How Like A God

by Brenda W Clough

orange. In the epic, Rob remembered, Gilgamesh won eternal life by plucking a magic flower from the bottom of the sea. That would make the pearl the symbol of his immortality.

  The old man stirred suddenly. Intelligence returned to the huge black eyes, and he sat up. “What have you done to me?” he whispered hoarsely.

  Rob held out the two gems, the red and the white, so that Gilgamesh could see them. Here in this realm of joy he was no longer driven by wayward impulses. He could say with calm and perfect truth, “In the cause of justice, Gilgamesh, I’m returning to you what you truly need: your humanity. You wanted a brother. Welcome back to the brotherhood of man.” Rob dropped the two gems into his shirt pocket, safe inside the green parka.

  The old king’s eyes bulged in horror. “No! Not after all this time, not mortality! I need to live forever—”

  With a finger’s gesture Rob cut him off. In this place he didn’t have to agonize or debate himself. At this moment he was briefly the unity he was so rarely in real life, and his confidence was total. Of course Gilgamesh didn’t want it this way. And the cons in Lorton hadn’t really wanted to go straight, and if consulted, Courtenay MacQuie would have scorned to read Dickens. Nevertheless it was right, and Courtenay and the jailbirds would agree someday.

  Would Gilgamesh agree too, maybe years from now? Somehow Rob rather doubted it. The old king sat glowering in the corner, full of hate but unable now to do anything about it. He might not even be able to speak anything other than Sumerian, or whatever it was they spoke in Mesopotamia five thousand years ago, now that he had no power to bridge the language gap. Rob looked up at the glorious neon signs, and leaped to his feet in shock. The clock under the Sony sign said 5:30 P.M. Surely it couldn’t be so late! Time ran at a different rate here. How much had passed, in reality?

  “Come on, Gil—we’ve got to get back!” Without ceremony Rob stepped back into the desert cave, dragging the helpless old man with him. It was a nasty drop back into his battered physical body. His mouth tasted of blood and vomit, and sand gritted between his back teeth. His bruised limbs were almost crippled, stiff from lying on the clammy stone floor. Awkwardly he hauled himself to his knees and fumbled at his wrist. To his dismay the watch was broken. The digital face must have smashed against the rock during his spasms.

  Rob staggered to his feet. “I’ll be in touch,” he flung at Gilgamesh, and ran. His joints groaned and his muscles protested as he forced them to move. His cold wooden fingers could hardly tug the car keys out of his pocket. Outside he leaned against the dusty Rover for a second. Physically he might be shot, but his mind was sharp and icy-clear.

  He concentrated, searching the nearby desert all around. Maybe pulling the

  plug on Gilgamesh had released Edwin from the death sentence. But Rob found nothing and nobody. For miles around the wasteland seemed empty of life.

  Was Edwin already dead at the bottom of a cliff? Maybe Rob had just missed him. It was hard to know how accurate his searches really were. Why hadn’t he listened to Edwin, and tested his skill systematically? Or, most likely, that tricky swine Gilgamesh had rigged some kind of cloak again. Mustn’t give up hope. The sun was still above the hills. The afternoon wasn’t over yet. He climbed painfully into the Rover.

  How fast could Edwin have walked? Rob drove down the steep nonexistent track like a maniac, jouncing over the rocks as fast as he dared. The Rover bounced and skidded, rattling every bone in his aching body. Around every curve he looked for Edwin’s red parka, but the stony desert hillside remained stubbornly empty.

  Once on the flat he could push the Rover along in second gear. Mustn’t lose the way, Rob told himself grimly. Mustn’t break an axle. Oh God, if there is a god, let me be in time!

  As he approached the site he could see the long pebbly ridge, empty. Rob brought the Rover to a skidding halt at its foot and hauled on the hand brake. He ran up the slope, his Vibram boot soles sliding in the red gravel, his heart pounding in his throat.

  He came over the crest and halted, sagging with relief. There was Edwin on

  the far side of the pavement, his red parka still hanging open from when he had unzipped it to give it away. No tarnhelm trick could cloak him from Rob at this close range. “Ed!” he shouted.

