path: root/78935-0.txt

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78935 ***




                               Day’s Work

                             By Noel Loomis




  =He came striding across the galaxies with feet that spanned eons as
  well as parsecs, and with a goal in his mind--the goal of a creation
  forbidden by members of the Council of the Gods. He wanted to create
  a certain kind of biped!=




Two of the gods had been arguing all morning. A galactic morning, that
is--one sixth of the time it took Betelgeuse to complete its orbit
around the circumference of a cross-section of the spiral whorl of the
sprawling IX Galaxy--some four hundred and twenty thousand years.

And the fury of the last nova explosion indicated that Mogar, ranking
member of the IX Galactic Council, was becoming annoyed over his
failure to browbeat Dalen, who had come up from the LIII Constellation
Committee only a few eons before.

But finally, just before noon, Mogar’s tremendous thought-force
thundered at the younger god out of the Lesser Magellanic Cloud and
rolled across ninety thought light-years of space to the constellation
Bootes, where Dalen was trying to settle a territorial dispute between
two solar system deputies who had been involved for eighteen centuries
over the jurisdiction of a newly formed binary system.

Mogar’s thought-force said: “Your theories are preposterous and
repellent. No entity in physical shape can ever learn to live a useful
life. For one thing, they seldom evolve the quality of infinite age.
And records will show that in all the II Supergalaxy no species of
biped with an opposed thumb has ever been able to live peacefully with
itself. All such species are self-destructive.”

A great rumbling came from the Cloud, accompanied by trillion mile
streams of sullen fire, and then Mogar’s thought-force, muttered but
still understandable at that distance, came again: “When you have
been in the Council long enough to become oriented, you will see that
these ideas of yours are nothing but sentiment, and have no place in a
council of the gods.”

The energy-nucleus that was Dalen absorbed these thoughts, and at
length sent his answer back to the Cloud:

“Sire, your venerable age and your seniority on the Galactic Council
cause me to answer you with deep respect, but I find it impossible to
agree.”

Mogar’s thought returned like cosmic lightning: “Then you will, I
suppose, appeal to the Supergalactic Conference.”

Dalen evaded this trap. His answer swept back across the light-years of
the galaxy’s length quietly but strongly:

“Sire, I do not think that is necessary.”

And of course it was not necessary. While all the nine gods in the
Galactic Council had authority in any part of the galaxy, and even
certain rights anywhere in the Milky Way Supergalaxy, in practice each
member of the council ruled a particular sphere of the galaxy, and by
unwritten law might do anything he wished in that region as long as he
did not upset the dynamic balance of neighbor regions.

That was where Mogar came in, and why it was necessary to secure
his approval before actually beginning the experiment. For Mogar’s
ancient seniority on the council and his resultant familiarity with
all conditions in the Galaxy of Orion (the IXth) had made him a sort
of deputy of the Supergalactic Conference, and they had actually given
him a temporary appointment as Director of Creation in the IX Galaxy.
Temporary, though he had already held it for several ages. The higher
gods were very conservative.

       *       *       *       *       *

So it was most desirable to secure Mogar’s approval on any project
involving creation, for creation involved the welfare of neighboring
regions. But Mogar, long embittered by his own failure to advance
beyond the Galactic Council, valued the small eminence his appointment
gave him, and had adopted a policy of conservatism as his best means of
preserving it. Therefore he could be expected to oppose on principle
any experiment the failure or success of which might upset the dynamic
balance of the galaxy and throw a shadow on his judgment, and the
successes of which could only react favorably to the god who should
bring it about.

Dalen considered Mogar’s opposition for the century-long space of a
galactic heart-beat. This wasn’t a good start for Dalen to make in the
council.

It was well known throughout the entire IV Universe that Mogar was old
and crotchety, perhaps even vindictive. Those very weaknesses had long
ago cost Mogar a seat in the Supergalactic Conference, but that wasn’t
the worst of it. If Mogar had progressed in the usual fashion from the
last Beginning, he would by now have had a seat in the mighty Cosmic
Chamber.

So the situation exhibited still more serious aspects. Mogar, having
seen many younger gods pass him in the long climb upward through the
several eternities from the last Beginning, consistently delighted in
showing younger gods their place, and under the Laws of Hierarchy,
a younger god who lost face would be relegated to some quiet
Constellation Committee until the next End and reorganization of the
Cosmos. Mogar was known to throw obstacles in the way of every young
and ambitious god, and then watch them sharply for a chance to catch
them off-guard.

Dalen knew these things. He had been warned by his friend, the
middle-aged god Lennat, who had been one of Mogar’s early victims.
Lennat had lost a test of strength with Mogar and had been assigned to
the obscure constellation, Tracho, where there had not been even a nova
explosion for more eons than Dalen could remember.

Dalen considered these things, and he knew what billions of years of
inactivity could do to a god’s mind. Even now he felt the lightly
restraining touch of Lennat’s thought-force, a little dulled by long
disuse. He felt grateful for Lennat’s interest, and yet he had an idea
that was more than just that--it was an ideal.

