How Like A God

by Brenda W Clough

  “They’re only just building the space station. I figure it’ll be five years easy, before they’re ready for lift-off.”

  “That’s practically forever,” Rob said with relief.

  “Just what Carina said. Hence the wedding.” The timer dinged. Edwin leaped off the machine and wiped his sweaty forehead and neck with an old towel.

  “I couldn’t sleep last night, I was so jazzed up. And if we don’t talk about something else I won’t sleep tonight either. What are you doing with your laptop there? Do we need to print you another graph?”

  Rob nodded. “I spent all this week in Atlantic City.”

  “And?”

  From pure excitement Rob could hardly get the words out. “I lost my shirt, Ed. Every dime.”

  “You did? Eet me have that disk! But I thought it was going to be at least twice as tough?”

  “Let me do it. I can’t really describe it, but I figure it’s like this.

  It’s sandwiches, not viruses. Gilgamesh gave me half his power, and it was like one wheel—a unicycle. It’s tough to learn to ride a unicycle, but after a while I was doing okay with it. Then I got his other half, and I’m riding on two wheels now—a bicycle. And bicycles are easier, not harder.

  I’m a whiz now, with total control—look at this.”

  Rob took one hand off the keyboard and held it up. The heat lightning effect, the only visible sign of his power, leaped obediently from fingertip to fingertip and back again.

  “Holy Mike! Then that means you did it! Thank God!”

  Edwin gave him a high five. The open joy on his face was wonderful to see. Rob grinned happily back at him and said, “So I was wondering, do you have a razor I could borrow?”

  “I’ve fallen off the sled here,” Edwin confessed. “Are you taking off the

  “I can tell you’re not a parent, Ed. Angela and Davey have never seen me in a beard. The transition will be easier for the kids if I look pretty much the same as a year ago.”

  Edwin clapped a hand to his forehead. “Of course! I wasn’t thinking. You’re going home!”

  “Tonight.” His happiness was so great Rob felt almost sick with it. If he should ever get swell-headed his nervous stomach would keep him humble.

  Carina passed through briskly from bedroom to kitchen, remarking, “Edwin says you have tummy trouble, Rob. So it’s tea and toast for you. No apple pie—it’ll be too rich.”

  “Besides, I ate it all,” Edwin said. As the printer began its chatter he moved over to sit at one of the two dining tables.

  Carina set a Corningware casserole dish of leftover vegetarian lasagne down. “Oh Edwin, how could you, before lunch?”

  “It’s not slowing me down, now is it?” He cut himself a generous portion, laughing up at her.

  Rob sat down. It seemed easier not to argue with Carina, and it was too early to leave yet. Rush-hour bus service in Fairfax didn’t start until four. He ate chewy whole-grain toast and drank organic herbal digestive tea, another Carina import— Edwin only ever served coffee and designer water.

  Rob felt old and wise as he watched the electricity between the two, and more than a little amused. To see two such confident and self-possessed people so deeply enamored was a riot. It was obvious to his experienced eye that they were not yet sleeping together. In her worn khaki shirt and shorts, Carina looked like Miss America doing an Indiana Jones impression for the talent competition. It was particularly comic to watch Edwin assessing the fit of those shorts, and the mutual blush when Carina noticed him doing it. Just as well the wedding would be this summer.

  After lunch Rob piled the dishes into the sink, and would have washed them if Carina hadn’t turfed him out. “I have to put the chicken mole on,” she said. “You two go and analyze your graphs.” She dropped a kiss on the top of Edwin’s head and went into the kitchen.

  “I thought we should look over the entire file,” Edwin said when they moved into the living room. “Here, hold this end.”

  Spread out, the bar graph showed a truly notable progress. Rob could see how he had slowly and steadily decreased the leak since autumn. “And you know, this wasn’t a waste of time,” he said. He slid the long sheet of

  paper through his work-calloused hands. “If I hadn’t gotten a handle on the power, Gilgamesh would have trashed me. He nearly did anyway. “

  “I think you had better stick to Gil,” Edwin said. “The name Gilgamesh will excite Carina unduly. There isn’t an archaeologist on earth who wouldn’t kill to meet him. Even without the weirdness and the live-forever thing, he’s a treasure trove. To talk to someone who’s actually lived in Uruk and Dilmun …”

  “Go back to Kazakhstan then and look him up.”

