He paused to drink another beer.
“Life on these planets was an accident.”
Simon was shaken. He was the end of a process that had started with cockroach crap.
“That’s as good a way to originate as any,” Bingo said, as if he had read Simon’s thoughts.
After a long silence, Simon said, “Why aren’t there any towers on the planets in my galaxy?”
“The life there didn’t look very promising,” Bingo said.
Simon blushed. Gviirl snickered. Bingo broke into huge laughter and slapped his front thighs. The laughter became a wheezing and a choking, and Gviirl had to slap him on his back and pour some beer down his throat.
Bingo wiped away the tears and said, “I was only kidding, son. The truth was, we were called back before I could build any bases there. The reason for that is this. We built the giant computer and had been feeding all the data needed into it. It took a couple of billion years to do this and for the computer to digest the data. Then it began feeding out the answers. There wasn’t any reason for us to continue surveying after that. All we had to do was to ask the computer and it would tell us what we’d find before we studied a place. So all the Clerun-Gowph packed up and went home.”
“I don’t understand,” Simon said.
“Well, it’s this way, son. I’ve known for three billion years that a repulsive-looking but pathetic banjo-playing biped named Simon Wagstaff would appear before me exactly at 10:32 A.M., April 1, 8,120,006,000 A.C., Earth chronology. A.C. means After Creation. The biped would ask me some questions, and I’d give him the answers.”
“How could you know that?” Simon said.
“It’s no big deal,” Bingo said. “Once the universe is set up in a particular structure, everything from then on proceeds predictably. It’s like rolling a bowling ball down the return trough.”
“I think I will sit down,” Simon said. “I’ll need a pillow, too, though. Thank you, Gviirl. But, Your Ancientship, what about Chance?”
“No such thing. What seems Chance is merely ignorance on the part of the beholder. If he knew enough, he’d see that things could not have happened otherwise.”
“But I still don’t understand,” Simon said.
“You’re a little slow on the mental trigger, son,” Bingo said. “Here, have another beer. You look pale. I told you that, until the computer started working, we proceeded like everybody else. Blind with ignorance. But once the predictions started coming in, we knew not only all that had happened but what would happen. I could tell you the exact moment I’m going to die. But I won’t because I don’t know it myself. I prefer to remain ignorant. It’s no fun knowing everything. Old It found that out Itself.”
“Could I have another beer?” Simon said.
“Sure. That’s the ticket. Drink.”
“What about It?” Simon said. “Where did It come from?”
“That’s data that’s not in the computer,” Bingo said. He was silent for a long time and presently his eyelids drooped and he was snoring. Gviirl coughed loudly for a minute, and the eyelids opened. Simon stared up at huge red-veined eyes.
“Where was I? Oh, yes. It may have told me where It came from, what It was doing before It created the universe. But that was a long time ago, and I don’t remember now. That is, if It did indeed say a word about it.
“Anyway, what’s the difference? Knowing that won’t affect what’s going to happen to me, and that’s the only thing I really care about.”
“Damn it then,” Simon said, shaking with despair and indignation, “what will happen to you?”
“Oh, I’ll die, and my embalmed body will be put on display for a few million years. And then it’ll crumble. That will be that. Finis for yours truly. There is no such thing as an afterlife. That I know. That is one thing I remember It telling me.”
He paused and said, “I think.”
“But why, then, did It create us!” Simon cried.
“Look at the universe. Obviously, it was made by a scientist, otherwise it wouldn’t be subject to scientific analysis. Our universe, and all the others It has created, are scientific experiments: It is omniscient. But just to make things interesting, It, being omnipotent, blanked out parts of Its mind. Thus, It won’t know what’s going to happen.
“That’s why, I think, It did not come back after lunch. It erased even the memory of Its creation, and so It didn’t even know It was due back for an important meeting with me. I heard reports that It was seen rolling around town acting somewhat confused. It alone knows where It is now, and perhaps not even It knows. Maybe. Anyway, in whatever universe It is, when this universe collapses into a big ball of fiery energy, It’ll probably drop around and see how things worked out.”
Simon rose from the chair and cried, “But why? Why? Why? Didn’t It know what agony and sorrow It would cause sextillions upon sextillions of living beings to suffer? All for nothing?”
“Yes,” Bingo said.
“But why?” Simon Wagstaff shouted. “Why? Why? Why?”
Old Bingo drank a glass of beer, belched, and spoke.
“Why not?”
AFTERWORD
JONATHAN SWIFT SOMERS III: COSMIC TRAVELLER IN A WHEELCHAIR
A SHORT BIOGRAPHY BY PHILIP JOSÉ FARMER (HONORARY CHIEF KENNEL KEEPER)
Editor’s note: In the November 1976 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction, it was announced that a group in Portland, Oregon, called The Bellener Street Irregulars were going to publish something called The Bellener Street Journal. The journal was to be dedicated to the study of the canine detective, Ralph von Wau Wau. The Bellener Street Journal never even saw a first issue, however, due to inexplicable complications within the group.
The following biographical sketch of Jonathan Swift Somers III was written for the journal, and was to be published along with a lost story by Dr. Johann H. Weisstein and a story by Jonathan Swift Somers III entitled, “Jinx.”
Petersburg is a small town in the mid-Illinois county of Menard. It lies in hilly country near the Sangamon River on state route 97. Not far away is New Salem, the reconstructed pioneer village where Abraham Lincoln worked for a while as a postmaster, surveyor and storekeeper. The state capital of Springfield is southeast, a half-hour’s drive or less if traffic is light.
A hilltop cemetery holds two famous people, Anne Rutledge and Edgar Lee Masters. The former (1816-1835) is known only because of the legend, now proven false, that she was Lincoln’s first love, tragically dying before she could marry him. “Bloom forever, O Republic, From the dust of my bosom!”
These words are from the epitaph which Masters wrote for her and are inscribed on her gravestone. Unfortunately, the man who chiseled the epitaph made a typo, driving Masters into a rage. We authors, who have suffered from so many typos, can sympathize with him. However, we have the advantage that we can make sure that reissues contain corrections. There will be no later editions in stone of Anne Rutledge’s epitaph.
Masters (1869-1950) was a poet, novelist and literary critic, known chiefly for his Spoon River Anthology. There is a Spoon River area but no town of that name. Masters chose that name to represent an amalgamation of the actual towns of Lewistown and Petersburg, where he spent most of his childhood and early adulthood. Lewistown, also on route 97, is about forty miles from Petersburg but separated by the Illinois River.