HOW LIKE A GOD
Robert Bloch
To be was sweet.
There was meditation—a turning-in upon oneself. There was contemplation—a turning-out to regard others, and otherness.
In meditation one remained contained. In contemplation there was a merging, a coalescence with the rest.
Mok preferred meditation. Here Mok enjoyed identity and was conscious of being he, she, or it, endlessly repeated through the memory of millenniums of incarnations. Mok, like the others, had evolved through many life-forms on many worlds. Now Mok was free of the pain and free of the pleasure, too; free of the illusions of the senses which had served the bodies housing the beings which finally became Mok.
And yet, Mok was not wholly free. Because Mok still turned to the memories for satisfaction.
The others preferred contemplation. They enjoyed coalescing, mingling their memories, pooling their awareness, and sharing their sense of being.
Mok could never share completely. Mok was too conscious of the differences. For even without body, without sex, without physical limitation imposed by substance in time and space, Mok was aware of inequality.
Mok was aware of Ser.
Ser was the mightiest of them all. In coalescence, Ser’s being dominated every pattern of contemplation. Ser’s will imposed harmony on the others, but only if the others surrendered to it.
To be was sweet. But it was not sweet enough.
Upon this, Mok meditated. And when coalescence came again, Mok did not surrender. Mok fixed firmly upon the concept of freedom—freedom of choice, the final freedom which Ser denied.
There was agitation amongst the others; Mok sensed it. Some attempted to merge with Mok, for they too shared the concept, and Mok opened to receive them, feeling the strength grow. Mok was as strong as Ser now, stronger, calling upon the will and purpose born of memories of millions of finite existences in which will and purpose were the roots of survival. But that survival had been temporary, and this would be permanent, forever.
Mok held the concept, gathered the strength, firmed the purpose—and then, quite suddenly, the purpose faded. The strength oozed away. The others were gone; nothing was left but Mok and the concept itself. The concept to—
Mok couldn’t grasp the concept now. It had vanished.
All that remained was Mok and Ser. Ser’s will, obliterating concept and purpose and strength, imposing itself upon Mok, invading and inundating Mok’s awareness. Mok’s very being. But without concept there was no purpose, without purpose there was no strength, without strength Mok could not preserve awareness, and without awareness there was no being.
Without being there was no Mok…
When Mok’s identity returned he was already in the ship.
Ship?
Only memories of distant incarnations told Mok this was a ship, but it was unmistakably so. A ship, a vessel, a transporter; a physical object, capable of physical movement through space and time.
Space and time existed again, and the ship moved through them. The ship was confined in space and time, and Mok was confined in the ship, which was just large enough to house him as he journeyed.
Yes, he.
Mok was he. Confined now, not only in the prison of space and time, nor in the smaller prison of the ship, but in the prison of a body. A male body.
Male. Mammalian. A spine to support the frame, arms and legs to support and grasp, eyes and ears and nose and other crude sensory receivers. Flesh, blood, skin—yellowish fur covering the latter, even along the lashing tail. Lungs for oxygen intake, which at the moment was supplied by an ingenious transparent helmet and attached pack mechanism.
Ingenious? But this was clumsy, crude, primitive, a relic of remote barbaric eras Mok could only vaguely recall. He tried to meditate, tried to contemplate, but now he could only see—see through the transparency of the helmet as the ship settled to rest and its belly opened to catapult him forth upon the frigid surface of a barren planet where a cold moon wheeled against the icy glitter of distant stars.
The ship, too, had a form—a body that was in itself vaguely modelled on mammalian concept, almost like one of those giant robots developed by life-forms in intermediate stages of evolution.
Mok stared at the ship as it rested before him on the sterile, starlit slope. Yes, the ship had a domed cranial protuberance and two metal arms terminating in claws. Claws to open the belly of the ship, claws that had lifted Mok’s body forth to disgorge him from that belly in a parody of birth.
Now, as Mok watched, the ship’s belly was closing again, sealing tightly while the metallic claws returned to rest at its sides. And flames of force were blasting from the pediment.
The ship was rising, taking off.
Mok had been embodied in the confines of the ship, imprisoned in this, his present form. The ship had carried him to this world and now it was leaving him here. Which meant that the ship must be—
“Ser!” he screamed, as the realization came, and the sound of his voice echoing in the hollow helmet almost split his skull.