  “Oh, don’t tempt me, Rob! Maybe when I get back from Mars. You’ll have to come too, you know, to translate. Sumerian’s a dead language.”

  “I just promised Carina I’d do no such thing!”

  Edwin shouted with laughter until the room rang. “You know, there never used to be enough hours in the day for everything I wanted to accomplish: the books and papers to read and write, the research to do, the people to know. Now I realize, I literally have all the time in the world.”

  Rob looked at him carefully, not quite sure what he was trying to perceive. Edwin looked exactly as always, tanned and fit and blithe—if anything, more clean-cut than usual, since his hair had been trimmed for Carina’s visit.

  But Rob remembered, that first day at NIH, foreseeing that his friend’s

  dark comeliness would mature. That would never happen now. Edwin had always looked young for his age, and now he always would. Without the sound of time’s winged chariot hurrying behind him, would Edwin be able to change and grow? He had gained eternal life, but what had he lost? “Immortality is going to suit you, is it?” Rob said cautiously.

  “Well, it did occur to me that a lot of really useful research could be done, and now I don’t have to rely on the unwilling cooperation of a nervy subject. It would be fascinating to find out exactly how eternal life is done. Just for starters I’m having a friend over in the Blood Institute do me a full blood workup. Me, I’m not afraid of needles, no sirree.”

  Rob laughed. “You can still count me out. For a minute you had me worried, but you’re still yourself, Ed.”

  “Yes,” Edwin said more soberly. “And I’m going to do my level best to stay that way. Call it denial if you want, but I’m hanging onto my self and my goals. I’m going to eat meals, and get married, and start a family, all the ordinary stuff. Your experiences have been kind of … frightening.”

  Rob nodded. “Yeah, by all means avoid my mistakes. No point in two of us making damn fools of ourselves.”

  Edwin swirled the tea around in the bottom of his mug. “I don’t know how you survived this past year, bud. Now I’ve come a little way into weird with you I can appreciate it.”

  Rob sat up, alarmed. “Are you in bad shape, Ed?”

  “Nah, do I look it?” Edwin gave his barrel chest with its orange Orioles T-shirt a resounding slap. “But even though being immortal doesn’t have a day-to-day impact, it—sometimes it haunts me, Rob. The implications. Like, do I tell Carina? She’s going to be my wife—how can I not trust her with such an important fact about me? So I’ve decided I have to, maybe after the wedding. And what about NASA? My oxygen consumption rate tests really worry me.”

  “Your what? What does oxygen have to do with it?”

  “Rob, think about it. I don’t need to eat or drink. I don’t need to breathe either. The other day I held my breath for fifty-five minutes just to see if I could do it. If this shows up on the metabolic rate tests, how long will it be before the whole story runs on the front page of the Washington Post?”

  “You don’t need to eat, but that isn’t keeping you from scarfing down lasagne and apple pie,” Rob pointed out.

  Edwin leaned back, considering. “That’s a thought. Perhaps I’m burning oxygen anyway, as long as there’s plenty around. There are wa
ys to find out… And you, your weirdness is way scarier. It trashed your life.

  You’re still not finished pulling the pieces together. You could have been hell on wheels squared and cubed, Rob. Bad as old Gil in his cave—”

  Edwin stopped, watching him, and Rob realized he had frozen in mid-sip, the mug halfway to his mouth. He set it down carefully on the arm of his chair.

  “That’s—that’s more true than you know, Ed,” he said quietly. “I never thought I’d find out why this thing happened to me. But Gil told me.”

  “He was lonesome,” Edwin recalled. “Wanted some peers.”

  “He wanted to have some fun,” Rob corrected him. “And he chose someone who could share his interests. Rape and murder, for instance.”

  Edwin jumped to his feet. “No, Rob! What is this, a selfesteem issue?

  That’s simply not true! You are nothing like the old guy. I can attest to it.”

  “Selfesteem be damned!” Suddenly Rob was frightened, with the violent unreasoning despair of a child in the dark. Gilgamesh had named the prisoner in the sub-basement: His name was Gilgamesh too. “And so is mine,” Rob said aloud, his voice barely above a whisper. “I defeated Gilgamesh.

