by Neil Clarke
But people soon discovered that realizing these God-given technologies was impossible, at least within the present century. Consider the situation of the ancient Egyptians if a time traveler had provided information on modern technology to them, and you will have some understanding of the awkward situation these humans faced.
As the exhaustion of petroleum supplies loomed over the human race, energy technology was at the top of everyone’s minds. But scientists and engineers discovered that the God Civilization’s energy technology was useless for humans at this time. The Gods’ energy source was built upon the basis of matter-antimatter annihilation. Even if people could understand all the materials and finally create an annihilation engine and generator (a basically impossible task within this generation), it would still have been for naught. This was because the fuel for these engines, antimatter, had to be mined from deep space. According to the material provided by the Gods, the closest antimatter ore source was between the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy, about 550,000 light-years away.
The technology for interstellar travel at near the speed of light also involved every field of scientific knowledge, and the greater part of the theories and techniques revealed by the Gods were beyond human comprehension. Just to get a basic understanding of the foundations would require human scholars to work for perhaps half a century. Scientists, initially full of hope, had tried to search the material from the Gods for technical information concerning controlled nuclear fission, but there was nothing. This was easy to understand: our current literature on energy science contained no information on how to make fire from sticks, either.
In other scientific fields, such as information science and life sciences (including the secret of human longevity), it was the same. Even the most advanced scholars could make no sense of the Gods’ knowledge. Between the Gods’ science and human science, there was still a great abyss of understanding that could not be bridged.
The Gods who arrived on Earth could not help the scientists in any way. Like the God at the United Nations had said, among the Gods now there were few who could even solve quadratic equations. The spaceships adrift among the asteroids also ignored all hails from the humans. The human race was like a group of new elementary school students who were suddenly required to master the material of Ph.D. candidates, and were given no instructor.
On the other hand, Earth’s population suddenly grew by two billion. These were all extremely aged individuals who could no longer be productive. Most of them were plagued by various diseases and put unprecedented pressure on human society. As a result, every government had to pay each family living with a God a considerable support stipend. Health care and other public infrastructures were strained beyond the breaking point. The world economy was pushed near the edge of collapse.
The harmonious relationship between God and Qiusheng’s family was gone. Gradually the family began to see him as a burden that fell from the sky. They began to despise him, but each had a different reason.
Yulian’s reason was the most practical and closest to the underlying problem: God made her family poor. Among all the members of the family God also worried the most about her; she had a tongue as sharp as a knife, and she scared him more than black holes and supernovas. After the death of her dream of true Communism, she unceasingly nagged God: Before you came, our family had lived so prosperously and comfortably. Back then everything was good. Now everything is bad. All because of you. Being saddled with an old fool like you was such a great misfortune. Every day, whenever she had the chance, she would prattle on like this in front of God.
God also suffered from chronic bronchitis. This was not a very expensive disease to treat, but it did require ongoing care and a constant outlay of money. Finally one day Yulian forbade Qiusheng from taking God to the town hospital to see doctors and stopped buying medicine for him. When the Secretary of the village branch of the Communist Party found out, he came to Qiusheng’s house.
“You have to pay for the care of your family God,” the Secretary said to Yulian. “The doctor at the town hospital already told me that if left untreated, the chronic bronchitis might develop into pulmonary emphysema.”
“If you want him treated, then the village or the government can pay for it,” Yulian shouted at the Secretary. “We’re not made of money!”
“Yulian, according to the God Support Law, the family has to bear these kinds of minor medical expenses. The government’s support fee already includes this component.”
“That little bit of support fee is useless!”
“You can’t talk like that. After you began getting the support fee, you bought a milk cow, switched to liquefied petroleum gas, and bought a big, new color TV! You’re telling me now that you don’t have money for God to see a doctor? Everyone knows that in your family, your word is law. I’m going to make it clear to you: right now I’m helping you save face, but don’t push your luck. Next time, it won’t be me standing here trying to persuade you. It will be the County God Support Committee. You’ll be in real trouble then.”
Yulian had no choice but to resume paying for God’s medical care. But after that she became even meaner to him.
One time, God said to Yulian, “Don’t be so anxious. Humans are very smart and learn fast. In only another century or so, the easiest aspects of the Gods’ knowledge will become applicable to human society. Then your life will become better.”
“Damn. A whole century. And you say ‘only.’ Are you even listening to yourself?” Yulian was washing the dishes and didn’t even bother looking back at God.
“That’s a very short period of time.”
“For you! You think we can live as long as you? In another century, you won’t even find my bones! But I want to ask you a question: how much longer do you think you’ll be living?”
“Oh, I’m like a candle in the wind. If I can live another three or four hundred years, I’ll be very satisfied.”
Yulian dropped a whole stack of bowls on the ground. “This is not how ‘support’ is supposed to work! Ah, so you think not only I should spend my entire life taking care of you, but you have to have my son, my grandson, for ten generations and more!? Why won’t you die?”
