The Universe Builders: Bernie and the Putty (4 page)

“Not a clue.”

“He wanted to know if it was okay to have two suns. He had the bright idea to put his planet between two suns and have the planet spin in place. That would keep both sides of the planet warm, solving his frozen ocean problem. I reminded him his planet had to revolve around the sun, so that wouldn’t work. He was very disappointed.

“Finally, he moved his planet closer to the sun, which solved the problem. That was when he looked over to see what Wanda was doing. She had finished her project and decided to add two extra moons just to show off.

“Bernie decided to try the same thing. Maybe he wanted to make up for the points he would lose for the red sun or maybe he was trying to compete with Wanda. Or maybe he never finished reading the manual and really thought he was supposed to have three moons. Who knows?

“Bernie was running out of time, but he rushed ahead anyway. He decided two of his moons would circle the third moon instead of the planet. He made a large moon and got it into a good orbit. Then he put the two smaller moons in orbit around the big moon. And, in a clear play for extra credit, he made them circle the moon in a vertical orbit instead of the traditional horizontal orbit. Now, that would have given him a passing grade, except for one problem. He needed to verify orbital stability.” Caleb struggled to keep a straight face.

“He pushed into the future to see how the orbits looked, but found the second moon had crashed into the first and pieces of both had smashed into the planet, definitely a failing grade. He pulled back to the present time and tried a do-over by adjusting the orbits. But every time he did a future check, he found the planet in ruins.”

“How far in the future do they have to verify a stable orbit?”

Caleb’s eyes twinkled again as he said, “We usually tell the kids their solar system has to be stable long enough to give any advanced life forms a fighting chance to evolve, invent space travel, and escape to a safer planet.”

Ezrah laughed, and Caleb laughed with him.

“It finally dawned on Bernie his fancy moons were a problem. That is when he decided any passing grade was more important than outdoing Wanda. So he grabbed all three moons, mashed them together into one large moon, and put it into orbit. He did a future check, and the orbit was stable.

“Relief was all over his face until he noticed a two-thousand foot tidal wave racing around the equator.” Caleb could barely tell the story because he was laughing so hard.

“I assume that was because the moon was so big and heavy.”

“Yep. Now, most of us would know to make the moon smaller or lighter or move it farther away from the planet so the gravitational forces wouldn’t be so strong. Bernie was so frazzled he didn’t think it through.

“Instead, he squished the planet. He thought if he squished it, the oceans would be forced away from the equator and closer to the poles. All he accomplished, of course, was to subject his oceans to even greater centrifugal forces, which increased the depth of the oceans and the height of the tidal wave.” Tears of laugher rolled down Caleb’s cheeks.

“The saddest part came next. I saw Bernie’s face the moment he figured out what to do. He was going to move his moon farther away, which would have solved the problem. But, that’s when I had to tell everyone their time was up. Poor Bernie. So close and yet so far.”

“That’s funny. I wish I’d seen it.”

“You can,” exclaimed Caleb. “His universe is one of few I’ve saved over the years.” He brought Ezrah to a viewing window hanging on the wall.

As Ezrah gazed into the window, he saw a large red sun; around that sun rotated a sad little planet. The planet, instead of being round, looked squished, just as Caleb had described. Its oceans were concentrated around the equator where two massive tidal waves, one on each side of the planet, were dragged around the world by a gigantic moon. It looked like a fat little world trying to swing a Hula-hoop ocean around its middle.

Ezrah saw every detail of Caleb’s story written on the planet. Even the moon looked like a lump of clay with two smaller lumps squished into it. They both laughed some more.

“I must admit I feel badly about one thing, though,” Caleb said as his laughter subsided.

“What’s that?”

“I told the other teachers about Bernie’s universe. We got such a kick out of it, we put it in the school’s Alumni Newsletter. Unfortunately, it got back to the kids at school, and Bernie took a lot of abuse from his classmates over it. I heard kids making up expressions like ‘Don’t Bernie it.’ or ‘What a Bernard!’ I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

“Just one more question for you, Caleb. Would you recommend Bernie for a builder job with The Business?”

