The Race for God

by Brian Herbert

  He looked at McMurtrey, said, “Do you recall the little problem you used to have, the one that disappeared after I announced my location to you?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Well, you have it again!”

  Tananius-Ofo smiled, with startling cruelty, and scratched his large nose. At the same time, one of his eyebrows began vibrating fiercely and his lower lip quivered like flesh at the epicenter of a d’Urthquake.

  “Tell us about Cosmic Chickenhood,” God commanded. His face had lost its features to McMurtrey, and became instead a mass of quivering, vibrating cells, with a finger that darted in and out to the center, where the nose should be, to scratch it.

  “Y-you know I c-can’t,” McMurtrey stuttered. He looked away in shame.

  “It seems that Mr. McMurtrey’s brain has frozen on him. A most uncomfortable and debilitating condition indeed. Well, I didn’t bring him here to embarrass him or make him suffer. It was a demonstration only. The condition has passed now, never to return, but Mr. McMurtrey is thinking I was too cruel.”

  McMurtrey didn’t look at God.

  “You’re angry with me, aren’t you, McMurtrey?”

  “No . . . ” McMurtrey reconsidered. He couldn’t lie to God! “Yes. I’m very angry with you!”

  “Good. That’s healthy and perfectly allowable. McMurtrey, gaze upon me!”

  McMurtrey did so, and now Tananius-Ofo looked exceedingly stern.

  “That was more than a demonstration of power,” God said. “It was a demonstration of my weakness, my own imperfection. It is my fault that humans are as they are, for I made them no better than myself.”

  McMurtrey felt his eyebrows rise, and, as if he were looking in a mirror, God’s eyebrows went up too.

  “It’s true,” Tananius-Ofo said. “Many have suspected this, and I confirm it to you.”

  God’s eyes flashed, and the white pupils began to glisten, vibrating blue.

  The floor shook under McMurtrey’s feet.

  Jin was inching along the ledge with his back against the cliff face, when a groundquake hit. He couldn’t decide whether he should wait where he was or hurry for the cavern entrance, and in that instant of indecision the ledge gave way beneath him, hurling him into the chasm.

  Tananius-Ofo’s eyes became white and serene, and he gazed from far behind the orbs.

  “Did you cause that?” McMurtrey asked. “I thought you said only one little trick . . . .”

  “That was no trick,” God answered. “That was for real. Jin just tumbled off the ledge, and it’s a long way down. I’m rather pleased, actually. The Bureau of Loyalty is becoming a thorn in my side.”

  Kelly Corona clapped and cheered, and Gutan joined her.

  Yakkai didn’t react at all, appeared ill-at-ease. “Why do you allow suffering?” he asked the Lord impertinently. “Because you’re weak or because you’re cruel?”

  Corona and Gutan stiffened, grew quiet.

  “I am frail. I admit that freely. But even a frail God is not powerless, as I have just demonstrated. My ‘cruelty’ is more of the prank variety. A few innocent jokes here and there. I am not boringly good. I have faults. A weakness for dirlu chocolate—and for women.” He stared at Corona, smiled gently at her.

  “Suffering must end!” Yakkai exclaimed.

  “I quite agree. But it exists because I am too frail to stop most of it. I do the best I can. Suffering just happens. Sort of naturally, I’m afraid. There is no intentional, inbred or instinctual cruelty—only sets of social circumstances that lead to the psychological discharge of cruelty. We could discuss this subject for aeons, debating each point. But I don’t feel up to it.”

  “Satan has nothing to do with suffering?” Orbust asked.

  “There is no Satan,” God said. “Most problems can be attributed to the weak side of God and the weak side of Nature. There is a natural tendency for all life to wind down and end.”

  “No Heaven, no Hell?” Zatima asked. “No spirits of good people living here, spirits of bad people living there?”

  Tananius-Ofo shook his head. “Only a dying old man.” The rheumy albino eyes held McMurtrey’s gaze for an instant, and looked away.

  “You?” McMurtrey exclaimed. “I thought God lived forever.”

