The Universe Builders: Bernie and the Putty

by Steve LeBel

  Bernie nodded. “That makes a lot of sense. Thanks, Lenny.”

  As Bernie considered the materials his people would need for their second cocoon, Suzie asked, “I’ve been thinking about your universe, Bernie. Have you added any moons or planets yet?”

  “No. I was thinking about not adding any. It just gives Billy more things to mess up.”

  Lenny shook his head. “That’s not a good idea. You need planets and moons.”

  “Why?” Suzie asked.

  “Because if you don’t have any other planets or moons when you add your animals, it’s really hard on your higher life forms. They end up listless, without any sense of purpose,” Lenny said.

  “That’s just an old god’s tale. It’s not true,” said Bernie. Turning to Suzie, he said, “Some people think planets and moons exert control over your life forms like puppets on strings. The distant planets make them happy or sad or bring them luck or take it away. It’s dumb.”

  “No, it’s not! Didn’t you take Creation Astrology?” asked Lenny. “Ester said it’s really important. She says never use fewer than three planets. You should put your life planet in the middle of the group, and at least one planet has to be a gas giant. And if you want more diversity in your animals, then you need more planets.”

  “Well, I don’t want much diversity. I want my higher life to swim in schools and eventually to fly in beautiful formations. I don’t want a bunch of individual thinkers in the group.”

  “Well, regardless, you’d better have at least three planets,” Lenny insisted.

  “What about moons?” Suzie asked.

  “You’d better have at least one,” Lenny said, more to Bernie than to Suzie. “Honestly, Bernie, you need to read this stuff before you go any further.”

  “Does the color of the moon matter?” asked Suzie. “I was always partial to yellow moons.”

  “Okay, you win, Lenny. Two more planets and one yellow moon,” Bernie said.

  More Planets

  Bernie borrowed Lenny’s old textbooks on creative astrology. He hadn’t taken the class because it was an elective for him. His creation sociology teacher talked about the astrological aspects of culture management, but she hadn’t suggested any further reading.

  Bernie had doubts about this astrology stuff. He’d never heard of any physical laws explaining how a planet could affect one creature on a different planet without affecting others on the same planet in the same way. But he knew one thing for sure: he couldn’t afford more problems in his universe.

  He worried about going back to Supply and asking for more prefabs. He didn’t want Shemal thinking he was wasting supplies. But surely no one would begrudge him a couple more planets and a moon. Lots of people made complicated universes with more than he had used so far. Suzie said Wanda’s universe had two twin star systems with over a dozen planets in each one. What a show-off.

  The Supply Division was helpful. If they knew Shemal thought Bernie was wasting supplies, they didn’t show it. They got out the glossy catalog with detailed technical descriptions of each planet. They seemed genuinely disappointed when he only selected two planets and a moon.

  Bernie chose a gas giant for the outer orbit and a metal planet for the inner orbit, the minimum configuration suggested in Lenny’s astrology book. A major portion of the book was devoted to planetary orbits. Interestingly, the book was more concerned with how the orbits appeared when viewed from the life planet. This makes things complicated, thought Bernie. It’s hard enough to manage celestial bodies when all you have to do is make them revolve around a sun. But to design everything from the viewing perspective of one of the planets? Now that was a challenge.

  The book suggested he delay most major building tasks until the planets lined up just right. To do so would require burning up hundreds of thousands of years at a time just waiting for the right alignment. That wasn’t going to happen. He would add the planets and the moon, but he wasn’t going to waste time on the rest of it.

  He glanced in the direction of Billy’s cubicle. He hadn’t seen Billy for a few days, which was undoubtedly why there hadn’t been any recent sabotage. Billy must be taking a few days off. Bernie shook his head. So far, Billy’s damage had been repairable, but that could easily change. If Billy wanted to destroy his world, all he had to do was blink it out. There would be nothing he could do. Well, tonight at least, he didn’t have to worry about that.

