A Choice of Gods

Had he run from her, she wondered. Or had she read more into what had happened that day in the glen than had actually been there? Both of them, she realized, had been shaken by the events that had transpired in the glen and their flooding emotions may have found an outlet in one another that was, viewed in a sober moment, entirely without meaning. She didn't think, she told herself, that had been the case. She had thought about it since and the answer seemed to be that the events had no more than triggered something that she had known and felt, but had not entirely realized—that she loved this wanderer from the west. But had he, she wondered, asked the same question of himself and found another answer?

Had he run away? Or was there something that he still must seek—after all the months and miles of seeking, was he seeking still? Was he convinced that what he hunted—perhaps not really knowing what he hunted—did not He in this house or in herself, and had he moved on toward the east in his endless quest?

She pushed the book away from her and sat in the quietness of the shadowed library, with all its tiers of books, with the candle guttering as it burned toward its end. Winter soon would come, she thought, and he would be cold. There were blankets she could have given him, there were robes that would have kept him warm. But he bad not told her he was going and there was no way she could know.

Once again she lived over in her mind that day when they had found the creature. It all had been most confusing and she found that it still was impossible to put it all together, saying that, first, this happened, then another event took place, and after that, another. It was all jumbled up together, as if everything had happened all at once with no chinks of time between them, but she knew it had not been that way, that there had been a progression of events, although they had happened rather fast and had not been orderly. The oddest thing of all was that she had trouble separating what David had done and what she had done and she wondered, once again, if, while they may not have done it all together, whether one of them alone could have made any of it happen, but that, rather, it took the two of them to do what each had done.

And what had she done, she wondered. What had happened to her? Trying to recall it, she could discover only fragments of it and she was sure that when it had happened there had been no fragmentation and that the fragments she could recall were no more than broken pieces of the whole. The world had opened out and so had the universe, or what she since had thought must have been the universe, lying all spread out before her, with every nook revealed, with all the knowledge, all the reasons there—a universe in which time and space had been ruled out because time and space were only put there, in the first place, to make it impossible for anyone to grasp the universe. Seen for a moment, half-sensed, a flash of insight that had been gone before there had been time for it to register on her brain, sensed and known for an instant only and then gone so quickly that it had left impression only, no certain memory and no solid knowledge, but impressions only, like a face seen in a lightning flash and then the darkness closing in.

Was this—could this—be the realization of what she had tried to tell Grandfather Oak, knowing that there was something happening inside her, that change was about to come, but not knowing what it was and telling him instead that she might go away again, although in a different sense than she had gone to the wild rice country? If that were the case, she thought, if this were it, if this might be a new ability, like going to the stars, and not simply something that she had imagined, she'd never have to go anywhere again, for she was already there, she was any place that she might want to be.

It was the first time she had thought of it as an ability and she found herself confused and frightened, not so much at the implications of the thought as that she had thought of it at all, that she, even subconsciously, could have allowed herself to think of it. She sat stiff and straight, holding herself tense, and in the shadowed room flickering with the light of the dying candle, she seemed to hear again the muttering and stirring of all those ghosts that huddled there among their works, the one last place left to them on Earth.

24

(Excerpt from journal of Nov. 29, 5036)… In the last few centuries I have experienced some physical deterioration and now there are days (like today) when I feel the weight of years upon me. I have a tiredness that ca

Alison, my wife, passed away five hundred years ago and while I ca

One thing I do recall, and ever since that day it has haunted me. When Alison died many people came, from far among the stars, and we had a service for her, in the house, and at the graveside. There being no person of religious calling, my grandson Jason read from the Bible and said the words that custom decreed should be said and it all was very solemn and, in many ways, most satisfactory. The humans stood at the graveside, a great crowd of us, and at a little distance the robots stood, not that we had indicated in any way that they should stand apart, but of their own choosing and according to the ancient custom.

After it all was over, we went back to the house and after a time I retired into the library and sat there alone, no one intruding on me, for they understood my need to be alone. After a time there was a knock upon the door and when I called out for whoever it was to enter, in came Hezekiah of the monastery. He had come to tell me that he and his companions had not been at the funeral (a fact that I had failed to notice) because at the time those of the monastery had held a memorial service for her. Having told me this, he presented me with a copy of the service they had held. It was lettered on the sheets most legibly and beautifully, with colorful illustrative initials and decorations around the margins of the pages—the same careful, meticulous kind of manuscript as had been turned out in the scriptoriums of the Middle Ages. Frankly, I did not know how to respond. It was impudent of him, of course, and from my viewpoint not in the best of taste. But there was no question that what he and his companions had done had been with no thought of impudence nor impropriety, but from their own light, an act of utmost charity. So I thanked him and I fear I was somewhat curt in the thanks and I am certain he noted the curtness. At the time I did not record the incident in the journal and never spoke of it to anyone. I doubt that anyone, in fact, was aware that the robot had come calling on me. Over the years I have been most responsible in the writing of everything that happens. At first I started the journal so that the truth of what had happened to the human race would be placed upon the record and thus serve as a deterrent against the rise of myth and legend. I think that at the time I had no other reason and did not plan to continue with the journal, but by the time I had it all written down I had so acquired the habit of writing that I continued with it, putting down upon the pages all daily events, however small, as they took place—oftentimes writing down my thoughts as well as the events. Why I did not record at the time what took place between myself and Hezekiah has been a long, long puzzle to me. Surely it did not carry so great a significance, did not constitute so great a breach of etiquette, that it must be hidden. At first I put it out of my mind and when I happened to think of it, put it out of my mind again, but of late it has been with me overmuch.