The Universe Builders: Bernie and the Putty (7 page)

Suzie came in with two fresh cups of coffee and set them down. She sat in the chair opposite his desk with pen and notebook in hand.

“What can I do for you, boss?” she asked with a smile.

“Suzie, I need to have a serious talk with you. It’s about Bernie.”

Suzie did a quick intake of breath as she sat straighter in her chair. “Okay.”

“I’ve been doing background checks on him. I talked with three teachers and his co-op supervisor. Yesterday, as you know, I interviewed Bernie. I promised I would talk with you about him, and that’s what I’m doing now.”

“Great. I’ve known Bernie for—”

Ezrah interrupted her. “I need to tell you, based on what I’ve heard so far, I can’t justify hiring him. I don’t believe he’s a good fit for us.”

“Oh, no! Ezrah, you’re wrong. Bernie’s a great guy. Please don’t do this,” Suzie said as tears filled her eyes.

“Suzie, I’m willing to hear everything you want to tell me about him. But I had to tell you what I see right now. I’m sorry. I know this is upsetting, but I can’t pretend to listen to your input when my mind is almost made up.” Ezrah moved a box of tissues closer to her.

“Why are you doing this? What do you think is wrong with him?” Suzie took the tissues.

“First of all, there are a lot of good things I can say about Bernie. Just graduating with his building degree means he’s a hard worker, he’s smart, and he’s dedicated. One of his teachers, Beatrice, said very positive things about him, and so did his co-op supervisor, Peter. Bernie’s work ethic is not a problem. The real problem is his building ethics.

“Let me tell you a lesson I learned from Leviticus, the Personnel Director before me. He asked me a question once. ‘If you hire someone and later have to fire them, whose fault is it?’ I said, ‘It’s the employee’s fault because he didn’t do a good enough job.’ He said, ‘No. It’s your fault.’ When I asked him why, he said, ‘You knew what the job required, and you knew what the employee had to offer. It was your job to decide if it was a good fit. You’re the only one who had all the information needed to make a good decision.’ It’s an important lesson, Suzie, and one I can’t ignore.

“When I look at Bernie, I see a young god who, although talented, is not willing to perform the basic functions required for the job. If you’re unwilling to erase your mistakes, regardless of whether they’re alive or not, how can you ever be a successful builder?”

“But, Ezrah, there are positions in The Business where he wouldn’t have to do anything with life forms. Maybe he can work in the Sun Division and just work on building suns.”

“But that would mean having an employee we can’t transfer to another department if we need him somewhere else. Anything involving life forms will stop him cold. We have production requirements here. We can’t have someone who takes two or three times longer to do something because he doesn’t want to hurt the life forms. We have deadlines and schedules to meet.”

“But what about the talent you want to cultivate here?” asked Suzie. “Some really talented builders have serious shortcomings. I’ve seen their personnel evaluations. They’re amazing in one or two areas, but lots of them have several areas where they’re really bad.”

“That may be true for some of the star builders, Suzie. But Bernie hasn’t shown us anything that suggests he has that kind of skill.”

“But how would you know? No one’s given him a chance. If you saw what he could do, I know you would be impressed. Please, Ezrah,” begged Suzie. “Please just give him a chance.”

“I don’t know.” Ezrah realized the second he opened his mouth that his position was weakening.
Hmm
, he thought,
the pilot program for new employees would give Bernie a chance to show what he can do.

“Don’t forget, Ezrah. Bernie’s dad is Simeon. How do you know he doesn’t have the same talent as his father?” Ezrah noticed Suzie sit up straighter in her chair, as if sensing the growing strength of her position. “You wouldn’t want to find out you’ve refused to hire the next Universe Award Winner, would you?” she asked in her most winsome tone.

Ezrah knew he had lost. The only thing left was to save as much face as possible. “Okay, Suzie. I’ll give him a try. Maybe we’ll both learn something from this.”

