Time to clean up. An ordinary titanium alloy block from the family storage unit on A468 delivered to my living pod. Most of the stuff I had hit the button to sent to disposal--what was it used for? who used it?--but this object had a geometric elegance that made me hold it and carefully examine it. I ran my finger over the surface until I felt a minute depression and pressed. The block split into two parts, yawned open, and bent back flat on the lexan table surface. Inside a recording device they used to call a book.
I picked it up and found it sealed with a tape upon which a message: Don't open until 2000. We're well past that, I thought, and with my laser blade slit it open. The writing style was archaic but I was able to read it.
'If you've opened this before time, I beg you read no further but destroy this. Otherwise, do what you want, everyone who might believe will be dead anyway.
'It was 490th election and there were just two of us in the final round to be chosen Supreme Being for the next 27 years. The departing SB, just hours from joining his predecessor living gods, looked at us from his exalted throne. 'What sign can you show?' he thundered.
My people, those who had supported me all the way to this final test, stood lined up at the side of the arena, watching intently. Those of the blacksmith stood on the other side, equally rapt. I nodded to him and he proceeded to dance in a slow circle, singing and wailing, until his voice changed, became deep and resonant, and blood began to come out of the pores of the skin on his back and chest. 'So will the earth always feed you, blood from stone,' his impossibly deep voice said, before he collapsed the ground, twitching.
'I stood stock still through all this impressive display, and then suddenly voices could be heard in different places in the arena, now from above, now from behind a pillar, or from over the shoulder of the outgoing SB. At first, the voices were mere susurrations but then words could be heard behind spectators, who would turn an ear, then blush or hang their heads. The whispers melded into a wind-like sound that spoke the mystic name of the Spirit of the universe.
'All eyes were on me, but I didn't move or flinch, looking at the outgoing SB, who acknowledged me with a nod. I stepped forward and received the ordis mundi from the one who walked away to join those in Elysium whom I would also join a quarter century hence.
'My devotees knelt and bowed, as did those of the blacksmith whose blood was still staining the dust. I sat on the chrysolite throne as curtains like veils fell successively in front of me, hiding me from the people forever. To the throne they would pray for safety and good harvests and health of their sick ones, and, in fact, they got some of what they asked.
Here followed a list of positive interventions: deliverances, healings, bumper crops.
'The people kept my priests amply supplied with all kinds of food and luxurious materials to enlist their help in praying to me, prayers I sometimes listened to, sometimes not, because--this is what must not be told, lest I be expelled from the list of those sojourning among the graduated former deities in Elysium--I have no divine powers. It was ventriloquism, simple voice throwing (learned from the old men of the forest tribes), and some canny snooping into the private lives of the onlookers at the test that got me the throne.
'Maybe the blacksmith years ago did in fact show genuine signs of deity, but I have to confess to some generation in the future that I'd didn't. They called me Supreme Being, their leader, their benefactor, kind and gentle, powerful and just, and according to them, I was.
'When the pantheon list is recited for however long we are remembered, let my name be on there, a good enough god.' Then he signed his name, my family name.
I put the book back in its box and closed the lid. Every school child has to memorize the list of early gods which are revered as the geniuses of our nation. The family tradition was that the one in the pantheon who had our name was one of us, deity ran in our family.
I pressed the button and the block slid through the opening in the wall on the way to the fire
I picked it up and found it sealed with a tape upon which a message: Don't open until 2000. We're well past that, I thought, and with my laser blade slit it open. The writing style was archaic but I was able to read it.
'If you've opened this before time, I beg you read no further but destroy this. Otherwise, do what you want, everyone who might believe will be dead anyway.
'It was 490th election and there were just two of us in the final round to be chosen Supreme Being for the next 27 years. The departing SB, just hours from joining his predecessor living gods, looked at us from his exalted throne. 'What sign can you show?' he thundered.
My people, those who had supported me all the way to this final test, stood lined up at the side of the arena, watching intently. Those of the blacksmith stood on the other side, equally rapt. I nodded to him and he proceeded to dance in a slow circle, singing and wailing, until his voice changed, became deep and resonant, and blood began to come out of the pores of the skin on his back and chest. 'So will the earth always feed you, blood from stone,' his impossibly deep voice said, before he collapsed the ground, twitching.
'I stood stock still through all this impressive display, and then suddenly voices could be heard in different places in the arena, now from above, now from behind a pillar, or from over the shoulder of the outgoing SB. At first, the voices were mere susurrations but then words could be heard behind spectators, who would turn an ear, then blush or hang their heads. The whispers melded into a wind-like sound that spoke the mystic name of the Spirit of the universe.
'All eyes were on me, but I didn't move or flinch, looking at the outgoing SB, who acknowledged me with a nod. I stepped forward and received the ordis mundi from the one who walked away to join those in Elysium whom I would also join a quarter century hence.
'My devotees knelt and bowed, as did those of the blacksmith whose blood was still staining the dust. I sat on the chrysolite throne as curtains like veils fell successively in front of me, hiding me from the people forever. To the throne they would pray for safety and good harvests and health of their sick ones, and, in fact, they got some of what they asked.
Here followed a list of positive interventions: deliverances, healings, bumper crops.
'The people kept my priests amply supplied with all kinds of food and luxurious materials to enlist their help in praying to me, prayers I sometimes listened to, sometimes not, because--this is what must not be told, lest I be expelled from the list of those sojourning among the graduated former deities in Elysium--I have no divine powers. It was ventriloquism, simple voice throwing (learned from the old men of the forest tribes), and some canny snooping into the private lives of the onlookers at the test that got me the throne.
'Maybe the blacksmith years ago did in fact show genuine signs of deity, but I have to confess to some generation in the future that I'd didn't. They called me Supreme Being, their leader, their benefactor, kind and gentle, powerful and just, and according to them, I was.
'When the pantheon list is recited for however long we are remembered, let my name be on there, a good enough god.' Then he signed his name, my family name.
I put the book back in its box and closed the lid. Every school child has to memorize the list of early gods which are revered as the geniuses of our nation. The family tradition was that the one in the pantheon who had our name was one of us, deity ran in our family.
I pressed the button and the block slid through the opening in the wall on the way to the fire
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