  But he is I. I’ll never be rid of him.” It had all been for nothing, the worry and striving. He had conscious control over the power now, but what about his control over himself? How could he return home, knowing that the next time Jul cut off another driver, he might lose it and kill her? The enemy within was unbeatable.

  “Rob,” Edwin was repeating. “Rob! Will you listen to some plain reasoning?”

  “Sure.” The habitual reply escaped without thought.

  “Firstly, I want to point out that old Gil was a liar. Practically the first thing he told you was an untruth. He wasn’t God, nor your father, or any of that stuff. Am I right?”

  Rob had forgotten that. “But we thought so much alike, Ed. It gave me chills. Some of the things he said—”

  “I’m not saying he was mendacious from beginning to end. But don’t forget to consider the motives behind old Gil’s words, Rob. Can you say that he wasn’t just pulling your chain?”

  Rob couldn’t. “It would be just like him,” he realized. “And for Gil it would be easy. So easy.”

  “Like it would be easy for you,” Edwin agreed. “He claimed to be in control of the situation, to have selected you. What if he didn’t?”

  “But if he lied, then there’s no rhyme or reason to it at all.”

  “It’s natural to look for patterns and logic, Rob. But maybe there isn’t

  any. Maybe old Gil has just gone through the rinse cycle too often. So take him with a grain of salt, okay? Secondly …” Edwin paced the limited space between the Lifecycle and the second sofa. “You’re only a human being, Rob. You have the power to act like a god or a devil. But you’re only a man.”

  The unexpected statement made Rob’s mouth drop open in wonder. He had needed to hear that. More than anything in the world, those were words he had needed to hear. But how had Edwin known?

  Pursuing his train of thought rapidly around the room, Edwin didn’t notice. “Your capacity to turn tiger bothers you. Okay. But that capacity is an essential component of the human personality. You need it to survive—not every day or every year, but when push comes to shove, at the action point we talked about. It’s Darwinian, you understand? A survival trait bred in our bones, yours, mine, everybody. Keep the tiger on a leash, use him to the right degree and not too often, and you’ll be fine.”

  Rob stared doubtfully up at him. Edwin’s insight was always so keen—surely he was right about this too? But on the other hand, Edwin was too nice a guy. In some things he was as innocent as a boy. He had no real knowledge of evil, had difficulty recognizing it even when it pushed him off a cliff.

  Just now he’d even talked about returning to Kazakhstan and interviewing Gilgamesh again! “How can I be sure, Ed?” he said at last. “You don’t know, it’s impossible for you to know, what my monster is like.”

  “Impossible?” Edwin grinned down at him. “A funny word from you of all

  people, bud. You’re so weird, you can do anything. So why don’t you get a second opinion on him? Introduce me.”

  Taken completely aback, Rob sputtered, “But—Ed, you’re out of your mind! Take you on a tour of my inner sewers— do you think I want to destroy our friendship?”

  “You can’t do that, Rob. You confessed all your crimes to me already, remember? And I’m very well-read—you can’t shock me.”

  Offering books as proof of worldiness was so typical of Edwin that Rob laughed in spite of his turmoil. The kitchen door opened and Carina came in, frowning with concentration and drying a skinless chicken drumstick on a paper towel. “Edwin, do you have any chicken stock? Or bouillon cubes?”

  Edwin put his hands into the pockets of his denim shorts and turned them out. “Nope, sorry. Do you need some? Shall I pop out and pick up a few cans? I live to serve you, my darling! Rob can come with—you want to, Rob? We can walk across the park to the store and get some exercise.”

  Before Rob could formulate any objections he was out the door and heading down the steps with a grocery list in hand. Edwin loitered, ostensibly looking for the canvas shopping bag. But from the blissful satisfaction of his grin when he caught up at the bottom of the stair, he had more likely been stealing a kiss. “It’s going to be so much fun being a married man,”

  he told Rob happily. “We’re talking three kids to start with, maybe up it to four if the NASA scheduling works out. Don’t you think I’ll do great as the patriarch of a large brood?”

  If anything Rob found the idea comic. It was impossible to imagine Edwin as a parent. Rob carefully kept a grave countenance. “Do you have a lot of hands-on practice with babies, Ed?”

