Draft of a letter from Jed Kelly, Dribble via Drinkwater, to Sam McAlpine, Nimbin (never sent)
Dear Sam,
I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. I miss being ‘us’ too. I don’t know if I hope everything is wonderful for you up there, or such a mess that you want to come home now, today, this minute.
RA ZACHARIA
It was not all going wrong. A lesser man would have thought so.
A lesser man, one not in complete and utter harmony with the universe, would not have realised that a small perfect offering was a better Sacrifice than a large imperfect one.
Ra Zacharia had hoped to offer fifty healed and perfect bodies. But those who had left the Chosen had demonstrably not been perfect. Nor was remission from conditions like arthritis a true testament of harmony.
They were too old. Too conditioned by conventional belief. He had been young when he had first realised the message from space, young enough for his mind to be pliable enough to accept a new reality. Mark 23 and Mark 40 were young too. Scarlett and the baby Gavin were even younger. It had only taken weeks to teach Mark 23 the universe’s harmony. The girl would need even less. A day! And the baby’s healing, unpolluted by doctors’ propaganda, would be instantaneous. That would be a Sacrifice indeed to give the Elders: two cured and Sacrificed just as they appeared.
Mark 23 and Mark 40 would bring them, exactly when and as he ordered. And then the true Sacrifice to the Elders could begin.