God Almighty by Herman Royce
Excerpt  

Chapter 8  

Invisible, intangible, Nick observed their first breakfast, fixated on one thought: The first vote has to be BAD. 
      But it wasn’t going to be easy. Yaya had made sure of that. His prototypes seemed deliberately docile—instinctively inclined to side with God’s Own Orderly Dominion—programmed to be GOOD. 
      They don’t even seem to realise they have a vote, thought Nick, watching the female daintily eat fruit, and the male do likewise but more quickly and less efficiently. 
      A bigger challenge than I thought. But at least now I have a chance. 
      Nick couldn’t help but wonder why Yaya had chosen this arrangement, one that BAD might actually win. Maybe he knows GOOD is destined to win. Or he’s just bored and looking for a challenge. Or maybe it’s a trap.... Or maybe he knows if he gave devils and angels a vote like I asked, one of those sycophantic GOOD clones would eventually cross the floor … or maybe....
      No mean task taking on a deity. Very hard to avoid feeling like you might be one or more steps behind. 
      Yet of all the possibilities tossing in Nick’s mind, that of a BAD victory had long proved the most tempting and enthralling. Indisputable numbers … eventually, I could return to Heaven—this time in charge.... Be glad to get away from Hell—sick to death of that air conditioning. 
      Nick’s attention returned to Thraely pursuits when the now juice-soaked male stood to leave, apparently finally satiated. 
      “Shall I pack you some lunch?” asked the female between bites, remaining seated.
       The male looked at the cornucopia dripping from most of the trees within view. “No, I’ll get something at work.”
      How to win their vote? mused Nick. He pondered the contract he and Yaya had signed—specifically its definition of a vote: “THE MANNER IN WHICH EACH LIFE IS CONDUCTED IS EITHER A VOTE FOR THE GOOD PARTY OR THE BAD PARTY."       Vague, thought Nick for what must have been the umpteenth time. Ambiguous.
      But Yaya’s legal advisers had insisted.
      Still, not without possibilities … now, what to wear?
      He tried out several forms: a lizard (not quite right), a baboon (no, that rear end is awful), a bleeding heart pigeon (too sweet), a frisbee (can’t move under my own steam), a condom (what on Thrae was I thinking?), a ballistic missile (too big), a hairless chihuahua (better, but lacks authority).
      Finally, he settled on a serpent and slid silently toward the female, who by then was bent over the stream, rinsing her breakfast leaf-plate in its current.
      “Who are you?” she asked gormlessly, with a backwards glance, as he snaked around her left ankle.
      “Just a serpent from down the road,” hissed Nick, coiling farther along her bare leg and climbing.
      She continued her washing, without further reaction, other than an occasional tickled giggle.
      As his head slithered near her inner thighs, Nick was reminded of something he had noticed earlier about the male: near where his legs and torso joined, there was a surprising feature. Nick now saw the female was equally surprising. On both, outlandish reproductive organs, common to most other mammals on the planet (Yaya must have had one too many the day he created those things), were totally absent. Instead: featureless curves.
      She stood and strolled aimlessly, Nick attached and still coiling his way upwards. He’s taking serious liberties. These aren’t everyday mortals at all.
      “You’re not from the census bureau?” she suddenly but demurely inquired, as Nick slid across her day-old breasts.
      Taken by surprise, Nick hesitated. “No,” he finally admitted, positioning his head directly in front of her at eye level, his tail round her waist. “What’s your name?” he asked.
      “Duo.”
      He eased round her neck, gently, encircling her, studying her, tongue flicking. “Tell me, Duo, what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”
      Duo giggled, bashfully. “God put me here,” she eventually replied. “With Uno, Merimbula’s new gardener.”
      Gardener, eh? “What does a gardener do, exactly?”
      Duo, brow slightly furrowed, took a while to reply. “I don’t know.”
      This one really was born yesterday. “You like it here?”
      “Ooh, yes. It’s just Paradise . And as long as we don’t eat the fruit of a certain tree, it’ll always be Paradise .”
      The fascist! “Which tree? Show me which tree,” he calmly demanded.
      Duo smiled and began to gently run, prompting Nick to tighten his coiled embrace. They soon halted in front of a tall, thick-stemmed tree with silvery wood and large feathery grey leaves. “What’s so special about this tree?” he asked.
      “If we eat its fruit, we die. I don’t really know what that means, but I’m pretty sure it can’t be good. It’d probably mean moving, for one thing—and we just got settled.”
