build the new world. I found the members of the junta,
one by one, and altered their minds. I rooted deeply,
found their personality problems and removed them. I
gave them the best psychotherapy man had ever imagined,
and left them without a desire to rule.
Then; in each man’s mind, I planted the desire for a
return to elective government, and left them as their own
counter-revolutionaries.
Next, I began a methodical search of the corners of the
world; I radiated a growing, toughening web of power
that sought out the minds of every leader in every nation,
down through the lowest bureaucratic posts. I cleared
those minds of power-hunger, of sexual frustration turned
into violence. I healed them like a prophet with the power
of god in his hands, and I left them better men.
Not satisfied yet, I struck downward and located – all
the men with the potential of leadership, even though they
were not yet in positions to guide the destinies of their
fellow citizens. I cleaned house in every psyche, helped all
of them to learn to cope with existence and with their
own place in the scheme of things.
And still my power grew. Or, perhaps, the more I used
it, the better my manipulatory mechanisms became.
Next, I found the stockpiles of nuclear weapons hidden
in all corners of the globe. I turned the fissionable materi-
al into lead by making Time flow a million times faster
around the vicinity of the weapons. In the biochemical
warfare laboratories, I destroyed all the mutant strains of
death that scientists had generated. I opened the minds of
those same scientists and cleansed them, made them reject
the need to create death in order to feel worthy and
powerful.
And the day wore on.
And evening came.
Still, I toiled.
It was somewhere beyond midnight when I finished
reshaping the world and returned to my body in the AC
complex. With all that I had done, I still felt energetic.
None of my vitality had been sapped; it even seemed to
have been magnified. The power I wielded was now more
complex and enormous than I could ever have imagined.
I stretched my esp out and lingered along the surface of
the moon, looking firsthand at the craters with eyes I
constructed from the cold vacuum of space.
Stars winked close at hand, warm and yet freezing,
pricks of light, yet mammoth stars.
I sped outward to them.
I touched red giants and white dwarfs, plummeted
through the center of a sun, listening to the songs of
exploding hydrogen, to the creation of matter, and to its
instant destruction—or, rather, to its instant conversion
into light and heat.
Energy…
I seemed to gain energy from every source I approached.
My own light was brighter than that from any star, and
was controlled far more intricately, making it more deadly
and more important than countless suns in mindless erup-
tion.
I passed outward beyond the galaxy.
I reached the end of the universe, sped through impene-
trable walls of pearl gray, kept on going through dimen-
sions until I reached another plane of creation.
And then I came back, skipping from galaxy to galaxy—
then from star to star—then from planet to planet, finally
back into the room where my mortal shell sat stupidly.
I rose up from the chair and left that room after
turning Morsfagen and the others loose. I walked down
the corridor and found Melinda’s rooms, opened the door
without touching it, and walked inside. I could have come
to her with my mind, but I wanted the personal touch of
flesh on flesh for this last and ultimate step of the plan.
“You’re free,” I said as she turned from her window
and looked at me, grinning her beautiful grin.
She started toward me….
And then I was to learn just how lonesome and awful
the role of a god can be. I was about to meet with my
first near-disaster since I had claimed the power….
IV
We were strangers.
We had made love and been in love, had shared secrets
and dreams. I had risked my life for her, and she had