Storymania - The Little Gods by Michael Potter

The Little Gods
Michael Potter

     The ship streaked through space incalculably fast. Its sole living occupant was worried. Igthar couldn’t make the ship respond as it should. He used to be able to complete the journey in seconds but now he’d been traveling a day or more. Igthar was old and tired now and the ship had slowed with him. He would arrive at earth soon. He felt he had a mission there. He had been to earth before and most everywhere else in the immediate universe. He was a sort of galactic social worker and observation post. For thousands of years he had kept watch on planets with intelligent life, occasionally seeding likely looking barren planets or programing certain leaders or groups for constructive leadership to encourage social progress. It had been lonely but the knowledge that he had begun many cultures gratified him somewhat.
     “This may be my last mission,” said Igthar to the computer which listened attentively. “I must do as much as I can.”

     Glenn carried another armload of wood for the stove. The kerosene lanterns gave the cabin a subdued but functional light. The rough wood cabin was comfortably warm though it was not really cold out that night. Glenn set the wood in a box by the stove. Sandy was cooking some vegetables in a wok. She looked at the wood in the box. She looked at Glenn and walked up to him and said, “My strong hero,” and hugged and kissed him.
     Sandy was Glenn’s world. He felt that their love, at times, was an unbelievable joy. She was his catharsis. Her being gave him the joy he could never have known alone. It was an attraction of souls as well as humans. He loved the attitude she had for him. All she wanted was him and he wanted to give all he had to her.
     They gazed at each other with silly grins over dinner. Afterward they sat on the floor with legs crossed, facing each other. They held hands. She radiated her smile to him and he felt it enveloping him. Their understanding of each other produced a harmony that they dwelled in. Their eyes locked and their hands tightened their grasp of each others. They felt their own energy flowing between them.
     “Do you feel it?” asked Sandy.
     He smiled and said, “Our souls are together.” Their words flowed like well known phrases with deeper meanings between two old friends.
     “Want to go for a walk?” asked Sandy.
     “Sure,” answered Glenn. They left the cabin and walked past the spring and into the woods.
     “It’s nice not to be in the city and it’s nice to have these woods here so close,” Sandy said exuberantly.
     “Too bad it’s almost over,” Glenn answered softly. They walked to a clearing so that they could look up at the stars.
     “I don’t want to go home. Can we stay here forever?” she asked petulantly.
     “I’d like to, but we have all of our stuff in the city,” he tried to sound diplomatic. “We can’t afford to rent two places, the summer is almost over and we have to go to work again because we can’t support ourselves out here.”
     “True,” she answered sounding a little sad. “It’s a shame. The sky is so clear up in the mountains, you can see so many stars. You can’t even see the Milky Way in the city because of the lights.” She noticed something moving in the sky. “Is that a shooting star or a satellite?”
     “I think a satellite, I don’t believe it’s an airplane and a falling star would have burned out by now.”
     They stood holding hands. After awhile they head a distant whine, like a jet engine, soon it grew much louder. Glenn said, “That’s the first jet I’ve heard in a long... look!” He pointed at a glowing blue disk that was flying through the air toward them rapidly. Suddenly it was very close and large. The craft lit up the surrounding forest that had been pitch black. Sandy was holding Glenn incredibly tight, frozen to the spot. Glenn was unsure whether or not to run or stay with Sandy. The craft landed quickly and easily in front of them. Before they had time to think, a door opened. Sandy bolted and Glenn followed. They ran a few steps but their feet felt like lead. They could sense someone or something behind them watching. They could feel it reach into their brains and stop them and turn them around. A humanoid creature stood in the shadow of the ships doorway. They could not really see it, just its silhouette. They walked into the ship as if in a trance. The door closed and the craft took to the sky.

     The atmosphere inside was foggy, gold colored fog. There was no floor, they stood on golden fog. There seemed to be no light source, but there was light.
     “Are we dead?” asked Sandy seriously.
     “No, but it looks like heaven,” Glenn answered.
     “Don’t be afraid,” a reassuring voice stated pleasantly. “You are under a hypnosis which I hope will prove positive for your character.”
     “That explains a few things...” Glenn’s voice trailed off. The golden fog made him feel euphoric and he was unconcerned with the situation.
     “Relax,” said the voice. “No harm will come to you.”
     “Can we get out of here?” Sandy asked pensively.
     “You will be free to go but first you must hear me out.”
     “Who are you? Where are you? What are you?” Glenn asked.