  “You mean, human ones? I’ve raised a lot of bacteria and fruit-fly larvae.

  How much of a difference can there be?”

  “Umm …” Rob decided it would only be kind not to disillusion him now. Let that first baby do it!

  Edwin grinned at him. “Do I sense an aura of skepticism, Rob?”

  They had crossed the parking lot and the intervening street into the park. Suddenly Edwin put on a spurt of speed and ran at a park bench. He grasped the top slat of the seat back and without apparent effort flipped up into a briefly perfect handstand. Then he overbalanced and toppled, flailing his legs and nearly catching an ankle on the seat. “Ed, you idiot!” Rob exclaimed, laughing.

  “Don’t you understand, Rob?” Edwin said as he bounced to his feet. “There’s nothing beyond me today. Carina is going to marry me, and I’m an astronaut! The world and everything in it is wonderful! I’m invincible—if we went to

  Atlantic City, I’d break the bank! I’ll manage a family, tidy up your loose ends, anything and everything! Come on, let’s run!”

  He loped down the path past the soccer field on through a strip of trees, singing as he went:

  And everything is so complete When you’re walkin out on the street And the wind catches your feet And sends you flyin’, cryin’

  Wooo, ooooh, ooooo-wheee!

  Wild nights are callin’!

  Beyond the trees was another suburban avenue with a convenience store at the corner. Edwin whirled down the aisles like a joyous tornado. The cans of chicken broth paid for, he said, “There’s a pond with ducks beyond the game field there. And it’s Monday, so nobody will be around. So that’d be a good place.”

  “A good place? For what?”

  “To tour your inner landscape, Rob. Are you familiar with the terminology of personality theory? Shadow, ego, and self? It’s time the pieces of your psyche got on better terms. And today, I’m just the one to facilitate it.”

  “No, Ed.” Rob shook his head stubbornly as they walked. “I appreciate your good will, but it would be very dangerous.”

  “This is where it’s going to work out so great, Rob. Only I can do this for you. For me it won’t
be dangerous at all. I can’t die. I’m immortal.”

  “But what about mental damage? Emotional injuries?” Rob argued. “You’re not proof against those.”

  “How do you know?”

  Rob fell back, stumped. How did he know? He realized he knew even less about Edwin’s condition than he did about the weirdness. Trotting to catch up, he said, “Is this how you’re going to manage on Mars? Just plunge headfirst into the unknown and count on the immortality to save the day?”

  “This is not unknown territory, Rob, I keep telling you. I know you.

  Besides,” he added after a pause, “the moment you told me Gilgamesh got a tour, I wanted to go too.” He laughed uproariously at Rob’s incredulous expression.

  The pond was a small municipal one, the shallow sunny water surrounded by flagstones. Fat puffs of white cloud were reflected in the still surface.

  Ghostly green in the shadowy depths, the young leaves of a water lily unfurled towards the light. The sidewalk widened out to accomodate some pink-flowering azaleas and another slatted wooden park bench. As Edwin sat down, three brown mallard ducks carved vees in the water towards him, hoping for a handout. Edwin set the canvas grocery bag clanking beside him, and pointed at the remaining space. Reluctantly Rob sat. “I’ve heard of scientific curiosity, but this is crazy,” he said.

  “Come on, Rob—you can’t tell me about it, we’ve already seen that. So why not show me?”

  Rob realized that, ever articulate and far the faster thinker, Edwin had an answer to objections that Rob hadn’t even dreamed up yet. And it would be undeniably interesting to see what happened. Today was his lucky day too. Impulsively he said, “Okay. You really mean it? Then let’s go. Hold out your hand.”

  “My hand?” Edwin laid his left hand on top of the grocery bag.

  Rob watched him sharply, but saw no signs of nervousness or second thoughts. Very lightly he brushed his fingers across the back of Edwin’s wrist, drawing him gently in.

  CHAPTER 2

  Rob found himself lying on the grass looking up at a fathomless sunny blue sky. It was framed by drifts of fairylike pink blossom. Beside him was an old stone Japanese lantern. He sat up, and a chubby man in polyester plaid pants said, “Say, mate, take a kip again, wouldjer? You’re coming into the shot.”