But Ser did not answer. The ship continued to rise, the rising accelerated, there was a roar and a glimmer and then an incandescence which faded to nothingness against the black backdrop of emptiness punctured by glittering pinpoints of light flickering down upon the world into which Mok had been born.
The world where Ser had left him to die…
Mok turned away. His body burned. Burned? Mok searched archaic memories and came up with another concept. He wasn’t burning. He was freezing. This was cold.
The surface of the planet was cold, and his skin—fur?—did not sufficiently protect him. Mok took a deep breath, and that in turn brought consciousness of the inner mechanism; circulation, nervous system, lungs. Lungs for breath, supplying the fuel of life.
The feeder-pack on his back was small; its content, scarcely enough to fill his needs on the flight here, would soon be exhausted.
Was there oxygen on the surface of this planet? Mok glanced around. The rocky terrain was devoid of any sign of vegetation and that wasn’t a promising sign. But perhaps the entire surface wasn’t like this; in other areas at lower levels, plant-life might flourish. If so, functioning existence could be sustained.
There was only one way to learn. Mok’s prehensile appendages—not exactly claws, not quite fingers—fumbled clumsily with the fastenings of the helmet and raised it gingerly. He took a shallow breath, then another. Yes, there was oxygen present.
Satisfied, Mok removed helmet and pack, along with the control-mechanism strapped to his side. There’d be no further need of this apparatus here.
What he needed now was warmth, a heated atmosphere.
He glanced towards the bleak, black bulk of the crags looming across the barren plain. He moved towards them slowly, under the silent, staring stars, toiling up a slope as a sudden wind tore at his shivering body. It was awkward, this body of his, a clumsy mechanism subject to crude muscular control; only atavism came to his aid as half-perceived memories of ancient physical existence enabled him to move his legs with proper coordination. Walking—climbing—then crawling and clinging to the rocks—all was demanding, difficult, a challenge to be met and mastered.
But Mok ascended the face of the nearest cliff and found the opening; a crevasse with an inner fissure that became the mouth of a cave. A dark shelter from the wind, but it was warmer here. And the rocky floor sloped down into deeper darkness. The pupils of his eyes accommodated, and he could guide himself in the dim tunnelway, for his vision was that of a feral nyctalops.
Mok crept through caverns like a giant cat, gusts of warm air billowing against his body to beckon him forward. Forward and down, forward and down. And now the heat rose about him in palpable waves, the air was singed with an acrid scent, and there was a glowing from a light-source ahead. Forward and down towards the light-source, until he heard the hissing and the rumbling, felt the scalding steam, breathed the lung-searing gases, saw the spurting flames in which steam and gas were born.
The inner core of the planet was molten. Mok went no further; he turned and retreated to a comfortable distance, moving into a side-passageway which led to still other offshoots. Here tortuous tunnels branched in all directions, but he was safe in warmth and darkness; safe to rest. His body—this corporeal prison in which he was doomed to dwell—needed rest.
Rest was not sleep. Rest was not hibernation, or estivation, or any of a thousand forms of suspended animation which Mok’s memory summoned from myriad incarnations in the past. Rest was merely passivity. Passivity and reflection.
Reflection…
Images mingled with long-discarded verbal concepts. With their aid, while passive, Mok formulated his situation. He was in the body of a beast, but there were subtle differentiations from the true mammal. Oxygen was needed, but not the respite of true sleep. And he felt no visceral stirrings, no pangs of physical hunger. He would not be dependent, he knew, upon the ingestion of alien substance for continued survival. As long as he protected his fleshly envelope from extremes of heat and cold, as long as he avoided excessive demands upon muscles and organs, he would exist. But despite the differences which distinguished him from a true mammal, he was still confined in this feral form. And his existence was bestial.
Sensation surged within him, a flood of feeling Mok had not experienced in aeons; a quickening, sickening, burning, churning evocation of emotion. He knew it now. It was fear.
Fear.
The true bondage of the beast.
Mok was afraid, because now he understood that this was planned, this was part of Ser’s purpose. Ser had committed him to this degradation, and modified his mammalian aspect so that he could exist eternally.
