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From: "Stasya T. Canine" <stasyatk9@juno.MUNGED.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.d
Subject: Glass Longe / Story Starter... (or, I really, really screwed it up with this one...)
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:55:03 -0700
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===================
OK. It's not what you think but as long as you're here, take a look at the
human only bit of whimsy that follows. As always, comments and suggestions
are welcome.
What happened is simple, but frustrating. I should have saved this and
posted it under my new working name, or kept it and tried to sell it
somewhere.
My screwup is your gain though. I'm releasing everything, especially the
concepts, to the public domain so others can feel comfortable if they want to
develop it further, expand on what's here, or whatever.
I hope you enjoy the little romp that I called...
-----
The Gods of Knowledge
Chapter One - L'rynn
by: Stasya T. Canine
-----
"Biggest damn wolf I've ever seen. Came outta nowhere, grabbed one of my
bulls and then left. Poof!" The man snapped his fingers. The sound was
harsh in the still air. "Just like that! Here. Gone. My bull with it."
The four men shook their heads and kept staring at the single huge paw print
and the drop of blood beside it.
One of them finally looked up and stared at something in the distance. "Jake,
if it weren't for the print, I'd think you'd been drinking again. Or maybe
gone back to your old ways, from the sixties..."
"I'm clean! Ask the Doc. He'll tell you."
Dr. Tom Estaban, the man everyone called 'Doc' shook his head, smiling.
"Jake's clean, Ben. Cleaner than any of us. Hasn't touched anything
stronger than herbal tea in the twenty years since he staggered into Lily's
lookin' for a handout. I'd know it if he had."
Ben sighed and then angrily scuffed dirt over the print, as if by covering it
over he could deny its reality. "Yeah, I knew that. Angry. Frustration
talkin'. That's all. Lost a yearling colt to it last week. Sorry, Jake.
Same thing but all I had was a print, after. Never saw nothin'. Don't mean
nothin' by what I said."
* * *
The fourth man stood silently, apparently lost in thought, but his mind was
moving rapidly as he considered the implications of that single, huge, paw
print. He knew its source and he wondered...
Only to be anticipated when a 'voice' he knew well, spoke in his mind:
""L'rynn? They fear. Why? I would not harm them. I have never harmed
anyone. But my friends were hungry.""
""F'yre. You were seen. You resemble one of the predators on this world.
And, like men everywhere, they fear what they do not understand.""
""They could not understand me even if I was explained. My friends were
dying. I could not wait.""
""All things on this world die, eventually. It is their way.""
""It is their way, but it was not their time.""
The being known as L'rynn sighed. F'yre was relatively new to her powers, a
child barely half a million years old, as this world saw time. This wasn't
the first time her impulsiveness had caused problems. He shook his head
sadly. They had been able to settle things down in the past, but he didn't
know if they should, this time. These people were wiser now, in their way,
but they had blinded themselves in other, more fundamental ways as they
gained that wisdom.
It was, he decided, no longer wise to walk this planet as gods.
He and F'yre would have to find another solution, if they opted to stay much
longer.
* * *
"Larry. Hey! Larry!"
L'rynn looked up and frowned. "Sorry, Jake. You ask me something?"
"Yeah. You're the scientist. Any ideas?"
It was 'Larry's' turn to gaze off at the distance. "I'm not a real
scientist." He made the observation mildly; it was an old, well worn
protest made from habit more than it was from any sense of making a point. "I
read a lot and listen to the natives tell their stories. I get paid for
doing what I'd do anyway, which is wonder about our past."
"And you write papers, then get published in the journals and people debate
your ideas and conclusions. If you're not a real scientist, you'll do for
now." Jake was grinning at Larry's shock. "I didn't 'drop out' because I
was stupid. I was bored. Couldn't see the point of it all. Then the net
showed up and I decided to 'tune in' again. Seemed natural to do a little
research, just for something to do. Learned a lot more than I expected to."
He chuckled. "More than you expected, too, looks like. Wonder why that is?
Lots of famous folks decide to hide themselves away in some small town. You
ain't done nothing unusual.
"Anyway, you know more than the rest of us and something about this bothers
you." Jake's eyes turned shrewd but his tones stayed merely curious. "Any
native stories about this sort of thing?"
L'rynn shivered, hoping nobody would guess the real reasons for that shiver.