  Bernie entered the void of his universe. He placed the giant gas planet into an outer orbit. He put the smaller planet in an orbit close to the sun. He watched them for a while as they looped around the sun. The idea of planets having an effect on his life planet bothered him. The book said distance didn’t matter, as long as the planets were visible from the life planet. So he changed the orbits again. He pushed the gas giant farther away from his planet. He pushed the small heavy planet closer to the sun. If distance didn’t matter, then he would keep them as far away from the main planet as possible. That way, if Billy exploded one of his planets, he would have more time to clean up the debris before it hit his world.

  Bernie reached for his moon. He thought of Suzie as he placed it into an orbit around the planet. He liked the moon. He liked Suzie. She was always trying to help him. Lenny said she liked him. Maybe she did—

  Hey, stay focused, he admonished himself. He glanced around to see if his cloud had done anything during his momentary lapse. Finding nothing, he turned his attention back to his work.

  The moon was completely smooth. Not a mark on it, unlike the planet it circled. Suzie wanted a yellow moon. Bernie gathered his creative power and directed it toward the surface of the moon, willing it to become yellow. And as he willed it, so it became.

  Suzie will like this moon, he thought.

  A Gift from the Sun

  Not everyone saw the night sun in the same way. Zardok, the high priest, believed it was nothing less than a gift from the Sun to his beloved people. Others, however, weren’t so sure. Why was there no warning of this event? Some said even Zardok was surprised by its arrival. And what of the two small suns that could only be seen at night? What were they trying to tell them? Some said they were the Eyes of the Sun, watching over His people.

  Zardok called together the most learned of his inner circle. They deliberated behind closed doors, coming out only at night to observe the night sun and the little suns, as did everyone else.

  It was on the third night people noticed something happening to the night sun. Part of the night sun disappeared, and each night after that it grew smaller and smaller. The priests had no answers for why this might happen. Something wonderful was being destroyed. There could be no good explanation for such a thing.

  Again, they asked the priests to explain, but they were told the signs were not yet clear. “Be patient,” the priests said. “We will know everything soon.”

  But the interpretation did not come soon enough, so the people took it upon themselves to find their own answers.

  They came to believe the Sun was angry. The message is clear, they said. See how the night sun denies its light to the people at night? So too shall the Sun deny His light to the people during the day. The threat was clear. What did the Sun want them to do to avoid this fate? That was not clear.

  Lord Rigel stood among those who sought answers, and he spoke thus: “You know I venerate the Sun above all else. But I am one who questions whether Speaker Zardok is the best person to lead us in these uncertain times. Even now, Zardok waits for answers when the truth is perfectly clear to the rest of us.”

  “Lord Rigel, what should we do?” the people asked.

  “It’s obvious,” said Lord Rigel. “The Sun has made its warning clear. If we ignore this warning, the fate of the night sun will be our fate. The Great Sun will turn from us, and we’ll be cast into an unending darkness from which none shall return. We must ask the Senate to demand answers. We must discover what the Sun wants from us. And we must do it quickly, before it’s too late.” So spoke L
ord Rigel.

  In the face of such logic, the people had to agree. And so, Rigel set out at once to petition the Senate for an audience.

  Shemal Stops By

  “Okay, kid. What have you got for me today?” Shemal asked from the doorway to Bernie’s cubicle. Shemal watched for any sign of Bernie’s cloud and was pleased to see none. He also noticed the dampener turned to its maximum setting.

  “Hello, sir. I don’t have much new. I’m still doing a lot of planning. My animals are very complicated, and there are a lot of things I have to work out.” In testimony to his claim, Bernie’s desk and walls were thick with sketches and layers of stickies.

  Shemal said, “Well, I have something else to talk to you about anyway. I heard you were asking the Supply Division about defective parts.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why didn’t you come to me about this if you thought there was a problem?” Shemal asked.

  “Well, sir, ah…”

  “Just spit it out, son.”

  “I heard you took a lot of flak because you demanded good quality from the other divisions. I didn’t want to cause more problems for you.”

