Free The Alleluia Files by Sharon Shinn

to that chapter of Samarian history. Well, “nuisance” might not be the right word. Jacob Fairman had begun a town-to-town campaign to evangelize for his concept of Jovah—not a god but a machine, a spaceship, left over from the time of the first settlers’ arrival. According to Fairman, this spaceship, which ceaselessly orbited overhead, was endowed with wondrous equipment and abilities. It had huge stores of grain which it could release when the angels prayed for food; it had miraculous chemicals which it could shoot into the atmosphere when the angels prayed for rain. It was equipped with fearsome weaponry which could unleash tremendous destruction when the angels prayed for a thunderbolt to strike the earth—or when mortals displeased the god, and he punished them with his fury.
    The threat of Jovah’s wrath, of course, was the reason the Gloria was sung on an annual basis. It had been written in the Librera, the holy book, that every year at the spring equinox people from all over Samaria must gather and sing to the glory of the god. By coming together in harmony, they were proving to the god that they lived together in peace. If they failed to perform the Gloria on the scheduled day, the god would strike the mountain range on the edge of the Plain of Sharon. If, three days later, they still had not sung, he would strike the river Galilee, which was the border between Bethel and Jordana. If even this failed to convince them to sing, he would loose a thunderbolt that would destroy the world.
    It had happened once, nearly two hundred and fifty years ago, in the time of the Archangel Gabriel. The Gloria had been delayed, and the god had struck down the Galo mountain that used to anchor the southernmost edge of the Plain. There was still, under two and half centuries of creeping undergrowth, a huge black circle of rock where the thunderbolt had fallen. Never since that time had the date been missed.
    But Jacob Fairman had not been impressed by this evidence. Certainly the lightning had struck, he said, but it had been tosseddown by a warship, not by the god’s pointing finger. Every sacred mystery he could explain away through science. The magical Kisses every believer wore in his arm? Electronic links to the ship’s main computer! The ability of angel prayer to call forth sunshine or lure down rain? The ship’s response to preset aural stimuli. Nothing stumped him. Nothing silenced him, either. And a small, growing group of Samarians began to listen to him, to believe him, to question the very foundation of Samarian society.
    Of course, he was outlawed and his words were banned, but he only went underground, and his adherents grew. Many believed Archangel Michael had had no choice but to execute him—Fairman and a handful of his followers—for political treason and religious heresy.
    It hadn’t stopped the Jacobites, however, though for many years they had seemed dormant. Bael, from the time he had been instated as Archangel, had vigorously suppressed them, and everyone had thought he had eradicated their influence. But five years ago there had been an unexpected resurgence in Jacobite fervor. Bael had quelled it in the most ruthless manner possible, aided willingly by his Jansai troops. It would not have been Jared’s way (had he been in Bael’s position), but he had to admit it had been effective.
    Although recently there had been more rumors….
    Jared shook his head. “This girl is too young to be one of the original cultists. She could hardly have been born in Jacob Fairman’s lifetime.”
    “That’s just it.” Mercy sighed. “That’s when she was born.”
    “Tell me.”.
    “It was, as I say, almost thirty years ago. Jacob Fairman’s adherents were turning up in the oddest places. In Luminaux.”
    “I would have expected that,” he murmured.
    “In Castelana. In some of the Manadavvi households. In Cedar Hills.”
    Now Jared sat up straighter. “In
Cedar Hills
? Impossible!”
    Mercy nodded.