Here is an excerpt from my JW sci-fi novel, THE MONORAILS OF MARS
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'HOLY TRINITY'
Jack Clayton stood next to LouiseBoyd scanning the room the way a lighthouse beam penetrates fog. His gaze landed everyplace at once. They stood calm and cool inside the executive offices of the Director of NEW WORLDS SOCIETY, Judge Rutherford. His was the top floor of the tallest building on Mars. His Vice-President, Nathan Knorr sat across from him flanked by resident oracle, Frederick Franz. The Holy Trinity they were called—behind their backs.
Judge Rutherford heaved a melodramatic sigh signaling his impatience.
“Well—don’t just stand there like Roman centurions—find a perch. I’ve taken the trouble to include my associates so I don’t have the burden of repeating what you say this evening.”
Clayton swiveled his head like a tank commander focusing his cannon on the enemy target. His gray eyes bore in and locked on the Judge, leaving no doubt whatsoever something justified was about to come down as brimstone upon Gomorrah.
“We prefer to stand. Your job is to listen and my job is to see it done without
interruption.” Clayton spoke flatly.
Immediately, Nathan Knorr’s face fell like a soufflé with a door slam.
“You don’t mean to threaten us—do you?”
Clayton squinted at the man with cold regard.
“You don’t want to find that out the hard way.”
Frederick Franz curled his lip at this and turned his head to the Judge as if to say, ‘We don’t have to listen to this fool—let’s go.’
Louise lifted her arm and pointed her finger at Franz like a school teacher
admonishing a class clown.
“Earlier today my companion Jack here, tore Major-domo Mur-dok into pieces because he didn’t like his attitude. What do you suppose will be left of your scrawny carcass if you attempt to walk out on me before I speak?”
Franz scrunched his nose and dropped his brow at that instant. His mouth started working like a fish removed from the water, signaling he thought himself too valuable to be the object of any threats.
“Why are you two ruffians wasting my time—? I’m an important administrator of prophesy on two worlds—how dare you!”
At once Rutherford held up his right hand like a traffic cop motioning toward
Clayton. His left hand he placed on Franz’s arm as if to restrain any further motion or comment. The Judge had spent eighteen months in a Federal Prison in Atlanta back on Earth. He had learned the cost of an unwise word spoken the wrong way to the wrong man.
“Please excuse my associate, Mr. Clayton—Freddy is a piss and vinegar man who sort of reminds me of a Bantam rooster we had on my Father’s farm. Heh-heh—I saw my Dad take a shotgun and make dinner out of that little sum bitch one summer for crowing an hour before sunrise. Now Freddy—don’t you go crowing here this evening or Mr. Clayton will have your drumsticks on his supper table before the night’s done.”
Franz listened slack-jawed as though a refrigerated mouse had crawled up his rectum. The message came through loud and clear. He slumped with his lower lip out like a chastened child.
“Please continue Miss Boyd—we’re ready to hang on every word.”
Louise had kept her eye on Jack Clayton as the Judge spoke. She was learning to recognize what an extraordinary ally she had in him; totally convinced Clayton would tear down the very building in which they stood like Sampson in the temple at Gaza if her safety were at stake.
Boyd faced all three cynical faces dead on almost able to smell their sense of superiority filling the room like septic bilge.
“I’ll speak and be done. I grew up near San Francisco in one of the most beautiful cities ever built. When I look at what you’ve done turning Earth into a pustule—I confess to a strong impulse of loathing.”
Nathan Knorr’s eyes had started rolling around in his head as he twitched this way and that calculating if it were possible to run. But, he was a smart enough man to know a rash act would crash and burn him.
Franz tucked his chin into his chest like an ancient tortoise. He was shrinking in size, pulling into his smallest physical possibility. Had it been feasible he might have vanished in a puff of smoke.
The Judge sat still for what was certain to be a tongue-lashing by the young
woman. He knew what a tongue-lashing meant, too. From his father, he withstood the vilest Christian curses as a boy. From his courtroom opponents, he often received both barrels in a rebuttal. He had taken in a deep breath and steeled himself until her big wind passed like a tornado through a wheat field.