  That was not the answer Shemal expected. He looked carefully at Bernie. Loyalty? he wondered. You don’t see much of that these days.

  Shemal asked, “What did Supply tell you?”

  “They said they hadn’t heard of any similar problems.”

  Shemal laughed. “That’s what they told me before I started documenting everything.” He looked at Bernie and, in a soft voice that belied his age, said, “Let me give you some free advice, kid. No one ever made the perfect universe on their first try. Stick to the basics. Put together something that works. And, for goodness’ sake, don’t try to get too fancy. I’ve seen lots of kids fail because they tried to do things they weren’t ready for.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  As Shemal walked away, he thought about Bernie. The kid seemed conscientious and hardworking, and he was sure he meant well, but when he looked at him, he just didn’t see a builder.

  He was going to have to think about making a tough decision.

  Billy Returns

  Billy came back to work after four days. Bernie caught a few glimpses of him. Billy’s shimmer looked weak, often flickering, as if about to go out. Bernie had never seen anything like it.

  Bernie stuck his head around the corner into Billy’s cubicle and whispered, “Is everything okay, Billy? You don’t look so good.”

  He was surprised by Billy’s angry reply, “This isn’t over, Ber-Nerd.”

  When Billy didn’t say anything else, Bernie slipped back into his cubicle. How can Billy be mad at me? he wondered. Billy’s the one doing all the damage here.

  I’m the one who should be mad.

  Zardok Explains

  Speaker Zardok had been high priest for the Sun Temples as far back as anyone could remember. His absolute devotion to the Sun made him a natural choice for the position. A host of other talents kept him in the position.

  From the beginning, he was a tireless worker who recruited talented men and women to the service of the Sun. Almost singlehandedly, he turned a simple practice of Sun worship into a formal religion, practiced by the entire population.

  But it was his second talent that made Zardok unique. Time and again he demonstrated a deep understanding of both the secular and the religious realms. Although he had countless opportunities to acquire secular power and evolve the Temple into a theocracy, he chose not to do it. He believed it would detract from his real and only mission: to serve the Sun and, through such service, to serve the people.

  Zardok, like all the lords, stood tall. His physical height marked him in a crowd, as did his clean-shaven head. He wanted no barriers between himself and his beloved Sun, which also explained the deep tan of his greenish-brown skin.

  Zardok took pride in the loyalty of his priests and priestesses who had taken to shaving their heads, although he had never asked them to do so. One could easily recognize members of the Temple by their bald heads and yellow robes. Even lay people, as a declaration of their faith, often went about with shaved heads and yellow robes.

  Today, Zardok was not pleased. One of his unending challenges was keeping unhealthy ideas from corrupting the minds of the faithful. There was always a new group with wild ideas about something or other. Lately, there were more and more of them.

  “What now?” Zardok asked with no attempt to conceal his irritation. “Who are they?”

  “Well, no one really. Their leader is Lord Rigel. They’ve developed their own theory about the night sun, and they’re urgently petitioning the Senate for an audience,” said Lord Winson.

  “I know Rigel. He’s a believer, although he tends to have his own way of interpreting things. Do they have any allies in the Senate?” Zardok asked.

  “Lord Rigel petitioned for a hearing through Senator Grenwy, whose influence is weak, at best.”

  “Very well. Contact Leader Gondal for me. Tell him we have important news about the night sun, and I wish to inform the Senate.”

  “Yes, Speaker. It will be done.”

  “Oh, Winson. Make sure we are on their agenda at least two days before Rigel is able to address the Senate. There’s no point in letting Lord Rigel get everyone upset before we have a chance to explain what’s going on.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gaia? Already?

  “Are you sure, Bernie? That doesn’t sound right.” Lenny’s brow wrinkled in thought.

  “Yes, I’m sure. I saw her aura this morning.”

  “I don’t understand. What’s this ‘gaia’ you’re talking about?” Suzie asked.