     “My physical body offers little for human aesthetics, so I am hidden from your view. I came from another solar system, my name is Igthar. My people came into contact with many worlds. Theoretically, my ancestors are related to humans as you humans are related to apes.”
     “Why don’t you contact our world openly?” asked Glenn.
     “The customs of my people forbids direct intervention on a massive scale until the intelligent species has developed the mental capability to understand and use wisely the technological advantages we know of. Knowledge must be used positively or else it destroys. That is something the human race has not yet collectively learned.”
     The fog melted away from in front, above and underneath Glenn and Sandy. They wanted to cry out but they seemed to be in a trance. They could see the earth far below them. There were in orbit as high as the moon. The earth, far below, seemed to glow the same color blue the space ship had when they first saw it.
     In their heads they heard Igthar talking. “The ship’s propulsion is based on the energy of the universe. The ship is guided by will power.” Suddenly the earth disappeared; there were no stars, there was nothing.
     “Where are we?” asked Glenn.
     “Nowhere,” said Igthar firmly.
     “Why?” asked Sandy.
     “Because it’s safe,” Igthar answered.
     Glenn shuddered.
     “This ship is a state of mind,” continued Igthar. “It is powered by a universal energy which men know little about, it is that electric blue light you noticed. That energy is the drive of the universe. It runs this ship which works on life and mental power. Earth scientists may never discover this principle. The one thing that can disrupt this energy is what you call nuclear radiation. As the earth becomes more and more radioactive with new nuclear reactors, radiation leaks and bomb test, the balance between this natural energy and earth’s natural radiation will become upset. If too much radiation disturbs the blue energy it will go out of control and an energy storm will result that will increase the radiation level. Energy and radioactivity will feed each other until the surface of the earth is a storm of destruction.”
     “When do you expect that to happen?” asked Sandy sounding concerned.
     “In less that thirty of your years, providing that there are no nuclear wars.”
      “You mean there will be a world wide nuclear holocaust without a war because of radiation?” asked Glenn.
     “Yes,” answered Igthar. “That’s right. People have so many alternative sources for energy. Many have not been discovered.”
     “You’re not telling us this for nothing,” said Sandy.
     “That’s right,” answered Igthar. “I am the last of my race and I am dying, I grow weaker daily. As I told you, earth culture is nearing extinction. I would like to try to save it if I could, however there is not much I can do.”
     The golden fog reappeared and Glenn and Sandy looked at each other.
     Igthar continued, “I will give this craft to you if you can learn to use it. Perhaps you can put it to good use. I have keyed the ship’s computer to human words and symbols.”
     “What is this mist around us?” asked Glenn.
     “It is spiritual ether in a physical form,” answered Igthar. “Some of your people have ‘myths’ that their gods lived in a mist like this.”
     “Why did you take us?” Sandy asked.
     “Because you love each other,” was the answer.
     Sandy and Glenn looked each other in the eye. “Are you responsible for all the UFO sightings on earth?” Glenn asked.
     “No, there are many creatures that have visited earth. Some would be indifferent to you, some would care for you, and others would dissect you.”
     “Do you believe in God?’ Sandy asked.
     “God to me is atoms. Almost all things are made of atoms. Atoms have electrical charges. They influence each other because of the charge. Humans are a collection of atoms and electric charges. Your nerves work because of electricity and your body has an electrical field. You influence each other with these fields and you could manipulate your physical environment mentally, if you knew how. All of these manifestations represent God to me. Long ago people of my kind gave secrets to earth people. They either kept them secret or used them to destroy each other. We did not tell them much and over the millennia they managed to obscure the real secrets with mystical ritual. Soon the real knowledge was forgotten and people, with few exceptions, degenerated to what they are today.”
     Glenn and Sandy were freed from the hypnotic grip they had been in. The gold mist dissipated and there were walls and a room. The fog cleared in front of them and there was a console with a screen and a key board.
     “This is your communication with the ship,” Igthar said in their heads.
     “What do we do now?” asked Sandy.
     Glenn walked over to the key board. There was a button with the word hello printed on it. He pushed the button and the screen lit up with words. “This is your control module. If you wish to communicate I am programmed to accept verbal or typed commands and orders. There are living quarters aboard the ship.” The screen abruptly blinked off.
     “Igthar?” called Glenn. “What do you want us to do now?”
     There was no answer.
     “I guess Igthar doesn’t want to answer,” she said sounding a little frightened.
     They searched and found rooms partitioned by mist. They would walk though a mist screen and appear in another room. The odd thing was each room seemed to occupy the same place on the ship.
     Glenn walked back to the console and pushed a button. The screen lit up with the word “yes”.