  Edwin turned, and instantly Rob knew something was wrong. Edwin stood unmoving a few yards from the verge, saying nothing, not even waving in greeting. Rob sharply focused his power and felt it right away—the command of Gilgamesh, still in force. And the ancient king had learned too, from how easily Rob had undone the silence command. Rob couldn’t override this one fast enough: It was laden with safeguards and locks. He began to run.

  Rob slithered down the gravelly slope in a cloud of red dust. The central plaza of Aqebin seemed enormous, Edwin’s figure tiny on the far side. “Ed!” he called as he ran. “Hang on for one more second!” If he could just touch Edwin, grab his hand!

  Rob was close enough to see his expression now. A look of hurt and horror distorted Edwin’s face. He stepped backwards, one step, and then another. “No!” Rob screamed hoarsely, as Edwin stepped over the edge.

  Rob skidded to his knees at the stony lip. The actual drop was more than twenty feet and sloped away into a steep rubble-choked valley. Edwin tumbled down like a discarded doll, loosening a small avalanche of pebbles and rock. He slid to a halt halfway down, partly buried in the scree. Dust settled in his hair. “Ed!” Rob yelled. But Edwin didn’t move.

  An icy clarity filled Rob. He couldn’t climb down from here—more rocks would slide down. He ran well to one side, where the cliff was lower, to climb down and then over. As he clambered down the slope, he realized it would be impossible for him to haul Edwin back up alone. The hill was too steep and unstable. He had to have help, fast. What had Gilgamesh said about nomad shepherds?

  He scrambled across to Edwin and touched him gently. In its torn sleeve Edwin’s left arm was bent back at an impossible angle. Rob straightened it gently, and the sound of the broken bone ends grating against each other made him shudder. Blood pouring from a gaping scalp wound masked Edwin’s face. When Rob tried to clear away the boulders pinning his lower body, more rocks threatened to roll down, and he had to stop. Rob pulled out a Polarfleece mitten liner, the only piece of cloth to hand, and pressed it to the head wound. The skull bone gave sickeningly under his fingers. He didn’t dare to apply firm pressure. A familiar terror filled Rob, the odd panic that had possessed him in the hospital ER after the Chasbro fire.

  Edwin was dying.

  But now Rob was almost a year older, and far more experienced. He didn’t have to thrash around in frantic and selfish dismay. He could really act this time. The plight was desperate, long past what Edwin had called the action point. Rob reached out, questing, feeling for the nearest help. He sensed Gilgamesh, immured in his cave, and moved outwards. About ten miles west at an oasis, some shepherds living in yurts. Come, he silently commanded them. Farther out now, in a widening circle. Aqebin was between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Zarafshan to the south had been a small town, but farther north and east was Qyzylorda, a provincial Kazakh capital. No airplane could land at the site here, so he needed a helicopter …

  Edwin sighed, stirring a little. He was sinking. Rob could feel it. Deep in the central stronghold of himself Edwin was perhaps even now pulling on a white lab coat for his final stand, marshaling an electron microscope and a laptop computer for weapons. None of the summoned help could arrive in time. The distances were just too great. Shivering, Rob stared down into the blood-smeared face and thought, this is how Gilgamesh felt when Enkidu died. Gilgamesh has sat gazing into the face of a dying friend, and suffered this same pain. Equal and exactly alike.

  Suddenly Rob threw down the dripping gory mitten. He had brought his copy of the Aqebin inscription back to everyday life once. And once he had twisted his ankle in a visionary sub-basement and woke up limping. What now was in his shirt pocket? He wiped his sticky hands on his jeans and groped in the flannel pocket with tremblin
g fingers.

  He drew the beads out and cupped them carefully in his palm. In the last sunset light they glowed strangely, the pearl with a cool luster and the gem like a tiny live coal. They were metaphors made real, constructs, symbols for processes or magics he could not comprehend. What exactly did eternal life entail? Escape from the aging process, obviously, and liberty from trivial details like eating and drinking, but what else? Healing of mortal wounds, perhaps? Rob barely hesitated. The gamble had to be taken. Whatever happened, Edwin could hardly come to worse harm now. Gently, he forced the pearl past Edwin’s pallid lips and onto his tongue.

  Nothing happened, no flash of light or alarm bell or anything. Rob felt Edwin’s pulse but wasn’t able to say whether it was getting weaker or stronger. The head wound had stopped bleeding, but applying pressure could be responsible for that. He could only watch and wait.

