Here is a summary of the fourth chapter from Heaven’s Ant Farm. Click here for a synopsis or click here to see the agent query letter for a brief description of this science fiction novel. Let me know what you think!
Chapter 4- Yahweh’s Sadness
Judge Jehoel, the senior elder of the Grand Council of Heaven summons Lucifer to explain himself. But Lucifer defies the high court. He accuses Heaven of breaking the Sixth Rule of Life by interfering in Earth’s development, then declares that because of Yahweh’s meddling, Korbibtor has cursed any life that develops there. Lucifer then incites his followers to rise up in civil disobedience. Fearing another holy civil war, the Grand Council decides to expel Lucifer and his Korbibtorian followers to Gehenna. They order the Cherubim army that protects Heaven from space pirates, to modify Heaven’s QUEST satellite network to systematically zap the Korbibtorian followers to Gehenna. Soon, the Korbibtorians are ‘caught up’ as the modified QUEST system zaps them, one-by-one to Gehenna. But Lucifer and some of his followers escape this great rapture. During the next several days in Heaven, millions of years pass on Earth. The man-apes have evolved to become Homo sapiens in a place called Africa. Guilt ridden, Yahweh feels a moral imperative to lead an Earth mission to fix the situation. But first, Yahweh and the scientists must design a QUEST network hyperdrive device that can transport a large group of people and material safely and all at once instead of the one-at-a-time approach used to expel the Korbibtorians. Not knowing of Lucifer’s escape, Yahweh brings Gwendolyn and Alexander to his lab and shows Alexander some critter cams that will be used to track the animals on Earth. “With these, we can tune into and know what other humans and some animals see, hear and think,” he tells a wide eyed Alexander. Suddenly, Lucifer and his gang burst into the lab to steal the QUEST hyperdrive intent on tempting humankind on Earth to use their free will irresponsibly. They take the QUEST hyperdrive along with powerful weapons originally intended to protect the scientists from large predators that may still be lurking on the planet. Lucifer also steals the critter cams. Unable to escape, Gwendolyn dies in a gun battle between the well-armed Korbibtorians and the local university security guards. Yahweh tries to capture Gwendolyn’s soul with a prototype Soul Storage Unit but faulty wires preclude this from happening. Yahweh then finds his son, who also died in the crossfire. Outraged, Yahweh and the Cherubim soldiers quickly track Lucifer down and expel him on what they think will be a one way trip to Earth, believing that the relatively fast flow of time (compared to Heaven) will reduce him just a short term nuisance. But Lucifer takes his expulsion as an opportunity to tempt the Earthly humans. So, for the next several years on Earth, a few weeks from Heaven’s prospective, he observes the villagers and develops a plan. His goal—figure out how best to lure the powerful and wealthy to abuse the weak and the poor. Seeing that the villagers believe they can speak with the forest animals, Lucifer decides to use a critter cam to communicate with them through the animals. He figures out how to use the peppercorn sized device, then masquerades as a snake and introduces himself to a local villager named Eve. Having observed Eve and the others for a long time, Lucifer knows that the village elders consider Eve an outcast and have punished her as such. So, he tells Eve about free will and speaks against her village’s communal way of life. Then he convinces her that free will gives her the right to keep what she earns or to trade with her neighbors in a way that she receives more than what she gives. He tells her, “that is how to free yourself from the elder’s stranglehold and have a more luxurious life.” But he says nothing about helping those unable to care for themselves. Meanwhile, back in Heaven, as he works on a safer version of the modified QUEST hyperdrive, Yahweh watches the Pearly Gate holographic recordings of Lucifer’s handiwork. He watches, helplessly, as Eve tells Adam about her encounter with Lucifer. He sees as they conspired to overthrow the elders by trading with their neighbors instead of giving everything they have away as is local custom. Soon Eve and Adam are living more grandly than anyone in the village, including the elders. They easily entice others with the promises of free will and trade and teach them a new way of life. The young and strong are soon thriving but, to Yahweh’s dismay, the old and feeble are suffering. And ever since her death, Yahweh has missed Gwendolyn’s telepathic refuge and comfort. Now the guilt and anger within him escalates even further when he finds out that Eve and Adam plan to murder the village elders. Yahweh’s remorse drives him to the point of suicide as he witnesses the rise of poverty, discontent and violence all brought on by his insistence on starting life on Earth. He should have heeded the Sixth Rule of Life.
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