The Race for God by Brian Herbert

fleet. The others in his group might board other ships, or they might not go at all. Orbust didn’t care, hadn’t gotten to know any of them very well. Tully knew them best, had rounded them up for the show of force at McMurtrey’s.
    This Kundo Smith with the red collar said he was a NuNu Pentecostalist, and Tully claimed to be a Found-Againer. The denominations they represented concurred with many of Orbust’s Reborn Krassee beliefs, such as one God, Immaculate Conception and Dual Resurrection. In recent weeks they had conducted daily theological sessions, some heated and some amicable. To a limited extent, Orbust concurred with what Appy had said about finding areas of agreement between belief systems. But Orbust intended to use Smith and Tully as a wedge and a source of strength against infidels who were even further from the Lord, with Orbust’s beliefs ultimately prevailing over everyone else’s.
    Orbust wondered who else would be aboard Shusher, and how many Krassians there would be. McMurtrey was no Krassian, not by any stretch of the imagination, and he was to be aboard—the principal passenger, according to Appy. Was this Rooster an atheist? Whatever category he fell into, Orbust admitted grudgingly that McMurtrey’s statement of God’s location rang true. It was like the innate feeling about which ship to go on, akin to Orbust’s belief in God Himself.
    But what purpose could God have in such a messenger? The man had confessed himself a fraud, and God must have known about it all along. Orbust wanted to know more about this buffoon, McMurtrey, about his real religious beliefs, if he held any. With that information, Orbust would be stronger.
    Knowledge equals strength, he thought.
    Orbust contemplated the panoply of religions in the star system, and the representatives of those faiths he had seen in St. Charles Beach. These religions and their adherents were vague, shadowy shapes to him, amalgams of insipid, misdirected people. Barbarians all of them, arid any who didn’t listen to the correct way would burn forever in the fire pits of Hell.

Chapter 4
    She was nubile in every exotic dimension of the word, a graceful, sensuous creature in scanty clothing, cast from the molds of sods. One day a young noble from afar came on invitation to her planetoid, and when he set eyes upon her he was drawn to her in the strongest physical sense. This angered and frightened him, for he was a cerebral young man who had always prided himself on his ability to override the urgings of his libido.
    So he asked her, in the most arctic of tones: “Why can’t you rise above your sexuality?”
    Her reply: “Why can’t any of us?”
    And he had no answer for this.
    —A Folktale of the Old Galaxies

    By the time they reached the white ship Shusher, a crowd had gathered around it. Flashlight beams danced on the riveted skin of the craft, and the air was alive with many languages. To the left and right, McMurtrey noted that every other ship in sight was receiving like attention.
    “Life insurance! Life insurance!” a robot salesman shouted, working the crowd. “See me before you board! Last chance for insurance!”
    Disgusting scum, McMurtrey thought. These robots were more tasteless than any human salesman had ever been, with every answer programmed into them. It was virtually impossible to say “no” to them, so only fools or the very brave engaged a life insurance broker in conversation.
    ‘Never look a life insurance robot in the eye,’ the saying went.
    McMurtrey heard Appy’s voice, looked toward the ship’s entry hatch.
    “Out!” Appy shouted. “A pox if you return! Only the names I call! No luggage or toiletries either, dunderheads! Can’t any of you read?” The computer’s voice had a metallic ring to it when heard from outside the ship, but it remained recognizable.
    Dunderheads? McMurtrey thought. What an odd word for Appy to use. This computer has a bad temper.
    McMurtrey pushed his way through to the