Louise continued, calmly at first. Then, as she built up a head of steam the color came into her cheeks and her back got up like a mother cat among dogs.
“How do men like you live off lies the way you do? Anything that comes out of you at either end is all the same horseshit. But, you’re in love with all of it and expect us to love it too.”
The men sat stone still; their faces reddening—like a courtroom artist's sketch rather than living entities on the receiving end of a verbal firing squad.
“I’ve spoken with many of the people you’ve destroyed. You use God like a
tomahawk, don’t you? You hack away at those who question your distortions. You chop, hack, and ruin the happiness of families as easily as a wilful child stomps an anthill just to watch hapless creatures run riot.”
Clayton’s eyes were burning holes in the Judge and the big self-important buffoon had blinked.
Once he’d flinched, his cool exterior began to melt little by little. He knew he was losing his composure, too. Boyd could see beads of sweat breaking out on Rutherford's forehead and upper lip. But—he dared not reach for a handkerchief to dab perspiration out of his eyes. That would be overt signal he was a whipped puppy with tail tucked.
Fred Franz’s mouth felt very dry. He kept smacking his lips trying to summon moisture, but doing no good. The Judge shot him a look, annoyed by sounds he was making.
“You are jackals and buzzards guilty of tearing down the throne of heaven to become rulers of your private kingdom in hell. One month from today at the evening ceremony for the completion of the monorail—I am here this evening to warn you in advance—any person who remains on Mars for that event may not survive the night.”
At this moment, he snapped: Judge Joe Rutherford had had enough back sass!
“Are you finished wasting our precious time braying like a jackass in heat?”
Very subtle movements in Judge Rutherford’s right hand had caught Clayton’s eyes the last few minutes of Louise’s speech.
First, the Judge had scratched his shoulder. Then, he had rubbed his belly. Little by little he had straightened his suit coat and pulled at his cuffs until reaching this moment. At the words—jackass in heat—Rutherford had reached into his coat at waist level and had drawn something out hidden by his large desk.
The unmistakable click of a double-action revolver reached Jack Clayton’s ears. At that instant, Nathan Knorr jerked sideways and tilted his head to see if what he had heard matched his fears.
Franz opened his mouth to shout the words, “Don’t be insane—“yet none of these actions had the necessary leeway in time to reach intended completion.
The crash of broken glass struck the Director’s ears with outrageous alarm sending three heads to pivot away from Clayton toward the spectacle of incoming shards exploding like a thousand pieces of ice toward their faces.
A blur of movement accompanied by an extraordinary sound of supernatural horror unhinged the sanity of all but two who occupied the corporate office. What transpired in the following five seconds could not be believed unless it had been witnessed from a safe distance.
No Apocalypse of Christian imagination could have rivaled the boisterous
explosion of fury visited upon that moment of doom.
At that instant, Judge J.F. Rutherford raised his .44 caliber pistol toward Clayton and Boyd with his index finger curled about the trigger in malice and certainty—what burst into their midst but the extraordinary sight of a 600 pound mutant Gigantopith Gorilla at full tilt. Its jaws had parted with yellow-fanged tusks protruding like sharpened daggers and its momentum and rage left little doubt of the Judge’s fate. He had sealed his own doom the second his threat had been directed toward the Lord of Beasts and his mate.
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The hammer fell, transferring energy to the firing pin which struck the primer,
igniting propellant inside the cartridge of Joe Rutherford’s pistol. Hot gases
expanded, building pressure behind the lead bullet, pushing it down the gun
barrel and out the opening in the muzzle, dropping pressure in the barrel itself.
The grooves in the gun barrel added torque to the lead which spun fast enough to
keep the deadly slug headed straight and true.
The Judge had intended to scare the young lady shitless and cripple her
Cro-Magnon boyfriend if he charged across the room after him. He had reckoned
the man Clayton was big enough to do him damage—but, too big to move fast
enough to outrun a bullet. He never got the opportunity to prove himself right.
