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.