He'd been more careless than F'yre. Because he'd chosen to walk openly, as
one of these people, he'd forgotten that their mental isolation had forced
them to create ways of making knowledge freely available to all, not just
those who shared minds.
It was, he suddenly realized, far more dangerous a situation than the one
F'yre had created when she'd chosen to gather food for her friends, the
wolves.
'What would it be like,' L'rynn wondered, 'to live in a universe ruled by
gods who believed they could learn anything they wished to know?'
F'yre laughed mockingly in the back of his mind. ""You could choose to be,
as I do, 'wise one who is without wisdom'.""
-----
The Gods of Knowledge
Chapter Two - F'yre
by: Stasya T. Canine
-----
Jake settled on his porch to watch the sunset. As the sun touched the
mountains he felt a subtle shift in the air and the resulting draft caressed
his nose with a familiar scent.
""Thank you, Jake, for my friends.""
The voice in his mind was familiar, now. Twenty years ago it had scared him
so much he'd gone clean overnight.
It was, he mused, one hell of an effective cure for drug and alcohol
addiction. Now, if only he could find a way to market it...
He turned to face the huge 'wolf' who sat on her haunches beside him. "They
are welcome. 'All are one'."
""Indeed. 'All are one'.""
She studied him for awhile, then turned her gaze toward the sunset. ""L'rynn
fears.""
Jake shrugged. "I thought you wanted him to. Is this another of your
'games'?"
""Yes. He must. Without fear, he will refuse to grow. Jake my human
friend, I am a child in our terms but I play no game this time.""
"Forgive me, F'yre. To me, everything you do is a 'game'. It is human to
mock ourselves when we are serious. It lets us maintain a proper perspective
when things are changing."
""You and I are much alike, Jake, my companion. Even L'rynn, who should be
my mate, is not as purpose-bonded to me as you are.""
Jake chuckled. "Well, then, lonely F'yre who burns with her frustration.
We'll just have to help him accept the reality that is, won't we?"
""I like you, Jake, I have ever since the night you questioned reality but
accepted it anyway.""
-----
The Gods of Knowledge
Chapter Three - Jake
by: Stasya T. Canine
-----
Jake stared at the ceiling, not seeing the rough surfaces of the beams he'd
made himself.
No... He was seeing a night that happened twenty years ago. It had been a
night that started with terror, only to end too soon, leaving him filled with
a sense of wonder that had been more addicting than the drugs he used to dull
his boredom into a pain he could tolerate.
He had, since then, never been able to say he was bored.
It was a wonderful feeling, a miracle--and one he accepted as casually as he
accepted the huge wolf who was not a wolf, who slept on the floor next to his
bed.
""Not sleeping."" It was an amused protest. ""Walking other worlds, other
times. Just like you were. I was there, with you.""
Jake laughed. "OK. Daydreaming, then."
""No. Not a dream. Reality.""
He sighed. It was an old argument, and he knew she was trying to teach him
something, but no matter how hard he tried... "Reality to you, F'yre. I am
a human. I am built to think in linear terms, in one world."
""No. You are human, yes. But you are conditioned to think the way you
think. The cultures you destroyed when you populated this land understood
this.""
He lay there, with his head on his pillow, mulling over her calm words. She
must be right, but how could he ever hope to change his thinking? He'd grown
up thinking this way. It was right. Everything was explained, even F'yre and
her 'should-have-been-mate', L'rynn.
He didn't need to change, if he accepted what was. Right?
Vaguely dissatisfied with that glib answer, he was pondering it, wondering
where his reasoning might be wrong, when he fell asleep.
-----
The Gods of Knowledge
Chapter Four - 'Doc'
by: Stasya T. Canine
-----
Jake was sweating in the morning breeze as he took advantage of the warm day
to cut more firewood. He looked up and waved when the sound of a diesel
powered pickup caught his attention. He finished splitting the log he'd been
working on and slammed the axe into the stump he used as an anvil.
A swarthy man leaned out of the cab. "You done with that axe, boy?"
Jake laughed. "Yeah, Doc. And you know I wouldn't try to threaten you with
it. You'd take it away from me again, just like you did when I was a
confused boy."
Tom Estaban chuckled as he finished getting out to walk over and shake hands.
"Lotta years gone by since then. You're stronger, I'm weaker. You'd win,
now."
