God of God

by Mark Kraver

  The little naked baby chirped, “Yikes” and disappeared.

  Reeze spent the rest of the morning searched the ark all over looking for that naked little baby without luck, until she decided to make her way back to the command center. She wandered onto the main bridge deck, scrolling through her breast controls, reflecting different colors and patterns in her gravity suit, bored. Stopping next to her Auntie Zenith, who was sitting at her green glowing instrument panel looking very bored as well, Reeze sighed loudly to emphasize her need for something interesting to do.

  “What did I say?” Zenith asked Reeze, who had settled on a hot pink leopard print for her suit.

  “Say? Say about what?”

  “Timing. As we drifted closer to the sun, if we didn’t have all that ice stored on the planet’s landmasses, the Earth would have spontaneously combusted.”

  “Really?” she said, like she hadn’t heard that a hundred times already from the other Elohim onboard.

  Zenith shrugged her shoulder and smiled. She waved a hand in front of her chest as a pattern of vibrating bouncing pink polka dots appeared on her own gravity suit.

  “Wow, that’s nova. How do you do that?” she squealed.

  “Hey, that’s nothing,” Zaar said, standing up to reveal his suit’s zigzagging purple pattern spinning around his torso. “If you lift on the controls it will add a different dimension to the patterns.”

  “Nova,” she exclaimed, turning around slowly to see the others around the command deck reveal their individualized gravity suit patterns. “You guys are odd, but I like you,” Reeze said.

  “And we like you, too,” Zenith answered, knowing it was a senseless automatic cliché to offer, but it was true. Zenith was actually growing to care for her niece like she was her own.

  “You know, I never picked up on how long the trip to Heaven will take,” she said, shifting her focus from her gravity suit and looking to Zenith for an answer. “Oh, look—” she said, distracted, “—the Halo is almost here.”

  As Reeze looked closer at the large 3D display monitor at what looked like a lightning storm in space, something else caught her eye. “Wait. What is that? It looks like some kind of spacecraft with an ejected cabin shield. Are those engines or thrusted on the sides?” Her voice was moving from curious to concerned. “Oh no, is that a Bot piloting the ship?”

  On the main screen a small red rectangular spacecraft came into view. It was about five meters long and seemed to have its pilot exposed to outer space.

  “No, I don’t think it is a bot. Looks humanoid, but I am not reading any life signs,” Zaar reported. “It looks very much like a convertible automobile.”

  “Convertible automobile?” Reeze asked.

  “It’s a type of transportation they used on Earth,” Zenith said, sliding her hand over her bald head. “The top folds down so your hair, or, well, your head, can feel the wind as you drive about.”

  “And I believe those are tires, not engines, used to grip the road when driving on the surface of a planet,” Zaar said, studying it more closely. “It reads ‘Tesla’ across its back.”

  “Tesla? What’s it doing out here?” Reeze asked. “There’s no wind or gravity in space.”

  “Humans shot all kinds of debris into this solar system before the genesis arrive,” Zenith said. “One of our jobs when we first constructed graviton beams between Earth and the moon was to clear out all the space junk placed in orbit over the previous sixty plus years of the so-called Space Age. This must have been a deep-space projectile.”

  “That’s about the strangest thing I’ve seen since we ejected the moon,” Reeze said. She looked at her aunt and repeated her question. “So, how long did you say it will take to get to Heaven?”

  “Oh, it’ll take a while. Would you like for me to teach you more about how to pilot a shuttle? We could get a closer look at that Tesla?” Zenith said, shooting a telepathic message to her friends on the command deck not to comment on the trip’s duration.

  “I already know how to pilot a ship. I’ve been doing it since I was old enough to stand. My papa let me pilot the Moon-Earth route many times. Once, I did it all by myself.”

  “I’ll grapple onto that automobile with a landing bay graviton beam so you—and me—can play with it when we’re bored,” Zaar said, waving his hand over his control panel’s floating spheres.

