always thought I was!
I began pacing the room again. My feet swished on the
thick carpet. A clock ticked in the wall. Otherwise: heavy
silence.
Be God …
God lay inside Child’s mutant body, insane as He had
always been, trapped as Child and I had been for that
month. And though I did not want His madman’s person-
ality, I could make a great deal of use of His psychic
energy. It was there to be tapped, the power that had
made worlds, had generated galaxies and universes, that
had established the infinitely fine balance of the cosmic
scale. I could delve back into Child’s twisted body and find
the core of God’s being, absorb Him and dissipate Him
throughout my own mind, as I had Child. God would be
part of me, a deeply threaded part without His own
identity. I would, indeed, for all purposes, be God.
I could not sleep for the rest of that night. I wanted to
see Morsfagen, wanted to try to work him as a human
being long enough to have him get me to Child. Then,
once he had done that, I would not have to deal with him
on a man-to-man basis. I would be above that.
I was frightened that night, seeing hulking creatures in
every shadow. In God’s mind, down in that colossal id and
ego, what would things be like? Would I be able to handle
them, or would I be swamped and driven down, con-
sumed? I forced the latter possibility from my mind and
thought more positively. But the fear remained. It was not
unlike the fear a child feels the first time he enters a great
cathedral and sees the towering, somewhat menacing
figures of the saints carved in great pillars of marble.
Morsfagen came at nine o’clock, smiling. “I thought
you’d like to hear today’s schedule,” he said.
I said nothing, playing the role I had decided on.
“We start with a press release about the gun battle you
had with the police last night. Did you know that you
were seriously injured in that, perhaps fatally injured?”
He wanted some response that he could slap me down
for, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction. I accepted.
“Later in the day, we’ll release some film of that shoot-
out,” he said. “We’ve already staged it. Looks very real
with lots of blood. We found a fairly good double for your
part, and we kept him mostly in the shadows so that it’s
hard to tell, really, who he is.”
I said nothing.
He shuffled the papers in his hand, went on. “According
to the reports, three officers will have died under your
guns. We’ve made up life histories for them, all very
touching. Two of them had large families and one had a
brother who was a priest We’ve put together composite
photographs of various real officers to release to the press.
Later tonight, word will be flashed to an outraged nation
that you have died on the operating table. Even though
you slaughtered the howler crew and three other police-
men, we were trying to save you, see? Now, the first
order of business today is for you to come along and help
us film the operating room sequences. A double won’t
work in bright lights. I hope you can die convincingly, or
at least pretend to look dead while you’re lying there.
Otherwise, you’ll have to be drugged for it.
He stopped, watching me. It was time for my part, and
my lines were crystal clear to me. “Look, how about a
bargain,” I said. I sounded fairly desperate.
He smiled. He was eating this up. Morsfagen’s weakness
was not in his rigid acceptance of military codes and
consensus views, but in his need for power over other
human beings, his delight at being on top of another man.
I was giving him exactly what he wanted.
Maybe he would just hang himself with it.
“I fail to see,” he said, “just what you have to bargain
with.” He motioned around at the windowless walls.
“Something you don’t know,” I said. “Something that, if
you knew, would help you a great deal.”