As for Qiusheng’s father, he thought God was a fraud, and in fact, this view was pretty common. Since scientists couldn’t understand the Gods’ scientific papers, there was no way to prove their authenticity. Maybe the Gods were playing a giant trick on the human race. For Qiusheng’s father, there was ample support for this view.
“You old swindler, you’re way too outrageous,” he said to God one day. “I’m too lazy to expose you. Your tricks are not worth my trouble. Heck, they’re not even worth my grandson’s trouble.”
God asked him what he had discovered.
“I’ll start with the simplest thing: our scientists know that humans evolved from monkeys, right?”
God nodded. “More accurately, you evolved from primitive apes.”
“Then how can you say that you created us? If you were interested in creating humans, why not directly make us in our current form? Why bother first creating primitive apes and then go through the trouble of evolving? It makes no sense.”
“A human begins as a baby, and then grows into an adult. A civilization also has to grow from a primitive state. The long path of experience cannot be avoided. Actually, humans began with the introduction of a much more primitive species. Even apes were already very evolved.”
“I don’t believe these made-up reasons. All right, here’s something more obvious. This was actually first noticed by my grandson. Our scientists say that there was life on Earth even three billion years ago. Do you admit this?”
God nodded. “That estimate is basically right.”
“So you’re three billion years old?”
“In terms of your frame of reference, yes. But according to the frame of reference of our ships, I’m
only thirty-five hundred years old. The ships flew close to the speed of light, and time passed much more slowly for us than for you. Of course, once in a while a few ships dropped out of their cruise and decelerated to come to Earth so that further adjustments to the evolution of life on Earth could be made. But this didn’t require much time. Those ships would then return to cruise at close to the speed of light and continue skipping over the passage of time here.”
“Bullshit,” Qiusheng’s father said contemptuously.
“Dad, this is the Theory of Relativity,” Qiusheng interrupted. “Our scientists already proved it.”
“Relativity, my ass! You’re bullshitting me, too. That’s impossible! How can time be like sesame oil, flowing at different speeds? I’m not so old that I’ve lost my mind. But you—reading all those books has made you stupid!”
“I can prove to you that time does indeed flow at different rates,” God said, his face full of mystery. He took out that photograph of his beloved from two thousand years ago and handed it to Qiusheng. “Look at her carefully and memorize every detail.”
The second Qiusheng looked at the photograph, he knew that he would be able to remember every detail. It would be impossible to forget. Like the other Gods, the woman in the picture had a blend of the features of all ethnicities. Her skin was like warm ivory, her two eyes were so alive that they seemed to sing, and she immediately captivated Qiusheng’s soul. She was a woman among Gods, the God of women. The beauty of the Gods was like a second sun. Humans had never seen it and could not bear it.
“Look at you! You’re practically drooling!” Yulian grabbed the photograph from the frozen Qiusheng. But before she could look at it, her father-in-law took it away from her.
“Let me see,” Qiusheng’s father said. He brought the photograph to his ancient eyes, as close as possible. For a long time he did not move, as though the photograph provided sustenance.
“Why are you looking so close?” Yulian said, her tone contemptuous.
“Shut it. I don’t have my glasses,” Qiusheng’s father said, his face still practically on the photograph.
Yulian looked at her father-in-law disdainfully for a few seconds, curled her lips, and left for the kitchen.
God took the photograph out of the hands of Qiusheng’s father, whose hands lingered on the photo for a long while, unwilling to let go. God said, “Remember all the details. I’ll let you look at it again this time tomorrow.”
The next day, father and son said little to each other. Both thought about the young woman, so there was nothing to say. Yulian’s temper was far worse than usual.
Finally the time came. God had seemingly forgotten about it and had to be reminded by Qiusheng’s father. He took out the photograph that the two men had been thinking about all day and handed it first to Qiusheng. “Look carefully. Do you see any change in her?”
“Nothing really,” Qiusheng said, looking intently. After a while, he finally noticed something. “Aha! The opening between her lips seems slightly narrower. Not much, just a little bit. Look at the corner of the mouth here . . .”
“Have you no shame? To look at some other woman that closely?” Yulian grabbed the photo again, and again, her father-in-law took it away from her.
“Let me see—” Qiusheng’s father put on his glasses and carefully examined the picture. “Yes, indeed the opening is narrower. But there’s a much more obvious change that you didn’t notice. Look at this wisp of hair. Compared to yesterday, it has drifted farther to the right.”
God took the picture from Qiusheng’s father. “This is not a photograph, but a television receiver.”
“A . . . TV?”
“Yes. Right now it’s receiving a live feed from that explorer spaceship heading for the end of the universe.”
“Live? Like live broadcasts of football matches?”
“Yes.”
“So . . . the woman in the picture, she’s alive!” Qiusheng was so shocked that his mouth hung open. Even Yulian’s eyes were now as big as walnuts.