      Nick, coiling higher, rimming her forehead like a hair band, studied the tree. Its fruit were perfectly round … pale green … nothing exceptional at all … except … of course! No wonder he doesn’t want them to eat from it. He whispered in Duo’s ear, “Is God paying Uno a decent wage?”
       Duo found the question peculiar. “What’s a wage?” she eventually replied, warily.                    Despot! “He works for nothing?!”
        “No.” Duo grew defensive. “We’re fed and looked after.”
        “Hey, you might get bed and breakfast,” hissed Nick, “but a gardener deserves more than that for his hard work.” He slid to Duo’s shoulders, then to a low branch. “What sort of hours does Uno do? A forty-hour week?”
        “He gardens all day,” explained Duo.
        “All day! That’s criminal,” said Nick. He’s created more slaves. “You’re being exploited. Do you ever get recreation leave? Or sick leave?”
        “We don’t get sick. We’re immortal.”
        Reptilian laughter filled the air, sending a shiver down Duo’s spine. “Pull the other one,” cackled Nick, gradually calming down. “God’s having you on, just like he is about this tree. It won’t kill you. It’s the best-tasting fruit in the garden, that’s all—his favourite—and he just wants to hog it to himself.”
       “The Lord would not lie to us,” stated Duo, with confidence.
       “Really? How long have you known him? Long enough to trust every word he says?”        Duo had to admit to herself, I’ve only known God for a day. How can I be really sure about him?
       “Take it from me,” said Nick. “More than anything, he’s an all-greedy God.”
       As Duo wrestled with her doubts, Nick slid towards one of the plumpest ripest fruit, grabbed it with his mouth, and plucked it from its branch. Staying on the tree, he held the fruit close to Duo. Hesitantly, reverently, she took it from him and gazed at it uncertainly.          “Take a bite,” said Nick. “And find true knowledge: that God is stealing the fruits of your labour.”
         Duo gently bit her lower lip, caught in indecision.
         Nick moved to another forbidden fruit and began licking it. “You’re missing out on a taste sensation.” He winked, knowingly.
          It was too much for her. She did what she just had to do: She brought the fruit close to her mouth and bit deeply into it.
          Her mouth lit up in ecstasy—the serpent was right—it tasted better than anything. She tried to tell Nick, but her mouth was too full. Quickly, she devoured the fruit and took another.
          At dusk, when Uno finished work, he came home to find a score of the fruit’s indigestible seed-cores strewn at the tree’s base and Duo asleep at the foot of the tree, plastered from head to toe in fruit juice. It took him some time to digest the meaning of the scene, during which his brow was much furrowed, and his head much scratched, but eventually it clicked.
           “You ate of the forbidden fruit?!” His voice jolted Duo awake.
           “No,” she lied, quietly, eyes darting to the remains of her feast.
           “Then who made all this mess?” replied Uno, not at all convinced.
           “Birds,” said Duo, unable to look him in the eye.
           “Really?” said Uno, not fooled for a moment.
           Abashed, Duo suddenly remembered she could legitimately blame it on someone else. “The serpent made me do it,” she whined.
        Uno’s face froze. “Did you die?”
        Duo had forgotten about this. “I don’t think so,” she finally said. 
      At his tender age, Uno could only take a thought so far. A new one arose. “What did it taste like?”
      “Not very good, actually,” she lied, suddenly desperate not to share the fruit. But she could tell by Uno’s body language that he didn’t believe her. 
      “Not very good?” he said. “Yet you ate all these?” He glanced at the cores surrounding them. 
     He’s never doubted me before, thought Duo. I wonder if he’s seeing another woman.
      Uno reached up and took a fruit from the tree. “As long as it’s not going to kill me, I might as well try it.”
      “No, really Uno, you won’t like it,” insisted Duo, standing to intercept him.
      But he ignored her, took a cautiously small bite, and concentrated on employing his almost completely undeveloped capacities for discretion. A wash of pleasure transformed his features. “Mmmm,” he slurped, “full-bodied, perky aroma, crisp aftertaste—is good.” He hastily consumed the entire fruit and picked another. Outraged and worried, Duo did the same.
       At sunrise, after six days of fitful sleep and regret-laden dreams, Yaya awoke. Moaning.       My self, what a hangover. What in Heaven’s name was I celebrating?
       Then he remembered: Creating life on Thrae. Reasoning life-forms. Odd shapes filled his mind, vaguely familiar. Hope I didn’t go too far with the mammalian reproductive design. It had always been his weakness at Omniversity. A tendency to doodle. Better have a look, anyhow.
       He took shape as a vast lordly apparition in the sky, his prolonged echoing yawn booming through the air.
       “Uno, Duo,” bellowed Yaya.
