When Father stared into heaven this long it was a test. Maybe it was a test given by God, or maybe Father had already received his answer—received it perhaps the night before when he was writing this sermon—and so the test was from him. Either way, Zeck would pass this test as he passed all the tests laid before him.

  The long minutes dragged. One itch would fade, only to be replaced by another. Father still stared into heaven. Zeck ignored the sweat trickling down his neck.

  And behind him, somewhere among the seventy-three members of the congregation who had come today (Zeck hadn’t counted them, he had only glanced, but as usual he immediately knew how many there were), someone shifted in his seat. Someone coughed. It was the moment Father—or God—had been waiting for.

  Father’s voice was only a whisper, but it carried through the room. “How can I hear the voice of the Holy Spirit when I am surrounded by impurity?”

  Zeck thought of quoting back to him his own sermon, given two years ago, when Zeck was only just barely four. “Do you think that God cannot make his voice heard no matter what other noise is going on around you? If you are pure, then all the tumult of the world is silence compared to the voice of God.” But Zeck knew that to quote this now would bring down the rod of chastisement. Father was not really asking a question. He was pointing out what everyone knew: That in all this congregation, only Habit Morgan was really, truly pure. That’s why God’s answers came to him, and only to him.

  “Saint Nick is a mask!” roared Father. “Saint Nick is the false beard and the false laugh worn by the drunken servants of the God of frivolity. Dionysus is his name! Bacchus! Revelry and debauchery! Greed and covetousness are the gifts he instills in the hearts of our children! O God, save us from the Satan of Santa! Keep our children’s eyes averted from his malicious, predatory gaze! Do not seat our children upon his lap to whisper their coveting into his stony ear! He is an idol of idolatry! God knows what spirit animates these idols and makes them laugh their ho, ho, whoredoms and abominations and braying jackassery!”

  Father was in fine form. And now that he was bellowing the words of God, striding back and forth across the front of the sanctuary, Zeck could scratch the occasional itch, as long as he kept his gaze locked on Father’s face.

  For an hour Father went on, telling stories of children who put their faith in Santa Claus, and parents who lied to their children about Saint Nick and taught their children that all the stories of Christmas were myths—including the story of the Christ child. Telling stories of children who became atheists when Santa did not bring them the gifts they coveted most.

  “Satan is a liar every time! When Santa puts a lie on the lips of parents, the seed of that lie is planted in the hearts of their children and when that seed comes to flower and bears fruit, the fruit of that lie is faithlessness. You do not deserve the trust of your children when you lie for Satan!”

  Then his voice fell to a whisper. “Jolly old Saint Nicholas,” he hissed. “Lend your ear this way. Don’t you tell a single soul what I’m going to say.” Then his voice roared out again. “Yes, your children whisper their secret desires to Satan and he will answer their prayers, not with the presents they seek, and certainly not with the presence of God Immanuel!—no, he will answer their prayers with the ashes of sin in their mouths, with the poison of atheism and unbelief in the plasma of their blood. He will drive out the hemoglobin and replace it with hellish lust!”

  And so on. And so on.

  In Zeck’s mind, the clock that kept perfect time went round the full forty minutes of the sermon. Father never repeated himself once, and yet he also never strayed from the single message. God’s message was always brief, Father said, but it took him many words to translate the pure wisdom of the Lord’s language into the poor English that mere mortals could understand.

  And Father’s sermons never ran over. He wrapped them up right in time. He was not a man who talked just to hear himself talk. He labored his labor and then he was done.

  At the end of the sermon, there was a hymn and then Father called upon old Brother Verlin and told him that God had seen him today and made his heart pure enough to pray. Verlin rose to his feet weeping and could hardly get out the words of the prayer of blessing on the congregation, he was so moved at being chosen for the first time since he confessed selling an old car of his for nearly twice what it was worth, because the buyer had tempted him by offering even more for it. His sin was forgiven, more or less. That’s what it meant, for Brother Habit to call on him to pray.

  Then it was done. Zeck leapt to his feet and ran to his father and hugged him, as he always did, for it felt to him when such a sermon ended that some dust of light from heaven must linger still on Father’s clothing, and if Zeck could embrace him tightly enough, it might rub off on him, so that he could begin to become pure. Because heaven knew he was not pure now.

  Father loved him at such times. Father’s hands were gentle on his hair, his shoulder, his back; there was no willow rod to draw blood out of his shirt.

  “Look, son,” said Father. “We have a stranger here in the House of the Lord.”

  Zeck pulled free to look at the door. Others had noticed the man, too, and stood looking at him, silent until Habit Morgan declared him to be friend or foe. The stranger wore a uniform, but it wasn’t one that Zeck had seen before—not the sheriff or a deputy, not a fireman, not the state police.

  “Welcome to the Church of the Pure Christ,” said Father. “I’m sorry you didn’t arrive for the sermon.”

  “I listened from outside,” said the man. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  “Then you did well,” said Father, “for you heard the word of God, and yet you listened with humility.”

  “Are you Reverend Habit Morgan?” asked the man.