     Glenn asked aloud, “Will you take up back to earth?”
     The screen flashed the question and answered “yes”.
     “Can we have a window?” Sandy asked. A window appeared in the side of the ship. They could see the earth far below them.
     “Can we go to the U. S. A.?” Glenn asked.
     The screen answered, “Yes, when do you want to go?”
     “Now!” both Sandy and Glenn fairly shouted.
     Through the window they watched the earth become larger, the North American continent came into view. It was dark. The land around the center of the United States seemed to rise up to meet them and then stopped a hundred feet in the sky. A lat plane was revealed to be underneath them in the blue glow of the ship.
     “Well, this looks like the place,” Sandy said.
     “Sandy, what do we do now?” asked Glenn.
     “Let’s cruise over the country until we find a city,” Sandy suggested.
     Glenn gave the order and soon they were drifting over the earth, headed east.
     “Let’s go slow and enjoy the ride for awhile, besides everyone is probably asleep now,” Glenn said to Sandy.
     “Well then, this will wake them up,” she retorted.
     “Yes, that’s right,” Glenn said, looking at the ship’s blue glow reflecting off the ground. They traveled for a half hour or so when two giant military helicopters sped straight toward them.
     Glenn pushed the button and commanded, “Get up back into space!” Outside of their window they saw only stars and blackness.
     They pondered the cosmic infinity of space that overpowered them with its depth. The natural mystery, the infinite possibility that men called space as though it were an empty void.
     “Well if we go back to earth the military will take or destroy the ship and us,” Glenn said.
     “Yes,” echoed Sandy. “In all this infinite beauty the earth is so small and so hostile.”
     “What are we gonna do?” Glenn asked. “If we go home we will be captured as if we were criminals, but we can’t stay out here forever.”
     They saw a flash of green and white tumbling through space away from them. They asked the computer what it was. “Igthar’s dead body,” it answered starkly.
     It took some time to get over the shock that now they were on their own. Glenn pushed a key on the console. “Is there some way we can save the earth from humans?” he asked.
     “Insufficient data,” it answered.
     “Igthar gave us the ship to do some good,” said Sandy. “We have to try.”
     “What can we do?” Glenn asked. “Have you ever heard of the idea that there is a place in the universe where everything is known?”
     “Does the computer know it?” asked Sandy.
     “Maybe,” Glenn answered. He punched a button, “Is there a place in the universe where everything is known?”
     The screen said, “Yes, for you it would be the center of the milky way.”
     “Take us there,” Glenn said to the computer. To Sandy he said, “Maybe we can learn how to help the earth there.”
     The rapid travel gave the appearance of the stars moving rapidly outside the window. ‘Very rapid,’ thought Glenn who knew the distance between stars was measured in light years.
     After a few minutes Glenn asked Sandy, “I wonder how long it will take?”
     She shrugged and answered, “I don’t know, when we went from earth into space it didn’t seem to take any time at all.”
     Glenn punched the button, “Are we approaching the center?” he asked the ship.
     “Yes,” the screen answered. “It’s a long way off. You haven’t the body or soul power to travel as fast as Igthar.”
     A few hours went by as they discovered food in the ship. One room had no gravity in it and had to learn how to make love and sleep on thin air.
     A week went by, they found the ship comfortable to live in. They found they had grown almost psychic with each other but the euphoria of space travel had waned a little.
     A month later they were still traveling. Glenn kept asking the computer, “Are we still on course?”
     “Yes,” it would answer.
     “How long will it take to get there?”
     “Insufficient data.”
     Another month went by. Glenn and Sandy were getting on each others nerves, snapping, fighting, debating about going back to earth or not. They began to have nightmares of empty cities or people angry at them.
     Hallucinations and visions begin to take place.
     He went into the bathroom to clean himself and he found Sandy crouching on the floor in abject fear. “Sandy!” he shouted as he shook her.
     She looked at him and screamed. He shook her again. “Glenn,” she sobbed. “I killed you.”
     “No,” he said, “I killed you.”
     “We killed each other I think,” she said, “but it wasn’t real. I mean we are both alive here and now. We had a bad dream, we’ve been confined too long in a strange situation. I think I understand that we worked out our hostilities against each other. Perhaps we killed the evil in our souls.”
     “Yes,” Glenn answered, “I think I know what you mean. I don’t really feel bad, I feel good even.”

     A month later they were sure Sandy was pregnant. Looking out the window they could see a multicolored spinning ball up ahead. Glenn asked the computer if it was the center. “It appears to be,” the machine answered drolly.