“Yes, she’s alive. But unlike a live broadcast on Earth, this feed is subject to a delay. The explorer spaceship is now about eighty million light-years away, so the delay is about eighty million years. What we see now is how she was eighty million years ago.”
“This tiny thing can receive a signal from that far away?”
“This kind of super long-distance communication across space requires the use of neutrinos or gravitational waves. Our spaceships can receive the signal, magnify it, and then rebroadcast to this TV.”
“Treasure, a real treasure!” Qiusheng’s father praised sincerely. But it was unclear whether he was talking about the tiny TV or the young woman on the TV. Anyway, after hearing that she was still “alive,” Qiusheng and his father both felt a deeper attachment to her. Qiusheng tried to take the tiny TV again, but God refused.
“Why does she move so slowly in the picture?”
“That’s the result of time flowing at different speeds. From our frame of reference, time flows extremely slowly on a spaceship flying close to the speed of light.”
“Then . . . can she still talk to you?” Yulian asked.
God nodded. He flipped a switch behind the TV. Immediately a sound came out of it. It was a woman’s voice, but the sound didn’t change, like a singer holding a note steady at the end of a song. God stared at the screen, his eyes full of love.
“She’s talking right now. She’s finishing three words: ‘I love you.’ Each word took more than a year. It’s now been three and a half years, and right now she’s just finishing ‘you.’ To completely finish the sentence will take another three months.” God lifted his eyes from the TV to the domed sky above the yard. “She still has more to say. I’ll spend the rest of my life listening to her.”
Bingbing actually managed to maintain a pretty good relationship with God for a while. The Gods all had some childishness to them, and they enjoyed talking and playing with children. But one day, Bingbing wanted God to give him the large watch he wore, and God steadfastly refused. He explained that the watch was a tool for communicating with the God Civilization. Without it, he would no longer be able to connect with his own people.
“Hmm, look at this. You’re still thinking about your own civilization and race. You’ve never thought of us as your real family!” Yulian said angrily.
After that, Bingbing was no longer nice to God. Instead, he often played practical tricks on him.
The only one in the family who still had respect and feelings of filial piety toward God was Qiusheng. Qiusheng had graduated from high school and liked to read. Other than a few people who passed the college-entrance examination and went away for college, he was the most learned individual in the village. But at home, Qiusheng had no power. On practically everything he listened to the direction of his wife and followed the commands of his father. If somehow his wife and father had conflicting instructions, then all he could do was to sit in a corner and cry. Given that he was such a softy, he had no way to protect God at home.
6.
The relationship between the Gods and humans had finally deteriorated beyond repair.
The complete breakdown between God and Qiusheng’s family occurred after the incident involving instant noodles. One day, before lunch, Yulian came out of the kitchen with a paper box and asked why half the box of instant noodles she had bought yesterday had already disappeared.
“I took them,” God said in a small voice. “I gave them to those living by the river. They’ve almost run out of things to eat.”
He was talking about the place where the Gods who had left their families were gathering. Recently there had been frequent incidents of abuse of the Gods in the village. One particularly savage couple had been beating and cursing out their God, and even withheld food from him. Eventually that God tried to commit suicide in the river that ran in front of
the village, but luckily others were able to stop him.
This incident caused a great deal of publicity. It went beyond the county, and the city’s police eventually came, along with a bunch of reporters from CCTV and the provincial TV station, and took the couple away in handcuffs. According to the God Support Law, they had committed God abuse and would be sentenced to at least ten years in jail. This was the only law that was universal among all the nations of the world, with uniform prison terms.
After that, the families in the village became more careful and stopped treating the Gods too poorly in front of other people. But at the same time, the incident worsened the relationship between the Gods and the villagers. Eventually, some of the Gods left their families, and other Gods followed. By now almost one-third of the Gods in Xicen had already left their assigned families. These wandering Gods set up camp in the field across the river and lived a primitive, difficult life.
In other parts of the country and across the world, the situation was the same. Once again, the streets of big cities were filled with crowds of wandering, homeless Gods. The number quickly increased like a repeat of the nightmare three years ago. The world, full of Gods and people, faced a gigantic crisis.
“Ha, you’re very generous, you old fool! How dare you eat our food while giving it away?” Yulian began to curse loudly.
Qiusheng’s father slammed the table and got up. “You idiot! Get out of here! You miss those Gods by the river? Why don’t you go and join them?”
God sat silently for a while, thinking. Then he stood up, went to his tiny room, and packed up his few belongings. Leaning on his bamboo cane, he slowly made his way out the door, heading in the direction of the river.
Qiusheng didn’t eat with the rest of his family. He squatted in a corner with his head lowered and not speaking.
“Hey, dummy! Come here and eat. We have to go into town to buy feed this afternoon,” Yulian shouted at him. Since he refused to budge, she went over to yank his ear.