  “I am,” said Father, “except we have no titles among us except Brother and Sister. ‘Reverend’ suggests that I’m a certified minister, a hireling. No one certified me but God, for only God can teach his pure doctrine, and only God can name his ministers. Nor am I hired, for the servants of God are all equal in his sight, and must all obey the admonition of God to Adam, to earn his bread by the sweat of his face. I farm a plot of ground. I also drive a truck for United Parcel Service.”

  “Forgive me for using an unwelcome title,” said the man. “In my ignorance, I meant only respect.”

  But Zeck was a keen observer of human beings, and it seemed to him that the man had already known how Father felt about the title “reverend,” and he had used it deliberately.

  This was wrong. This was a pollution of the sanctuary.

  Zeck ran from Father to stand a few feet in front of the man.

  “If you tell the truth right now,” Zeck said boldly, fearing nothing that this man could do to him, “God will forgive you for your lie and the sanctuary will be purified again.”

  The congregation gasped. Not in surprise or dismay; they assumed that it was God speaking through him at times like this, though Zeck never claimed any such thing. He denied that God ever spoke through him, and beyond that he could not control what they believed.

  “What lie was that?” asked the man, amused.

  “You know all about us,” said Zeck. “You’ve studied our beliefs. You’ve studied everything about Father. You know that it’s an offense to call him ‘reverend.’ You did it on purpose, and now you’re lying to pretend you meant respect.”

  “You’re correct,” said the man, still amused. “But what possible difference does it make?”

  “It must have made a difference to you,” said Zeck, “or you wouldn’t have bothered to lie.”

  By now Father stood behind him, and his hand on Zeck’s head told him he had said enough and it was Father’s turn now.

  “Out of the mouths of babes,” said Father to the stranger. “You’ve come to us with a lie on your lips, one which even a child could detect. Why are you here, and who sent you?”

  “I was sent by the International Fleet, and my purpose is to test this boy to see if he is qualified to attend Battle School.”

  “We are Christians, sir,” said Father. “God will protect us if that is his will. We will lift no hand against our enemy.”

  “I’m not here to argue theology,” said the stranger. “I’m here to carry out the law. There are no exemptions because of the religion of the parents.”

  “What about for the religion of the child?” asked Father.

  “Children have no religion,” said the stranger. “That’s why we take them young—before they have been fully indoctrinated in any ideology.”

  “So you can indoctrinate them in yours,” said Father.

  “Exactly,” said the man.

  Then the man reached out to Zeck. “Come with me, Zechariah Morgan. We’ve set up the examination in your parents’ house.”

  Zeck turned his back on the man.

  “He does not choose to take your test,” said Father.

  “And yet,” said the man, “he will take it, one way or another.”

  The congregation murmured at that.

  The man from the International Fleet looked around at them. “Our responsibility in the International Fleet is to protect the human race from the Formic invaders. We protect the whole human race—even those who don’t wish to be protected—and we draw upon the most brilliant minds of the human race and train them for command—even those who do not wish to be trained. What if this boy were the most brilliant of all, the commander that would lead us to victory where no other could succeed? Should everyone else in the human race die, just so you in this congregation can remain . . . pure?”

  “Yes,” said Father. And the congregation echoed him. “Yes. Yes.”

  “We are the leaven in the loaf,” said Father. “We are the salt that must keep its savor, lest the whole earth be destroyed. It is our purity that will persuade God to preserve this wicked generation, not your violence.”

  The man laughed. “Your purity against our violence.” His land lashed out and he seized Zeck by the collar of his shirt and dragged him sharply backward, toward him. Before anyone could do more than shout in protest, he had torn Zeck’s shirt from his body and then whirled him around to show his scarred back, with the freshest wounds still bright red, and the newest of all still beading with blood from this sudden movement. “What about your violence? We don’t raise our hands against children.”

  “Don’t you?” said Father. “To spare the rod is to spoil the child—God has told us how to make our children pure from the moment they achieve accountability until they have mastered their own discipline. I strike my son’s body to teach his spirit to embrace the pure love of Christ. You will teach him to hate his enemies, so that it no longer matters whether his body is living or dead, for his soul will be polluted and God will spit him out of his mouth.”

  The man threw Zeck’s shirt in Father’s face. “Come back to your house and you’ll find us there with your son, doing what the law requires.”

  Zeck tore away from the man’s grip. The man was holding him very tightly, but Zeck had a great advantage: He didn’t care how much it hurt to pull himself free. “I will not go with you,” said Zeck.

  The man touched a small electronic patch on his belt and immediately the door burst open and a dozen armed men filed in.

  “I will place your father under arrest,” said the man from the fleet. “And your mother. And anyone in this congregation who resists me.”

  Mother came forward then, pushing her way past Father and several others. “Then you know nothing about us,” said Mother. “We have no intention of resisting you. When a Roman demands a cloak from us, we give unto him our coat also.” She pushed the two older girls toward the man. “Test them all. Test the youngest, too, if you can. She doesn’t speak yet, but no doubt you have your ways.”