  “So did I,” he responded, “but lamentably I have come down with an ailment. It is, I am sorry to report, most grievous. Soon you will have to do without me.”

  “Have you seen a doctor?” Johnny Orbust asked. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Extreme old age. There is no cure, no doctor I could see. I am aeons old.”

  “Make yourself young then!” Yakkai suggested.

  Orbust glared ferociously at Yakkai, recalling their earlier conversation.

  “Alas,” God said, “I have lost the desire to do that. I used to do it all the time.” His eyes welled with tears. “I’m so bored.”

  “But your angels,” Orbust said, glancing around. “Don’t they keep you company?”

  “That part of the Heaven story is true. Once I had angels. But they irritated me so much I didn’t want to be around them anymore. They always asked the same things: ‘God, what miracles have you performed lately? . . . How about something more spectacular?’ Or, ‘God, could I have a set of prettier wings? God, am I your favorite?’”

  Tananius-Ofo rolled his eyes, exclaimed: “The politics! I got sick of answering their inane questions, complying with their demands and everything else, so I banished them. Nothing I did was enough for them.”

  “But you are the eternal flame,” McMurtrey said, “the source, the light in the minds of all men. What happens when you die?”

  “I die, that’s all. I’ll probably fall over.”

  “The universe doesn’t end with your death?”

  “No. Why should it?”

  “Just a thought I had,” McMurtrey said.

  “Well, toss it out.”

  “But what if you’re wrong?” Corona said, trembling from the temerity of such a suggestion. “What if you’re a generator keeping everything going? When the power source ends, everything reverts to what it was in the beginning, to the singularity before the Big Bang.”

  “The Big Bang!” God squealed, with infinite delight. “I’ve always had a good laugh over that term—the sexual implications involved with the creation of the universe and all. What a romp in the hay that must have been, eh?” He winked.

  The onlookers stared at the Leader of the Universe in disbelief.

  “Don’t look at me that way,” he commanded. “I’ve grown exceedingly tired of being held to a quote unquote higher standard. Why should I be so burdened? I am a human too. It isn’t fair to me! Not to suggest that I’m profane. Quite the opposite. It’s just that I established sexual relationships so people could have fun with them. And bear this in mind: Erotic pleasure is intrinsic to species survival. You all understand, don’t you?”

  “Sure, God,” Yakkai said. “We understand.”

  “Yes, sir,” Orbust said. “We most certainly do.”

  God shook his head sadly, said, “Your faces indicate to me that you do not. Very well, I’ve always had trouble with these humans I created. Oh, I didn’t have to be human myself. I could have been anything I wanted to be, but I decided . . . too long a story . . . Big Bang—yes, that theory comes close to being correct—but I am no eternal power source.”

  “What if you’re wrong about that?” Corona said, more forcefully than before. “Man was created in your image, after all. Are you imperfect in some critical ways?”

  “How dare you suggest that!” Zatima said, in a scolding tone. “Blasphemy! Allah is never wrong! He is the Perfect of Perfects!”

  “Mmmm,” God said. “I like loyalty, but I must admit I’ve messed up many times. This job came with no instruction manual, so I had to improvise. Mmmm. A lot of trial and error. Not to worry! I’m not wrong about this. The universe has been set in motion, and obeys certain laws of physics. It is a self-sustaining system.”r />
  “Isn’t the universe winding down through entropy?” Corona asked. “An excess of disorder over order?”

  “True, but the process is too slow to worry about”

  “And eventually,” Corona said, “quadrillions of years from now, won’t everything have deteriorated? No more planets, no suns, all matter disintegrated into antimatter, returned to the singularity that existed before the Big Bang?”

  “That could very well be the case.”

  “You don’t know for sure?” Corona asked. “You can’t predict the future?”

  “I am a little weak now, with my reasoning powers curtailed. To tell you truly, I have never worried much over questions like that. Nothing is all that serious, you see.”

