"I think I'm afraid of you," she said.
"I'm afraid of me too," I said.
"What's happened?" she asked.
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 analogue 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.
"Stir things?"
"A war or two. Some killings. We could take sides. You could command the Southern Hemisphere, and I the North. And the winner-yes, I've got it! The winner will be permitted to expend enough energy to create a new race of beings on some far-flung world!"
"Marvelous!" she said, clasping her perfect hands across the full, rounded breasts I had come to know so well.
We had long ago learned that the energy required to create a race of beings or to form a new planet was too much of a drain on us. We required five centuries of recuperation from such a task, and recuperation meant boredom-which we could not afford.
It was a grand prize, then.
And the wars began. They still rage, for she is a formidable opponent, though I do believe I will eventually whip her Hemisphere with a contingent of laser-weaponed soldiers I have been concealing in a state of suspended animation beneath the North Pole. They are members of the Canadian army, well-trained and deadly. She does not know of them.
We have a fine time.
We play our games, battling for the grand prize, both of us already imagining what interesting and grotesque race we could create if permitted the use of the power.
We have a fine time.
On earth, men die, thrown at each other by our machinations. Some fleeting moments, when I am waiting for her to make her move, I consider my origins: made of men. I consider my life and Harry Kelly and Morsfagen and the lot of them. And then I consider what I am doing, and the old darkness in my soul returns. But not for long, of course. I am no fool. Morsfagen is dead. The society we knew has fallen to newer ones. Harry is long ago gone. I barely remember what he looked like. So we play our games and forget our doubts. Gods can have no doubts, as I said once before.
We play our games.
We have a fine time.