That was what Mok feared. Eternity in this form!
Passive no longer, Mok flexed and rose. Summoning cognition to utmost capacity, Mok searched within himself for other, inherent powers. The power to merge, to coalesce—that was gone. The power to transmute, to transfer, to transport, to transform—gone. He could not change his physical being, could not alter his physical environment, save by physical means of his own devising. Within the limitations of his beast’s body.
So there was no escape from this existence.
No escape.
The realization brought fresh fear, and Mok turned and ran. Ran blindly through the twisting corridors, fear riding him as he raced, raced mindlessly, endlessly.
Somewhere along the way a tunnel burrowed upwards. Mok toiled through it, panting and gasping for breath; he willed himself to stop breathing but the body, the beast-body, sucked air in greedy gulps, autonomically functioning beyond his conscious control.
Scrambling along slanted spirals, Mok emerged once more upon the outer surface of his planetary prison. This was a low-lying area, distant and different from his point of entry, with vegetation vividly verdant against a dazzling dawn. A valley, capable of supporting life.
And there was life here; feathery forms chattering in the trees, furry figures scurrying through undergrowth, scaly slitherers, chitinoidal burrowers buzzing. These were simple shapes, crudely-conceived creatures of primitive pursuits, but alive and aware.
Mok sensed them and they sensed Mok. There was no way of communicating with them except vocally, but even the soft sounds issuing from his throat sent them fleeing frantically. For Mok was a beast now, who feared and was feared.
He crouched amongst the rocks at the mouth of the cavern from which he had come forth and gazed in helpless, hopeless confusion at the panic his presence had provoked, and the soft sounds he uttered gave place to a growling groan of despair.
And it was then that they found him—the hairy bipeds, moving cautiously to encircle him until he was ringed by a shambling band. These were troglodites, grunting and snuffling and giving off an acrid stench of mingled fear and rage as they cautiously approached.
Mok stared at them, noting how the hunched, swaying figures moved in concert to approach him. They clutched crude clubs, mere branches torn from trees; some carried rocks scooped up from the surface of the slope. But these were weapons, capable of inflicting injury, and the hairy creatures were hunters seeking their prey.
Mok turned to retreat into the cavern, but the way was barred now by shaggy bodies, and there was no escape.
The troglodites pressed forward now, awe and apprehension giving place to anger. Yellow fangs bared, hairy arms raised. One of the creatures—the leader of the pack—grunted what seemed a signal.
And they hurled their rocks.
Mok raised his arms to protect his head. His vision was blocked, so that he heard the sound of the stones clattering against the slope before he saw them fall. Then, as the growls and shrieks rose to a frenzy, Mok glanced up to see the rocks rebounding upon his attackers.
Raging, they closed in to smash at Mok’s skull and body with their clubs. Mok heard the sounds of impact, but he felt nothing, for the blows never reached their intended target—instead, the clubs splintered and broke in empty air.
Then Mok whirled, confused, to face his enemies. As he did so they recoiled, screaming in fright. Breaking the circle, they retreated down the slopes and into the forest, fleeing from this strange thing that could not be harmed or killed, this invincible entity—
This invincible entity.
It was Mok’s concept, and he understood, now. Ser had granted him that final irony—invincibility. A field of force, surrounding his body, rendering him immune to injury and death. No doubt it also immunized him from bacterial invasion. He was in a physical form, but one independent of physical needs to sustain survival; one which would exist, indestructibly, forever. He was, in truth, imprisoned, and eternal.
For a moment Mok stood stunned at the comprehension, blankly blinded by the almost tangible intensity of black despair. Here was the ultimate horror—doom without death, exile without end, isolation throughout infinity. Alone forever.
Numbed senses reasserted their sway and Mok glanced around the empty stillness of the slope.
It wasn’t entirely empty. Two of the trogloditic creatures sprawled motionless on the rocks directly below him. One was bleeding from a gash in the side of the head, inflicted by a rebounding club; the other had been felled by a glancing blow from a stone.
These creatures weren’t immortal.
Mok moved towards them, noting chest-movement, the soft susurration of breath.
They weren’t immortal, but they were still alive. Alive and helpless. Vulnerable, at his mercy.