  “We’ll be back for them, even though the two youngest are illegal. But not till they come of age.”

  “You can steal our son’s body,” said Mother. “But you can never steal his heart. Train him all you want. Teach him whatever you want. His heart is pure. He will recite your words back to you but he will never, never believe them. He belongs to the Pure Christ, not to the human race.”

  Zeck held himself still, so he could not shudder as his body wanted to. Mother’s boldness was rare, and always chancy. How would Father react to this? It was his place to speak, to act, to protect the family and the church.

  Then again, Father had said several times that a good helpmeet is one who is not afraid to give unwelcome counsel to her husband, and a man so foolish that he can’t hear wisdom from his wife is not worthy to be any woman’s husband.

  “Go with the man, Zeck,” said Father. “And answer all questions with pure honesty.”

  * * *

  Zeck got into a hovercar with the man. There was one soldier driving; the rest of the soldiers got into a different vehicle, a larger one that looked dangerous.

  “I’m Captain Bridegan,” the soldier said.

  “I don’t care what your name is,” said Zeck.

  Captain Bridegan said nothing.

  Zeck said nothing.

  They got to Zeck’s house. The door was standing open. A woman was waiting inside, with papers spread out on the kitchen table, along with a pile of blocks and other paraphernalia, including a small machine. She must have noticed Zeck looking at it because she touched it and explained, “It’s a recorder. So other people can hear our session and evaluate it later.”

  Captured lightning, though Zeck. Just another device used by Satan to snare the souls of men.

  “My name,” she said, “is Agnes O’Toole.”

  “He doesn’t care,” said Bridegan.

  Zeck extended his hand. “I’m pleased to meet you, Agnes O’Toole.” Didn’t Bridegan understand the obligation of kindness and courtesy that all men owed to all women, since women’s destiny was to go down into the valley of the shadow of death in order to bring more souls into the world to become purified so they could serve God? What tragic ignorance.

  “I’ll wait out here,” said Bridegan. “If that’s all right with Zeck, here.”

  He seemed to be waiting for an answer.

  “I don’t care what you do,” said Zeck, not bothering to look at him. He was a man of violence, as he had already proven, and so he was hopelessly impure. He had no authority in the eyes of God, and yet he had seized Zeck by the shoulders as if he had a right. Only Father had a duty to purify Zeck’s flesh; no other had a right to touch him.

  “His father beats him,” said Bridegan. And then he left.

  Agnes looked at him with raised eyebrows. But Zeck saw no need to explain. They had known about the chastisement of the impure flesh before they came—how else would Bridegan have known to take off his shirt and show the marks? Bridegan and Agnes obviously wanted to use these scars somehow. As if they thought Zeck wanted to be comforted and protected.

  From Father? From the instrument chosen by God to raise Zeck to manhood? As well might a man raise his puny hand to prevent God from working his will in the world.

  Agnes began the test. Whenever the questions dealt with something Zeck knew about, he answered forthrightly, as his father had commanded him. But half the questions were about things completely outside Zeck’s experience. Maybe they were about things on the vids, which Zeck had never watched in his life; maybe they were things from the nets, which Zeck only knew about because they were damnable webs made of lightning, laid before the feet of foolish souls to snare them and drag them down to hell.

  Agnes manipulated the blocks and then had him answer questions about them. Zeck saw at once what the purpose of the text was. So he reached over and took the blocks from her. Then he manipulated them to show each and every example drawn on two dimensions on the paper. Except one. “You can’t make this one with these blocks,” he said.

  She put the blocks away.

  The next test was entitled “Worldview Diagnostics: Fundamentalist Christian Edition.” Since she covered this title almost instantly, it was obvious Zeck wasn’t supposed to know what he was being tested on.

  She began with questions about the creation and Adam and Eve.

  Zeck interrupted her, quoting Father. “The book of Genesis represents the best job that Moses could do, explaining evolution to people who didn’t even know the Earth was round.”

  “You believe in evolution? Then what about Adam as the first man?”

  “The name ‘Adam’ means ‘many,’” said Zeck. “There were many males in that troop of primates, when God chose one of them and touched him with his Spirit and put the soul of a man inside. It was Adam who first had language and named the other primates, the ones that looked like him but were not human because God had not given them human souls. Thus it says, ‘And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.’ What Moses originally wrote was much simpler: ‘Adam named all the beasts that were not in the image of God. None of them could speak to him, so he was utterly alone.’”

  “You know what God originally wrote?” asked Agnes.

  “You think we’re fundamentalists,” said Zeck. “But we’re not. We’re Puritans. We know that God can only teach us what we’re prepared to understand. The Bible was written by men and women of earlier times, and it holds only as much as they were capable of understanding. We have a greater knowledge of science, and so God can clarify and tell us more. He would be an unloving Father if he insisted on telling us only as much as humans could understand back in the infancy of our species.”

  She leaned back in her chair. “So then why does your father call electricity ‘lightning’?”

  “Aren’t they the same thing?” asked Zeck, trying to hide his contempt.