  The light was going fast. The sand-laden wind scoured like emery paper across the darkening hill, teasing fluffs of goose down out of the rents in Edwin’s parka. All this time Rob had been clutching the red gem in his left hand. But suddenly, with a horrible start, he realized the hand was clutching emptiness. If he had dropped the jewel on this rocky hillside no one would ever find it again! Rob opened the hand, cursing his own carelessness, and was jolted to see a vivid red-orange dampness on his palm. Even as he watched, the color sank into his skin and vanished. The gem had melted like an ice cube and apparently been absorbed. It was so dark now he could almost believe he’d imagined it. It wasn’t as if his hands weren’t already smeared with red wetness. Yet the jewel was gone. If only he had worn mittens, or kept the thing in his pocket! I am in big trouble now, Rob thought wearily. And, damn it, I left the lantern with Gilgamesh.

  It was fully night before half a dozen shepherds arrived riding two-humped

  Bactrian camels. A strangely compliant crew, they wasted no time on questions, but lit torches and dug Edwin carefully out of the hill. Chilled and pain-wracked, Rob could only help a little as they rolled Edwin in woolen rugs and carried him to safety. He still clung to life, but Rob wasn’t quite able to hope yet.

  “Do you have medicine for him, great lord?” the chief shepherd asked.

  “No. But a helicopter will arrive in a couple hours,” Rob replied. He sat bone-weary by the campfire that someone had lit near the Rover. Very tentatively someone else offered him a metal cup of the local green tea.

  Rob took it and drank thirstily, nodding his thanks.

  “Are you—” The shepherd hesitated. He was a starved-looking man in worn woolen robes and a shaggy fur cap, his bronze face weathered into a hundred wrinkles. “Are you the new god? Is the old one gone at last?”

  Rob almost crushed the thin metal cup in his hands. “Don’t call me that!

  Don’t you dare, not me or him either, or I’ll, I’ll—” He couldn’t think of anything frightening enough to use as a threat.

  But the shepherd didn’t need threats. He groveled in the dust at Rob’s feet, whimpering, “Mercy, great lord! Forgive me!”

  “It’s all right. Get up, please! You know him, then. The old one, in the cave.” Of course—these unfortunate nomads were Gilgamesh’s nearest

  neighbors in the desert. He had probably been muscling the tribe to cater to his whims for centuries. No wonder they were scared rigid.

  “When you called to us, we thought it was him.” That accounted then for their speed and docility.

  “You keep it in mind, then, all of you—I am a man, and he is a man. Never believe anything different.” The shepherds squatting around the fire nodded obediently. Rob rubbed his dirty beard, thinking hard. “Would your people be willing to take him in?”

  “Who, the old one?” The chief looked anything but enthusiastic.

  “He is without power now. He may not even be able to speak to you. I doubt if he knows Kazakh. He is old and helpless, and weary of being alone in his cave.” Rob was careful not to use any muscle. These men deserved to make their own choice.

  “Well…” The chief looked around at his men. “It would be an act of hospitality. Allah smiles upon such.”

  So there was one burden gone. “Good. Now, does anyone in your tribe know how to drive a motor vehicle?”

  Another round of glances, and a tribesman volunteered, “My son can drive.”

  “Would he be willing to drive this Land Rover back to Zarafshan for me?

  I’ll write down where it should go. In return I’ll give your tribe all the baggage.”

  That got a big positive reaction. The shepherds jumped up, chattering excitedly, to look over their bonanza. Rob claimed only his duffel and Edwin’s black nylon briefcase with the laptop, with a few extra clothes stuffed in the top. Edwin’s toys would be a gold mine for these impoverished people, and there was no way to fit all this junk into a rescue helicopter. From the bottom of the duffel he dug out the box of classy letter paper he had bought on Madison Avenue. By firelight he scribbled a brief note to Rev. Pallet, explaining that an accident had forced them to evacuate by air. He gave the note and the keys to the shepherd with the driver son.

  Then Rob could let himself relax. Everything else he’d worry about tomorrow. It was almost midnight. He was so exhausted the campfire seemed to split into two fires, then three, before slipping into focus again.

  Warmly wrapped, Edwin slept beside it. Rob lay down on the bare ground beside him and fell asleep instantly.