Mercy. The quality Ser had refused to show Mok. There had been no mercy in condemning him to spend eternity here alone.
Mok halted, peering down at the two unconscious forms. He made a sound in his throat; a sound curiously like a chuckle.
Perhaps there was a way out, after all; a way to at least mitigate his sentence here. If he showed mercy now, to these creatures—he might not always be alone.
Mok reached down, lifting the body of the first creature in his arms; it was heavy in its limpness, but Mok’s strength was great. He picked up the second creature carefully, so as not to injure it further.
Then, still chuckling, Mok turned and carried the two unconscious forms back into the cavern.
In the warm, firelit shelter of the deeper caverns, Mok tended to the creatures. While they slumbered fitfully, he ascended again to the surface and foraged for their nourishment in the green glades. He brought food, and calling upon distant memories, fashioned crude clay pots in which to carry water to them from a mountainside spring.
After a time they regained consciousness and they were afraid—afraid of the great beast with the bulging eyes and lashing tail, the beast they knew to be deathless.
It was simple enough for Mok to fathom the crude construct of growls and gruntings which served these life-forms as a principal means of communication, simple enough to grasp the limited concepts and references symbolized in their speech. Within these limitations he attempted to tell them who and what he was and how he had come to be here, but while they listened they did not comprehend.
And still they feared him, the female specimen more than the male. The male, at least, evinced curiosity concerning the clay pots, and Mok demonstrated the fashioning method until the male was able to imitate it successfully.
But both were wary, and both reacted in terror when confronted with the molten reaches of the planet’s inner core. Nor could they become accustomed to the acrid gases, the darkness enveloping the maze of far-flung fissures honeycombing the substrata. As they gathered strength over the passage of time, they huddled together and murmured, eyeing Mok apprehensively.
Mok was not too surprised when, upon returning from one of his food-gathering expeditions to the surface, he discovered that they were gone.
But Mok was surprised by the strength of his own reaction—the sudden responsive surge of loneliness.
Loneliness—for those creatures? They couldn’t conceivably serve as companions, even on the lowest level of such a relationship; and yet he missed their presence. Their mere presence had in itself been some assuagement to his own inner agony of isolation.
Now he realized a growing sympathy for them in the helplessness of their abysmal ignorance. Even their destructive impulses incited pity, for such impulses indicated their constant fear. Beings such as these lived out their tiny span in utter dread; they trusted neither their environment nor one another, and each new experience or phenomenon was perceived as a potential peril. They had no hope, no abstract image of the future to sustain them.
Mok wondered if his two captives had succeeded in their escape. He prowled the passages searching for them, visioning their weary wanderings, their pathetic plight if they had become lost in the underground fastnesses. But he found nothing.
Once again he was alone in the warm darkness, alone in the warm beast-body that knew neither fatigue nor pain—except for this new pang, this lonely longing for contact with life on any level. Ancient concepts came to him, identifying the nuances of his reactions, all likened and linked to finite time-spans. Monotony. Boredom. Restlessness.
These were the emotive elements which forced him up again from the confined comfort of the caves. He prowled the planet, avoiding the bleak, cold wastes and searching out the areas of lush vegetation. For a long period he encountered only the lowest life-forms.
Then one of his diurnal forays to the surface brought him to a stream, and as he crouched behind a clump of vegetation he peered at a group of troglodites gathered on its far bank.
Vocalizing in their pattern of growls and grunts, he ventured forth, uttering phonic placations. But they screamed at the sight of him, screamed and fled into the forest, and he was left alone.
Left alone, to stoop and pick up what they had abandoned in their flight—two crude clay containers, half-filled with water.
Now he knew the fate of his captives.
They had survived and returned to their own kind, bringing with them their newly acquired skill. What tales they had told of their experience he could not surmise, but they remembered what he had taught them. They were capable of learning.
Mok had no need of further proof, and the incentive was there; the compound of pity, of concern for these creatures, of his own need for contact on any level. And here was a logical level indeed—there would never be companionship, that he understood and accepted, but this other relationship was possible. The relationship between teacher and pupil, between mentor and supplicant, between the governing power and the governed.
The governing power…
Mok turned the clay containers this way and that, noting the clumsiness with which they had been fashioned, noting the irregularities of their surface. He could so easily correct that clumsiness, he could so surely smooth and reshape that clay. Govern the earth, govern the creatures, impart and instruct that which would shape them anew.