  Reeze grinned at Zaar, recognizing in his enthusiasm that he was pleased for the excuse to break the monotony. Everybody was looking for something different to do.

  “Oh,” Reeze said, suddenly remembering why she’d come up in the first place. “Did you know there’s a cherub loose down in the zoo? It was following me around.”

  “Are you sure you saw one?” Zenith asked, surprised.

  “Yes, I’m sure it was a flying naked baby. Why, is that a problem?”

  Zenith sat a pondered what to say for several second before answering. “I knew you would eventually see it.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  Zenith pursed her lips and looked around the command deck at the other crew members manning their posts. “Okay Oscar, you can come out now.” When nothing happened, she spoke a little louder. “I’m not mad at you. It’s time to play. Please come out.”

  “Maybe it’s not—” Reeze stopped as a reluctant cherub popped into view of everyone on the bridge, hovering in plain sight.

  “Nova,” Reeze exclaimed. “I thought they were all in storage pods.”

  “All but a few,” Zenith said. “This one is a special protector cherub that was assigned to a specific individual.”

  “Individual? Whose life needs a cherub following them around?” she asked. The little flying baby smiled and flew to Reeze, extending his chubby little hand toward hers.

  “Why is it doing that?” she asked trying to push it away.

  “Reeze, I’d like to finally introduce you to your personal escort, Oscar. He’s been watching over you since you were born,” Zenith said.

  “Ghostly singularity,” Reeze said, as surprise spread across her face. “Why me?”

  “Oscar has watched the line of Logan since shortly after I was born, beginning with my sapient brother, David. In fact, Oscar has watched over all your ancestors for more than a thousand years.”

  “Protect,” came from the baby’s little fat lips.

  “After all these years, he’s become a bit of a grouch, but a loyal protectorate.”

  “Did he watch over my daddy?”

  “No, your mother. Logan’s line and only Logan’s line.”

  “Why am I the only one with a cherub?” she asked.

  “You’re not,” Zenith said. She hesitated for a few more seconds before waving her hand in the air. Two more appeared and began to fly around the bridge, chasing each other like mad hummingbirds. “Stop it, you are embarrassing me,” Zenith said sharply. She watched them for another few seconds, noting the impotence of her words, and finally shrugged. “These are my cherubim, Melvin and Theodore. They’ve been following me around my entire life also. I inherited them from my mother. I didn’t have the heart to split them up, and they’ve learned to stay out of my way.” Her face softened as they hugged each other while waving and smiling like crazy cartoon characters. “My father also has one named Bullet, but he’s not seen very often, especially when Yahweh is hibernating.”

  Reeze’s eyes lit up with recall. “That reminds me,” she said, “how long will we be traveling through the halo to Heaven?” But before anyone answered, zipping sounds shot through the station’s hull.

  “Alphabiotic Signatures are showing up on scans all around us,” Zaar called out.

  “Notify Numen and Lord Yahweh at once,” Zenith shouted. “I think those buggers like this asteroid belt for some reason. Battle stations!”

  “Are you sure that wasn’t a Bot piloting that Tesla?” Reeze asked, making Zaar frown and recheck the automobile scans parked inside the landing bay next to Lord Yahweh’s refurbished personal
spacecraft.

  Within a few seconds the command deck was buzzing with activity.

  “I anticipated their interest in our activities, but I didn’t think we would attract such a swarm,” Numen announced, walking through the command door and assessing the situation.

  Yahweh levitated into the room exhausted after being jolted awake inside his hibernation pod by the attack.

  “Report,” Yahweh said hoarsely over the chatter, sending a simultaneous telepathic command. He was still groggy from his deep sleep.

  “I am counting six hundred and sixty-five Bot vessels, and one royal barge,” Numen said, turning his head toward Yahweh to see his reaction and to insert a nutritive canister into his backpack.

  “I wonder why they have chosen to expose their queen like this?” Yahweh asked, as his body trembled with relief.

