The Universe Builders: Bernie and the Putty (2 page)

Burn, Baby, Burn!

Candi and Lenny

A World Ablaze

Billy Scares Candi

Bloody Moon

Wake Up!

He’s a Wimp

We Must Explain

Getting Discouraged

A Little Breeze

Oh, Do Tell…

Wicked Winds

An Understanding

Sauna, Anyone?

Suzie Intervenes

Gee, It’s Hot

The Deal

The Hot Senate

Shemal Talks

That Billy!

Let’s Try Faster

Little Friends

Something Is Very Wrong

Someday, He Will Pay

Blame the Night Sun

Lookies!

Alcandor Offers a Theory

One Bright Spot

Senate’s Progress Report

How Can This Be?

First Contact Protocol

A Cultural Assessment

Meet Your God

A World to Save a World

You Want Us To Go Where?

Meeting with Zardok

A Dead End

Lenny Gets Upset

What’s He Like?

Alcandor Tells Gondal

Still Best Buds

We Must Agree

Alcandor Learns More

I Blew It

Astronomy 101

Zoology 101

Quakes and More

Command Performance

The Rest of the Story

A Time of Peace

Alcandor Makes a Request

Not Cool

The Kids Prepare

The Extraction

What Are Those?

This Is Lenny

Time to End It

The Museum

Billy Destroys the World

Damn You!

The Booby Trap

Go Home, Bernie

Billy’s Threat

The Last Goodbye

Billy’s Lesson

Committee Arrives

Terrible Swift Sword

Good News!

Awards Ceremony

Epilogue

Did you like the book?

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Have you ever wondered about the universe? How it came to be? The purpose of it all?

Well, the answers may surprise you.

Actually, there are a lot of universes out there. They come in every size and shape and flavor you can imagine. And the answers to your questions are very different, depending on which universe you’re in.

Some universes are amazing. They’re full of beautiful planets, intelligent races, technological marvels, and other wonders. But some of them are not so amazing. Each universe is created by a god, of course, as is required for such things. One of the inconvenient truths is: not all gods are created equal. Oh, they have the best teachers and the best educations possible, and, over the ages, the gods have developed a good work ethic and a strong desire to do the best they can. But gods are pretty much like everyone else. They have their own share of overachievers and underachievers, motivated and unmotivated, and talented and not so talented, which explains why some of the universes out there are not really up to professional standards.

This is a story about those gods. They live in The Town, on a planet they call The World. Their primary occupation is building universes, which they call The Business. You needn’t be much concerned about their lack of creativity in naming things. They all live in the same town on the same planet. And there isn’t anyone else in the god business, so they don’t need a lot of fancy names to differentiate these things.

No one remembers how The Business began. They’ve been building universes as far back as anyone can recall. They will always be doing it. It’s one of those things gods do. It isn’t like they can just quit The Business and do something else. Their whole economy depends on the universes they create. And since it is the only thing they will ever do, they make it fun by seeing how well they can do it.

The only real competition on The World is the Annual Universe Awards. This is when a special committee looks over the new universes to see if anyone has come up with something worthy of an award. After so many millennia, there is an award for every category you can imagine. The trick is to be better than the god who won that category last time. So if you are going for the
Most Beautiful Planet
, with forty-seven winners before you, each one more beautiful than the last, you have to be exceptional to become number forty-eight. But the competition is everyone’s favorite event, and the gods work hard to outdo each other. It’s the best and fastest way to gain recognition for your work.

Not every god is cut out to be a builder, of course. Some gods are better at other things, which is good, because The Town needs cooks, librarians, plumbers and all manner of other professions as well. In school, everyone has a chance to become a builder, but as the classes keep getting harder and more challenging, there are more reasons to change your major to something else.

To help you understand The World, we’ll take a look at an ordinary boy. He isn’t the smartest, although he isn’t dumb. He certainly didn’t distinguish himself in school, unless you count his reputation for being picked on more than most kids. He had few friends, perhaps because he came from a broken home. His mom worked hard to raise him the best she could, but after the divorce, she struggled to make ends meet. Our boy’s only claim to fame is his dad, who won three universe awards and became a major celebrity all over The World.

