ORIGINAL FICTION: "Dog Days, Part 4"

This is part four of the story. The beginning of the story is here: http://www.republibot.com/content/original-fiction-dog-days-part-1 and Part Two is available here: http://www.republibot.com/content/original-fiction-dog-days-part-2 Part 3 is avalable here http://www.republibot.com/content/original-fiction-dog-days-part-3 The story will conclude with part 5
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In actual fact, back in Texas Gene’s preacher was talking about killing him at that exact moment, and he wasn’t entirely joking. Gene’s previous two preachers were beloved and good men, and both had been his close friends, as Gene was a very moral man. The first had moved on to a job in a bible college, the second – an immediately engaging Georgian fellow who left his first career as a Jazz saxophonist because he felt compelled to do the will of God – had died abruptly of liver cancer about three years before. His replacement – a far less charming Georgan named Bob Clarkson - in the church Gene frequented was a wife-swapping drug-addled con man, though most of the people in the church hadn’t caught on yet. Neither had Gene, for despite his long and distinguished career as an astronaut, he was blindly trusting of religious authority figures.
Clarkson was, at that moment, railing on to some of his freemason buddies about how they ought to use their secret freemason powers to blow up the alien ship, and put an end to this once and for all, and though he couched it in what he felt was a humorous rant at the lodge, he did actually believe that the Masons had all kinds of secret economic and military powers they could unleash if they needed to. Clarkson was one of those people who believed that the Free Masons ran the world, and though he was mostly joking about killing Gene, he was pretty serious about blowing up the alien ship. In this he was completely wrong: the freemasons did not run the world, and had no particular powers beyond a reduced rate for lap dances at the Cleremont Lounge when the lodge visited as a group. (Where, though not commonly known, Clarkson’s own mother had been a dancer forty years before)
In all fairness, however, lying evil manipulative son of a bitch though Clarkson was, he can’t be entirely held accountable for his xenocidal rage: in fact, the entire world was going batshit.
On Sunday, Gene had called Houston to make an announcement that had been contacted by aliens, and after some discussion they had all decided to abandon their mission on Mars and take up the alien’s kind offer of returning to earth on the alien’s starship. They expected to be there in a week. Gene had intended to retire after this mission anyway, and for the 59-year-old “Hero of Skylab,” everyone in the media agreed that this was the perfect final jewel in his crown, career-wise.

Monday
At 9:01 AM, the stock market crashed. Actually, all of them crashed, around the world, with investors selling off everything they could in a panic, not knowing what effect the aliens would have on the global economy, but naturally assuming the worst. In Rome, Pope John Paul II issued a bizarrely incoherent and clearly frightened rant about how the aliens were children of God, and that humans must treat them well. He was speaking ex cathedero, which meant that what he said was to be considered straight from