“Sure, I’d probably hire him. I’d keep an eye on a couple of things, though.”

“What?”

“First, make sure he reads the manual before he tries to do anything.”

“Okay. What’s the second thing?”

“Don’t let him sit next to Wanda.”

The Waiting Continues

The young god closed the door to his home and turned toward the woods. The tiny eyes noticed him right away. For years, they had watched him leave in the morning and not come back until night. Three or four times a week, he had found time to walk with them in the woods. Well, not really… He didn’t know they were there, but they walked with him nonetheless.

Bowin, whose job was to watch for the young god, alerted the others the boy had been seen heading into the woods. The watchers came together, careful to make no noise. They liked the boy. They’d seen many gods in town before they became refugees and fled to the woods. This one was gentle, and they knew he would not hurt them. Even so, they never let him know they were there.

Two weeks earlier, something had changed. The boy no longer left home in the mornings. And he was spending more time than ever in the woods. They liked seeing more of him, but they wondered what had happened. For the first few days, he walked along the path and even hummed tunes. His shimmer had been strong, with flecks of gold and blue. He seemed very happy. Bowin had to caution the other watchers not to be caught up in their joy at seeing so much of the boy. There was still great danger in the woods, and they needed to be cautious.

Following the boy was always an adventure. Strange things happened near him, like branches breaking or things moving by themselves. Once, when Gingi was watching the boy, something pushed the branch she was lying on, and she had to hold tight or she might have fallen. It was as if an invisible force surrounded the young god. Strange things often happened near him. It was common for things from his pockets to end up on the ground. They had talked about it many times. They were sure the boy did not intend the contents of his pockets to be emptied. Bowin always assigned two members of their troupe to recover lost items and return them to the boy’s home.

Bowin wished he understood the language of the gods. It was not easy. The gods communicated mostly with sounds, but the sounds were very complex. And there was a relationship between their sounds and the colors in the shimmers that surrounded them. The young ones, like their boy, often displayed many constantly changing colors, while the older gods showed few changes in color. And they never seemed to talk with other parts of their bodies. Lamona speculated the gods had been forced to learn complicated verbal sounds because they had no tails or even ears they could move to make their meaning clear. Bowin was not convinced. He thought the gods were so powerful, they simply had no need for soundless ways to talk. But no one really knew what the gods were thinking. And that was reason enough to keep your distance.

Today, and for the last three days, they saw none of the gold and blue colors in the shimmering light that surrounded the boy. The young god’s head was down, seeming to stare at the path in front of him. Several times, he changed direction without warning, as if wrestling inner demons. And the strange things that happened close to him were happening even farther away. Once, he turned around so fast, he almost saw them, and they had to scramble for cover.

Still, they followed.

* * *

After a time, Bernie’s thoughts slowly untangled and began to make sense. He’d come a long way, but it wasn’t over. Everything depended on getting hired by The Business. He’d put in his application over a week ago.

“Why is it taking so long?” he asked as he walked along.

If his cloud heard him, it did not respond. But then, it never did. Clouds didn’t talk. In fact, even listening was rare. They seemed to know what was going on, but it was more of an emotional understanding than an intellectual one. A cloud had access to your senses, but it didn’t process things through a full brain. It used the primitive, instinctual part that houses your needs and your desires. And it never thought about consequences. If Bernie could have changed one thing about his cloud, he would have made it think about the consequences of its actions before it did something. But there was no cloud anywhere that did that. Bernie’s strategy was simple: keep himself calm, which tended to keep his cloud calm. Usually. Sometimes. But not always…

Bernie had been to The Edge twice already today. He tried to relax in the moss-covered clearing near the stream, but his nervous energy wouldn’t let him sit still. Doubts he didn’t know he had emerged to trouble him. So he walked.