We take you to our young god at a special time in his life. He has just finished school and is about to start his first job. An exciting time to be sure…

The Time of Waiting

The young god closed the door to his home, glancing from force of habit at the bridge path that led to The Town. Bernie had not taken that path for several days, nor would he today. Instead, he circled around to the back of the small home he shared with his mother. There he would take a less used path into the woods.

“Where shall we go today?” he asked, although he appeared to be alone. “I know. Let’s go to the lookout point. We haven’t been there for a while.” His invisible friend did not reply, although a small group of twigs quickly assembled on the path behind the boy and began merrily hopping along in single file after him.

Bernie would never have called his companion a friend, any more than he would have called his finger a friend. But he had developed a habit of talking to him as if he understood—and perhaps in some ways he did. He was usually better behaved when Bernie talked to him. If left to his own devices, well, then anything might happen…

During his younger years, he had often thought of his companion as an evil force, something to be fought or battled into submission. For a long time he felt shame, as if it was a dark curse or some unknown flaw. He tried to hide it—still did, really—but that often just made things worse. Other gods had clouds, of course, but not nearly as strong. Nor as chaotic.

‘It’s not your fault,’ they had told him. ‘When each child is born, Order and Chaos fight for dominance. For most children, it’s a close battle, and the child ends up with only a slight inclination toward one side or the other. This imbalance is what we call the cloud, and, for most people, their cloud is rarely heard from. But for people like you, Bernie, your cloud is very strong. When Order and Chaos were supposed to fight for you, Order never showed up, and Chaos won by default,’ they said. ‘That’s why your cloud is so strong.’

‘You can’t win by fighting your cloud. You have to make friends with it. Try to understand what it wants. Learn to live with it,’ they counseled. ‘After all, it’s part of you.’ Bernie tried. Really, he did. But it was hard to be friends with something inherently chaotic. It was unpredictable, disorderly, unreliable, and often just plain stubborn.

As the young god entered the woods, the sky seemed to darken. Here in the woods, the gods took no responsibility for encouraging or discouraging the trees from doing whatever they wanted, although the Town Council had talked about it often enough. One tree in particular—the Old One—was the subject of perennial discussions. The tree’s big offense was having attained a height so great that some complained it blocked the sun in much of the Northeast Quadrant. An exaggeration, perhaps, but that didn’t explain why no one ever volunteered to take it down. It didn’t explain their fear.

Bernie’s path took him to the trunk of the great tree. “Hello, Old One.” Even from the far side of town, the great tree could be seen towering above their world. Bernie stroked his hands against the soft warm bark as if greeting a friend. The tree had been created by a god, of course, but it was so long ago no one remembered who had done it or why. Even its placement in the woods was a mystery. Perhaps it had been an accidental passenger, riding in the entrails of a more exotic creation, excreted on fertile ground, and left to grow. Bernie had been delighted the first time he touched it and discovered it was warm-blooded.

Bernie put his ear against the great tree and listened to the slow quiet rumble of its great heart as it pushed the sap through its veins. “I think you will outlast us all,” he said as he stroked the soft bark.

Bernie felt a small tap on his leg. Expecting a cloud-prank, he found instead a green vine rearing up like a snake in front of him. Although it looked like a plant, he knew it was not. “Ah,” he said as understanding dawned, “are you sure you want to go up there?” The vine creature tapped higher on his leg. “Okay, okay,” he said, “I’ll help.”

Bernie gently grasped the slither, lifting it upward as its head snaked higher in search of a low branch. Bernie laughed as the slither wrapped itself around different body parts in its struggle to ascend. Finally, it wrapped its head around a low branch and began pulling the rest of its long body up the great tree. Slithers were always looking for tall trees where they could reach the sunlight. Once there, the tiny leaf-like scales that covered their bodies would fan outward, capturing the sun’s precious energy. If they found the right tree, they would spend their entire lives there. “You’ve found the ultimate home here, little buddy.”