  Deep frown lines commandeered Corona’s features, and she said, “The issue of the continuation of the universe strikes me as pretty serious. Essentially you’ve admitted that everything could end up in a singularity, a point of nothingness I suppose, where all matter and antimatter have canceled themselves out.”

  “I believe that’s essentially correct.”

  “You’re billed as All Powerful, right?” Corona asked.

  McMurtrey nudged her, whispered, “You’re pushing this too much.”

  “An old billing,” God said, patiently. “The marquees should be changed. It used to be that for all intents and purposes, as far as humans need be concerned.”

  “You parted the Ochre Sea, right?”

  “I did.”

  “And caused the Great Flood?”

  “That too. Mere child’s play.”

  “And as you’ve shown, a few d’Urthquakes, I presume. Volcanic eruptions and hurricanes too?”

  “All that, whenever I felt the need for it. I tried to avoid death and destruction, but sometimes it couldn’t be prevented. There are priorities I have to consider that you’re not likely to understand.”

  “Did you cause bigger events?”

  “Yes. Novas, supernovas, comets, meteors. Mmmm. New suns, planets, moons, stuff like that. I—uh—fooled with natural orders of things whenever I got bored, messed around with laws of physics. It was an ego boost, admittedly.”

  “I can imagine,” Corona said. “My point is that with power like that, you could prevent a reversion to the singularity, couldn’t you?”

  “If I were feeling well, I probably could. At the very least I could slow the process.”

  “Then it’s what I was saying. When you die, the rest dies! You would have gotten around to slowing the deterioration or stopping it. I’m sure of it.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Allah says ‘yeah’?” Zatima asked, not realizing how loudly she had spoken.

  “You envisioned formality?” Tananius-Ofo said. “Obviously I’m not what any of you expected. I’m probably a great disappointment to you.”

  “You can’t read our minds, sir?” McMurtrey asked.

  “I can when I choose to. I don’t feel up to it at the moment.”

  “You’re not a disappointment to us,” McMurtrey said, with the corners of his mouth forced upward to conceal his lie. “We have great respect and admiration for you, sir. You’ve accomplished so much!”

  “I’ve pissed away a lot of time.”

  Orbust and Zatima gasped.

  “Don’t you see, sir?” Corona said passionately. “You don’t need to be bored! You have a purpose for existing! You can reverse the natural destructive processes of the universe! There’s a reason for you to get well. If your mind is on it, if you want to get better, that’s most of the battle. Assuming psychosomatic causation applies to you.”

  “It does, and I’m acquainted with holistic medicine, psychoneural immunology, visualization and thousands of similar concepts.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting otherwise. Won’t they work for you?”

  “If I wanted them to.”

  “Then do so!” Corona said. “Don’t wind down like everything else!”

  “I don’t want much of anything anymore,” God said wearily, “other than what’s naturally happening to me. There’s nothing you can say or do, although I appreciate the effort. I want to wind down.”

  “You want to die?” Corona asked.

  “I suppose I do. I have an urging, like everything else, to return . . . ” His mellifluous voice trailed away.

  “You were part of the singularity?”

  “Not the singularity. A singularity.”

  “A? You mean there’s more than one? Oh, you mean because there are several universes? A singularity for each universe?”

  “Precisely. I’ve told you enough, as much as any human needs to know, and a lot more than I intended to reveal. Such relentless interrogation!”

  “I’m sorry, but a lifetime of this is welled up inside me. There are so many questions all of us want to ask.”

  “Such a sad-looking group,” God said. “But don’t forget the most basic law of nature, that each end marks a beginning. Plants, animals and humans die, returning organic matter to the soil, organic matter which in turn supports more life.”

  “I don’t think I understand,” Corona said.

  “I think he’s saying the singularity in this universe will blow again,” McMurtrey said. “Another Big Bang . . . then the process of entropy, another singularity and another Big Bang. It goes on like that infinitely.”

  “I believe it does,” God said.

  “That’s the ultimate?” Corona exclaimed. “One bang after another?”

  God laughed wearily.

  All laughed with him.

