look like a huge dung beetle to you, what do you look like to me?"
"How do you know what dung beetles look like?"
"I am a huge dung beetle."
"But insects breathe through spiracles and can only grow to a small size."
"No one told me. Now we've introduced ourselves, perhaps you'll tell me why I've been picking up a CQD signal for the last 10,000 years?"
"How far does our signal travel?"
"Right across the Magellan clouds, mate. What is the nature of the emergency? I hope you haven't wasted thousands of years of police time."
"Our starship was struck by material from a supernova and the engines are dead."
"You have got problems, haven't you? How long ago did this happen?"
"About one and half million years ago, or about three weeks ship time. We have enough resources to carry on for 6 months. The starship is built to travel a long distance."
"Is it? You sail the universe in something that looks like a chocolate pudding? Next time you build a Dyson sphere, why don't you build it around a main sequence star or a black hole? Something that's going to give you a decent amount of power. An ageing brown dwarf is a good power source for a launderette, it could power a tumble dryer."
"Well, you can't travel any faster than light, and this thing travels close to light speed."
"No, of course you can't travel faster than light.  It just depends on whether you want to spend eternity travelling in something the size of a 21st century space station. Our spacecraft is more like a planet. It has forests, oceans and polar ice caps. We live in huge cities. It's unlikely people travelling to the stars would ever see their home planet again. We brought ours with us. Well, I'll fly this thing back to the police station and get someone to come out and repair your ship. See you in a few centuries."

A liveried flying saucer, white and about the size of a transit van, with green letters on the side in what looked like Chinese writing, hovered through the sliding door into the starship. The door of the saucer opened. A creature with a large head like a fly screamed when he saw Neville. "Sorry," said the fly creature. "I didn't mean to be planetist. I'm just not used to seeing people with tiny little eyes and mouths instead of suction tubes."
"I'm not used to seeing people with heads like giant flies," said Neville. "The feeling of horror is mutual."
"I like your little ship," said one of the other fly people. "You have confirmed my theory, that a people with technology millions of years behind ours could travel the entire universe in something that looks like that. Now, by the look of it, this ship is really badly damaged. It's going to take a couple of days to repair. Do you want to go on to our ship for a holiday while we do the repairs?"
"For a holiday?" asked Neville.
"Our ship isn't like a space station, it's more like a planet. There's plenty for you to do. Go on an expedition to one of the poles. Cross one of the deserts. Climb a mountain."
"Wow," said Neville. "That's what we'll do."

The missionaries landed their flying saucer near one of the poles of the alien planet ship. They were standing on a glacier several miles long. Neville's body felt warm from a space suit that had electric coils in it like an electric blanket. But his face felt freezing cold. A family of penguins with insect heads pushed their suction tubes down through the ice and had a drink.
"Isn't nature wonderful," said Kelvin. A polar bear with an insect face and covered in white fur came bounding along. The penguins ran away from it. It pursued them quickly. It caught a penguin. Kelvin screamed.
"Don't look! That creature's sucking the penguin's brains out of it's skull."

They got in the flying saucer and flew to a desert region. It felt hot, especially after being at one of the planet's poles.
"If this is a Dyson sphere," asked Neville, "it's all at the same distance from the star on a globe going all the way around it. Why isn't it the same temperature everywhere?"
"The differences in temperature are artificial. They wanted real weather," said Magnus.
"But why?"
"If it was the same temperature at the polar regions there wouldn't be any penguins. Or any of the wonderful flora and fauna you see here." A cactus the size of a tall tree was growing in the desert sand. It was covered in plants that looked like small pink roses. A lion with an insect head chased a kangaroo with huge compound eyes that was bouncing on its hind legs across the sand. The lion had huge pincers either side of its mouth, either of which looked as if it was capable of cutting off a man's hand.
"I don't like the look of those pincers he keeps waving about," said Jonas.
"It'll be using them on its prey, not you," said Magnus.
"How do we know we're not its prey?" They walked for several miles across the sands that felt hot under their feet in their thin plastic open toed sandals. The flying saucer, the cactus and the animals had disappeared.
"Is that a river in the distance or is it a mirage?" asked Neville.
"What's a mirage?" asked Kelvin.
"An optical illusion. A trick of the light that used to drive people mad in deserts because they're dying of thirst, and they think they see water."
"Didn't they have digital contact lenses?" asked Kelvin.
"No, digital contract lenses hadn't been invented."
"It's not a mirage," said Jonas. "I see it too." At the river there was a big pride of lions who were all pushing their long tubes down into the water and having a drink. "Let's go somewhere else."