       He noticed them lying beneath the boughs of a tree.
       “O there thou art,” said Yaya. They both look several kilos heavier. Chuckling, Yaya adopted a tone common among young parents. “I spyest thee, with my little eyes I seest thee.”
        Silence.
        For interminable seconds.
        Then.…
        All-Wrathful God.
        “Wake up,” he thundered. Uno and Duo did not respond. “I knew it,” growled Yaya. “I warned you but did you listen to me?!” He waved his hand and Uno and Duo jolted alert.         “What happened?” muttered Uno.
        “You died,” roared Yaya, the rush of his voice a howling gale. “You ate a fruit with a toxin that built up in your bodies and eventually killed you.”
        Uno and Duo cowered, clinging desperately to the tree, as the wind mounted and tore at them.
        “I told you not to eat the fruit of that tree, didn’t I?” Branches toppled to the ground. “But you went ahead and ate the whole bloody tree, didn’t you?”
        Duo, fearing that silence might be taken as a worse response, tremulously replied. “Yes, O Lord. The serpent didst deceive us.”
        “Don’t put on that fancy tongue for my benefit, young lady,” Yaya thundered. “Serpent?! Devil, more like it. I’ll bloody get Nick for this, the bastard.” Rocks split.
        “I thought we were immortal,” muttered Uno to himself, almost inaudible amid the storm.
        “Only as long as you don’t get yourselves killed,” yelled Yaya.
        “That’s not real immortality,” retorted Duo.
        “It’s as close as you get on this planet. My self! Haven’t you read Tolkien?”
        “Who?” said Uno and Duo in unison.
        “Never mind,” roared Yaya.
        “It’s not what I was expecting,” added Uno.
        “Fine!” boomed Yaya. “You can go without, you disobedient brats. I’m taking away your immortality.”
        “Awwwww, but Lord,” whined Uno and Duo.
        “And that’s just for starters,” continued Yaya. “You’re also evicted. You’ve got three hours to pack your bags and get out of Paradise .”
        Uno began to beg, “Please, O mighty Lord, do—” but Yaya interrupted him.
        “There’s no point pleading,” he said, “my mind is made up. I fed you, I housed you, I kept you healthy, and this is the gratitude you give me. As soon as my back is turned, you ignore my one and only restriction and listen to a complete stranger. You’re out of here. And from now on, it’s fend for yourself.”
        “Lord, we beg you,” implored Duo.
        But Yaya paid her no heed. “You want shelter,” he bellowed, “you find it yourself. You want food, you grow it yourself. You want children—” Suddenly, he stopped, and considered. The hurricane subsided. “Well,” he resumed, barely raising a breeze, “I suppose I should leave you some fun. But it won’t be all gravy, I’m telling you.”
        He waved his hand—and Uno and Duo began to transform.
        Duo’s loins split and grew convoluted. She screamed, then glared at Yaya. “This is going to heal, right?”
        Meanwhile, Uno’s groin developed what might have been a very large pimple, with a particularly nasty head, which grew Pinocchio-like, into something akin to an elongated acorn fused with two large hairy hazelnuts. “What in God’s name?!”
        Duo turned at Uno’s voice, noticed his new accoutrements for the first time—and burst out laughing. Her reaction prompted his first viewing of her new features— he giggled like a schoolgirl.
        Yaya himself could barely suppress a grin. I designed those?! But he knew he had to maintain authority. “You think they’re funny?” he said sternly. “Just wait ’til you figure out what you do with them.” He abruptly vanished from sight.
        Uno and Duo were in the middle of figuring it out—for the fourth time—when Yaya returned. “I gave you three hours and I meant it,” he bellowed, and then realised what they were up to. (Haven’t seen that one before.) They barely even altered their rhythm, so caught up were they in the still-novel experience. Yaya did not care.
         “I evict thee now,” he commanded.
         And it was done.
         Minutes later, Uno and Duo were still in each other’s arms, catching their breath.
          I would never have described it as funny, thought Duo.
          “Woooo,” exclaimed Uno, peering about him. “The earth moved, didn’t it? Where are we?”
          Duo did not recognise the place. “You know something, Uno?” she said, watching a small hairy terrier walk by on a yellowish trail, “I don’t think we’re in Paradise anymore.
          Alone in his office, swivelling back in his executive chair, arms behind his head, Nick smiled broadly.
          On his desk monitor, he could see Uno and Duo cautiously investigating their new surroundings. He knew their vote was anything but set in concrete, yet clearly, it had been a very BAD start.
          He blinked and a lit cigar materialised between his lips. I like this job, he thought, not for the final time.

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