Archangel Foster

Archangel Foster is the preserved founder and posthumous center of the Fosterite church, whose worship makes his supposedly unchanged body a public sign of divine authority. The novel later complicates that image by showing him as an active figure in Heaven: after Digby’s elevation, Foster explains that the Fosterites cannot interfere with Mike while the Martians need him. His arc thus joins religious spectacle on Earth to a final recognition of a universe governed by different spiritual systems.

Identity and the Tabernacle

At the Fosterite Tabernacle, Senator Tom Boone leads Jill and Mike through a curved passage into a room arranged around a clear-glass wall. He calls the moment an encounter with the Presence and kneels before the apparently empty wall, telling the visitors that the man is there as he was when he was called up to Heaven. The scene initially makes Foster’s status a matter of faith: the worshippers treat his presence as visible, though the wall itself seems empty to Jill.

Boone identifies the seated old man opposite them as Foster, preserved by a miracle with incorruptible flesh. He points out the chair in which Foster supposedly wrote his messages and says that Foster remains in the same pose in which he went to Heaven. According to Boone, the church was built around the body; the old church was removed, while its sacred stones were retained. The setting therefore joins relic, chair, building, and ritual into a single claim of continuity between the founder’s earthly life and his heavenly status.

Jill sees an old man seated in a large armchair resembling a throne. The sight unsettles her, while Mike asks in Martian whether Foster is an Old One. Jill can only answer that people say he is; Mike replies that he does not perceive an Old One there. The exchange distinguishes the church’s assertion from Mike’s own understanding, leaving Foster’s earthly appearance and sacred identity open to interpretation rather than treating Boone’s account as an uncontested fact.

Worship and Public Authority

Foster’s preserved body is not merely displayed: it anchors an institutional performance. At the service, the congregation’s rhythmic demand for Digby grows loud enough to make the building rock. Boone assures Jubal that the structure was reinforced, made fireproof, and designed to shake. The moment presents the Tabernacle as both an engineered venue and a vessel for collective religious enthusiasm.

When the lights go down and the curtains part behind the altar, a radiance picks out the Supreme Bishop. The crowd responds with a roar, and he throws kisses. He pauses to attend to two women near the altar, then takes a portable microphone and holds it near one woman’s lips as she speaks words Mike cannot understand and believes are not English. Foster is not the officiant in this scene, but his preserved presence gives the ceremony its setting and institutional inheritance; the living church’s spectacle unfolds in the space organized around him.

Elevation and the Heavenly Scene

The church later announces its second Major Miracle: Digby has been translated bodily to Heaven and promoted to Archangel, ranking below Foster. The announcement is delayed until the elevation of a new Supreme Bishop, Huey Short, has received heavenly confirmation. Short is described as a compromise candidate accepted by Boone’s faction after repeated lots, so the supernatural claim is bound up with a practical transfer of church authority.

In the novel’s final supernatural scene, the promotion is not an uncomplicated reward for Digby. He is displeased, saying that Mike interrupted his work before it was finished and that Short will mishandle it. Foster listens patiently, then tells him that he is now an angel and should leave recriminations behind. He recalls that Digby himself had been a poor leader until he poisoned Foster, after which he performed adequately. Foster argues that promotion can change a person’s capacity, comparing Short’s prospects to those of popes who improved after elevation. His response transforms the church’s public announcement into a private lesson in patience and institutional succession.

Limits of Fosterite Power

Digby makes a request, but Foster refuses it. He says Digby cannot touch Mike and should never have tried; although Digby could request a miracle, Foster expects the request to be rejected. The reason is not a failure of Foster’s authority within his own church, but a boundary between spiritual systems: the Martians have their own arrangement, and they need Mike. Foster insists that they conduct their affairs in their own way and that the universe contains variety, a fact its field workers often overlook.

This final exchange places a clear limit on Fosterite claims of heavenly jurisdiction. On Earth, the Tabernacle and the church’s announcements present Foster as the incorruptible founder and highest-ranking archangel. In Heaven, however, he acknowledges that his order cannot override the Martians’ needs. The contrast makes him more than a relic or emblem of Fosterite spectacle: he becomes the voice that recognizes the autonomy of another civilization and the limits of his own institution’s reach.