Jake, startled at the bitter amusement he heard, studied his friend, the man
everyone else knew as 'Doc'. To Jake he'd always been and would forever be:
'Dad'. It was an adopted relationship, but intensely real, for all that it
had been forced on them both, some thirty years in the past.
He was startled when he realized Tom looked old, worn out. Not frail, or
weak, but definitely not as strong as Jake always remembered him.
"What brings you by?"
"You."
"Me?"
"Don't be innocent with me, Jake. I know when you're lyin' by telling the
truth. You know more about that 'wolf' than you've been telling people."
Jake looked down and shuffled his feet morosely, a little boy again and
caught by his father in a lie.
"Kinda felt you might have figured out some of it by now. You want it all,
or will you trust me and let it go this time?"
""Tell him.""
The command roared through their minds, leaving no doubts that it *was* a
command
Jake stiffened, then turned to face F'yre as she calmly walked towards them.
Doc looked confused, then followed his son's gaze until he saw... A
nightmare come to life. He'd known the wolf, if he ever saw it, would be
large. But this wolf...
It was as tall as he was and its lupine grin was unmistakable.
It was also, he realized, coming for him and his son and he knew there was
nothing he could do about it.
""Relax, Tom Estaban who is my friend's father by adoption. There is no need
to fear me. I have never, will never, harm a human.""
"F'yre." Jake, he noticed, was relaxed, even chiding. "Be nice."
""Why?""
It was said with such artful innocence that Tom couldn't stop his laugh. If
his laughter got slightly hysterical before he could finally get it under
control, well, who better than a psychiatrist to understand the reasons?
He also, once he got past his fear, realized the wolf was female--and quite,
in her way, charming.
By then she'd settled on her haunches and Jake had stepped forward to reach
between her her ears and scratch her head. Her yawn of sheer pleasure was
accompanied by a very feminine giggle in his mind.
""Everything likes to have its ears rubbed. Especially by their mate. Yes?""
At first his mind froze, then he wept as he remembered his wife and the way
they'd crooned at each other while nibbling on each other's ears, in turn.
""She will always live, as you will, as we all do. When the time comes, you
will know how to seek her and be reunitied. 'All are One'.""
Tom's attention was jerked away from his bittersweet memories. She hadn't
been comforting him, she'd been stating a simple fact. He could tell. That
'All are One' business had the flavor of something more than a platitude,
too.
Jake interrupted them. "F'yre. You could be nice because it increases the
chances of you finding a home, at last. Children must, as you keep reminding
me, quit being children and become the person they are meant to be."
""A child, speaking wisdom to a child. I will think on this as you tell your
father the truth, at last.""
She settled on her belly, then rolled to her side and to all appearances,
fell asleep.
Tom came out of his trance and looked at his son. "A child, speaking wisdom
to a child?"
"Come on over to the cabin and I'll tell you about it. Yeah. F'yre is only
half a million years or so old. Barely pubescent. Me? I never did grow up.
You know that."
-----
The Gods of Knowledge
Chapter Five - Reality Check
by: Stasya T. Canine
-----
Jake settled a haunch on the porch railing and chuckled as his dad tried not
to wince as he sipped his glass of cranberry juice. "You wanted something
tart and bitter. That's it. That's all I have that's even close."
"Quit dodgin' boy. I ain't so old I can't figure out a way to catch you and
tan your ass good." Tom studied his 'son'. "She said 'mate' You ain't one
of them, are you?"
Jake laughed so hard he doubled over. "Nope. Can't happen. Never would
have and you fixed me too good for that. Besides, I'd be better off flying a
kite and tying a string to it in a thunderstorm. Lot safer, too. Might even
survive the experience if I did."
"Dodgin', boy. Again."
Jake suddenly sobered. "No. I'm not. We're what she calls
'purpose-bonded'. Means we're on the same wavelength of reality. Impossible,
literally, for us to ever exist, one without the other. She implies me, I
imply her. Ever thought about what happens to the light from a flashlight
when it meets a lightning bolt that's the same frequency? You get
interference patterns, but no real interaction.
"Well, that's what we all are, even her. Interference patterns."
Tom stared. "You're not making sense."
Jake sighed. "You always said I didn't think like normal folks."
"You don't, but I'd also swear on every stack of research reports I've read
that says you're crazy, that you aren't."
