“To arrange your dying, Mr. Stanton, not your death. We had nothing to do with that grand piano falling on you. What a shame that was, cut off in your prime like that! On the part of myself and all the staff at Dial-a-Death I want to offer you our condolences. But we did all right by you, didn’t we? When the time came, Dial-a-Death was right there. Our operators picked up your neural web within milliseconds of the piano pulping you. The computer implants worked just right. The girl was something, eh? With programming like that it’s almost a pleasure to die, eh?”
“What are you talking about, dying? I’m in a hospital somewhere, right?”
“Mr. Stanton, be realistic. I hate to mention what must be a painful subject, but they could have put most of what they found of you in a gallon jar and still have room left for a wax seal. Face it, Mr. Stanton, the body’s gone, you’re dead.”
Jack Stanton had a moment of sickening panic. Death! He had tried to make it nice for himself. Sure, he’d signed up for Dial-a-Death, and it had cost plenty. A man owes it to himself to try to make his dying nice. But that was for some time in the future. Dying had always been for later.
“What you have to do now,” the doctor said, “is open that door in front of you and walk through.”
“And what happens then?”
“We don’t know. Nobody’s ever come back. Our job is to try to keep you in a good frame of mind until you reach the door. After that, you’re on your own.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Jack said. “I’m staying right here.”
“Mr. Stanton, I’m very much afraid that won’t do.”
“I’m not going through that door!”
“Well, it’s up to you, Jack,” the doctor said. “This is the limit of Dial-a-Death’s service area.”
Jack Stanton stood alone in the corridor. To hell with them, he wasn’t going anywhere. He looked at the door. He was sort of curious to see what was on the other side. But that was probably what all dead people thought. They wanted to see what was on the other side of the door, and no one ever heard of them again.
To hell with that, Jack thought. I’m staying right here.
He waited. After a while the door opened all by itself. On the other side he could see another long corridor.
All right, now he knew what was on the other side. But he still didn’t move. They’d have to drag him through that door kicking and screaming.
It didn’t happen that way. The door waited for a while. When he still didn’t move it came for him. There was nothing to struggle against, nothing to resist. Suddenly he was on the other side. And then the next thing began.
Divine Intervention
There is a planet called Atalla. On this planet there is a stupendous mountain. It is called Sanito. Civilizations flourish in the temperate regions at the mountain’s base. The mountain, its upper half sheathed in eternal ice, is the dominant feature of all the lands thereabouts. Avalanches continually rain down its sides. Where it is not steep, it is sheer; where it is not sheer, it is precipitous.
No man has ever climbed this mountain. It is deemed unclimbable. Even its foothills are a formidable challenge. Nevertheless, legend has it that once long ago a holy man, elevated to a state of godhood through his many years of one-pointed concentration, rose, through his own self-created power, to the ultimate heights of the unscalable mountain.
The god, who had been known locally as Shelmo before his ascension, carved a cave for himself out of the solid rock of Sanito’s summit. He made himself a pallet of ice, and a meditation cushion of lichen. These were more than sufficient for a deity who could generate his own internal heat.
Shelmo had decided to spend some æons here on the top of Sanito practicing his one-pointed concentration. Although it had been good enough to win him godhood, he wasn’t really satisfied with it. He thought he could still refine it some.
Centuries passed. Civilizations rose and fell, and Shelmo paid no attention to them: it takes a lot of time to get one-pointed. Shelmo knew that it was perhaps a little selfish of him, devoting all his time to this, since gods were, after all, supposed to look after the humans in their vicinity. But Shelmo figured that the gods made their own rules. Besides, there was plenty of time to become an ethical deity after he had solved the one-pointed concentration problem.
For a god who wants to get away from it all, Mount Sanito was an ideal place. Windstorms and avalanches filled the air continually, producing a monotonous roaring background. The whipping clouds of white and gray were excellent meditation objects. So high up was Shelmo’s cave that even the prayers of the people rarely reached him. Battered by hailstorms, choked by snowfalls, the prayers became mere dolorous sounds, plaintive and without moral significance.
However, even a god can’t be spared all hassles all of the time. It may take a while, but the world finally gets through.
One day, Shelmo was surprised to find that a human being had made his way up the unscalable mountain and into his cave. (Shelmo wasn’t really surprised, of course; gods are never surprised. But he hadn’t expected it.)
The human fell on his knees and began to recite a lengthy prayer.
“Yes, thank you very much,” Shelmo said, interrupting him. “But how did you get up here? The mountain is supposed to be impassable except to gods. You wouldn’t be a god disguised as a human, by any chance?”
“No,” the human said. “I am a human being. My name is Dan. I was able to ascend to this height partially due to my own virtue and piety, and partially by the combined prayer-power of the people below, who worship you.”
“I see,” Shelmo said. “Won’t you have a seat? There’s a block of ice over there. I suppose you can regulate your own body heat?”
“Of course, Lord,” Dan said. “It’s one of the easier steps on the path to spirituality.”
“Yes, quite so,” Shelmo said. “Now, what brings you here?”
Dan sat down upon the block of ice and arranged his robes. “Oh Lord, your people pray to you for divine assistance. Without your help we will be overwhelmed and perish from the face of the Earth.”
“Well, what’s gone wrong?” Shelmo asked. “It had better be important. I don’t like being disturbed for trifles.”
“It’s the steel crabs,” Dan said. “The self-programming mechanical vampire bats are also a great problem. And of course, there are the copper scorpions with explosive tails, but mainly it’s the crabs. They’re machines, but they’ve learned how to reproduce themselves. For each crab factory we destroy, ten more spring up. The crabs infest our homes, our streets, even our places of worship. They’re killers, and we’re losing the battle against them.”
“There was nothing like that when I was on Earth,” Shelmo said. “Where did they come from?”
“Well,” Dan said, “as perhaps you know, the various countries are at peace now. But in the recent past several were in a state of belligerency. The steel crabs were one of the weapons invented.”
“And they launched them at some other country?”
“Oh, no, Lord, nothing like that,” Dan said. “It was an accident. The steel crabs escaped. They spread, first over the country where they were invented, then over the whole world. The crabs multiplied faster than we could wipe them out. It was all a silly accident, but now we perish, Lord, unless you step in and do something.”
Despite his self-imposed isolation, Shelmo did feel he owed these people—his people, as they said —something.
“If I handle this,” he said to Dan, “can you humans take care of yourselves after that and leave me alone?”
“I’m sure of it,” Dan said. “We humans believe in ruling ourselves. We want to create our own destiny. We believe in the separation of church and state. It’s just that this crab thing has gotten out of hand.”
Shelmo looked into the crab thing there and then, using his omniscience. Yes, it was a mess down there.