Still, whether there was any genuine danger or not, Bredon could not shake the feeling that he was somehow responsible for involving Geste in something unpleasant. “I want to help, though,” he said. “There must be something I can do."
“I don't know what it could be. Look, kid, I know you mean well, but this is between the immortals. You haven't got the technology or the knowledge or the experience to be of any help, so far as I can see."
Bredon knew that was true, but he refused to accept it without argument. He had never enjoyed sitting by and watching while others acted, and he felt somehow responsible for Lady Sunlight. Besides, from a purely selfish point of view, anything he could do to help would also improve his chances of eventually bedding her. “Maybe I can learn,” he said. “Maybe I can see something the Trickster would miss, because I'm only a mortal, something that a Power wouldn't think of."
The intelligence hesitated, then replied, “I'm sorry, kid, but I just can't see it. Even if there is some little fact that you know that we don't that could be of use, how will we ever know it? You don't have the first idea what's really happening here."
“I know I don't, but I want to understand,” Bredon insisted. “I want to learn. Can you teach me?"
“Well, sure, I can,” Gamesmaster replied. “Of course I can teach you. But I don't know how much you can learn in time to do any good. I've got direct neural loading in a lot of fields, imprinting, we call it, but not for any of the basics that you'll need, because Geste and all the rest had all that centuries ago and weren't planning on having any kids on this planet. I'd need to teach you a lot of stuff with ordinary sight and sound."
“That's fine!” Bredon said happily.
“Well, maybe it's fine. We'll see."
“When do we start?” The prospect of a new adventure, of learning what was really going on, thrilled him.
“Oh, any time, I guess. But first, aren't there a few little things to take care of?"
“Like what?” Bredon demanded, suddenly suspicious.
“Oh, details like food, drink, and a quick visit to the equivalent of a hole in the ground?"
“Oh.” Bredon realized sheepishly that the mysterious voice was quite correct; his bladder was full and his belly was empty. He flushed slightly, then smiled at his own discomfiture and stood up. “Lead the way,” he said, his hand hooked into the waistband of his breeches.
Behind him, the bed shifted its shape, and oozed around him, forming a receptacle in the appropriate position. Other appendages formed, but waited their turn.
In the next several minutes Bredon was stripped, bathed, checked for parasites, shampooed, massaged, and generally cleansed and invigorated. He had no names for most of what the “bed” did to and for him, but when it had finished he felt absolutely wonderful.
“Would you like your old clothes back, or something new?” a soft, feminine voice asked.
Bredon was startled, and momentarily embarrassed by his nudity until he realized that speaker was surely another inhuman spirit. When he recovered he decided he felt ready to take a little risk. “Something new,” he said.
“Anything in particular?"
“No."
“Delighted to be of service, sir.” Something silky slid up his legs and onto his back; he raised his arms to slip into the sleeves, and found himself wearing a one-piece garment that looked like velvet, but that weighed almost nothing and shimmered in a dozen shades of soft brown.
“Nice,” he said appreciatively. He was dressed as well as a Power now.
A table appeared before him, seeming to form out of thin air, and a strangely-shaped chair rose out of the floor behind him. He sat down gingerly.
“Did you have anything special in mind for breakfast?” Gamesmaster's familiar voice asked.
“I can't say I did,” Bredon answered.
He expected more of the foil packets, but those, he discovered, were strictly trail food. Here at Geste's home meals were served properly, on plates of various sizes, and an assortment of oddly-shaped dishes, some of which had the disconcerting habit of floating in mid-air a few centimeters above the table. All the plates and dishes had the knack of quietly vanishing once they were emptied.
Bredon did not recognize a single one of the foods he was served, whether by sight, taste, or aroma. All, however, were delicious.
When he had eaten his fill the golden light blinked out, plunging him into total darkness. Gamesmaster announced, “We'll begin your lessons now, and we'll start with some elementary cosmology. I'll do my best to put this so that you can understand it, and if there's anything that you don't understand, please stop me and I'll try to explain it more clearly. I expect some of this will conflict with what you were taught by your own people, but this is the way those you call the Powers understand the universe.” It paused, but whether it expected a response or merely wished to heighten the drama, Bredon could not decide.
“In the beginning,” a deep new voice said, “there was the Bang.” An image appeared, a blaze of light hanging in the darkness before him, spreading out and scattering.
Bredon listened to the creation myth as retold by what he had to consider another of the Trickster's familiar spirits. The story was not very exciting; his own people had a much shorter and rather more interesting creation story, full of people rather than impersonal cosmic forces. The spirit, however, seemed to take its story more seriously than anyone took old Atheron's tale of the warring sects of Kru and Passijers being cast out of the heavens.
He listened, though, and he watched the images of planets coalescing out of dust, heard the explanation of how life arose from the seas, how the creatures changed their forms over millions of years. He gaped at some of the creatures he was shown, and laughed at others. The pictures were incredibly real, so clear and detailed that he had difficulty in believing they were merely images.
Then humans entered the story, not sent down from the heavens, but as just another creature.
That was a new and interesting concept; Bredon rather liked the idea. He watched as the story ran quickly through the rise of civilization and the growth of technology.
It was only when he was shown the early sleeperships wallowing out toward the stars that Bredon realized he had been watching the history of the World in the Sky, rather than of his own world.
The tale of Denner and his Kru and Passijers fit in quite nicely with what he had just seen, and he suddenly understood what Geste and his other familiar had meant in speaking of other worlds. All those planets that had formed in the beginning were worlds, and the stars were suns-hundreds, thousands of them!
He told the spirits to stop while he absorbed this, and the image diffused into a soft white glow. He could faintly see the enchanted forest just beyond.
He repeated slowly to himself what he had just been taught. His world was not the only one between the heavens and the world of the dead. According to this spirit, there were hundreds of others, or thousands.
His mind boggled. What a concept! Worlds upon worlds, each with thousands, or millions of people!
And the stars in the darktime sky-each of them was a sun, and each sun had a world beneath it. All his life he had looked up at a thousand other suns, without ever realizing it.
What were all those other worlds like? What would it be like to live in the light of another sun?
He stared into the darkness, trying to imagine an entire different world, fully as big and complex as his own.
He failed. His imagination could not even encompass the totality of his own world; he knew that already.
Other worlds! He shook his head.
But there was no need to try and absorb it all at once. He would have plenty of time to digest this wonder.