Aaron’s Story
My father Jedediah knew in his heart what the Lord, our father, must intend. I could tell by watching him when I diverged from his vision and belief and unto my own, but it was of small consequence. I can not fail to honor both in all that I do. The Soessossins came, hesitantly, to our campsite. They were curious and not at all threatening. I talked to them individually and in mass. The first time though only three presented themselves.
They were looking for something new in their existence, something I would term a redemptive experience, and this, I through the grace of the Lord, was able to afford a means and an endpoint they were willing to consider.
It was strange I thought, that they had only a naturalistic bent in their view of the world. The Soessossins were sophisticated in many things we would consider philosophical in nature but were without the concept of God. It might be easier to say their concept of God subsumed the Guardians but that would have been in error. The Guardians were a fact of nature, part of the universe with no mystical presence. My message filled a void they had not truly recognized they possessed.
In many other ways they were simple in nature, trusting and unassuming. In return for contact and talk they provided us with many of our basic needs. It was not a trading situation but an expression of their nature. They did have a sense of curiosity, but it didn’t seem nearly as strong as in most humans. Their sense of community was far greater.
The one way telepathic experience made some things, like teaching them to read very easy was that they had no trouble following what we were thinking about anytime we read aloud. It was as if they scanned our minds and knew all that we had learned and experienced over a lifetime. Their naturalism was in itself a very spiritual outlook. And I, not being ignorant of evolutionary means, wondered how in the absence of God, they had come to such a position. My father told me that it was the Lords will and I could see that any questioning was thus nonsensical.
From that spiritual perspective they were a blank slate—but they were obstinate and took much convincing.
“I suppose you could refer to me, or us, as Agorah if you must,” the Soessossin said.
I had made my first of many breakthroughs. I knew that this was a collective name but it started a concept of dealing on a one to one basis between us and the Soessossin, and more importantly a way to deal with the Word as God commanded in a direct sense. The Lord could deal with a collective entity… I, as His messenger, was more comfortable on a personal basis.
The way it seemed to me was that Soessossin was a collective name for all of them and the particular group near our landing site was the Agorah subgroup. I think the first group contacted was the Yelsig subgroup. It is too early to tell for sure but it makes it a bit easier to understand them.
Back to reading. They could be taught to read, really just a touch of heads when I looked at the verses, and they could remember. My father had three copies of the Book. I read from one aloud and gave one of the copies to the Agorah so that he might learn more about the holy Word in my absence. I made an immediate connection between the sound of the name Soessossin and the concept of their being chosen. It helped to gain acceptance of my message and I was sure the coincidence was for too strong to be accidental. All of this initial contact and understanding took place within 24 hours of the time we first set down.
But I am getting ahead of myself and will reorder these writings when time permits.
“Well Rev. this looks like as fine a place as any.” Cotton Edwards said setting the shuttle down in a grassy area besides a small creek about ten twenty miles inland. “I was starting to think this whole continent was a desert.”
“The pictures and earlier expedition showed otherwise Brother Edwards, the Lord will provide.”
“Yeah, guess so Jed.”
“Please Brother, thou ought should show respect to the position I hold through the Almighty‘s will.”
“Sure Rev. I just forget some times. What say we get this heap unloaded and then I think I need to move her some ways away? I‘ll try to hide her but don‘t think that will work. When those bastards come for us, and mark my words they will, I want to make it as heard for them as I can.”
“Mrs. Dobswell, Aaron, Ruth, Sister Helen, Sister Martha, let us unload everything so that Brother Edwards may move the ship.”
We unloaded in less than an hour taking our own belongings and all of the shuttles emergency supplies. As we carried things into the surrounding forest I could appreciate how much easier it would be with bots to aid us. But they were an abomination, shaped in the Image of the Lord, without a soul. We were well rid of them.
By the time Brother Edwards returned we had two tents set up, one for the men and one for the woman. My father was in our tent, my mother and sister were gathering wood for a fire and Sister Martha was entering the other tent. I saw Brother Edwards grab his knapsack and follow her inside.
Sister Helen heard the parting of the fabric and saw Edwards standing just inside looking around for a place to set his belongings. “Brother Edwards, this is to be the women’s tent. The rest of your gear is in the other.”
“Now that don’t seem right friendly Sister Helen. I kinda figured what with the Reverend havin’ his wife here and all, that this would be a much better place for the rest of us. Give us all a bit of privacy… if you know what I mean.”
“Brother Edwards!”
Edwards turned, hearing the unmistakable snickety-snick kerchunk sound of a 12 gage pump action, and saw not Sister Martha, but the Marty from the attack on the UNWG cruiser, standing with one of the short barreled shotguns from out of the shuttle held in her firm grasp and pointing right at his midriff.
“You seem to be in the wrong tent Brother Edwards!”
“Why yes I do Sister, indeed I do. I think I’ll just take my things next door,” he said without looking in the least bit worried, or as if anything was out of the ordinary, as he stepped backwards and out of the dome.
“What you looking at boy,” he said to me in a gruff tone of voice.
“Nothing Sir, just getting the fire pit ready.”
“Well get on with it then!”
It was on the second day after we landed when we moved everything another two miles up stream that we met the Soessossins. I had told my father about what I had seen and overheard when Edwards came back from hiding the shuttle. He told me to pray for Brother Edwards, as he was still a work in progress.
The next week set the tone for the next two months. Brother Edwards, my father and I, using only axes and hand tools began constructing a log cabin. The adult women and my sister Ruth cleared and tilled, again and only by hand, a small field to put in the seeds we had taken from the colony. Each afternoon I would meet with Agorah and sometimes as many as a dozen other Soessossins. They were not always the same ones and I was beginning to be able to tell them apart. As I got to know them I assigned names. There was Ephraim and Joseph and Jacob. And as I assigned the names I told them they were the sons of Israel.
We did not have the problems with large carnivorous animals that plagued us at the original landing site. This was likely due to the presence of the Soessossins. They did not help in our day to day work but brought in food, both animal and vegetable, for us to eat and classify as clean or unclean in the sight of the Lord. What they ate in their own camps I do not know. But I admonished them.
That is why I have said to the sons of Israel:
“No soul of you must eat blood and no alien resident who is residing in your midst should eat blood.”Leviticus 17.12
I kept a watch on Brother Edwards, and often, when he thought none looking, he stared intently at Sisters Helen and Martha, and even at my mother and sister Ruth. I feared there would be trouble and a day of reckoning.