Tuesday, May 10, 1042

At protocol we showed each other our hellos and goodbyes, except I still hadn't come up with anything I liked, and I was a little embarrassed about it. Wilson gave me some coaching on the side.

"You can just say 'bye' like you've been doing." He paused, seeing my look of vexation, "but I see you're not happy with that." He considered for a minute. "It should reflect you, something about your personality, or maybe your character. You seem like a straight sort of fellow...That's it!" he said, pointing at my face. "Do that again."

"What?"

"What you just did!"

I didn't know what he was talking about.

"There's a look about you when you think, it's perfect." He scratched his chin. "How do you imagine your face can reflect your mind so clearly?"

I thought about that.

"There! Perfect!"

"Really?"

"I think it fits you," he said.

So we rewound to that look, captured the motion of it, and made it my goodbye macro.

"Now all you have to do is close your book, and that'll be your sign-off," Wilson said.

We spent the rest of the session working on pretense exercises.

Fred suggested that we play golf instead of sitting in his office. "We can talk about Earth History at the same time."

My game was improving with every game I played. Fred arranged for Arnie to caddy for me, something he usually didn't do, and it was a big help. It was like having a master lesson while I played. Fred's caddy was a girl, Sandy. She and Arnie engaged in an amusing banter about my and Fred's golf games as we played, as if they were talking behind our backs and we couldn't hear them.

As we walked toward the first green, I picked up from last time: "You said that it was conceivable that Earth was created from here."

"That's right," he answered.

"And somebody told me that I have been dead for two thousand years."

"Um hmm."

"That doesn't work."

Fred grinned. "It doesn't, does it?"

"I don't believe your one's ever held a driver before," Sandy said to Arnie after my tee shot.

"Well your's tees off like he's hacking down a tree," Arnie replied, after Fred's.

I two putted the first hole for bogie and Fred three putted, also for bogie. As we were making our way to the second tee, he said, "Let's see...Our time scale isn't the same as Earth's. When we say you've been dead two thousand years, that's from our scale. We see all of Earth history as a totality. We can look at all of it complete, from the beginning and the end, if you can call it the end. It's static. But we really have no idea when Earth was, or is, exactly. It's just conceivable that it hasn't happened yet."

I let that go; it wasn't what I was asking, anyway. "Then how do we get the idea that I've been dead two thousand years?"

I took the honor while Fred considered my question. I really got into it that time, the best shot I'd made since I'd been on Kentucky, almost straight down the fairway. Fred ended up short of me.

"It's our time scale. We started going forward from the first person two thousand years after we made Here."

"So I've been dead two thousand years, only because…" I shook my head. "I'm not getting this at all."

Fred laughed. "It's okay to think about Earth as being on our scale, most of us do, even if we know better. It's a useful fiction."

I got on the green in two, so I was shooting for par. Fred was one back, he would have to one-put or bogie.

"But, we can see when Here was created from Earth?"

"Yep."

"Then," I said slowly, "doesn't that align us?"

"No," he said flatly.

"Why not?"

"Because when we woke up here the Aethyrverse wasn't the same. Some new universes were there and some that were there before were gone."

"Which means what?"

"Which means that this universe isn't aligned with the Aethyrverse the same as Earth. And that includes time."

"Blech," I said.

I topped the ball on the third tee, the shot made a ripping sound as it tore through the grass in front of us. Fred laughed, but his shot wasn't much better, slicing off to the right rough. I heard our caddies muttering something to each other, but when I glanced back at them they looked wide eyed and innocent.

"None a this is especially important for what we're trying to do."

"What…?"

"History Orientation," he said.

"Oh. Yeah."

"Just know that we have a different perspective on Earth History here."

I nodded my head.

Fred bogeyed the third, I double bogeyed.

As we approached the fourth tee, Fred said: "Our best guess is: Earth was created all at once, just like here. Ten thousand years before we lived. The plants and animals popped in pretty much the way we knew them. There was some evolution after that, but not much. Everything was evolved already, in some other universe. Men and women popped in at the same instant, apparently from somewhere else too, already grown, already knowing things."

"I bet that was weird."

"They didn't seem to be particularly confused."

"They were already used to Earth? It was just like their planet?"

