BIG G’S FIRST LOVE
The goddess sighed as she looked down at her problem planet through a single slitted eye. She could hardly bear to look at the place these days.
What a disappointment they were . . .
Of all her creations they were the first and most precious to her. She had expected them to be the most splendid, the most exalted, the most fine . . .
But this, her first of all, now besmirched the others. They tarnished an otherwise unblemished record.
She held her nose.
Why were they as they were? They had, had so long to prove themselves . . .
Such a smelly, low-minded, low-browed, embittered, greedy and aggressive race.
What did they think they’d gain by all this fighting, killing and reprehensible behavior?
She wasn’t going to make the place any bigger . . . or rounder was she?
Certainly not for them!
G then turned both green eyes upon the unhappy little planet. "Perhaps it’s time I finally gave up on them altogether and simply flushed them away . . ."
Just then D arrived and immediately became aware of the reason for G’s black mood.
"Look, I know what you’re thinking and I agree. They simply aren’t working out, are they? It’s been the talk of the canteen for millennia now. And yes, I’m sure it’s been the reason why you’ve been passed over every time one of those overseer jobs comes up. But look . . . I have an idea."
"These were your first, and like the rest of us, you created your first in your own image, so they’re particularly special to you, I know that, it’s the same with all of us. But you’ve given them time enough now. And more. There’s no use hurting your reputation any more than you already have my dear . . .
Listen . . . I know you can’t bear to lose these, your very first project, so I’ve an idea. Here’s a new design just come up from R&D. It’s kinda puny I know, but then it shouldn’t give you the grief you’ve experienced with these others, now should it?"
"Please . . . just think about it."
"Simply punch in model number Ndn564473902-yxx734635l-str-A if you want to take ’em on board, okay?"
G thought long and hard for near enough the next ten thousand years before making her decision. There were many times when she thought she’d reached the bitter end and was just about to make the change when . . . she gave them just a little longer, just to see if they could change, to see if they might finally learn to be civilized. She really was loathe to kill off those made in her very own image. You only got one chance to do that. With your first. And never again.
In the end she simply gave up, it had been a particularly bad century and well, it just felt like time. She now realized she had been hoping in vain all along. It was hopeless . . . it always had been. They had to go.
She checked back to find the model number D had given her on the last shift and keyed it in.
It was accepted. No one else had taken it up since its design date. Good!
Next came the mods and cons screen. Here she laid down the special parameters for the world according to her wishes. This took some time as once they were entered they could no longer be modified in any way. In this screen she also specified the manner of elimination desired. It seemed clear something dramatic was in order . . .
Some thousand years later it was ready. Every detail was now in place down to the most minute level and each interlocking dynamic and open-ended option was checked and double-checked a hundred times in her modeling program.
G was a sentimental old soul. A stubborn one too. She had decided her beloved ones would not disappear altogether, but would survive in miniature form. They would compose the test for this world by which her experiment would be proven either a success or a failure. If her re-modeled favorites were accepted and nurtured to the degree that they lost all fear of the new model then a truly civilized end was finally assured and it could at last join the others which had so very long ago made the grade. And she might regain the respect of her colleagues and, more important, once more be in line for promotion!
So it was that G completed her re-grading work for Z-5-type world ScccvDkrtd*85645395895578349 and indicated *FINAL COMPLETION*.
She now gazed nervously down at her little ball of trouble and said a prayer.
She knew it would start at any moment and she just hoped she had thought of everything . . .
As she looked down she felt her heart skip a beat. The sweat began to pop along her brow ridge and run down between the ridges of her face, splashing on her green and yellow fore thighs. The pupils in her lime green eyes dilated as she sought to further penetrate the blackness of space and observe closely her first love.
She had given them all of 300 million years. "Surely I gave them time enough . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . didn’t I?"
With a nervous glancing blow G sought to halt the tick that had begun to bother her right eye. As she did so her great green arm swept the enormous volume of records from all the past years into her waste basket.
"My own ones, my own ones . . .", she moaned, as the tears fell as a hot, salty rain upon her claws.
Down below, the jungle heaved. Gigantic plants sought the sun. Vast swamps gurgled and spluttered as they had done for millennia. The air hummed with humidity. From nearby came a crash and a roar . . .
In the pink distance the sky suddenly clouded and swirled blackly and a deafening whooshing sound arose.
And then . . . drawing a dirty grey line across the sky, came it’s cause, an enormous glistening black block of stone.
No comments:
Post a Comment