But there was no sense telling her. There was no way to
convey the absolute emptiness of the eternity that stretched
before me. I had wanted a woman all my life, wanted
to be loved and to return that affection tenfold. And now
that I had finally shaken off all the false notions which had
kept me from having a love—the false notions had come
true and I was right back where I had started from.
And there seemed no hope at all. It seemed I had lost
her.
V
But I had not lost her.
Even as I resigned myself to the future that all gods
must face, I realized how the problem could be resolved. I
had not been thinking with the omniscience of a god, and
now that I suddenly began to apply myself as fully as I
could, an answer loomed immediately in sight. I should
have realized that to God there are no insoluble problems.
Why, then, had the previous God gone mad? Why
hadn’t He done what I was about to do to solve His
loneliness? I thought I knew the answer to that one. He
had not considered this utter loneliness to be a debit;
perhaps He had not realized, as His existence had grown
more petty and introverted, that what He needed was
someone with whom to converse, exchange viewpoints and
outlooks and mental visions. And by the time He had
understood, it was too late: He was crazy.
What I had in mind was singularly simple. I took her by
the shoulders and drew her next to me, reached into her
mind with all the force of my esp.
She tried to fight.
It was no good.
I held her, and I funneled into her half the booming
godly energy which I had contained, until the two of us
were gods, each one half a god compared to the one deity
before.
Her mind burst with psychedelic visions.
I fought down the rejection her own personality threw
up, and helped her integrate the white power of godhood
into her own being. We stood there for a very long while,
locked physically and mentally as the changes came to her
as they had come to me.
And we parted.
She took my hand, tenderly.
We did not speak.
There was no need for speech.
Together, we left that room and that building and went
forth to take command of the world. The altar candles
would be lighted, the prayers of the multitudes begun, and
the sacrificial lambs led to the butchering block.
We passed many years on a perfect earth, racing from it
to the corners of the universe. We saw all the places that
had existed in the shattered mirror of God’s mental ana-
logue that time so long ago when I had confronted Him
inside Child’s mutant husk.
There were worlds where trees grew ugly sores and bled
on the ground.
There were worlds where the sky shattered around us,
was resurrected a hundred times every hour.
We saw walking plants that had built civilization
within the darkness of an alien jungle.
We saw stones that spoke and stars that felt real pain.
For ten thousand years, we roamed the corners of
existence, learning what sort of kingdom we had inherited.
And one day, Melinda said, “I’m bored. I’ve seen it
all.”
“I agree,” I agreed.
“Let’s revive religion,” she said. “Let’s at least let the
people know we exist. We can come to them in burning
bushes and in talking doves, and at least that will be
amusing.”
“Sounds fine,” I said.
And though we had ended the rivalries of religions, we
went down to the earth and revived them. We brought
forth temples and synagogues, churches and altars, and
garish robes and bejeweled priests. We created hierarchies
of worthless prelates, and we spoke our words to the
masses through the mouths of men of less value than most
other men.
And for a time, that was fine, rather like camp culture.
But soon the novelty of it wore off—like camp culture too.
“I’m bored,” she said.
“Me too.”
“But what is left?” she asked.
“We could stir things up a bit,” I said.