Whatever Gods May Be (9 page)

But Zolan wanted off this world and out of this star system as quickly as possible, and if he had to leave a few planets and a sun crippled to it, he would not hesitate in the least.  Zolan was more than just angry; he was sick with despair.

When the Rover had informed him that Earth's war was certain, Zolan had taken the news badly.  A good part of his life had been devoted to learning Earth's languages, customs, and history; to do so proficiently, he had sacrificed a century of time away from his home world in the center of the galaxy, to live among Earth people, so that he could, in fact, become a native of the alien planet.  He had made such a sacrifice to compile a comprehensive dossier on Earth, with the hope that it would afterwards be considered for membership to the Galactic Confederation of Planets for Peace - the collective group of civilized worlds within the galaxy that had been formed ten thousand years earlier, for the mutual enhancement and advancement of all intelligent races belonging to it.

For a millennium, Earth was watched and probed for evidence of suitability.  Mankind was scrutinized thoroughly; his progress was noted, his wars recorded, and his promise for future survivability was assessed and hypothesized upon at great lengths during his thousand year observation period.  At last, the moment had arrived when it became necessary to send a human observer to Earth for the final phase of its probation interval.

Zolan had been the delegated official for the admittedly difficult task of Planetary Observation.  The job was not a coveted one; in fact, such duties usually were assigned to those individuals who were misfits in one way or another, or whose work records in the past had been deemed less than favorable by GCPP authorities.  The actual work to be performed by them was minimal; the Rover starships processed most of the additional data required on the subject planet, with the PO's acting only as glorified maintenance men.  But the strain and mental hardship a PO experienced from virtual exile was enormous.  Communication with a home system was not possible over such vast distances that usually separated Planetary Observers from GCPP worlds; the space warp that was the Hall appeared only once every century - through this mysterious portal was the only means in which an interstellar voyager could travel or communicate in the vast oceans that separated the stars, without taking hundreds of years to do so.  Consequently, a PO was automatically subjected to a century term of employment away from family and friends.  Like veterans of a foreign war, when PO's returned home, they usually required special attention and complete reorientation.

Zolan had accepted the post to Earth enthusiastically; he had no family ties or any qualms of leaving the home systems for such a tremendous span of time.  Furthermore, he was one of the few human beings among his kind that was just as ordinary as the creatures he would live with for a hundred years on Earth.  Most of Mankind among GCPP systems were remarkably advanced; people either possessed telepathic, telekinetic, or telempathic abilities to some degree.  Men had become supermen where Zolan came from, and such prodigious gifts of nature or genetically engineered talents belonged to every man, woman and child from birth.

Zolan Rzzdik was the exception.

He could neither read minds nor affect the state of matter around him, and these factors, along with various other deviations from the norm, had made Zolan an outcast for most of his life.  Being different, or rather inferior, made Zolan surly, and as a result he had never made many friends as he grew older.  An exception also to most Planetary Observers, Zolan had enjoyed an outstanding career in a number of scientifically-related fields; he had helped prove the existence of the Hall only five hundred years earlier.  Perhaps because Zolan had achieved so much even with his obvious mental and physical handicaps, was the reason that he was generally shunned and disliked by his own people.  Zolan's contributions to the GCPP were numerous, but his popularity among his colleagues and associates was dismally low.  He was therefore not terribly surprised or disappointed for that matter at the decision to send him to Earth as nominal PO.

Zolan had thrown himself into study of the distant planet sometime before he was assigned the PO position; when he was given the job, he had already mastered several Earth languages with the aid of retrieved space probes to that world a hundred years earlier.  He had looked forward to the adventure before him, not only because he had prepared and acquainted himself so thoroughly with the world he would live on for the next century, but also because he would for the first time in his long life be among other men who were most like himself.

So Zolan had come to Earth.  He moved about the world with ease, hopping to various locations of interest, staying anywhere from one year to ten before moving on.  When Man discovered the jet airplane and radar, he restricted his movements, and eventually settled down in a remote desert for the remainder of his stay.    He build a house and a barn, to cover the Rover, and continued his studies through the decades.  He mingled with the natives, becoming familiar with varied cultures and customs.  For obvious reasons, he could never get personally close to people; but this was hardly a problem for Zolan Rzzdik.

For the most striking characteristic in Zolan's nature, both on his home world and on Earth, was his stunning capacity to be the meanest son of a bitch that ever walked.  A very lonely creature, Zolan Rzzdik also possessed one of the softest hearts in the galaxy; and it was for this reason, more than any other, that Earth's impending, self-imposed destruction had turned him into something of a madman.

Earth, for better or for worse, had been his home for a very long time; to leave it would be saddening, but to see it crushed, and by its own people, would be traumatic.

The Mojave Desert on the part of Earth called California, was one of the most desolate and lifeless spots on the globe.  Zolan tried to imagine a land looking even more dead than this desert could.  It was a difficult task, but Zolan realized that after the bombs were dropped and the skies and land wretched thereafter for months and years, this parched, sandy wasteland would become an even deader moonscape, enshrouded by a radioactive hell that would make its present appearance look like a lush, rainforest in comparison.

His mouth was dry and he was breathing heavily and he realized that he desperately needed another drink.

Moving away from the barn, Zolan shuffled over towards his dry-rotted house a few yards away.  It was really more of a shack than a house; box-shaped, with a small porch and canopy, it looked more like a cartoon shed for a stereotype prospector.  One twisted, pipe-chimney spouted a lazy trail of black smoke towards the white-hot desert sky - the only indication externally that anyone had been living in the place for years.