Jake's chuckle was dry. "Thanks. You don't know how much that reassures
me."
"Knock it off. Just try and explain *that*," he gestured at the huge wolf,
'in terms even I can understand without thinking I've gone over the edge to
do it."
"K. It's an analogy, and you really, really have to stretch it out of shape,
and I don't think it will work for you completely, but if you can use it to
build an analogy of your own, you'll understand. I understand some, but not
enough. If I did, just one of the things I'd be is consciously immortal. I'd
also be something beyond a god. I wouldn't be power, I'd be something else."
"What's that?"
"I'd be a zero to infinite resistance, 100% efficient switch, for
everything." He pointed at F'yre, who had come over to settle on her
haunches and watch the show. "Like she is. Like the being who is supposed to
be her mate, is."
"I think you're crazy."
Jake just laughed. "I wish I was. F'yre? I think he needs a
demonstration."
She giggled. ""Oh, very well."" She blinked out of existence only to appear
ten feet higher, upside down and rolling on her back like a puppy in a sunny
meadow, except there was no meadow, only ten feet of empty air between her
and the ground.
She finally rolled back to her feet, then, still standing on air, sat on her
haunches again. ""Is this enough, Tom?""
She giggled again. ""Jake? I think he needs something stronger.""
Jake chuckled and held his hands over his dad's glass, then carefully
positioned them, as if he were shading it from two different light sources..
He held the pose briefly, then pulled his hands away. "No mirrors, and the
best I can do. Take a sip."
"You ain't Jesus, boy. And I never did buy that 'water to wine' hocus
pocus."
"Just sip, Dad. OK?"
Tom's eyes never left his son's face as he carefully lifted the glass to his
lips. His nose told him one thing but he had to actually taste it to
believe. "Rum and Coke?"
"Yeah. Used to be my favorite so it's my strongest memory. And... Who, in
their right mind, wants to waste that sort of power on wine? Especially if
it's going to be the stuff I used to drink?"
"Got a point." He sipped appreciatively. "Cute trick. Man could learn to
like that sort of power. How?"
"Remember I said we're interference patterns? Well, I used my hands, which
are interference patterns, to change the reality that reached your glass so
the interference pattern that used to be cranberry juice changed until it was
identical to the one that's a 'Rum and Coke'. Then I sort of let my mind
freeze it so it wouldn't change.
"You always told me that 'perception is reality'. Truth is, 'perception
creates reality'."
"Son, I almost understood that. But this 'change reality' you mentioned. How
can you 'change reality'? It just is, isn't it?"
"Nope. It's a standing wave. A resonance that's stable. Change the
conditions slightly, and it changes. Has to. If you know what you want, you
can change the conditions until you generate a resonance that you can see, a
'reality' that's stable until something else changes the conditions again.
Then the reality changes until it's stable. Most times, since the conditions
change in a pattern, the reality is dynamically stable.
"Oh, those conditions? Interference patterns. And guess what? I'm an
interference pattern. Everything is. 'All is One'. QED.
"BTW, Jesus was an alky. Wino. Damn good mind, but he was drunk most of the
time. Didn't have real good control, but he had it almost right except for
one thing.
Bemused, Tom asked the inevitable question that Jake seemed to want him to
ask. "Assuming I buy in, what did he get wrong?"
"Everything. The universe creates itself from scratch billions of time a
second. How long does it take to generate an interference pattern? What
happens if one of the beams is blocked?"
Tom gaped.
"What happens if you turn on millions of beams of light in a perfectly
reflective sphere with a rough surface and then turn them off again? Hell,
you only need one, once. Now put a finite number of rough surfaced spheres
that are, relatively speaking, very, very small, inside your first sphere."
Jake was shaking his head wearily. "I said it was a stretch but... You get
lots and lots of interference patterns. And you get standing waves if the
wavelength is large enough that it 'steps over' the spheres. You also get
'eddies' and interference patterns that are varying degrees of stable. Any
of it, of course, can 'creep' while staying stable."
He looked at his father, then F'yre. "And that's what she is, a stable
interference pattern that's also a standing wave. Very, very stable, since
the standing wave won't vanish until the light does, or, in this case, the
reality wave.