  “Maybe they know it is the end?” asked Zenith. “So far they have fired that one shot.”

  “A warning shot across our bow?” asked Reeze, having read too many old Earth novels.

  “Multiple projectiles are coming from all directions,” Numen alerted.

  “Target the royal barge with the pulsar cannon,” shouted Yahweh.

  “Locked and loaded—firing pulsar,” Numen announced. The lights on the command deck dimmed slightly as power was diverted to the main gun. An intense beam of particle radiation shot forth from an iris that opened and closed from the bow of the station like an enormous spot light projecting a beam out into space. When the pulsar passed, the Bot Queen’s royal barge was gone.

  “Damage report,” Yahweh said, disconcerted by the absence of any apparent effect upon the station despite the obvious constant bombardment from circling Bot attack vessels.

  “None to the station or to the planet,” reported Zaar.

  “I expected more of a fight, didn’t you?” asked Yahweh. “What are they shooting at us?”

  “I believe I have the answer,” said Zenith, who had been analyzing the incoming ballistics. “Organic silica capsules. I believe these are egg sacs.”

  “The queen is laying her eggs on us?” asked Yahweh.

  “That is a logical explanation. She is sensing the end of this system, and is using our escape as a life raft for her last spawn. That is why she gave herself up as a target, so we would concentrate our firepower away from the ships delivering her most precious cargo.”

  “I guess they aren’t as different from us as you think,” said Reeze.

  “I feel violated,” Yahweh complained.

  “Survival is the most basic of all instincts,” said Zenith. “I’ll put a crew together to see if we can remove them before we rendezvous with the Halo, but they are still delivering new capsules with every flyby.”

  “We may have to deal with them when we arrive at Heaven,” Yahweh concluded.

  “This may answer many questions I had about the last half anton of deep space mining,” remarked Numen. “I’ve wondered why the Bots were not on the defensive each time we ventured out into deep space to retrieve rare minerals from nearby asteroids.”

  “It seems we were not the only ones preparing for an exodus,” said Zenith.

  Chapter 74

  I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?

  Zhuangzi, 369-286 BC, Earth

  Library of Souls

  Halo

  The Bot ships were coming and going with less frequency as they rapidly approached the ominous electrified dark Halo. With each swipe past the station, the Bots deposited a few more egg casings. It had become futile for the crew aboard the Jerusalem to spend any more time trying to rid the outer hull of the infestation.

  “According to my calculation, we will enter the Halo in sixty-six point six intons. The Halo has dilated and effaced,” Numen reported. He turned to Yahweh. “Are you sure you do not want to hibernate until we are at Heaven?”

  Reeze walked in with a swirling tie-dyed psychedelic pattern on her gravity suit. Yahweh eyed her suit and nodded his head with approval. Zenith rolled her eyes.

  “Hibernation would be the prudent thing to do,” Yahweh said. “However, I do want to experience the Halo’s event horizon for myself. Besides, I have some catching up to do.” He flashed his signature winking smile and tugged his earlobe, laughing at Reeze doing some kind of moonwalking dance while bobbing her motion activated luminous hair in front of Zenith to entertain the rest of the command staff. “Don’t worry Zenith, the next dance is yours.”

  Zenith’s face was mortified. Both Yahweh and Reeze busted out in laughter. Numen failed to understand the humor, but tried to mimic laughter nonetheless making everyone laugh harder.

  “Numen, you are killing me,” Reeze squealed, confusing him enough that he placed his hands upon her wrist and neck to check her pulse. Now even Zenith and everyone else on the command deck were laughing. Numen looked at the chronometer and then at Yahweh, before calculating that if he remained perfectly still for an extended period of time, this biological discharge of emotions would soon pass.

  Numen flashed on the main screen the sobering sight of the Dark-matter ‘Halo’ Graviton Transporter directly in their path. Everyone on deck instantly switched to a business mood.