Zolan didn't in fact live in the crumbling shanty; it was barely large enough to store all of his accumulated relics and nonessential equipment that had piled up through the years.  As for day to day living, the Rover provided the him with all the modern conveniences he required, including cooking and latrine facilities.  But the house was an important front for the scientist whenever the occasional passerby or rare friendly neighbor was in the area.  As a stranger in a strange land who was adept at preserving his unearthly anonymity, Zolan realized how important it was to maintain the appearances of terrestrial normalcy.

Zolan moved to the rear of the house where several heavy barrels lay side by side one another.  An extensive network of jumbled plumbing connected to each barrel, entwining itself around the side of the house like some bizarre, metallic vine growth.  Zolan felt the tubes and pipes in certain strategic places, then reached down to one of the spigots that each barrel possessed.

A pottery jug hung from a hook above the barrels; Zolan's emergency vessel each time he broke a flask in a temper tantrum.  He tore it off the fixture and thrust it beneath the running spigot to allow a thick brown ooze pour inside.

Resembling a revolting combination of tar and gasoline, Zolan's secret whisky recipe gave off a hiss of protest when it hit the flask's bottom.  A line of steam shot out of the mouth of the jug.  The smell emitted was nothing short of stomach wrenching, and it was interesting to note that the spilled drops around the barrels from previous servings had failed to attract the usual lot of mealy bugs, flies or ants; consistently reliable patrons to any waste in the Mojave Desert that was barely eatable, drinkable or suckable.  Zolan hoisted the jug to his lips and drank deeply.

Zolan swaggered over to the house, jug in tow.  He kicked open the rotted door and stared inside.  The place was a mess --yet an intensely private and personal one, full of relics and souvenirs of his one hundred year stay on Earth.  All of his treasures, the petty accumulations of two human lifetimes in this world, would have to be left behind.  There simply wasn't time to pack.

A small transistor radio was perched on a box near the door; Zolan picked it up, tried to recall where he had gotten it, then turned it on.

Immediately, harried broadcasts dominated the stations.  Zolan had been listening to them for two days now, ever since the Rover made its ominous forecast; with each passing hour it seemed that the new headlines were increasingly more dismal.

Already, major coastal cities were being guardedly evacuated as a precautionary measure taken by the United States Government.  Other cities around the country were following suit, and highways and secondary back roads were hopelessly clotted with panicked millions rushing to escape the metropolitan death traps targeted for destruction.  For two days, the disjointed exodus had continued unabated, though oddly enough, even with the declaration of war by both the United States and the Soviet Union, not a single hostile act between the two nations had transpired.  The South American incident that had mushroomed from a trivial regional dispute into an international catastrophe had happened so quickly, and hardly seemed to merit the risk-taking and military escalation both superpowers were presently engaged in.  Yet within a week, both countries held nuclear guns at one another's heads, with the rest of a frightened world watching - and running for their lives to escape the all too foreseeable outcome of such madness.

No one had pushed a button yet, but the fatal mistake was in the offing; like the poor souls rushing out of their cities all over the world, desperately looking for someplace to hide, Zolan knew that disaster was certain.

"...and the President and key government officials have departed from the nation's capital to undisclosed locations.  The President has urged all state and federal authorities to implement martial law, and to clear major transportation arteries to and from potential population targets for authorized military use only..."

The radio droned on into a blur of words.  Zolan was very drunk, but his anger and disgust had not been dulled by the sting of alcohol.  He had seen case histories of other planets similar to Earth scattered around the galaxy that had also succumbed to nuclear suicide; the atomic threshold was the single greatest threat to semi-advanced civilizations and their continued survival.  Such eventual and self-inflicted planetary carnage was considered the prevalent outcome - and termination of the majority of planets that had nuclear capability.  Zolan had always been able to study such cases dispassionately before, though it had always been done with a tinge of contempt.  Where the GCPP was unable to extend its influence to prevent such calamities (as was the case with Earth due to the incredible distances involved), planets that "died" in this manner could only be sadly referenced in the deceased file and quickly forgotten.

For two days, Zolan tried to forget Earth, and the time and effort he had spent in becoming an expert on the horrible, little world.  Thus far, he had failed.  Zolan had become an Earthman for all practical purposes, and all he could think of was that his home was about to be laid waste by several thousand hydrogen bombs.

His world Earth was about to die - and he, the product of a civilization that specialized in miracles, couldn't lift a finger to save it.

The National Guard has full control over supermarkets and food-distribution centers.  The Governor of California is urging everyone to remain calm and requests that Highways 10, eastbound from Los Angeles, and Interstate 5, north and southbound..."

A low humming noise began to grow from within the barn that housed the Rover.  The ground began to vibrate beneath Zolan and loose pieces of rafter slid down the overhang to the porch.  Zolan protected the mouth of the jug from falling debris and frowned at the barn in front of him.

The spaceship was automatically initiating a systems check of its powerful engines, shifting them into their various complicated gears which would later allow it to achieve speeds of over twice the speed of light.  Zolan had not taken the Rover out for a cruise in over twenty years.  After he had set up his final residence here in the isolated wasteland of the Mojave, he decided not to risk taking the ship out and possibly expose it to the sophisticated tracking devices Earthmen had developed in the past decade.  He had already been responsible for numerous UFO sightings before; now, with the advent of radar, his chances of being pursued or intercepted in the lower atmosphere by supersonic jets or worse, heat-seeking missiles, had up to the present been unfavorable for Rover-running.  Since Zolan had completed most of his global jaunting-about in the years before men had developed his flight technology, the impingement to his travel had not been too painful to tolerate.

The Rover, however, had not adjusted to the twenty year hiatus as well as Zolan.  Its drive unit begged for use, and as Zolan listened to the unhappy groan of the Rover's boosters, he knew that the Rover would at some point berate him for being so negligent to its needs.