"Maybe. Maybe they were just created to think so."

"Mmm."

"And they went forth and multiplied and were fruitful."

"I've heard that."

He grinned at me again.

Four was a par three and I managed to hit the green on my tee shot, thanks to some good advice from Arnie. Fred found a bunker. I sank the putt for my first ever birdie, and Fred bogeyed. We were all tied up, something else that had never happened, I was always last.

"So what was the point?" I asked, as we made our way down the fifth fairway. We had both made fine, long drives off the tee.

"The point of what?" he asked.

"The point of creating the Earth?"

"You're not a nihilist?"

"A what?"

"You think there was a point?"

"How could there not be? I mean, why go to all the trouble?"

"Right. That's what we think, too."

"Do you know the point?"

"We think we do."

"Love?" I asked.

"Right."

I managed to four putt the fifth hole for a double bogie. Fred parred. As we were walking to the sixth tee I asked, "How do we figure it was for love?"

"Two ways. First, I said that not much evolution took place after creation. Except love. Love evolved a lot."

"Really…"

"Yep. In the beginning there wasn't much like what you'd call love. It was very animal. But their minds seemed to be predisposed to it and it didn't take long before we started to see changes."

"How can you tell that from here?"

"Good question. It's why we turned around and started raising people from the beginning instead of continuing to go backward."

I frowned at him.

"We had a hunch, based on what we could see of early Earth history, but we really didn't know until we raised the first people. Then we could study it because they were here, right in front of us."

"What's the other way?" I asked, after our tee shots on the sixth.

It took Fred a moment to understand my question. "Oh. The Creator."

I raised my eyebrows.

"Remember that he showed up on Earth from time to time? Vicariously?"

"Yeah...I never understood what you meant."

"That's what he did when he was there."

"What?"

"Advanced the evolution of love. Pushed it along."

I thought about that for a moment. It made sense, except for that one thing. "What do you mean, vicariously?"

"Well, you can't go from one universe to another. I mean, you can see it, but you can't affect it."

"Yeah..."

"But we, you and I, were on Earth, and now we're here," he prompted.

"But we can't go back."

"Right. And we can't come here from there either. We had to be created here."

"I know that."

"Created by somebody already here,"

"Yes."

We both bogeyed the sixth. On the way to the seventh tee, Fred asked, "So who created the first of us?"

"What?"

"Who created the first people in this universe?"

"Oh. I didn't think of that."

"See? This universe was created with copies of its creators already built in. Those first people created the next people, copying them from Earth, and so on until: here we are!"

"Okay."

"Well, Earth's creator showed up from time to time."

"Here?" I asked, felling a chill.

"On Earth," he said, looking at me steadily, "then here."

"Here too?"

"Copied from Earth, just like the rest of us."

"How did you recognize him?"

"That was pretty easy," he said. Then he looked at me again and said, "He was conceived asexually."

"I thought we all were," I said.

"I mean on Earth."

I felt the little shiver crawl up my back. "Virgin birth?"

"Sometimes."

"Christ?"

"Among others," he said.

I don't know how I did it, but my seventh tee shot went straight at Fred's head, fifty feet away, ninety degrees from where I was aiming.

"Sorry," I said. "Fore..."

"Maybe we should just concentrate on golf," he said, picking himself up from the ground.

"You have fine reflexes."

"Good thing too. I think it would have hit me between the eyes." Now Arnie and Sandy really had something to talk about. I glanced at them, they were just watching me steadily, as if nothing unexpected had happened.

I re-teed and made a normal shot, Fred having moved to stand behind me this time, the only really safe place.

"So there were others? Other Christs?" I asked.

Fred gave me a wry smile as we started down the fairway. "We humans, Earth humans I should say, women, would do it from time to time, conceive asexually. A male child, having mostly his mother's DNA, the rest was something else. His mind developed atypically, and he generally ended up an exemplar of love."

"Where did the male part come from?" I asked.

"A virus," he said. "It lived in all humans. It wasn't harmful in any way; one of many like that. The only time it caused any symptoms was when it infected, uh, fertilized an ovum. It was extremely rare, happened only once in a couple of hundred million women. But then the extraordinary occurred. A child was born with certain ideas already programmed into his brain, and some unique compulsions."