Suzie jumped up from her chair and ran around the desk and hugged a protesting Ezrah. “Oh, thank you, Ezrah! You won’t be sorry. You’ll see!” Then she hugged him more.

Finally, Ezrah said in his gruffest voice, “Okay, now get out of here and close the door behind you. I have important work to do.”

As soon as Suzie closed the door behind her, Ezrah got up and kicked the wastebasket into the wall. Then he turned to the picture of his wife and daughter on his credenza and growled, “It’s bad enough there are two women who can do that to me. Now I have a third.”

Tomorrow, It Begins…

As they followed the young god through the woods, the watchers with the tiny eyes sensed something was happening.

Four days ago, they had been overjoyed to see the change in their boy. His shimmer had become stronger than they had ever seen it, almost as bright as the sun that shined though the treetops. Something had happened to make him very happy. They saw it in the way he walked with them, sometimes even bursting into a run along the path, forcing them to race to keep up. What had happened to make him so joyful?

Each day since, they had seen no change in his behavior. He still didn’t go away in the mornings. And he still spent a lot of time walking with them. Yet, each day he seemed to lose some of his joy. They couldn’t recall any of the other gods who didn’t leave their home for part of the day. Why didn’t the boy? Was there something wrong? They could not think of anything to explain what was happening.

Today, the boy wore his usual torn jeans and an old T-shirt that said “All Life is Sacred” in faded ink. The lace from one tennis shoe dragged on the ground, making occasional attempts to lasso twigs or small plants that came into range. The young god’s shimmer was mostly greens and yellows, and red made an occasional appearance.

The watchers all agreed the boy was more lost in his thoughts than usual. They worried for him. Gingi, not usually known for her courage, suggested revealing themselves to the boy. But no one, not even Bowin, the bravest of them all, had agreed. And so, once again, they just followed. Had they known how long it would be before Bernie returned to the woods, they might have decided differently.

There was no way for them to know how much the boy’s life was about to change.

* * *

Bernie liked to think he had a logical mind, but today he would not have made that claim. His head was bursting with more thoughts than it could hold. Each thought carried its own emotional baggage and Bernie found himself flitting from thought to thought and emotion to emotion, accomplishing little beyond giving a certain cloud an excuse to unleash even more chaotic forces upon the world.

Without conscious thought, Bernie’s course through the woods led him to his favorite place. Trees gave way to a clearing where tall green grasses swayed in the gentle, ever-present breezes that caressed the plateau. Sunlight had an unobstructed path to the large rock where Bernie sat in the middle of the clearing. Bernie, like all gods, loved the sun. Here, in his forest sanctuary, no outsider ever disturbed him.

After a time, Bernie became aware of new thoughts.

“I really am at a transition point,” he said, thinking of the headmaster’s words at his graduation ceremony. His old life was over. For him, the world of school and homework and part-time jobs would be forever behind him. “Tomorrow, I begin my new life.”

There was a lot to be excited about. He had worked all his life for this. Finally, it was here. “I am a builder, a member of the most respected profession in the world,” he said with pride. And he wasn’t alone. His mom was so proud of him. He felt as if he was about to fill an empty hole in his family. He was going to make big money, which they certainly needed.

Although his thoughts should have remained full of excitement and hope, they drifted instead to his father, Simeon. The questions never changed: Why had he left them? They had needed him, but he closed the door and never looked back.
Was it me? Was it my fight with Billy?
In all these years, why hadn’t he ever come to see them?

People have different ways of dealing with their hurt. Some people turn it into anger against the person who hurt them. This was not Bernie’s way. If his dad rejected him, there was probably a reason. If he could only prove himself, things would be different. The best way to do that had been to become a builder. And someday, he would win Universe Awards too, just like his dad. When that day came, his dad would know he had misjudged his son. He would come back and say how sorry he was for everything.
Then things would be the way they were supposed to be
, said the worn-out storyboard pictures in Bernie’s head.

