“And when it grew up to be our age, we’d still be our age!”
“Ak” Albert nodded, satisfied. “We come now to growing old. Is that what you want? Because I should tell you,” he went on seriously, “that you will age, Robin. Not because anyone programs you to, but because you must. There will be transcription errors. You will change, and probably you will deteriorate. Oh, you have a great deal of redundancy in your storage, so the errors will not cumulate very quickly, at least not in any large matters. But in infinite time-oh, yes, Robin. The Robinette Broadhead of ten-to-the-twentieth milliseconds from now will not be the same as the Robinette Broadhead of today.”
“Oh, wonderful,” I cried. “I can’t die, but I can grow old and feeble and stupid!”
“Do you want to die?”
“I . . . don’t . . . know!”
“I see,” said Albert thoughtfully. I covered my face in my hands, as close to crying as I have been for a long time. Every bit of fear and depression and worry and self-doubt was flooding in on me then, and these stupid conversations were doing no good at all!
“I see,” said the voice again, but this time it wasn’t Albert Einstein’s voice. It was deeper and huger, and even before I looked up I knew Whose voice it was.
“Oh, God,” I whispered.
“Yes, exactly.” God smiled.
If you have never happened to appear before the Throne of Judgment, you probably don’t really know what it would be like.
I didn’t. I only had hazy ideas of grandeur, but the grandeur all around me was far grander than I had dreamed. I had expected, oh, I don’t know-awesome? Splendid? Frightening, even?
It wasn’t frightening, but it was certainly all the other things. The immense throne was gold. I don’t mean your tacky, everyday common gold. It was luminous, warm, even almost transparent gold; it wasn’t drab metal but the essence of goldenness made real. The immense throne towered above me, surrounded by drapes of pearly marble that looked as though Phidias and Praxiteles had joined forces to carve them. The chair I sat in was warm carved ivory, and I was wearing a white penitential shift, staring straight up into the great and all-seeing eyes of the Almighty.
As I said, it wasn’t frightening. I stood up and stretched. “Nice illusion,” I complimented. “Tell me, God, which One are You? Jehovah? Allah? Thor? Whose God are You?”
“Yours, Robin,” rolled the majestic voice.
I smiled up at Him. “But I don’t actually have one, You see. I’ve always been an atheist. The idea of a personal god is a childish one, as was pointed out by my friend-and doubtless your friend, too-Albert Einstein.”
“That does not matter, Robin. I’m enough of a god even for an atheist. You see, I judge. I have all the godly attributes. I am the Creator and the Redeemer. I am not merely good. I am the standard by which goodness is measured.”
“You’re judging me?”
“Isn’t that what gods are for?”
For no real reason, I was beginning to feel tense. “Well, but-I mean, what am I supposed to do here? Should I confess my sins, examine every moment of my life?”
“Well, no, Robin,” God said reasonably. “Actually, you’ve been confessing and examining for the last hundred years or so. There’s no need to go through all that again.”
“But what if I don’t want to be judged?”
“That doesn’t matter either, you see. I do it anyhow. This is my judgment.”
He leaned forward, gazing down at me with those sorrowful, kind, majestic, loving eyes. I couldn’t help it. I squirmed.
“I find that you, Robinette Broadhead,” He said, “are stubborn, guilt-ridden, easily distracted, vain, incomplete, and often foolish, and I am well pleased in you. I wouldn’t have you any other way. Against the Foe you may well fail disgracefully, because you often do. But I know that you will do what you always do.”
“And—” I stammered “—and what’s that?”
“Why, you will do the best you can, and what more can even I ask? So go forth, Robin, and with you goes My blessing.” He raised His hands in a grand gesture of grace. Then His expression changed as He peered down at me. You cannot say that God is “annoyed,” but at least He looked displeased. “Now what’s the matter?” He demanded.
I said stubbornly, “I’m still discontented.”
“Of course you are discontented,” God thundered. “I made you discontented, because if you weren’t discontented, why would you bother to try to become better?”
“Better than what?” I asked, trembling in spite of myself.
“Better than Me,” cried God.
18
JOURNEY’S END
Even the loneliest river winds somewhen to the sea, and at last-at long last-at long, long last-Albert appeared on the deck of the cruise ship simulation where Essie and I were playing shuffleboard (missing even the easiest of shots, because the cliffs and the unexpected waterfalls from the glaciers and the ice floes in the water were so spectacular) and pulled his pipe out of his mouth to say: “One minute to arrival. I thought you’d like to know.”
We did like to know. “Let’s look at once!” Essie cried, and disappeared. I took a little longer, studying Albert. He was wearing a brass-buttoned blue blazer and a yachting cap, and he smiled at me.
“I still have a lot of questions, you know,” I told him.
“And unfortunately I have not nearly that many answers, Robin,” he said kindly. “That’s good, though.”
“What’s good?”
“To have many questions. As long as you know there are questions, there is some hope of answering them.” He nodded approval, in that way he has that would drive me right up the wall if it didn’t make me feel so good. He paused for a moment to see if we were going to get into metaphysics again and then added, “Shall we join Mrs. Broadhead and the general and his lady and the others?”
“There’s plenty of time!”
“There’s no doubt of that, Robin. Indeed there is plenty of time.” He smiled; and I shrugged permission, and the Alaskan fjord disappeared. We were back in the control cabin of the True Love. Albert’s jaunty cap was gone, along with his natty blue blazer. His slicked-down hair was flying in all directions again, and he was back in his sweater and baggy pants, and we were alone.
“Where’d everybody go?” I demanded, and then answered for myself: “They couldn’t wait? They’re scanning through the ship’s instruments? But there’s nothing to see yet.”
He shrugged amiable agreement, watching me as he puffed on his pipe.
Albert knows that I don’t really like looking directly through the ship’s skin sensors. The good old viewscreen over the controls is usually good enough for me. When you slide into the instrumentation of the True Love and look in all directions at once, it is a disorienting experience-especially for people who still cling to their meat-person habits, like me. So I don’t do it often. What Albert says is that it’s just one of my old meat-person hang-ups. That’s true. I grew up as a meat person, and meat people can only see in one direction at a time, unless they’re cross-eyed. Albert says I should get over it, but I usually don’t want to.
This time I did, but not just yet. A minute is, after all, quite a long stretch in gigabit time . . . and there was still something I wanted to ask him.
Albert told me a story once.
The story was about one of his old meat-time buddies, a mathematician named Bertrand Russell, a lifelong atheist like Albert himself.
Of course, my Albert was not really that Albert, and so they weren’t actual buddies, but Albert (my Albert) often talked as though they were. He said that once some religious person had cornered Russell at a party and said, “Professor Russell, don’t you realize what a grave risk you are taking with your immortal soul? Suppose you have guessed wrong? What will you do if, when you die, you find there really is a God, and He really does call you to judgment? And when you arrive at the Throne of Judgment He looks down on you and asks, ‘Bertrand Russell, why did you not believe in Me?’ What will you say?”