LUCIFER RISING, one of the many short stories in Yukinobu Hoshino's science fiction anthology-series 2001 NIGHTS, bears some resemblance to James Blish's novel A CASE OF CONSCIENCE. Both works deal with the cultural relationship between science and religion-- which, in my literary system, are subsumed under the categories of "cosmological myths" and "meraphysical myths." To be sure, Hoshino's conclusions regarding the struggle between these opposed concepts provide a counterpoint to Blish's. Yet like Blish, Hoshino homes in on one of the key disputes: that of science's advocacy of infinite knowledge-gathering versus Judeo-Christianity's reservations re: the hubris of eating from the Tree of Knowledge.
LUCIFER begins in the far future, when Earth's space program has extended humankind's reach to the limits of the solar system. Astronauts from a space-station on Jupiter's moon Ganymede have the misfortune to encounter a mysterious ice-asteroid, which blows them into oblivion when they come in contact with it. Back on Ganymede, station commander Doctor Michael Cleaver expresses guilt over losing the astronauts and determination to learn what happened.
Some time after the news of the explosion reaches Earth, Father Ramon Chavez, both a priest in the Catholic Church and a doctor of planetology, is summoned to the Vatican to speak with the reigning Pope. The pontiff has received information that the space program believes that the explosive meteor emanated from Lucifer, the once-hypothetical but now fully verified "tenth planet" of the solar system. The Pope, knowing that Chavez has unique scientific skills, wants the young priest to accompany Doctor Cleaver's mission to Lucifer.
Hoshino establishes an interesting dynamic between the priest and the pontiff. Initially, at least within the Pope's presence, Chavez expresses guilt over his non-priestly passion for science. The Pope seems somewhat more liberal, quoting Milton's Satan from PARADISE LOST: "Can it be sin to know? Can it be death?" (Later Chavez takes Milton's epic with him on the mission, and the story is replete with numerous quotations from the work.) Still, despite the Pope's flippancy, he wants Chavez to suss out Lucifer in terms of its religious significance. For the Pope, the solar system mirrors the greatness of God, who dispenses rays of life and love to both the humans on Earth and to the stars and planets, which are embodiments of the heavenly host. This vision suggests that the tenth planet, being furthest from God's glory, must also be equivalent to "that foul thing who led man astray with the fruit from the forbidden tree." Chavez's mission is to find some concrete evidence of Lucifer's evil, since the science-obsessed denizens of modern Earth will believe only the evidence of science.
Through the use of hibernation technology, Chavez traverses the vasty deep separating Earth from Ganymede without any perception of time passing. However, Chavcz's advent is marked by tragedy, since another hibernating astronaut perishes upon being revived. Further, one of Cleaver's scientists asserts that someone tampered with the technology, meaning that someone on the station is a murderer.
This threat does not deter Cleaver from mounting an expedition to investigate Lucifer. However, calamity strikes once more, during which a crewman is lost to the void. Moreover, Chavez tries but fails to save the man, and his failure inculcates in him a guilt far greater than any he felt over his scientific presumptuousness.
Cleaver too feels guilt over the men who died under his command, but whereas Chavez begins to wonder if Lucifer is the source of all his sufferings, Cleaver is determined to make his crewmen's deaths count for something. The tenth planet presents an assortment of scientific anomalies-- a retrograde orbit, an invisibility to radar due to its propensity to annihilate particles in its wake. Yet all of the anomalies are resolved by a revelation both cosmological and metaphysical. Lucifer, on the one hand appearing to be a former sun that has collapsed into a gas giant, is also composed of anti-matter, which means that any "positive matter" that touches its "negative matter" will explode.
Back on Earth, the Pope decides not to wait for Chavez's evidence, and he issues a condemnation of any explorations of the Satanic planet. This results in massive protests demanding the return of the astronauts, although the Earth governments are more concerned with exploiting Lucifer for their own purposes.
Chavez finally concludes that the antimatter planet is a leftover from the Big Bang. During this cosmic event, positive and negative matter contended for supremacy, "just like the battle among angels which was said to have happened before humankind was created." Yet, though his religious training tells Chavez to condemn Lucifer as the Pope wishes, his scientific side tells him that "Lucifer is a treasurehouse of wonders...It hides the puzzles behind which lie the secrets of the universe." In other words, this time an entire world, named for the Tempter, is the stand-in for religion's Tree of Knowledge.
Further complications ensue. The mystery assassin kills two more crewpersons. Additionally, though everyone aboard now knows that they dare not come in contact with the antimatter world, the ship's dotty biologist-- winsomely named "Karloff"-- swipes a shuttlecraft in order to observe Lucifer close up. This means that the other astronauts must seek to block him, for if Karloff encounters antimatter, the resultant explosion will decimate the ship.
Amid much drama-- including the prevention of said catastrophe-- the mystery killer is also revealed: Cleaver was, somewhat improbably, seeking to kill off Chavez because he feared that Chavez's report would dissuade Earth from exploiting Lucifer as a new source of power; power enough to open up humanity's way to the stars. Further, Cleaver also believes that Lucifer's long-range effect has been beneficial on humanity; that its earlier emanations of antimatter, for instance, caused the prehistoric devastation of the dinosaurs. And even though Cleaver eventually perishes for his crimes, Chavez is "converted" to Cleaver's view of life, deciding that this time, the "original sin" of eating from the Tree of Knowledge is a necessary temptation on humankind's destined path.
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