"To teach about love," I said.

"Something like that."

"The son of God."

"That's one way of looking at it. The virus was obviously engineered. We don't really know if it was engineered from the creator, or if they just made it up. We like to think it's him, though. Even if it's not, it tells us something about him. It's hard to imagine the creation being all that different from the creator, but who knows."

I would have parred the seventh if I hadn't muffed my first tee shot. But Fred found another bunker, so we were even.

"How did we ever figure all this out?" I asked, rhetorically.

"We stumbled across it, while researching the life of Christ."

"Ah."

"When we figured out how to trace back time, it was one of the first things that got researched. First to prove that there was never such a person as Jesus of Nazareth. After we found him, we wanted to see who his daddy really was. That's when we found the Jehovah Virus."

I nodded my head. "I bet them was exciting times."

"Yes they were."

I hooked my eighth tee shot, the first time I'd ever hooked. I had misunderstood a tip from Arnie. Fred laughed; his shot had been just about perfect.

"And we've found others?" I said, as we both approached the green.

"We all carried it."

"I mean, we found other Christs?"

He nodded. "We call them Messiahs, or Exemplars."

"And it's one in a hundred million?"

"About half that," he corrected," follows statistical norms, as far as we can tell."

"That's still a lot."

"More than a handful."

"What were they like?" I asked.

"Well, they were similar to each other in some ways, but mostly they were unique individuals, products of their upbringing, like everybody else. Different personalities. They all took after their mothers, of course. But they all had similar unique compulsions, it set them apart from other people, in an interesting way. Interesting to other people, I mean. People watched them, listened to them. People who knew love were drawn to them, people who didn't really couldn't stand them."

"So they stirred things up."

"Sometimes. Sometimes they lived quietly, but even the quiet ones made a big impact on a few people and their influence spread."

"So it could be subtle."

"Elegant. The whole thing is elegant. Clever, simple design with a huge systemic impact. The hallmark of the creator."

We both made the green off the ninth tee, a par three.

"Did the Messiahs know who they were?" I asked.

Fred shook his head. "They knew they were different, but that's true of a lot of people, not just Messiahs. They sometimes figured out that they didn't favor who they thought their papas were."

"They didn't have a papa."

"They didn't know that. Or they usually didn't."

"Their mothers kept it secret?"

"Sometimes. Usually mom didn't know either," he said.

"How could they not know? They were virgins."

He grinned at me. "That's what we call them, in deference to the Christian Bible, but it's more accurate to say that there was no father. A Messiah wasn't usually firstborn. It could happen any time, sexually active or not."

"Oh."

We both parred the ninth. Fred ended up beating me by just three strokes.

"Your game is coming right along," he said.

"Thank you." I turned to my caddy. "And thank you Arnie."

"You're welcome. I'll play with you anytime."

Karen and I flew to the island for a lunch picnic and tour. Coming in on final approach, it was obvious that there was a crosswind, so I was concentrating very hard. The strip was fairly narrow and bordered by tall trees, which swirled the crosswind into turbulence close to the ground, so we got jostled around just before touchdown. It was a real tap-dance on the rudder. Remembering yesterday's landing I tried to make this one less jarring, and floated a little more than I meant to. There was still plenty of room, though, the Fleet didn't need much runway.

We taxied back to the hangar and cut the engine. My book chimed as we climbed down, Harold had sent me a message.

"Uh oh," I said.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Harold. He must not've liked my landing."

I looked a query at her, and she said, "Better take a look at it." I brought up the message which read:

'Good landing. Your flying continues to improve. Don't worry about yesterday's, the Fleet can take it. Sometimes you need to plant it right on, and you did. Good job.'

"Oh," I said.

"It's okay?"

I nodded my head. "He keeps an eye on me. Apparently my landing was good."

It was my third time on the island and I was beginning to feel at home. As we entered the clearing where the house was, I was startled to see a bevy of cottontails spread out eating the grass. They made for the woods at our approach.

We went down to the cove and looked around for a bit before having our lunch sitting on the dock with our feet dangling in the water. Fish were active where the water was still, picking bugs off the surface and leaving concentric rings of ripples, disturbing the water like very light rain. Besides the birds, there was very little to hear. I felt the peace I always did when on the water.