  Presently Tananius-Ofo shook his head, with the sadness of eternity. “This is more than a deathbed visit from my family,” he said. “One of you must succeed me, and that’s why I brought you here. Transition of power, that’s what we need. A new God, one with fresh energy.”

  “But there are other ships behind ours,” Gutan said, “with more humans aboard. What of them?”

  Tananius-Ofo smiled gently, gazed upon this confessed sinner. “How strange it is for God to speak with a man such as yourself, Gutan, a man who never expected to find himself here.”

  Gutan lowered his gaze.

  God looked at Orbust, said, “And you, Johnny Orbust, are the one who sabotaged the other ships. That was a rotten trick, and I was weakened considerably by the task of making them spaceworthy again.”

  “Does that mean I’m out of the running for your job?” Orbust asked. “I’m not saying I want it or that I could handle it, but I was just wondering. I assume Gutan is out of the running as well?”

  “Every one of you qualifies,” God said.

  God didn’t explain this last, but it seemed to McMurtrey that if Gutan and the atheist Yakkai qualified—if he, Evander McMurtrey of chicken fraud infamy, qualified—then so too should Johnny Orbust.

  “I had hoped the other ships would be here with yours,” Tananius-Ofo said. “So many excellent God candidates aboard. But all had problems with their Gluons and were forced to turn back. We got a bad batch this time, which happens every once in a while. Gluons of particular types tend to cluster. It’s very frustrating! You experienced some problems with Shusher, but he isn’t nearly as troublesome as the others. We’re lucky he was available.”

  “The damaged whipping passageway didn’t force those ships back?” McMurtrey asked.

  “No. A portion of the passageway is damaged but passable. The rest of the fleet never even got to that region, where they might have proceeded with care.”

  The D’Urthians gazed upon Tananius-Ofo, and to McMurtrey it was like the calming effect of gazing over a great expanse of water.

  “Well, children,” God said tenderly, “it’s only the nine of you. As for Shusher and Appy, they’re ineligible synthetics. No artificial ingredients for this assignment! Now, are there any volunteers?”

  At the base of the cliff, far, far below the Perch of God, Jin was a crushed and broken array of bioelectronics, scattered across jagged gray and black stones. It was a silent and b
arren place, without a plant, an insect or any other form of biological life. Other than Jin, that is, for the last redundancy remained intact, transmitting red noise signals to nearby parts.

  The parts sought the signal, approached it like flecks of iron to a magnet. They combined with nearby bits of dirt and stone, forming an amorphous, pale yellow ball of material—a clump of technologically enhanced aural clay. From within this clump came little bursts of energy that pushed the surface outward, like an anxious-to-be-born fetus kicking against its mother’s womb.

  The clump began to take shape, slowly at first, then more rapidly, and an afterbirth of pale yellow membrane peeled away, revealing Jin substantially as he had been before.

  This version of bioelectronics came, with a design improvement: Fleshy, glandular pads were on the bottoms of the feet, pads that flattened and gave off sticky secretions when walked upon.

  Jin began scaling the sheer cliff like a fly, his bare feet adhering to the surface.

  Chapter 13

  Life is an eclectic collection of loose ends, sacrificed and forgotten.

  —Tananius-Ofo,

  a note left in the Crystal Library

  “There is only one true church of God,” Tananius-Ofo said, “and I run it. I haven’t run it very well of late, but . . . ” He cleared his throat, looked away. His eyes welled with tears.

  “I have an idea, sir” McMurtrey said, making himself more comfortable on his pillow. “Why don’t you return to D’Urth with us? We’ll nurse you back to health with the love you deserve. The whole star system will draw together to pull you through this. Let us help you as you’ve helped us.”

  “What a nice thought,” God said, “but I’m afraid it’s impossible.” He wiped his eyes.

  “But why?”

  “Cease! I’ve made arrangements for a last party and that’s it. Enough is enough! Now, decide which of you it’s to be and I’ll be on my way. Shusher can drop me at one of my little hidey-holes on the way to D’Urth, just a short detour. Everything is prepared and waiting for me. It can’t be changed, don’t you see?”