The best thing Nr. 10 has going for it is that it's a completely original story. Günter is an actor in rehearsals for a stage play. The initial mystery has to do with his strange origin, having been found as a toddler in a forest. Then his daughter Lizzy tells him she learned she has a medical condition nobody has ever seen. She only has one lung, and the doctors want to examine him. Then we learn the Catholic church is having him followed and is sabotaging his life, trying to keep him off balance for some unknown reason. They know something about Günter that the other major religions don't know, and consider him vital to their plans. All very intriguing.
Günter is having an affair with the wife of the play's director, who is tipped off about the affair by the church. When the director takes revenge, changing Günter's role in the play to humiliate him, Günter commits a shocking act of violence. He has presumably destroyed his career and is wanted by the law, and this makes the church happy.
Don't read further unless you want to know how this is science fiction.
It's not until near the end that we learn the church's true motives, and it's a doozy. Günter is told that he was born on planet Lunabor, and was left on earth with other alien children in 1975, as an experiment to learn if they could assimilate. Forty years later the aliens returned, and with help from the church, had located Günter and Lizzy and wanted them to come with them to Lunabor. "We can't force you" they tell him, but it's never explained why. They tell him his mother is still alive, and show him a video of them together, just before he was taken to Earth, and another video of her speaking to the camera, telling Günter she'll be a lot older when he returns, but she's waiting for him.
Günter meets with Lizzy and tells her he was born on another planet, and that he plans to return on the same ship that brought him to Earth. She goes with him to the ship and sees the video of her grandmother and father, filmed outside on Lunabor.
So why did the Catholic church help the aliens? What was in it for them? Well...they were promised the opportunity to try and spread Catholicism on the alien world, which had no religion at all. Günter is upset when he learns this, making the point that in order to spread the message that Jesus saves, they must first convince the people of Lunabor that the lives they are leading is wrong, that they are lost souls. He's is frustrated that the aliens, his people, seem unconcerned by this.
The ship rises out of its underground hiding place and leaves Earth. Lizzy wanders the corridors and is stunned to discover a big room with stage scenery and costumes that was clearly where the video had been shot. It had all been a lie. The video had been staged just to convince Günter and Lizzy to voluntarily return. But why they would go to such lengths to deceive and not simply abduct the pair is never explained. Günter can sense that something is wrong, but Lizzie doesn't tell him about the room. Her reason is also not explained.
The Catholic priests gather in the spaceship's cargo hold to examine the treasure of religious statues, crosses and icons they had collected to help convert the heathens of Lunabor. There are two aliens observing from a control booth. One of them smiles faintly, nods, then pushes a button that opens the cargo bay door. The priests, and everything they brought with them, are swept out into space.
There are too many unanswered questions but the story kept me engaged.
Günter is having an affair with the wife of the play's director, who is tipped off about the affair by the church. When the director takes revenge, changing Günter's role in the play to humiliate him, Günter commits a shocking act of violence. He has presumably destroyed his career and is wanted by the law, and this makes the church happy.
Don't read further unless you want to know how this is science fiction.
It's not until near the end that we learn the church's true motives, and it's a doozy. Günter is told that he was born on planet Lunabor, and was left on earth with other alien children in 1975, as an experiment to learn if they could assimilate. Forty years later the aliens returned, and with help from the church, had located Günter and Lizzy and wanted them to come with them to Lunabor. "We can't force you" they tell him, but it's never explained why. They tell him his mother is still alive, and show him a video of them together, just before he was taken to Earth, and another video of her speaking to the camera, telling Günter she'll be a lot older when he returns, but she's waiting for him.
Günter meets with Lizzy and tells her he was born on another planet, and that he plans to return on the same ship that brought him to Earth. She goes with him to the ship and sees the video of her grandmother and father, filmed outside on Lunabor.
So why did the Catholic church help the aliens? What was in it for them? Well...they were promised the opportunity to try and spread Catholicism on the alien world, which had no religion at all. Günter is upset when he learns this, making the point that in order to spread the message that Jesus saves, they must first convince the people of Lunabor that the lives they are leading is wrong, that they are lost souls. He's is frustrated that the aliens, his people, seem unconcerned by this.
The ship rises out of its underground hiding place and leaves Earth. Lizzy wanders the corridors and is stunned to discover a big room with stage scenery and costumes that was clearly where the video had been shot. It had all been a lie. The video had been staged just to convince Günter and Lizzy to voluntarily return. But why they would go to such lengths to deceive and not simply abduct the pair is never explained. Günter can sense that something is wrong, but Lizzie doesn't tell him about the room. Her reason is also not explained.
The Catholic priests gather in the spaceship's cargo hold to examine the treasure of religious statues, crosses and icons they had collected to help convert the heathens of Lunabor. There are two aliens observing from a control booth. One of them smiles faintly, nods, then pushes a button that opens the cargo bay door. The priests, and everything they brought with them, are swept out into space.
There are too many unanswered questions but the story kept me engaged.