“My grades were good—I was in the top third of my class,” he said, as if trying to convince someone else. How long did it take to speak with his teachers? Did they talk to all of them? There were some he hoped they didn’t talk to at all.

“Beatrice would say good things. She was the best,” he said, thinking immediately of his favorite teacher. “But what would the others say?” Most of them would only remember him as the kid who fought with Billy. No matter how many times he thought about the fight, the intense feelings never diminished. Going over the edge like that was the worst thing he’d ever done.
Ouch!

Bernie felt the pull on his hair and quickly slapped it down before it could tie itself into a knot. He calmed his mind and turned away from thoughts of the fight, lest his cloud become even more upset.

As if on cue, he found himself at The Edge. Had some part of his sub-consciousness sent him here again?
What is it that keeps calling to me out there?
At this point on the rim, the land sloped gently downward. It would be a leisurely stroll down into the unknown territory. Did such thoughts make him insane? No. He was as sane as anyone else. It was just the pressure.

A tug on the cuff of his pants brought him back to reality. “Stop that,” he said automatically. He wasn’t surprised to see a snarl of unraveled threads dragging behind him. The threads, once part of his pants, had been used to capture small twigs, leaves, and even an unwary stone that had failed to move out of range. It was one of his cloud’s favorite pranks. “We can’t afford to buy more clothes right now. We already bought new clothes for my interview,” he said, hoping he would have a chance to use them.

The threads twitched once and stopped.

“And don’t even think about doing this to the new clothes. They have to be perfect for my interview.”

The threads and their stranglehold on the collection of sticks and stones loosened in response to Bernie’s words. Suddenly the captured sticks raced off in different directions, free at last from the threads that had held them tight. The stone rolled drunkenly down the path.

“That’s not funny,” said Bernie. “And please don’t do it again.”

After a time, Bernie resumed his walk. He found no answers. Everything was already in motion. There was no test he could retake, no class he could study for, no extra-credit assignments to do.

There was nothing he could do except wait.

* * *

And so, the watchers with the tiny eyes, they waited with him.

Bad Ethics

Ezrah found Gabriel’s office easily. After all these years, he knew his way around The School very well. He didn’t often have reasons to interview the creation ethics teacher, but the note Gabriel left in Bernie’s file couldn’t be ignored.

“Bernie was a big problem in my class.” Gabriel thundered his complaint with the voice qualities of an elder god. Ezrah, no youngster himself, struggled not to succumb to its power.

“In what way?” Ezrah got out his notebook.

“He rejected the basic building principles we’ve taught for millennia. He just didn’t get it.”

“What do you think was going on?”

“I’ve seen it before. Some kids can’t stay objective,” said Gabriel. “They get attached to their creations, and then nothing you say makes any difference.”

“Did Bernie violate the rule against communicating with higher life forms?”

“It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” Gabriel replied. “Well, I never heard about it if he did. I checked with some of his teachers, but they never saw him break the rule either. But, who knows? Maybe he did it with a personal universe at home. Lots of kids have them.”

“What kind of things did he challenge?”

“Where to begin? One day I was telling them about the importance of instilling death directives into their life forms. I’m sure you know, Ezrah, finite life spans are essential for any kind of evolutionary process. No one ever gets complex life forms right on their first try. You have to weed out the bad ones so your superior specimens can make more contributions to the gene pool. If none of your creatures ever die, what are you going to do with the inferior specimens you don’t want anymore?

“I couldn’t believe Bernie’s response. He said, ‘It doesn’t seem fair. The gods don’t have a death directive, but we give one to everyone else. Why should we make everything else die if we don’t?’ I couldn’t believe he was comparing us to something we created.

“I tried to be patient with him. I said, ‘If you don’t instill a death directive, your planet will end up overpopulated with misfits. You won’t be able to accomplish your evolutionary goals, and everything will eventually starve.’ ‘But we don’t overpopulate,’ he said. ‘We’re different, Bernie. We’re gods. Besides, our retirement rate matches our birth rate, so it’s not a problem for us,’ I said.”