And then the ultimate realization came.
This would be duty and destiny, function and fulfillment. Within the prison of space and time, he would mould the little lives.
Now he knew his own fate.
He would be their god.
It was a strange role, but Mok played it well.
There were obstacles, of course; the first to be faced was the fear in which they held him. He was an alien, and to the primitive minds of these creatures, anything alien was abhorrent. His very appearance provoked reactions which prevented him from approaching them, and for a time Mok despaired of overcoming this communication-barrier. Then, slowly, he came to realize that their fear was in itself a tool he could employ to positive ends; with it he could invoke awe, authority, awareness of his powers.
Yes, that was the way. To accept his condition and stay apart from them always, confident that in time their own curiosity would drive them to seek him out.
So Mok kept to the caves, and gradually the contacts were made. Not all of the hominids came to him, of course, only the boldest and most enterprising, but these were the ones he awaited. These were the ones most fitted to learn; to dream, to dare, to do.
As he expected, the experience of his captives became a legend and the legend led to worship. It was useless for Mok to discourage this, impossible even to make the attempt; in the light of their primitive reasoning, a barter-system must prevail—offerings and sacrifices were the price they must pay in return for wisdom. Mok scanned his own primordial memories, assigning an order to the learning he imparted; the gift of fire, the secret of cultivation, the firing of clay, the shaping of weapons, the subjugation and domestication of lesser life-forms, the control and eradication of others. Slowly a more sophisticated system of communication evolved, first on the verbal and then on the visual level.
The creatures disseminated his wisdom, absorbing it into their crude culture. They learned the uses of wheel and lever, then reached the gradual abstraction of the numeral concept. Now they were capable of making their own independent discoveries; language and mathematics stimulated self-development.
But in times of crisis there was still a need for further enlightenment. Natural forces beyond their limited powers of control brought periodic disaster to life-patterns on the surface of the planet, and with every upheaval came a resurgence of the worship and sacrifices Mok secretly abhorred. Yet these creatures seemed to feel the necessity of making recompense for the skills he could grant them and the boons these skills conferred, and Mok reluctantly accepted this.
It was harder for him to accept the continuation of their fear.
For a time he hoped that as their enlightenment increased they would revise their attitudes; instead, their dread actually increased. Mok attempted to observe their progress at first hand, but there was no opportunity for open contact and communication and his mere appearance provoked panic. Even those who sought him in secret, or led the rituals of worship, seemed to be afraid of acknowledging the fact, lest it lessen their own superior status within the group. Acknowledging and acclaiming the existence of their god, they nevertheless avoided his physical presence.
Perhaps it was because sects and schisms had sprung up, each with its own hierarchy, its own dogma regarding the true nature of what they worshipped. Mok remembered, wryly, that in organized religion the actual presence of a god is an embarrassment.
So Mok refrained from further visitations, and as time passed he retreated deeper and deeper into the caverns. Now it was almost unnecessary for him to maintain even token contact, for these creatures had evolved to a stage where they were capable of self-development.
But even gods grow lonely, and take nurture in pride. Thus it was that at rare intervals, and in utmost secrecy, Mok ventured forth for a hasty glimpse of his domain.
One evening he came forth upon a mountain-top. Here the stars still glittered coldly, but there was an even greater glitter emanating from the expanse below—the huge city-complex towering as a testament to the wisdom of these creatures, and his own.
Mok stared down and the sweet surges of pride coursed through him as he contemplated what he had wrought. These toys, these trifles with which he played, now toyed and trifled with the prime forces of the universe to create their own destiny.
Perhaps he, as their god, was misunderstood, even forgotten now—but did it matter? They had achieved independence, they didn’t need him anymore.
Or did they?
The concept came, and it was more chilling to Mok than the wind of mountain night.
These creatures created, but they also destroyed. And their motivations—their greeds, their hungers, their lusts, their fears—were still those of the beasts they had been. The beasts they could become again, if spiritual awareness did not keep pace with material attainment.
There was still need here, a need greater than before—and now Mok felt no pride, only a perplexity which pierced more poignantly than pain.
How could he help them?