  Bernie explained, “Gaia is something that happens when life forms reach a critical mass on your planet. It’s like a brand new life form that starts all by itself. No one understands it completely. Gaia is a life force made up of all the other life forces on the planet. And they have minds of their own, too. They don’t like conflicts or big disruptions, so they’re always trying to get the life forms into a homeostatic state.”

  “Just like a mother for the whole planet,” exclaimed Suzie. “I like them!”

  “You wouldn’t like them so much if you were trying to do something, and they fought you every step of the way,” Lenny said.

  “Why would they fight you?” Suzie asked.

  “I can give you lots of examples,” said Lenny. “I have a dragon universe at home. I tried to make the male dragons fiercer so they’ll fight more often. Just as I was making progress, my gaia deliberately reduced the oxygen content in the atmosphere to make them sleepy and less combative. Another time she reduced the male birth rate and increased the female birth rate. The males were so busy with all the new female dragons, there was nothing I could do to get them to fight. They were too busy giving each other high-fives over their cool harems.”

  “How can she do that?” Suzie asked. “Those are god-powers.”

  “Well, she can’t do it quickly. Sometimes it takes her generations to make it happen, but if there’s a way to do it, she will. She’s very tricky,” Lenny said as he shook his finger in a scolding manner.

  “So why is the gaia a problem on your world, Bernie?” Suzie asked.

  “Well, she hasn’t done anything yet. But that’s not the thing. The thing is she shouldn’t be there at all. My planet is nothing but a bunch of plants. There are no animals. Have you ever heard of a gaia emerging on a planet with just plants?” Bernie asked Lenny.

  “Yes, but it isn’t common. It usually takes both plants and animals to get one going, although if you wait long enough, even plants can produce a gaia.”

  “I’ve only had plants for two million years,” Bernie reminded him.

  “That’s not very long. I was talking about at least a billion years,” Lenny said.

  Bernie’s brow furrowed in thought as he considered anything else that could have contributed to the early emergence of his gaia.

  “I can tell you
how to kill her if you want,” Lenny offered.

  “Lenny!” Suzie said, clearly shocked.

  “I don’t think that’s necessary,” said Bernie. “So far she hasn’t given me any trouble.”

  A Divine Event!

  The high priest stood on a wooden platform in the center of the Senate’s Great Chamber. Five hundred senators and lords, who had come to hear his words, sat in the amphitheater seats built around the outer edge of the Great Chamber. A thousand more seats in the upper levels held citizens who wished to attend. Most of them were full.

  Behind the center stage was the south end of the Senate’s two-story office building. The second floor of the building sat back from the first, creating a platform on the roof of the lower level, which overlooked the center stage. A grand door on the second floor gave access to the platform.

  Sitting on the viewing platform on a raised dais were thirteen men and women. They sat behind a long, curved wooden table that faced the center stage. Twelve were ministers of the Senate. The thirteenth, a man named Gondal, was their leader, and he sat in the middle.

  The Senate was justifiably proud of their Great Chamber. Constructed from beautifully carved stone, it had taken decades to build. The seats of the amphitheater were supported by tall pillars of marble carved from the Central Mountains and transported hundreds of miles on carts pulled by men and women. The Senate Office Building was made of the same stone and decorated by statues on the top and all around the sides of the building. No one could enter the Great Chamber without being moved by its grandeur. The ornate carved Office Building was matched only by the splendor of the Great Chamber and its thousand seats, all open to the sky.

  Leader Gondal snorted as he looked at the wooden platform where Speaker Zardok stood in the center stage. It was designed to raise Zardok to a level equal to Gondal as he sat behind his table on the raised dais. It had begun as a serious issue between them, but evolved into a mere matter of protocol. Lord Zardok, High Priest of the Temple, and Speaker for the Sun, would not allow anyone to see him as subordinate to any person or secular institution, even if it was the Leader of the Senate. So, whenever Zardok agreed to appear before the Senate, Gondal was forced to have his workers rebuild the wooden platform for him. Zardok would not address the Senate without it.