  CHAPTER 10

  “You remember, Rob, when I called you a terrifying dude?” Edwin asked in cheerful tones. “That’s what you call reasoning ahead of your data. I take

  it back. Beside old Gil you come off like Woody Alien.”

  It was barely after sunrise, but they were already over the Aral Sea flying west. The cargo plane was only half full, so Edwin’s body-board stretcher was strapped across four of the folding canvas seats that ran down one flank of the interior. Rob sat on the seat at his feet. Edwin grinned happily at him from under the heavy white bandage around his head. He was almost unrecognizable. His hair was matted into points with dried blood, and the slurry of blood mixed with dust had dried into his skin. Dr.

  Mitchells, the Red Cross doctor, said, “His pelvis is fractured. He should be screaming in pain. I don’t understand it.” He stuck the last piece of white adhesive tape down on the leg splint and cut off the end with a scissors.

  “I didn’t think I could bear it,” Rob explained tautly.

  “You couldn’t bear it?” Dr. Mitchells shot him an odd glance.

  “I get by with a little help from my friends, doc.” Edwin looked down at his splints and bandages. “Guess I’m not going to pass my NASA physical, huh?”

  “Don’t give up hope, Ed—please!” So far there had been no chance to bring Edwin up to date. The prospect made Rob almost too tense to sit still.

  “You’re sure now?” Dr. Mitchells demanded once again. “This is important.

  It will affect his future treatment, you understand? They didn’t administer morphia in the helicopter, nor at the airfield? And you didn’t medicate him? No experiments with hashish, no opium cigarettes, no nothing?”

  Rob shook his head. Edwin said, “He wouldn’t know how to medicate a house plant, doc.”

  “This is so weird,” the doctor muttered. “And I have a quarterly report to write in Qyzylorda. I have no idea why I’m zipping off to Istanbul on a cargo flight with a pair of tourists.” He pulled the blanket up to Edwin’s chest.

  “It’s a mystery,” Edwin agreed. “Am I done for the moment? Good! I wonder, could you look him over now?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me,” Rob objected. The old reluctance to be touched possessed him.

  “You should see yourself.” Edwin met Rob’s eye and winked a permission. Rob took a quick glance at himself through Edwin’s eyes, and was startled. He had forgotten how many knocks he had taken yesterday. His fair hair and beard were crusted with dark dried blood, and his face was bruised all along one side from fa
lling onto rock. And he was filthy— not as spectacularly grimy as Edwin, but pretty bad.

  Grumbling, the doctor swabbed his cuts clean. “You should have a stitch in that eyebrow. Let me give it some xylocaine.”

  “Don’t bother—just sew it.” If Rob could short-circuit Edwin’s pain response it was no trouble to briefly disconnect his own too.

  “It’s a macho contest, right? You two are trying to see who’s tougher.” The doctor rooted in his medical bag, swearing under his breath.

  When the doctor was finished with Rob he retreated to the cockpit to swap grievances with the pilot. Rob took a deep breath of nervous anticipation. “Does it bug you that I’m messing with your head? Anytime you want, I’ll quit.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. To scream like the doc thinks I should would embarrass me. I can tell I’m hurting, but it doesn’t bother me at all—like it’s happening somewhere far away.”

  “Are you tired? You want to sleep?”

  “Maybe a little later. Right now I want to think and talk. The usual Barbarossa agenda. You got some pretty major bruising there, bud. Is that what’s bothering you?”

  “Golly, no!” Rob hastily buttoned his flannel shirt back up, cursing the

  doctor for insisting on listening to his chest. Opening the shirt had revealed that he was black and blue all over.

  “Well, what’s on your mind?” Edwin’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “This pain thing you’re doing on me, you’re not actually toting the load or anything?”

  “Forget it, it’s a snap.” Rob unbuckled his seat belt and moved to sit cross-legged on the floor beside the stretcher. “Ed, I have something extremely important to say, okay? And I want to apologize in advance. Anything I can do to help you with it in future, you got it. That’s a promise.”

  Edwin shook his head. “Come on, Rob. I’m sure this isn’t going to be a permanent disability. People break their pelvic bones all the time. It’s no big deal.”

  “No, Ed, that’s not it at all. Let me tell this my way.” Rob couldn’t think where to begin. “The doctor told you about your injuries, right? The leg, the pelvis, the arm, the ribs.”