  “Trajectory of the Halo is matching the trajectory of the planet. It should be a smooth delivery,” Numen said as an intense wave of gravity swept through their ship and planet, shifting everyone’s internal organs with an odd, bouncing sensation.

  “That was to be expected,” Numen said.

  “What else will we be expecting?” Yahweh asked, having never been awake for such an event.

  “First, with the tremendous pressure differential between normal space inside this station and inside the Halo, you will all begin to feel nauseous. Then your ears will pop and possibly bleed. Excruciating splitting headaches, of course. Involuntary urination and fecal discharge can be expected along with intermittent blackouts and seizures. Oh, and in some cases, uteruses have been known to prolapse out through vaginas and colons through the anus.”

  With the exception of Yahweh, the faces of everyone on the command deck showed pure terror.

  “You’re kidding?” Reeze blurted out, in horror.

  Oscar popped next to her, his worried little mouth making an utt-oh sound.

  “Yes,” Numen said, shaking his head no.

  “Yes?” Zenith asked, with the look of shock and horror still stuck on her face.

  “It won’t hurt that much. What? You will all survive,” Numen said. “If you were to die, then what would be the point?”

  Yahweh looked at Numen with a frown.

  “Okay, yes, I am being disingenuous,” he admitted.

  A collective moan of relief spread around the command deck. Zaar shook his head in wonder, bemused by Numen’s sick humor.

  “Or am I?” the seraph added, raising one non-human eyebrow. “What do they say on Earth? Hmm? What goes around, comes around?”

  “Payback’s a bitch,” Reeze laughed, with her crooked little smile.

  “Numen, you remind me of my father,” Yahweh reminisced, gazing at the approaching blackness of the Halo on the forward-looking screen. “What a joker he was.”

  “It is massive,” said Reeze, walking up closer to the main 3D screen to examine how big it had become, and to find out if she could actually see the ends of the halo’s event horizon warping space-time.

  “Large enough to swallow a whole planet,” Zenith said.

  “Penetration into the Halo will be quick and simple. One eye may notice the other across the room for a split-second, depending on your orientation to the event horizon, of course. We will be traveling through very low-density time as a holographic entanglement in two dimensions between the universes.”

  Everyone looked at Numen with weary eyes.

  “When your neurons finish stretching into the new dimension you will experience an overwhelming rush o
f memories that may be disorienting. They may last for quite some time, depending on the rate of penetration into the Halo.”

  Everyone looked back at the forward screen without saying a word.

  “Okay. Don’t believe me? See for yourself,” Numen said.

  Joop stood with Soleil on Earth outside the main dome of their graviton base station with a group of his fellow moonys looking up at Jerusalem’s artificial sun eclipsing the black Halo. He told the others that what they were observing at that moment was the reason why—after the first time a planet was transported to a new star—the Dark-matter Graviton Transporter had been nicknamed the ‘Halo.’ It was awe-inspiring to watch tendrils of visible light radiation streaming out around the massive solar fusion reactor and bending backwards into spiraling concentric rings of violet and indigo. No light could escape, not even the shortest, most energetic cosmic wavelengths. All of it sucked in by the massive clockwise rotating gravitational transporter created by the concentrated dark-matter tearing open an interstitial space-time funnel across the universe.

  Suddenly, distracted by a bright glowing sunrise to the West, Soleil saw what looked like a firestorm in space racing towards them. In a flash, the darkness of the night glowed fiery red in all direction.

  “Master, the sun’s core is now fusing carbon. The Red Giant has awakened,” Numen alerted everyone on the command deck. “It will consume the planet in sixty-six sectons.”

  “That’s only about minute,” Reeze gasped.

  “How will the Red Giant affect the Halo?” asked Yahweh.

  “Unknown. Time is moving at a much slower rate as we are compressed by the Halo’s gravity well.”

  “Great,” Yahweh said, knowing that if Numen couldn’t calculate the changing time, he wouldn’t be able to come up with an answer fast enough to matter, either.