Dalen wanted to see a species evolve that could temper intelligence
with sentiment.

Dalen’s belief was that intelligence alone, even the unusually high
forms developed by certain Arachnids and some Centipods, was not the
most pleasing form of life. He believed that sentiment--even though
unsupported in logic--had a definite place in the cosmic aim of finally
conjunctive symbiosis, because it provided the most comfortable form of
relationship, and there no longer was any argument even among the gods
that comfort was the Ultimate Aim.

So Dalen wished to give such an entity an opportunity to evolve. He
knew there would be definite limitations. For one thing, there could be
only two forms: avian or mammalian.

The birds and the mammals were the only two forms that developed a
great deal of conjunctive feeling, and so his choice was necessarily
limited to them. He preferred avian for its ability to leave a solid
surface, but he liked mammalian for its inevitable eagerness to develop
an opposed thumb. And the opposed thumb, Dalen believed, was the
quickest answer to any sort of technical progress.

Some of the gods held that technical progress was undesirable, that any
form of life would more quickly evolve into the abstract forms such as
pure energy, thought-force, and so on, if they should lack technical
ability. But Dalen saw desirable things in technics, as he saw
desirable things in sentiment, and he had been determined for several
ages that he would some day put his theory into effect.

Just now Dalen hesitated, not because he was afraid, but from caution
stirred by his knowledge of Mogar’s ancient shrewdness. Mogar mistook
his hesitation for weakness, and his next thought rolled powerfully and
triumphantly from the Magellanic Galaxy, across the intervening vacuum,
back to the IXth and through its length to Bootes again:

“Then, perhaps, you will challenge me.”

Dalen perceived the note of condescension. He knew that Mogar had
challenged many ambitious young gods, and had never lost a test, but
still Dalen did not rise to the taunt.

“No, sire, I am not at this time going to challenge you,” Dalen
answered evenly.

Mogar’s guffaw thundered across the intergalactic void.

       *       *       *       *       *

But Dalen had not been elected to the council from the committeeship
of the Constellation Hercules for his caution. At once he reached out
to the other galaxy with his sensitive perceptory faculties and probed
lightly at Mogar’s mind.

Dalen recently had begun to suspect that the elder god had retained
some of the lower mind-centers that were distinctly ungodlike. Now
was a chance to find out. But almost as soon as Dalen tried, he was
chagrined. He touched one of the intricately convoluted hyper-centers,
but it was shielded.

That was embarrassing. Mogar would know that he had tried, and by
evening every god on the council would know that the newcomer from the
LIII Constellation Committee had tried to probe old Mogar’s mind and
had failed. But Dalen was not a god to back away from his chosen course.

He felt that his power was somewhat diminished by the unusual distance,
for Mogar was visiting outside his own galaxy today. Dalen channeled
his energy through the fifth-dimension space-warp, which offered zero
resistance, and in traversing the long parsecs of the galaxy, he gained
six years in time before he reached the point in the galaxy nearest
Mogar in the Cloud. There he halted and struck suddenly and with all
the normal power of his faculties at the depths of Mogar’s mind.

He hit first the reflexive center, but there he met a solid wall of
force, and then, because he could shift his probing lance faster than
Mogar could erect shields, he stabbed at what would have been Mogar’s
instinctive level. He was astounded to find that, too, protected.

Dalen had expected to find the lower centers unguarded, because it
required untold trillions of macro-ergs of energy to erect a single
shield, and Mogar would spend centuries replenishing that energy from
atomic dissolution. But also because attempting to probe an elder god’s
mind was an audacious thing, and Dalen had not expected Mogar would
anticipate it.

But Mogar had, and was taking no chance. Dalen did not hesitate. He had
committed himself, so he stabbed again, and this time with tremendous
power. He funneled his probing force through the spiral timewarp of
the sixth dimension, to give it infinitely compounded power, and with
all this inconceivable kinetic momentum he stabbed repeatedly at
successively lower layers of the elder’s mind, far past the instinctive
and even into the inanimate--but without success.

By now he was ashamed. The newcomer was now only a smart aleck. But
Dalen had not finished. How the elder god at his age could endure the
awful energy-drain of completely shielding himself was more than Dalen
could understand. What Dalen did understand by now was that Mogar
definitely would not allow anyone to penetrate his mind.

That was a shock as Dalen realized the implications. Why should a god
shield his mind-centers at such a frightful cost of energy? There could
be but one answer, and it frightened Dalen a little. It meant that
Mogar _did_ have disjunctive thoughts and perhaps even feelings. It
meant that even if Mogar should withdraw his opposition nominally, he
would be glad to see the experiment fail, and he might even help it to
fail.

That would be a vicious handicap for Dalen. The evolution of a race was
subject to many perils; evolving a particular species was a hot-house
sort of process that would take several billion years and much careful
nurturing. If another god should be opposed, he could destroy the
entire experiment, for instance, by dropping a spore of some malignant
virus into the midst of the species--a virus for which the race would
be unprepared and against which it would have no resistance. That was
only one of infinite ways to eliminate an undesirable species.