"Since that's not going to happen, she always was, always is, and always will
be. We're just large enough to be dynamically stable but capable of being
disrupted, so we can 'die'. But, with the universe being recreated all the
time and being finite, our interference pattern will always exist somewhere
or be duplicated, all the time. We just don't know it unless our ability to
manipulate the interference of the reality waves reaches a threshold. Do it
in the right way and our interference pattern becomes another standing wave.
"Instant immortality."
Jake resettled on the railing and chuckled. "Reality didn't start with a
bang, but a flashbulb called 'reality' going off. Everything since is
afterimages, so to speak."
Tom gaped, then slugged back his drink. "You sound crazy, but all that
almost made sense."
Jake laughed, this time. "It should have, It's interference pattern was
pretty similar to yours. The two of you resonated. It couldn't do anything
other than reinforce your pattern. So, to you, it 'made sense'." He turned
to display a grin. "You and it make friends, get to know each other and if
you ever get your frequencies close enough, 'wham!' Big flash and you're
immortal.
"Oh, that reminds me. Mom says 'Hi, and no hurry. You've got forever
anyway, it doesn't matter when you figure it out. It's not that long,
relatively speaking, and she can find plenty to do while she's waiting. Only
an eyeblink anyway--for her'."
"Damnit, you've gone to far! Don't you ever tease me like that!"
"I'm not. She also said the nuzzle a bit ago was nice, she's missed that."
"You couldn't have known about that..." It was a plea for understanding.
"She died with your mother and father, in that wreck--and I know I've never
mentioned it to you. NEVER!"
"Right. She did. Just a few minutes ago. Dreams, any of them, are just
another form of reality. match the interference patterns and you move there.
Can't be any other way."
Now, Jake slid over the railing and walked to where F'yre was floating,
calmly settled on nothing. He looked up, frowned and then suddenly he was
standing next to her and he reached to scratch an ear while he grinned at his
dad. "Perception creates reality. I can understand that just enough... To
do simple things. I can't do much more than what you've seen. Not yet."
-----
The Gods of Knowledge
Chapter Six - God Baiting
by: Stasya T. Canine
-----
Tom finally remembered what he was there for. "That's a damn effective
distraction, but it didn't quite work. You never did say why you're messing
with Larry."
Jake sighed. "You asked for an explanation. OK. It's real simple. Larry's
real name is L'rynn and he's supposed to be F'yre's mate. He's got his head
up so far he hasn't accepted that fact and she's tired of waiting so she
asked me to help her do some rough and tumble therapy to remind him they
should have mated millenia ago."
F'yre took over and interjected her comments. ""Crude, but that's
essentially the truth as you people can understand it. L'rynn is too used to
being a god to you folks and he hasn't accepted that you will eventually
replace us as the supreme observers. Bluntly, he fears what you will become.
""I'm tired of putting up with his refusal to grow up.""
Jake and Tom both winced at the heavy dose of irony that colored her
thoughts, then looked at each other.
Jake recovered first. "So that's what I'm doing. 'Tough love for a god'.
Interested in helping Larry grow up?"
Tom's mind shied away from thinking about the implications. Instead, "You
want to do that waving of your hands again? I *need* a drink."
Jake laughed and held his hands behind F'yre's head, then wiggled his fingers
as if they were ears. After a few seconds he pulled them away and grinned at
his dad. "Drink up. I made it a little stronger this time so be careful
with that first swallow."
"Hell with careful, boy. Go suck your own eggs." Tom slugged the contents
back in one go and then coughed, whooped, pounded his leg as he recovered his
breath and finally peered through watery eyes at his son and the huge wolf.
"You two mind settling somewhere more natural? You make me dizzy."
He squinted at them. "Yep. Never thought I'd see anything that made me feel
like I was airsick but that definitely does the trick. Get yourselves on
something solid before I puke all over this nice porch of yours."
Jake and F'yre laughed, then suddenly appeared on the ground in the same
postions they'd been in.
F'yre giggled in their minds. ""Better?""
"Yup!" Tom leaned the chair against the wall and studied them thoughtfully.
"How the Hell do you apply tough love to a god? And why would I want to get
mixed up in it? I know damn well all about what happens to mortals when you
mess in the affairs of the gods. You, Jake. Thought you had more sense than
that."
Jake's grin was huge and it made Tom nervous.
----
(and that's all for now... Where does it go from here? I haven't a clue
atm.)
---
TANSTAAFL --Robert Anson Heinlein--
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **