Genesis Space Book One: Ascent to Heaven: The Church of Man: Genesis Space, #1

By Michael White

The Church of Man is built on one single belief. The Church believes that mankind is alone in the universe and is, therefore, the one true ruler of all that it can see. It believes also that humanity has reached the pinnacle of evolution and to believe anything else is to believe in a myth; to succumb to the sin of blasphemy; to commit a crime. Man is man, and is no more than that. Mankind stands alone in the universe. Man is supreme, and The Church of Man enacts his will.
 The Church of Man's word is final - any who disagree shall be known as an Artificer and an enemy of the church.
An enemy of the church of man is destined for destruction and death. The purveyors of the lies of psychics and non-humans are enemies of the church and will be eradicated.

"Man is man."

Thousands of years after the establishment of the new home of mankind at the planet designated as Homeworld Earth, the Church of Man rules supreme throughout the entire known reach of humanity and across the vast reach of thousands of galaxies of known space. The premise of the church is simple. There are no aliens. There are no true gods. Man is alone, and his destiny lies in his hands and his hands alone. Mankind has taken to its heart a religion that states as one of its basic tenets that there is no god, that their churches are raised as monoliths of disbelief. To challenge this is to risk death, for the church is supreme, and brooks no debate about its basic beliefs.

Those who do speak against the church of man are denounced as Artificer's; enemies of the state and their only path is one of death and dishonour. Any evidence that the tents of the church of man are incorrect is disparaged, the evidence destroyed, the perpetrators decried as terrorists, and once captured, eradicated.
Every year the Church's main cathedral on Homeworld Earth recruits a new class of priests, who once ordained after arduous years of training, will spread throughout known space, ensuring the doctrines of unbelief are spread among all humanity and adhered to at all costs. 

Things are about to change.

Into a galaxy that man has spread across like the colonists of old, a large cast of characters will come together to undergo a journey into the heart of space to challenge every faith and concept upon which the religion of disbelief is founded.

Genesis space: Death in Heaven: The Church of Man is the new science fiction space opera from the best selling author, Michael White.

Space will never be quite the same again… 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike White
• Release date: Apr 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201724023

Michael White

Michael White was a science lecturer before becoming a full-time writer and journalist. He is the author with John Gribbin of the bestselling ‘Stephen Hawking – A Lifetime in Science’. He is a regular contributor to the ‘Sunday Times’, the ‘Observer’,the ‘Daily Telegraph, GQ, Focus’ and ‘New Scientist’.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

SERTUS MINING SHIP XZ581: PLANETFALL VASULUS SECTOR 24TH JULY AD 2170 POST DAY SHIFT. SUNRISE ESTIMATED IN TWELVE HOURS AND SEVENTEEN MINUTES. MINING VESSEL TP CODE AST3791: THE NEW DAWN

I swear if I see another fucking rock I am going to crush it with my teeth.

The man sat at the head of the table’s voice was louder than was necessary, grabbing the attention of the other five men gathered around him. They sat in a huddle facing each other, all nursing what could only be illicit alcohol that half-filled the small glasses they all held. They had a look of laboratory about them these glasses, as if they may have once been some sort of measuring beakers. There was something that spoke of science experiments or more likely, illegal brewing about them.

The speaker was a big man, broad in the shoulders and thick in his forearms; you could drop him into a bar or a ship anywhere in the nine systems, and there would be no mistaking it. This man was a manual worker. A miner.

His face was lined and worn, his thick mane of black hair turning grey. He wore it shoulder length, which was unusual for a miner. Most people not involved in mining would have put his age at best in his early fifties, yet he was thirty-two. Mining took it out of a man. This was something all miners knew from the start. They had seen it on their father’s faces, their grandfather’s too. If you had a miner in the family, then it was a given that you knew already it was not a job you could do forever. Hell, it was not even a job you could do for long. It aged you, and it aged you fast. 

The reason they knew from the start was that most rock junkies as they liked to call themselves, came from long lines of the same, and so they saw the effect it had on their fathers before them and sometimes their fathers too. If they were lucky and lived that long. It was a dangerous business, piloting small crewed digging rigs onto unstable comets, remote asteroid or moons spinning around larger bodies. Just getting there was hard enough, but that was the easy part. Mining the rock was the hard bit, it was said, and usually the pun was intended, though miners rarely smiled when it was inevitably mentioned. To them, mining was a serious business. A very serious business indeed.

Rock, or gas mining was dangerous not only because of the location and the method, but also because of the economics of the operation. A lot of mining equipment was old; well-used, and that could be said for the ships too, which were little more than cargo loaders with crew quarters and the navigation pod very much an afterthought.

So it was ironic that most of the mining that they undertook was not for rocks or minerals at all, although there was certainly trade in that, depending on which part of the system you were in.

No, the primary material being mined was gas, for without it the combustible engines would grow cold and the colonies of the more hostile worlds would instantly face a crisis if the air manufacturing plants went off because there was no gas fuel to keep them running. On the normal atmosphere planets, the gas was still required, even if it was not used to create air. Here It was being used almost as fast as it could be gathered. Mining was a popular job, but it wasn’t a career. To many it was a death sentence.

The man sat at the top of the table was at present resting his feet on the edge of the oblong desk around which they were gathered, his chair pushed back at a precarious angle, balanced on two legs, yet swaying slightly in the gravity of the rock upon which they were currently mining. The pull of the small moon was definitely less than what they were normally used to. The control of balancing the chair with his weight in low gravity was impressive, and most of the people sat around that table thought so too, though they would never have said so. Miners weren’t renowned for the munificence of their compliments. Not unless gas was involved, and even then, they would have at best whistled in surprise or just grunt and estimate just how long it would take to deplete whatever it was that they were looking at of everything that it contained.

It’s a three monther, for sure. is what one of them had said the first time their ship had slowly made its way to the asteroid upon which they were now attached, and that had been a pretty good guess.

I wouldn’t be giving corporation the idea that you can chew it out with your teeth, Joe. smiled the other man sitting to one side. He looked younger but rougher somehow, as if hardship came easily to him. He held several playing cards in his hands. Next thing you know we won’t be getting the mechs or the ships. Just a few sets of diamond teeth and a star map with a set of co-ords. That would be all.

Corporations and rocks went together, though not necessarily as far as being travelling companions. The corporations were the money men, the businesses financing the mining, the ships, the equipment, the mechs. Some were more employee friendly than others. Some were renowned for not maintaining their equipment to common space safety regulations, others did, and so on. The thing was that if you had mouths to feed and that was all that was going, then it was that you had to take.

Diamond teeth, Khalid? asked an older man at the opposite end of the table. He was holding some cards too. Now you’re talking! I would cash them things in as fast as you could hand them out, and that’s no mistaking!

Joe raised his glass and took a small sip from it, wincing as he did so, letting the chair slip forward and banging down upright slowly, the spin of the small rock slowing his descent slightly. It was a feat of balancing. Joe knew this of course.

Full house. he smiled and threw the cards he held in his hand onto the top of the table.

Fuck this.’ said the older man from the end of the table, throwing his cards down on the table in disgust. I’m out. You got these cards marked or something?"

Course not. laughed Joe. He snorted at the idea. The truth was he did not need to mark the cards. It was strange really, he just knew what their cards were. He realised too that it ruined the game a little, but it amused him sometimes to see what their reactions were to his supposed poker skills. Just to make it more interesting he would lose every now and again, and of course sometimes knowing what the other guy’s cards were was just not enough. That was rare though. He smiled.

Aw, come on, Sefu. Don’t be like that. Got just over twelve hours before shift starts and I have my sleep pattern down to six hours. I got half the fucking night left yet.

I am going to be giving you most of my end of mission wages as it is. said Sefu, tugging at his unruly beard. He turned to the others gathered about the table, a twinkle in his eye. Seems to me a man on a mining tour should be allowed to have his slate wiped clean at the end of it. After all, what’s said on the shift stays on the shift. Same principle, really.

Well now! smiled Joe, and was about to continue but was interrupted.

Well, Naeem, Rahim and I think it’s a good idea. said Sefu, giving Joe a sly smile. What you think Joe?

Seems to me that you sons of bitches, have been having a little discussion behind my back.

Aww come on, Joe. said Naeem, a broad-shouldered man who wore a thick bristling black moustache above an aquiline nose. His face gave him a look of disapproval, whether that was what he was actually feeling or not, The shift is the shift, remember? We can’t let a few winnings on the card table come between us. You know I got your back out there just as much as you got mine.

Joe looked around the table, each of the five men sitting there feeling his gaze fall upon them one by one.

Come on, Joe. said Rahim, the quietest of them there. He was a thin, wiry man, looking so dissimilar to the rest of them to be the one who always stood out. Yet if you were a miner and you looked at a crew you would just know. Rahim was smaller as he ran the keys for the crew. The computer guy, the miners would say and they would indulge him as often it would be him keeping you alive. Look after the guy on the keys was the popular mining saying, And you can book a ticket home. The reverse was also true, and often unsaid, being, And if you piss the keys guy off then you may as well hope there’s enough left of you to gather up to fill the box you kept your boots in.

Joe smiled and took another swig from the beaker and began to cough louder.

Okay, okay. he said, holding his hands up as if to ward off waves of protest, when in fact exactly the opposite was true. There seemed to be an awful lot of smiles around the room. Perhaps I let the cards get into my head. We’ll wipe the slate clean at the end of the shift.

We’re playing just for the sheer hell of it? laughed Naeem and Joe nodded. Sefu picked the deck of cards back up and began gathering the cards in from around the table and then shuffling them.

Well if that’s the case I am back in. said Sefu as he completed the shuffle. Too early for me to sleep too. The spin of this rock just makes my stomach turn.

Seven more days. said Kazemde, standing up and pushing his chair back under the table. Seven more days and then it’s leave for a month. I am turning in.

What? laughed Joe, You kick up a shit storm about the cards and then you fuck off to bed?

Tired. laughed Kazemde.

Me too. said Rahim, and he too rose, followed shortly by Naeem who yawned and wished them all good night. Wearily the three of them left the small room and vanished into the wide metal corridor that lead directly to the crew quarters nearby.

You think they are all fucking? asked Khalid and they all laughed as Sefu dealt five cards out to each of the three of them. Khalid and Sefu moved up to the end of the table where Joe sat to make the card school nearer. The cards were dealt and each examined their hands. They were used to this and played it extremely well. Not one of them gave the other even a remote idea of what kind of hand they had been dealt.

The card game carried on for a few hours more, Khalid eventually succumbing to tiredness. Joe and Sefu carried on for a few more games until eventually after yet another defeat Sefu left the cards on the table and stretched back in his seat, yawning.

I reckon that’s me done. he said, and Joe nodded. Joe Mann, you’re probably the best poker player in my admittedly limited experience that I have ever seen.

Bullshit. laughed Joe, draining the last dregs of the same glass he had nursed all night.

It’s true. said Sefu. And you know it. Joe laughed.

So what you going to do with your month’s leave then? asked Sefu and Joe shook his head, looking out through the small, thickly shielded glass porthole and out onto the moon outside. Their mining ship, The New Dawn, floated on an asteroid above the planet ZX581 which hung above them in the star filled night.

The planet was huge, near and yet beautiful in its proximity. Its surface boiled with green swirls of gas, but was no more visible to the naked eye than it had been to the telescopes of the scientific stations and the geomenters.

I am thinking of jacking it all in. said Joe, staring out of the window. Sefu snorted loudly.

"Shit. You always say that when you are a little way through a tour!" he laughed.

Well one of these days I am going to mean it. smiled Joe, staring out into space. You’ll see, Sefu Ashmande'. Sefu raised an eyebrow at the use of his full name. You’ll see.

Hell, the day the corporation doesn’t have a miner from the Mann family is the day it closes down. laughed Sefu, You got to get yourself a wife, son. You’re getting old and you have a tradition to continue.

Thanks. said Joe wearily, yawning and stretching. Thanks a fucking bundle. He looked out at the planet above him, the green clouds of gas swirling and broiling in impenetrable clouds in the upper atmosphere. What would you call it? he said slowly, his eyes not leaving the planet.

What? asked Sefu. Joe turned to face him. He wasn’t sure if he had momentarily dozed off or not. He definitely seemed as if he was on the edge of it. 

The planet. said Joe, ZX581 hardly seems enough, somehow.

Call it planet of the wandering fart for all I care. It’s certainly green enough. Thirty per cent of it’s what they laughingly call atmosphere is methane. Biggest damned fart I have ever seen.

You’ve no romance. laughed Joe. Sefu laughed back, a broad smile on his face.

Romance? said the older man, I am not the one without a family. Believe you me, my friend. You need a wife for sure if you’re sitting there looking out at that ball of gas and thinking it looks pretty. You’ll be getting all teary over a mining rig next. You need someone to go back to when you get a break from all this shit. Trust me. You’ll go nuts if you don’t.

Joe said nothing, just snorted and looked out of the porthole. The mention of family set his mind flying and he saw his father; old as he had been when he last saw him. He was a miner too, as was his grandfather and his father before him.

It seemed such a long time ago, yet one particular memory always seemed to stand out, as if it was chiselled onto his mind for some inexplicable reason. He was with his father. Whether anyone else had been there from his family he wasn’t sure. If so, he certainly couldn’t recall them being there. His father must have been on leave for him to be there at all, and they were sitting around the holo display, him sitting cross legged on the floor, his father sitting back in his chair, feet on table in (Joe realised with a shock) pretty much the same way that he was sitting now. There had been a big piece on the news report over the last few days, and that was the reason that they had been watching all about it way back then.