They returned to the saucer. They flew above a city and they could see a huge temple. There was a big square of pavement covered in purple tiles in front of the temple. The saucer landed there. A fly person wearing a bright green robe came towards them.
"Join us," said the fly creature, in a female voice. "I am Mother Windocull. It's almost time for communion." They followed the priest into the temple and into a small room at the back, where there were half a dozen fly creatures and a bottle of blue wine.
"Do you have communion here?" asked Neville.
"Only with wine," said the priest. "Not with bread, that would be difficult." Mother Windcull poured the blue wine into a series of small egg cups that were spread out on a table. "On a planet 3 billion light years away, 3 billion years ago, there was another Jesus and he had blue blood. It wasn't your job to preach the gospel to the entire universe, it was ours."
"But if that's the case," asked Neville, "why did Jesus have to come to Earth as well? Why did Jesus have to die twice?"
"It was such a long time before your planet made inter stellar contact. Only 7,000 years since the time when Adam and Eve took the fruit and the second coming of Christ. You only made inter stellar contact in the last few hundred years of that time. There's no way we'd ever have reached you."
"Don't most planets take a long time to make interstellar contact?"
"Some take a million years. But at least the planets are still there after a million years. Earth was an especially wicked planet. It came under God's judgement. Jesus didn't come to join a church picnic in the park. He came to judge the earth. He came because persecution of Christians had become so violent that God had to intervene. He came because there was so much apostasy that it was a waste of time preaching the gospel, no one was listening. Like the huge asteroid that will go smashing into Planet Thaarg one day." The priest began to pray. "Thank you Lord for sending Jesus, thank you Jesus that you came. We remember your death at the hands of the soldiers. We remember how your blood was spilled." The fly creatures all put their long tubes into the egg cups of blue wine. Neville and his companions took theirs in their hands. They all drank together.

They flew the flying saucer back to the starship. A fly person with a rocket strapped to his back lowered himself from one of the solar panels a hundred yards above the ship. He came through the sliding door, where Magnus and his companions were, and where the white saucer with the green Chinese writing was still parked.
"We've just finished," he said. "Everything's all right. It'll get up to near light speed and it'll fly again. Tell you what, you're only 300 light years from Thaarg. Why don't you pay them a visit?" The workmen left. The starship flew at full speed, the stars seeming to move quickly past the windows again, for what seemed like half an hour. The television came on in the lounge. There were pictures of an asteroid seen through a telescope.
"A huge asteroid is hurtling towards Thaarg. It is going to hit us in 50 years time. The scientists say that there is nothing they can do." A creature covered in brightly coloured feathers, looking like a budgerigar, appeared on the screen.
"The asteroid is 3 miles wide. It is too heavy to be deflected by the usual method of exploding a nuclear warhead a few miles away from the asteroid."
"Why don't you crash the warhead directly into it?" asked the interviewer.
"If we did that, we might break the asteroid into hundreds of tiny fragments. The entire planet would be showered with deadly asteroids the size of a sports stadium." The king of Thaarg appeared on the screen, a budgerigar creature wearing a golden crown and with red robes.
"I am Lucretia, King of Thaarg. Is there anyone out there in the universe who can come and help us? Is there anyone out there who can help us evacuate the planet or do anything to save us from this terrible asteroid?"
"I will go to speak to the king of Thaarg," said Neville.
"By yourself?" asked Kelvin.
"Yes. That's what I have to do."
"And what will you say to him?"
"Whatever words God gives me to say to him at the time."
"I've parked the starship 12 light days from Thaarg," said Magnus. "It would take 1200 days for you to get there in a flying saucer and it would feel like only a few seconds. You would arrive in plenty of time."
"I will go to see the king of Thaarg," said Neville. "And if I perish, I perish."