"I love it here," she said.

"Really?"

"Mmm. I've stayed pretty close to the school, you know. Haven't spent much time in the country."

"Kentucky's almost all out in the country," I pointed out.

"Yeah. It's nice, too."

We chatted about my plans for the island, or lack of them. After finishing, we fed a few scraps to the fish and I showed her the little boat before giving her a tour of the house.

"You oughtta get some new furniture," she said, "Something not so white."

I chuckled. "Scott told me to take up woodworking again."

She glanced over at me. "And?"

I shrugged. "I'm thinking about it. It's not so easy to get started."

"How come?"

"Uh…you have to have some pretty big tools, and a good sized space. If you're really going to do it."

"And a couple of apprentices," she added.

"I'm not nearly good enough to teach."

She looked puzzled. "I mean apprentice bots."

"Uh—"

"All the woodworkers I know have them."

I cocked my eye at her. "How many woodworkers do you know?"

"A few. It's interesting. I thought about getting into it, but I did sculpture instead. What kind of big tools?"

"Saws. Planers."

"Two man saws?" she asked.

I shook my head. "Power saws, circular saws."

"Oh. I've heard of those. For cutting up logs into boards?"

"Uh, not that big. I mean just a table saw. You know, for ripping and joints, that sort of thing."

She looked puzzled again. "I'm not sure what you're talking about."

"Ever visit a woodworker's shop?" I asked.

"Of course."

"Wasn't there some big machinery?"

She thought for a moment. "I don't remember any."

Now it was my turn to be puzzled.

"Seth has a lathe," she added.

"They must have been in another room."

"I don't think so…He just has the one room place, just about this size," she said, looking around my little house, "He stores his wood in stacks under a shed outside."

"How does he dimension his lumber?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I guess they do it when they cut up the tree."

I shook my head. "I mean, when he makes something, does he get his wood already cut to size?" I paused as something occurred to me. "Does he use a factory?"

"Just for hardware and stuff, not for the wood. It's real wood, from trees." Then she glanced at me and said, "The apprentices do most of the sawing."

"Oh." I wondered if bots had taken the place of power tools…

"Seth measures and marks, and the bots saw and plane," she said. "Sometimes he does too, but it's mostly the bots."

I nodded. I hadn't considered that possibility. It sounded interesting.

We went over to my factory where Karen opened the big book and went to Seth's shop. There was a lathe, three nice benches, a quartet of sawhorses, a knee-high table on casters, a big clamping table, and lots of open space. Nothing seemed to be going on; except for the various pieces under construction, the room was empty.

"Wow," I said, "I wonder where you get a woodworking bot?"

She shrugged her shoulders; I always thought she was cute when she did that. I couldn't help but smile.

We spent a few minutes looking for a woodworking bot, but came up empty. "Maybe I'll try Kat," I said.

She nodded. "This would be a nice place to work."

"I was planning to live in here."

"I meant out here," she swept her arm in an encompassing gesture. "You could build a nice studio right next door," she ended by indicating the grass out to the side of the house. "It's a wonderful view."

I nodded, imagining it.

"Scott said that I could do you a studio at the same time."

She looked a little surprised, then she seemed to consider the idea. "Sounds wonderful."

"You'd like that?"

"Of course I would, but I wouldn't mind learning to make furniture either."

After looking over the house, and listening to Karen's many ideas on how it could be made nicer, we started a tour of the rest of the island. When we reached the big glade on the south end, we spotted a herd of at least two dozen whitetail. We froze and watched them for a while.

"I didn't know there were so many," I whispered.

We detoured so as not to disturb them and continued around the island. I was glad that Karen got to experience flushing quail too. It gave me the same shock as before, and being grabbed around the waist by a startled Karen enhanced the experience. The water was bigger on the east side where it faced the main river channel. A big two-master was working it's way down, all sails set in the light air. We watched it for a while.

It was almost three hours before we made it back to the cove. I had been feeling more and more stirred up by Karen as we walked, and she seemed to recognize the signs and did little things to encourage me along. By the end of our hike we had stopped talking and had just been smiling at each other, our excitement rising. My whole body was tingling. We ended in the grass down by the water, a wonderful, fresh, peaceful experience. It was almost sunset when she woke me.