Read Grantville Gazette, Volume 59 for Free Online Page A

speak.
    As he ate she picked up the books and raised an eyebrow. She really didn't need to say anything. The first one was the Klingon-English Dictionary and the other was The Good News for the Warrior Race . He knew as well as she did how tight their budget was; this was just plain impulsive—especially today. He was going to have to explain that, on top of everything else.
    When he finished the first bowl and put down the spoon, she gave him her best poker face and looked him straight in the eye. "Well?"
    "I found the answer. The answer is faith, Claudette. I thought about everything back to when I was a little kid, and that's what I went back to. It was in Luke, 'Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.' What does it mean to become as a little child? A little child accepts God on absolute pure faith without reason or understanding, to trust in the sufficiency of the parental love of God without question. It doesn't matter what they teach. I know in Whom I have believed, and He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day."
    Albert repeated himself. "When I was a child I trusted. I accepted, without question. That's what I went back to, and there I found peace. All the questions don't matter. There is a God, whatever is His nature, and whether or not we can ever understand Him. He loves me. I know it. I accept it. That is the answer. That is all there is, and it's enough."
    "So you're sure? You know what you want to do? You're staying?"
    "Yeah."
    She held up the Klingon Bible. Al laughed. "When I was walking past the bookstore the light was still on. It happened the manager was working late. So I pounded on the door until he opened it, and since I knew exactly what I wanted and he knew exactly where it was, he let me take it with me. I'll pay for it tomorrow."
    "But why?"
    "If I have to pick and choose between the different ways different manuscripts say the same thing, then I want as many choices as I can get."
    She came to her feet with a laugh and put her arms around him.

    A storefront Flacian church
Grantville
1636
    "You sent a fool, Rausch. A bungling fool! He failed, and now they will be on guard." Pankratz Holz was flailing his arms with rage.
    Martin Rausch gripped the back of a chair with one hand and leaned forward with his nose practically in Holz' face. "A fool? It was a fool's errand. There are no scrolls in that library, Dead Sea or any other kind. Not anywhere on the shelves or in the drawers. And in case they aren't scrolls any more, and were turned into a book, he looked at the titles on the spines of all the books, just as you said. Nothing like that, in Latin or English. He says he even looked behind the books, in case the scrolls were there, and he damn near broke an ankle when a pile of them fell over. Then somebody woke up and he had to run."
    Holz snorted. "You mean the bumbler made a noise, and woke somebody up. But I tell you, Green has them. It's reliably reported that he showed some to the Bibelgesellschaft. That heretic is already throwing all kinds of doubt and confusion on scripture. I tell you, if he only wanted to introduce his students to the original Greek New Testament, he could have just bought a few copies of the accepted Erasmus text, but no, he had to have a special printing made of this Nestle-Aland monstrosity with all kinds of variant texts and commentaries, setting them to arguing every verse. And the way Green argues, he could talk your ear off and then explain away the severed part. What chaos will he let loose now, with this new trove of scrolls that nobody but him has seen? It must stop!"
    "Then they must be somewhere else in that house, if they're in the house, or if they exist at all. Not in the library."
    Holz pointed his finger at the pile of eating utensils spilled out on the floor. "And what was the idiot doing stealing the silverware? Something for himself, instead of what I paid you for?