They had both gathered around the holo display, watching the ship launch from its orbital platform, the huge thrusters firing it out into space as it began its long, long voyage.

Waste of money. his father had said as the ship roared past the camera view, the picture changing to show a red dot disappearing into space,

Where’s it going, dad? asked Joe, no more than nine years old he recalled and full of wonder at the ship that was as advanced as the human race had ever made it.

It’s going in search of aliens, son. his father had snorted. Only problem is it ain’t going to find any.

Why dad? he had asked, remembering the scornful look on his father’s face.

Well probably because there aren’t any! he shouted, What year is it Joseph? Joe had remembered him asking him.

2137. he had said, uncertain laughter in his voice. He hated it when his father used his full name. He only did it when he was chiding him, he knew. It still kind of pissed him off through.

Right. So here we are in 2137 and where are the aliens?

We haven’t found any, dad.

Precisely. I’ll tell you what, my lad. If there are any aliens they are sitting a few hundred light years away laughing their cocks off and patiently waiting for the next piece of expensive scrap metal to be delivered to them. His father waved his hand at the holo display, pointing at the rapidly fading dot. That’s about the tenth in my lifetime. Each one costing more and more than the last one did.

Who pays for them, dad? is it the government?" His father had laughed and patted him on the head. Even now twenty-three years later Joe felt as if he wanted to tell him not to do that.

Of course not, son. Who benefits most from finding aliens?

The merchant guilds? he asked, and his father shook his head. How about the bankers?

No son. he smiled. That ship - and most of its predecessor’s is funded by several bodies. Yet most of the money involved comes from the body of the allied churches.

The church? laughed Joe. Why the church?

Because they are terrified that if we do find aliens than one of the other church factions finds them first. They may on the face of it appear to be allied in all religions, all faiths, but believe you me son, it is all about money. If there were any aliens, we would have found them by now. Yet they want the advantage. That’s why they do it. It’s why they always do it. You look back through history and it’s never changed.

I see. Joe had said, but obviously not with enough conviction for he leaned over and powered down the holo display, looking earnestly at his son.

You remember when your school took you on that visit to the Allied Church mission?

Sure. said Joe, It was a crazy day.

I am sure it was. his father had said, with more than a little irritation in his voice. So, give me one word to describe the church itself.

Just one? he had asked, and his father had nodded.

Old? he said.

Another. Joe had thought for a while, picturing himself back at the church. A different one.

Big. he said finally, It was very big. His father smiled at him and Joe knew he had the right answer.

It sure is big. he had said. "Which is strange if you think about it, because you know, why does it have to be so big? Saving souls hardly needs a lot of headroom I would have thought, and another thing. Because it is so big, who pays to build it? Surely bigger churches cost more to build in the first place, so why bother?"

I know churches are rich. Joe had said. His father had never failed to stop drilling this into him, as if her held a personal grudge against all of the Gods himself. He just couldn’t seem to understand why his father took it so personally.

But why so big? His father had asked, and Joe sat there furiously trying to think of an answer. It was not because he was afraid of his father at all. He just wanted to impress him. Eventually he gave up and shook his head. His father remained smiling though.

They are built so big so that they intimidate you. he had said. They don’t need the room. They don’t need it to be so big, or so ornate. What’s the point of that? It seems unwarranted. More importantly, it costs more money to build. So, what is their reason - their thinking? I will tell you, son. They want to impress upon you just how powerful they are. How rich they are. You know the roof of the southern transept of the church you visited?

Yes. had said Joe. It was probably the most impressive building he had ever seen. The ceiling was so high clouds formed there. Clouds of condensation rising from below. Joe had stood open mouthed, the huge dome rising over his head as if it was some work of an alien hand.

It took just over fifty years merely to build that roof. Imagine the cost of labour alone. Takes a very rich organisation to pay for something like that. Seems to me the Allied Church has very deep pockets. Just like most churches do. They put literally the fear of the Gods into you and into your pocket your hand goes. Money. That’s what religion is all about. Plain and Simple.

Joe had heard this speech many times before in all sorts of variations. It seemed to him sometimes that it was almost as if his father had a personal grudge against the church, but he listened politely and nodded in all the right places.

Doesn’t seem right that they have all of that money and we struggle just to get by. Joe had said. He remembered thinking at the time that mining asteroids, small remote cold moons,