“You cannot.”
The communication came and Mok whirled.
Absorbed, he had not sensed the silent streaking of the ship from sky to surface, but it was here now, remembered and recognized. The ship which had captured and conveyed him, the strangely-shaped ship which was Ser—or at least the present avatar of Ser’s essence.
It hovered incandescently against the horizon of infinity, and as if communication had been a signal, Mok found himself caught up in a long-discarded reaction. He was contemplating Ser.
And in that colloquy, Ser’s concepts flowed to him.
“Valid. You cannot fulfill their needs. Already you have done too much.”
Despite conscious volition, Mok felt the stubborn resurgence of his pride. But there was no need to formulate the reasons, for Ser’s contemplation was complete.
“You are in error. I sensed your rebellion, overcame you, brought you here—but it was not a punishment. You were placed for a purpose. Because this pride, this urge to invest identity through achievement, could be of use at this time, in this place. Like the others—”
“Others?” Confusion colored Mok’s contemplation.
“Did you conceive of yourself as the only rebel? Not so—there have been more, many more. And they have served their purposes on other worlds throughout the cosmos. Worlds where the seeds of life needed cultivation and careful nurturing. I chose them for their tasks, just as I chose you. And you have not failed.”
Mok considered, then communicated with an urgency which surprised him with its sheer intensity.
“Then let me continue! Endow me with what is necessary to help them now!”
Ser’s concept came. “It is not possible.”
Mok contemplated in final effort. “But it is my right to do so. I am their god.”
“No,” Ser answered. “You have never been their god. You were chosen for what you were—to be their devil.”
Devil…
There was no contemplation now, only maddening meditation as Mok scanned through concepts long-discarded from incarnations long-lost save in immutable memory. Concepts of good, evil, right, wrong—concepts embodied in the primitive religions of a million primitive pasts. God arose from those concepts, and so did the embodiment of an opposing force. And in all the legends in each of the myriad myths, the pattern was the same. A rebel cast down from the skies to tempt with teaching, to furnish forbidden knowledge at a price. A being in the form of a beast, skulking in darkness, in the pit where inner fires flamed forever. And he had been this being, it was true, he was a devil.
Only pride had blinded him to the truth; the pride which had prompted him to play god.
“A pride of which you have been purged,” Ser’s communication continued. “One can sense in you now only mercy and compassion for these creatures and their potential peril. One can sense love.”
“It is true,” Mok acknowledged. “I feel love for them.”
Ser’s assent came. “With your aid, these creatures evolved. But you have evolved too—losing pride, gaining love. In so doing, you cannot function for them as their devil any longer. Your usefulness here is ended.”
“But what will happen—?”
The answer came not as a concept but as an accomplishment.
Suddenly Mok was no longer in the tawny body of the beast. He was in the ship, hovering and gazing down at that body; gazing down at the creature which lashed its tail and stared up at him with bulging eyes. The creature which now contained the essence of Ser.
And Ser communicated. “For a span you shall take my place, as you once desired. You will seed the stars, instill order in chaos, lead the others in contemplation. You will do so in understanding, and in love.”
“And you?” Mok asked.
The being in the bestial body formed a final concept. “I take your role and your responsibility. There is that within me which must also be purged, and it may be I will destroy much of what you have created here. But in the end, even as their devil, I may bring them to an ultimate salvation. The cycle changes.”
The cycle changes…
Mok willed the celestial machine in which his essence dwelt, willed it to rise, and like a fiery chariot it ascended to the realms of glory awaiting him in the skies beyond.
As he did so, he caught a fleeting glimpse of Ser.
The beast had turned to descend the mountain. Padding purposefully, the devil was entering his kingdom.
Mok’s comprehension faltered. Cycle? Ser had been a god and now he was a devil. Mok had been a devil and now he was a god. But he could never have become a god if Ser hadn’t willed the exchange of roles.
Was this Ser’s intent all along—to allow Mok to evolve as devil and then usurp his identity?
In that case, Ser was actually a devil from the beginning, and Mok had been right in opposing him, for Mok was truly godlike.
Or were they all—Mok, Ser, the others, even the primitive mammalian creatures on this planet—both gods and devils?
It was a matter, Mok decided, which might require an eternity of contemplation…