     It took them a week to get really close. It filled the whole window and looked very turbulent. Suddenly they were through the psychic perimiter. Glenn and Sandy’s minds became as one.
     The visions and energies become very strong, it is chaos, one thing after another.
     In their minds they saw a ball of energy explode. The explosion sent tiny particles traveling on a seemingly endless journey. These particles change into suns and gases and galaxies. The particle universe expanded infinitely then began to contract as stars lived and died. Some stars imploded and became black holes, swallowing everything within their gravity fields until there was nothing left but black holes swallowing each other. Glenn and Sandy believed they had witnessed the life and death of the universe.
     They opened their eyes and gazed at each other with a look that said life is short. Glenn and Sandy stared at each other and became each other. They felt a deeply intuitive feeling of the meaning of being a man and a woman. They knew what each other felt. It was a deep to the bone feeling. They knew their hearts were beating together as one, they knew they were experiencing cosmic reality.
     A primordial feeling entered their minds. It was as if they were going back to the forgotten misty origins of the human race. As if looking from a great distance, they saw history pass before their eyes with remarkable rapidity. People were wandering through ancient jungles, fighting, and then riding dinosaurs. A man and a woman, creating and destroying empires and dynasties. Armor and weapons were invented long after the dinosaurs had disappeared. The fights for nations became bloodier, kings and queens were more righteous, a crushing tumbling tide of humanity, always moving, always conquering, always dying.
     A giant worm crawled through the cabin of the ship. Its head had come through one wall and went out the other as its body continued to pass through the ship. Finally its tail appeared and followed the body through the wall and out of the ship. It had not noticed the people in the ship who would have been a small meal to such a large creature.
     They he saw swarms of prehistoric looking iridescent insects fly by. They had flown through the walls of the ship and ugly crab like monsters crawled across the floor. Other birds and insects of the same iridescent consistency passed through the ship and Sandy and Glenn.
     Glenn was wondering is this were an alternate life form that had always existed. He wondered how real these hallucinations would get.
     Instantly they found themselves sitting in a forest. The sunlight shown and they stared at each other. Sandy was terrified. “What’s going on?” she screamed.
       Glenn pulled his wits together so he could talk, he found his mind computed everything precisely and astonishingly fast. He felt he knew what was happening and he had to tell Sandy fast.
     “What’s happening?” he asked the computer.
     “We are approaching the singularity,” it dispassonately answered.
     “What does that mean?”
     “Soon everything will be as one, everything will happen at once, in essecense you will no longer exist.”
     “Are you listening?” he asked her. His voice shook but he was determined to go on. “We got to the center and its chaos so we have to get out. We are not in a forest, this is another illusion and will quickly pass. We have to tell the computer to get up out if we can find the computer again...”
     His voice trailed off as the forest melted away, the colors flowing into each other. Sandy looked like a black and white sketch. He could see the computer far away and tried to stand but fell on the slippery color that was melting off the wall.
     He got up again and felt very heavy. He struggled to the key board and the keys kept expanding and contracting. He couldn’t see straight, everything kept shifting as colors formed and melted before his eyes. He pushed a button. Some illegible script appeared on the screen. He put his fingers on the key board as it disappeared in a swirling mass of various electric colors.
     He typed, “Take us out of here,” and then he began to fall.
     He awoke after the ship broke free from the center of the Milky Way and he looked for Sandy. When he saw her, her head moved slowly and she looked toward him. They looked at each other in anguish and sorrow, recollecting where they had been. Then they smiled, they were alive and they had each other.

     Their bodies felt bruised and battered, inside and out. It seemed a miracle to them that they had survived and they weren’t noticeably damaged. After consoling each other Glenn checked the computer.
     “Where are we?” he asked.
     “Insufficient data,” it answered.
     “What happened?”
     “We took a random jump and we are in an unknown coordinate.”
     “What should we do?” Glenn asked the computer.
     It answered, “A map has been prepared of surrounding stars, they are not familiar. However a galaxy in deep space appears to be the Milky Way.”
     “Set course for the determined galaxy and notify us if anything significant appears in data processed.”
     “Yes sir,” it answered.
     “That computer seems to have learned a few things itself from that place we went through,” Glenn said to Sandy.

     About a month later, on their way to the Milky Way, the computer detected a solar system with a planet that could have life. Having been on the ship too long they decided to investigate, at least it would be a diversion from the tedious journey. Besides, they were no nearer their goal of helping earth than when they had left.