Bernie shrugged off thoughts of his father and the stupid daydreams that came with them. After all, he had struggled hard to make it through the builder program. Plenty of times he’d been ready to give up.
Maybe there really is something wrong with me
, he thought. His efforts had often backfired and turned him into the school joke. He was always afraid of being kicked out of the builder program. Even the other day, when he interviewed with Ezrah, he had been sure he wasn’t going to get the job. His gut tightened as he remembered his teachers saying how much harder things are in the real world. That scared him because things were already hard in school.
No
, he thought.
These are just normal self-doubts. If the rest of my class can do it, then so can I.

He forced himself to think more uplifting thoughts, thoughts of his new life, his new job, and all the exciting things that waited for him in the future.

“The woods will always be here for us,” he said in a weak attempt to calm his doubts. “Whenever we need to think things through, we can always come here.”

Unfortunately, that was not to be.

Weekend at Billy’s

The weekend had arrived, and Billy was alone in his suite. His parents never disturbed him on weekends, having learned their son put a high value on his private time.

Billy’s weekend plans seldom changed, and this would be no exception. He would spend it in a play world called Klash. It had been created six years ago, at a time when Billy’s building skills were still growing. He had difficulty creating the higher life form he wanted for his planet, a problem he solved by purchasing a seed population from one of the universe supply stores in town. He had them transfer one hundred people to the planet of Klash, and although he had lost half of them during their first few years in their new home, eventually they figured out how to survive.

After six thousand years, the Klashians numbered one hundred thousand and had developed a rudimentary culture. Their level of civilization was perfect for Billy: it had reached that ‘sweet spot’ when they had the agrarian skills required to support specialized professions such as soldiers, artisans, and, of course, priests and priestesses.

Playing God, Billy had always said, was more fun if you didn’t have to worry about mundane things like keeping your people from starving. It was always better if they had solved those problems already. People struggling at the bottom of the need hierarchy, worried about food, water, shelter, and other boring stuff, weren’t much fun. Sure, you could always take away their warmth, food, water, air, or things like that, but in more advanced civilizations, you could introduce things like power, wealth, social status, and recognition, which makes a richer and more varied game.

Of course, that could be carried too far. Billy had no interest in highly technical civilizations. He always found it more entertaining when they fought with swords and spears than laser beams and rocket launchers. Palace intrigues involving slow-acting poisons were infinitely preferable to a genetically engineered killing agent designed to wipe out specific families by targeting their unique biometric profiles. Although he could simply smash any technology they developed, once they had the idea, it could be difficult to get them to forget about it and go back to the way they were before. It was easier to play with more primitive cultures that didn’t know about such things.

Between games, he allowed time to advance, giving the Klashians a chance to rebuild their population and their cities; usually fifty or sixty years was sufficient. If he killed off more than thirty or forty percent of the population during the game, then he might give them an extra ten or twenty years. This gave things a chance to change on the planet, so Billy got a fresh new game every weekend.

And things were always changing. Sometimes, due to the lack of godly participation, the authority of the temples and priesthoods would decline. Sometimes, rival kingdoms would achieve peace, either through truce or conquest. Each new game was like a chess match requiring a different set of moves. And Billy was an excellent strategist. He could provoke conflict in any situation. In the end, it was about control and power. And, of course, the body count. The body count had to be high, or how could you ever tell a god had been involved?

Billy’s first step was always to find out what had changed. The old leaders were generally dead and gone, so learning the new players was the best place to start. There were always some secrets to discover, although few secrets really mattered when weighed against the powers of a god.

As Billy surveyed his world, he discovered the Klashians had once again found peace. “They seem to be doing that a lot lately,” said Billy. “I wonder if my game playing is killing off the violent ones and leaving the pacifists behind. Well, no matter. I’ve never had trouble getting them to draw blood.” Billy chuckled as he thought of past games.

Studying the game map, Billy selected civil war as the theme for this weekend’s game.