"Brian Herbert - The Race for God" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

THE RACE FOR GOD
Brian Herbert
Copyright © 1990 by Brian Herbert.
e-book ver. 1.0
ISBN: 0-441-70283-X


For Darel Jenkins and Audrey Alande



Prologue

Many questions arose after Tananius-Ofo, God of the Universe, selected Evander Harold McMurtrey to deliver a startlin
celestial message. Certainly McMurtrey, of the small planet D'Urth, was no religious leader to rival Hoddha, Zillaster, Kra
or Isammed. He was merely the self-proclaimed Grand Exalted Rooster of "ICCC," the Interplanetary Church of Cosmic
Chickenhood.
Never before in history had God spoken through such a droll personage.
It was a crazy time anyway, even before the Holy Event. One escaped Tenusian dissident termed it "an age of peculiar
turmoil, of war mania without evidence of war." According to government propaganda, the terraformed planets Tenusia, M
and Ercu were allied with D'Urth in the "Inner Planet League," opposing a like "Outer Planet Confederacy" comprising the
of the solar system. Inner Planet dissidents were hunted down routinely by Bureau of Loyalty agents and executed without
Often the executions became public spectacles with bizarre means of death, scenes that had chilling and predictable effect
upon the populace.
No one acquainted with McMurtrey knew where the war zones were, if they existed at all, and he didn't pursue the topic
Rumors favored Saturus or the larger moons of Ran us.
McMurtrey, like every other Inner Planet citizen, had to take annual loyalty oaths, and the Bureau assigned him a "Loyal
Quotient." It was like the old IQ number except it was called "LQ" and had other connotations beyond being smart enough
oppose the system. McMurtrey didn't have any idea what his own LO number was, but he knew braggarts who professed
have high numbers.
He didn't care much about any of that, except to the extent that he tried to stay out of trouble.
He had been fairly successful in that regard for a number of years, but he sensed the old ways would never work for him again . . . .



One
In the vast majority of religions, the really nasty practices and beliefs aren't documented in sacred texts. These have becom
matters of practice, of oral tradition or simply of interpretation. Nowhere is it written, for example, that women, blacks and
physically handicapped persons cannot be priests in the Church of Modem Day Believers. But this is the way of the organiza
For this and allied reasons I say to you: Dismantle every religion. —General Commentary, Autobiography of Tananius-Ofo
"Don't waste my time," the little man at the cluttered desk said. "We don't print rubbish in the Crier!"
With two thick pillows on his chair, he still sat lower than McMurtrey. This was James Robbins, the cantankerous manag
editor of the St. Charles Beach Crier, a man whose reputation held he never smiled. He was young, with pale gray eyes.
"Every word is the truth!" McMurtrey heard his voice crack, looked away. I can't sound anxious, he thought. But I've
get the message out!
It was a musty, paper-cluttered postage stamp of an office, with only one other desk and no one at it. Muffled voices and
sounds of machinery came from the other side of a wall to the rear.
"I know about you," Robbins said. "The Grand Exalted Rooster . . . the wacko who goes around with a chicken on his
shoulder." His tone became smooth, an irritating whine: "Where is your little pet this morning?"
"I didn't have to come to your flea-bitten office. Any big city press would—"