     The planet appeared habitable. They landed their craft on the edge of a city. It was a nice city to look at. The air was clean and the buildings were tall and slim. There were many delicate looking plants, it seemed a peaceful place. Glenn had the computer analyze the air and it was found to be safe.
     They saw a pair of human like creatures. They were much like humans but they were taller and slimmer. Their skin was light blue-green and there was a bulge on their foreheads. Yet they seemed gentle and very attractive. Perhaps it’s was a trap but the seeming reality commanded one course of action so they walked out of the ship. They immediately had a warm feeling of welcome. They attempted to greet the aliens with words but as soon as they said a word the aliens looked terrified and Glenn and Sandy felt fear too.
     The aliens held their ground but cringed. The fear relaxed, Glenn and Sandy did not attempt to say anything. They noticed that there was absolute quiet. The aliens turned around and walked away. Glenn and Sandy had the distinct feeling that not everything was all right but there was no danger either.
     After some time a single alien came out to them and they heard noise in their heads.
     “They must communicate telepathically,” Glenn whispered to Sandy.
     The alien looked at them sharply. Then he kind of smiled. Glenn and Sandy smiled back. They felt their minds being probed with gentleness. After some time the alien could talk to them telepathically.
     At the same time the alien learned of their culture by examining their minds, they learned of their host’s culture. His people had no names, they did not have words, and they communicated through emotions. They had subtle emotional distinctions that covered a vast range. Having no language they were able to express exactly what they meant. They thought Glenn and Sandy’s earth to be barbaric for having many cultures based on clans and territory instead of one based on feelings.
     They had no war, no waste, all were in harmony. They had no concept of time, there was only living. Things lived and died because that was the pattern of the universe. They believed that they had souls. Their souls were the consciousness of stars. When they died their souls returned to its star. Some stars had many souls, sometimes scattered all over the universe. An alien with one of these souls may be conscious of many different lives in many places at any moment.
     They had machines but they did all they could by hand. There was work for any who wanted it but no one was compelled to work. They could put their collective minds together to help the crops to grow, or the rain to fall or the sky to be clear. There were no drugs but there were songs of different emotions that all would sing together.
     Eventually Glenn and Sandy learned the lifestyle of the aliens. They could mingle with them and be almost as psychic as they were. It was so different from earth culture but they could feel at home. They were not set apart for being different. There was so much love and harmony there that they felt content. Sandy decided to have the baby there and used the alien’s methods. There was no pain and the child was born smiling.
     However Glenn and Sandy missed earth. In some ways they found this new culture very boring. In time they decided to leave so they could raise the child they named Gulliver on earth. The aliens sang them a song of parting emotion that was both beautiful and sad.
     The ship lifted off the planet. Sandy and Glenn did not need to talk. They understood how Gulliver felt and they discovered that he could make small objects move toward him if he really wanted them.
     Months later they found themselves near earth. They wanted to land but they felt afraid. Earth was still the same place. They had changed but it had not. Could they survive in their old environment with their new emotions? Mostly they had let down Igthar.
     Liberation was the feeling in Glenn’s mind as he swept the stars with his eyes. Boundless, infinite space, a hundred million worlds of which earth was a minor culture, one that was steeped in pain and suffering. He wondered what he should do.
     He went to the computer and gave it an order. “Analyze earth biosphere. Examine human mental and physical capacities. Compare the two. Is there anything negative in the biosphere to human mental function?”
     The computer answered, “Human mental health dependent upon natural psychic atmosphere which has been disturbed for eons. Recommend psychic layer be reprogrammed.”
     Glenn asked, “Is this possible?”
     “Blank out aggressive and violent tendencies,” the screen answered.
     “How?” Glenn asked.
     “Restructure of the psychic layer is based on emotion. Different emotions have different vibrations. Reestablish the vibration of harmony artificially. If you and Sandy sing the harmony song from the alien planet, I can make the ship vibrate with it. We can orbit the earth like a radio station and broadcast the harmony vibration to everyone.”
     Glenn had thought he was beyond surprise but the computer had come up with a good one. He called Sandy and together they sang the harmony song until the computer learned to broadcast the emotions. They circled the earth for a month and broadcast the song.
      They brought the ship down in Washington, D. C. and explained to scientists about the danger of nuclear radiation and the scientists were very cooperative. They felt that there would be no problem saving the earth from such a grave danger, once everyone understood the problem. Glenn and Sandy left them with the spaceship to study and went to live in the country where it was peaceful. Everyone accepted them and their psychic child.
     “I feel like a little god,” Sandy would say at times and Glenn would look at the stars and wonder if they had destroyed human freewill.