So now it was obvious to Dalen that his only recourse was to break down
the barriers to Mogar’s mind. He had not intended this, but Mogar was
forcing it. If he did break through the shields, then Mogar himself
would be relegated, for the entire supergalaxy would know it instantly.

So now Dalen, having unintentionally worked himself into a spot where
it was relegation for one or the other, gathered his energy. There
was one way in which he felt positive that he could break through
Mogar’s protection, even at this great distance. This was by way of the
ninth-dimension elliptical spiral. Dalen had never used it, for it was
prohibited to any god below the council, but if he could manipulate it
into operation he could combine it with the sixth and his infinitely
compounded power would be also infinitely squared.

There was one drawback. According to Dalen’s calculations, a
combination of the sixth and the ninth would require an output on
Dalen’s part of power to the extent of something like 8.4 times ten to
the twentieth power macro-ergs-and that would be Dalen’s last effort.
He would have to rest for a while after that. If it didn’t succeed, he
reflected, there would be eternities to rest.

       *       *       *       *       *

He concentrated his energy facilities and spiraled them to full power,
sucking the last quantum of pure energy from every available atom, even
stripping binding energy, and poured it all into his utilization of
the two dimensions. Dalen was a young god and a strong god, and it was
utterly inconceivable that any god could stand up against that enormous
combination of power.

By now the entire IV Universe knew that he and Mogar were fighting
it out. Tightness pervaded Dalen’s thought-force which was flung out
along the edge of the galaxy. The mighty power of the two dimensions
swirled together and lashed out across the interstellar void, gathering
momentum as it traveled in ever-increasing spurts.

Perhaps the very first tongue of this energy touched Mogar, when
unexpectedly his chuckle--a little forced, it seemed to Dalen--rolled
back across the void. He said, as if amused:

“Where do you propose to hold this experiment?”

Dalen relaxed gratefully and allowed the controls to ease from his
mind-centers. So Mogar had enough. Mogar had backed down. Only an old
god of long seniority could do that without losing face, and also,
Dalen understood, that was Mogar’s only way out. Dalen knew now that he
would have broken through, and in a way he wished he had. It would have
eliminated Mogar’s future unofficial opposition. But Mogar had chosen
to break the deadlock, and that was Mogar’s right, so Dalen accepted
the gesture.

“I intend to develop a new solar system, to be known as the XXXVI, out
on the fringe of the galaxy, and attached for administrative purposes
to my home Constellation Hercules. I will choose one of those planets,
sire, to be populated.”

Mogar snorted so loudly it could be heard in the VIII Galaxy. “It will
take you two billion years to get a biped. I say give the planet a
shower of germanium isotope rays and everything but insects will kill
themselves off quickly. Then in a few million years you will have an
insect civilization to be proud of.”

But Dalen was firm in his answer. “No, sire. I believe the
opposed-thumb biped may prove to be a very desirable life-form.
This planet will be only one of ten quadrillion in the Milky Way
Super-Galaxy. I think it is not too extravagant to use it as an
experiment. It is under the jurisdiction of my home constellation,
sire,” he said pointedly.

Now Mogar grumbled, and a billion cubic parsecs of cosmic dust exploded
before his ire and streamed into the vacuum of intergalactial space.
“Very well, then. I withdraw my opposition. But you will see that I am
right, and at next week’s meeting I shall expect a report from you on
the outcome.”

“Yes, sire,” Dalen said respectfully. He turned in the space between
two stars, and began traveling back toward Hercules. He felt now the
astonishment in the minds of Lennat and the seven members of the
council. Yes, Dalen was audacious. He was young and perhaps impetuous,
to brave the wrath of a god like Mogar. Dalen knew now that the other
members of the council felt as he did, that Mogar would go to any
length to prevent Dalen’s success with the experiment.

       *       *       *       *       *

Dalen resolved more firmly that it should succeed, but it was a heavy
load that he bore as he made arrangements for two stars to meet in
the outer void of the IX Galaxy. His realization of the difficulties
ahead was lightened by only one thought: If he could create the race
he wanted, he would be very proud. Even without Mogar’s opposition,
the odds were heavy against him. The gods did not like to see their
precedents broken.

But the one thought lightened Dalen’s mind: if he should succeed,
he would be very proud. No doubt it would mean his elevation to the
Supergalactic Conference and perhaps even to the Dioclave. So Dalen’s
mind-force was busy with ideas and plans. In fact, he realized a little
wryly, he was almost exuberant. He had even selected a name for his
experimental species. He would call it “Man,” and by this time next
week the entire Supergalaxy would know whether an opposed-thumb biped
could be a desirable entity.

This was a good day’s work.




  Transcriber’s note:


  This etext was produced from Rocket Stories, September 1953 (Vol. 1,
  No. 3.). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
  U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but
  minor inconsistencies have been retained as printed.

  New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
  public domain.




*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78935 ***