Servants of the Lord

by James Stevens

   "The most perverted race in the universe once lived in this solar system," the priest said.
   The priest was small and shaped like a plantain, albeit a plantain with two arms, legs, and pigtails, and he wore a large apron of office embossed with God's logo: a slash of flame against a black field. He spoke in the high-pitched warble typical of natives of dwarf star systems, and was assigned temporarily to religious tour duty.
   "They were destroyed by Conclave warboats armed with hellbombs almost a century ago. And just in the nick of time; I might add. They had already developed rudimentary space travel and had visited their satellite and the nearer planets. O'Ha knows what might have happened if they had swarmed into Civilized Space spreading their filthy ways before we discovered them and had the chance to stop them." 
   A chimpoid acolyte from the Alderbaranian System jerked both hands free from the pockets of his robe and waved them vigorously for attention.
   "Yes?" said Zul, the plantain-shaped priest.
   "Who were these people?" 
   "They called themselves 'earthmen,' " Zul said, "though they were, in fact, not made of earth at all" 
   "I've never heard of 'earthmen,'" said a Betelgeusian bishop in informal vestments. He resembled a small ostrich stuffed inside a large envelope.
   "The whole matter was kept very under-the-cassock by the Council of Prelates back then," Zul said. "The members of the Council feared that news of the discovery of these bestial 'earthmen' might well shock the Conclave peoples so harshly as to cause outbreaks of loss of faith or mass suicides of atonement. The fact is, it is only recently that this system has been opened to theological tours and the whole blasphemous story made available to the faithful" 
   "How were these 'earthmen' discovered and stopped?" said a spiney urchinoid seminarian from the water world of Rill. He was modestly wrapped in cotton wool and felt he had observed his vow of silence long enough.
   Zul's limegreen skin split along one seam in a righteous grin. "Some call it chance-sheer luck-but to me it is yet one more manifestation of the universal justice of O'Ha, for in attempting to spread their vileness, the 'earthmen' succeeded only in sowing the seed of their own destruction. Don't tell me there is no God!" 
   "Brother!" cried a wraithlike Centaurian monk floating mistily within streamers of translucent fabric. "There is indeed a God and we are His humble servants! I pray you tell us more of our Lord O'Ha's wondrous ways." 
   "These godless 'earthmen' sent a plaque into deep span which one of our scoutboats recovered. Our holy scientist~ and blessed mathematicians labored over it until they had al long-last deciphered the meaning of the symbols etched into the plaque. The information included the usual data: the value of pi, sketches of the 'earthmen' themselves, and a map of their solar system indicating the location of their home planet."    "This is catechism-level stuff, priest," said a toad theologian from Tor IV dressed severely in maroon pantaloons.
   "Every intelligent race launches a plaque bearing such information in its earliest stages of space travel, prompted by the same motivation as the child who proclaims, 'Look at me, I can hop!' " 
   "Ah," said Zul in an outraged warble, "but none of our races was so wicked, so corrupt, so utterly evil as to send sketches of ourselves. . . naked!" 
"Naked!" shrieked the chimpoid.
"Naked!" screamed the ostrich.
"Naked!" sputtered the urchinoid.
"Naked!" whistled the wraith.
"Naked!" croaked the toad.
"Naked," Zul said, pigtails stiff with religious wrath. "So now you understand why the Lord God O'Ha ordained the destruction of these heathen 'earthmen.' A race so depraved as to send pornography to the stars had to be exterminated."