The shattering window had been a game change.
The momentum of a quarter ton of muscle could not be stopped by the weapon in
his hand unless he was lucky enough to strike the slavering beast exactly in its
raging heart before it fell upon him and removed his head from his body. The
Judge had reckoned one way or the other he was in for a heap of hurt.
The Tower Directors on his flanks had let out a couple of sissy yelps the instant of
the breaking glass, but old Joe swiveled the muzzle and kept his head, pulling an
instinctive shot just like shooting rats on his Dad’s farm.
The gun muzzle flashed with a thundering BANG!
In seconds it was over. But, it hadn’t turned out the way the Judge had expected it
to go. His Mom had always said this funny little phrase when friends or family had
chided her, saying Joe had lost a case in court. She’d just make a face like sour
lemons and tell them, “It ain’t over till the Fat Lady Sings.”
Suspended in mid-air for one half second, the “Fat Lady” in the form of a
Gigantopith Gorilla had collided with Joe’s bullet.
The muzzle velocity of the .44 caliber slug was 1,500 feet per second and it passed
clean through the meat just under the ape’s clavicle and out the other side. In
accordance with Sir Isaac Newton’s observation that—an object in motion
continues in motion unless acted upon by an outside force—the gorilla met a
counter-force which changed the trajectory of its forward motion just enough.
Before the Judge could pull off another shot he was forced to launch himself
backward from the heavy oak table away from the outreach of the beast’s
awesome paws. This left Nathan Knorr in the direct path of a cyclone of
rampaging energy, in no mood to kiss and make up.
Across the room Jack Clayton and Louise Boyd riveted their respective stares on
what transpired next. The gorilla landed half across the table and slid like a runner
coming in to home base off a triple.
The instant Knorr was inside the ape’s embrace the man disappeared. A horrible
cacophony of crunching and screaming and spurting blood left a small pool of
soggy clothing and sundry body parts for sorting. Knorr’s head and face were
gnawed into a candy apple of red mush.
At the same moment, Rutherford upended--toppling his chair backward to the
floor—pistol still in hand. Freddy Franz choked on fear crawling toward the exit
like a 2-year old that hadn’t learned to walk. His gibbering and the stain in his
britches appeared most appropriate to that analogy.
The Judge knew he might only own another second and a half of opportunity to
set things straight and prevent the Fat Lady from breaking into song. He rolled
over on his side and proceeded to pump five deafening blasts of lead into the
bloody monster before it could do him in.
The bullets tore through the ribcage, heart, lungs and liver of the Gigantopith
Gorilla. She fell dead as Tuesday’s laundry not six inches from the old man’s
smoking pistol hole.
The Judge smirked and sat upright, readying himself for a full-throated
gloat—except for the shadow which had fallen across him from another kind of
beast towering over him at that moment: Jack Clayton.
Jack Clayton loomed perfectly calm and without any symptom of temper. He
unhurriedly extended his hand to lift the old Judge up from his awkward nest on
the bloodied floor.
Clayton lifted the man with one hand like he was a stack of newspapers. The
message of that strength was not lost on Judge Rutherford. He snuffled a few
times and caught his breath and then thanked Clayton in an absent-minded way,
and looked around the room.
“Where’s Freddy?”
Clayton flashed a wry smile.
“Just follow the brown stain—you’ll find him soon enough.”
The Judge heaved the sort of sigh you see in a child after his dad has busted his
butt with a leather strap. He had been traumatized for certain—there was no
disguising the stress of it.
Louise Boyd had simply taken in the entire scene with detached amusement,
pitying the plight of the dead she-beast well enough.
“As I was saying before our little interruption—you have two choices. Evacuate all
your people in a month’s time—or this planet and life itself will bid you goodbye.
Now, go wipe that brown smirk off your ass.”
Clayton and Boyd strolled confidently from Rutherford’s office leaving the Tower
President slumped awkwardly as though an amateur actor in a disappointing play
at the local Bijou. No applause for Joe.
<Snip>
