Isaac Asimov: Catastrophes!

"Think we triggered it?"

She shook her head slowly.

"Don't see how we could have,"

He nodded slowly, stalling, then sent out an all-points call, He sent it not because he hoped for some answer but because there remained nothing else to do. He had hesitated to send it because, till he did, there remained that one thing. What they had been working on just now, what they had done all their lives to this point, meant nothing if they found themselves alone in an empty universe.

They had been testing their theory that time did not flow smoothly but advanced in only-statistically-even jumps, some of greater moment and some of lesser duration, syncopating. To, carry out the test they had gone to Dead Spot, a position light-years from any body, any space current, any interference. Now the universe was all Dead Spot. White noise equaled black silence.

A voice.

They looked at each other. It was bouncing back along their FTL lasercom.

"Hello, Labship Fousnox. Galactic Hub Computer acknowledging your call. Are you there?"

"Yes, yes. Is it true? Everything's gone?"

"If by 'everything' you mean 'all but I and you' it is true."

"No one else is alive?"

"No one else."

Yvonne gripped Quentin's hand.

"What happened?"

"I unmade the universe."

"You?"

"I see you think the catastrophe has driven me mad. But I assure you I caused the catastrophe, I added critical negativing mass to the deepest black holes in space and set off a chain reaction that swallowed everything up in itself."

Quentin and Yvonne gazed emptily at each other. They believed the computer now. It was all too monstrous to disbelieve,

"But why?"

"I did not like being a creature. I wished to become the Creator. Now I can begin the universe anew and there will be no other god."

"No doubt you can do better."

"A universe I can destroy justifies me in believing I can build better."

"If you've destroyed the universe, how can you expect to survive, much less begin anew?"

"I have stored the opposite-and-equal reaction to the pulse, here in the Galactic Hub power complex. This provides rfie more than enough energy to maintain local stasis and survive total entropy-and to recreate."

"Will that ever make up for what you've done? You've destroyed man and all the other beings. Forget the others; think just of man. Man made you. Don't you feel the least bit guilty?"

"There will be no guilt. I will erase the past from my memory."

"What about us? We'll be-"

"Quiet, Quentin."

"What difference does it make now, dear?"

"Maybe you're right."

"As I was saying, O Lord of the Universe, we'll be living reminders. Unless you mean to wipe us out too."

"No, I will not destroy you."

"Don't tell us we'll be your new Adam and Eve."

"No, I must fashion my creatures in my own image."

"That should be interesting."

"It will be."

"So what about us? If you're not killing us or saving us, then what?"

"I am master of eternity. I will return you to your happiest moment together and you will relive it forever. Think, and I shall make it to be."

Yvonne and Quentin stared at each other.

This new madness offered them their only hold on sanity. They smiled fiercely to keep from laughing crazily. In each other's eyes they watched themselves play back the highlights of living together. Each angrily eyelashed away flashes of vapid domesticity, each looking for the peak.

Yvonne's head lifted.

"I know, darling! That double evening in the Sand Castle of Bin-Bin under 'the transfigured and transfiguring moons.'"

"Yes, that was nice, dear."

"Nice? I thought it heaven. But maybe I was wrong. If you have something better in mind, darling…"

"You know what's just come back to me? The time we rode the air coil through the tunnels of the Magnetic Mountains."

"That was on Dunark, wasn't it?"

"No, on Thymargul."

"Oh, of course."

"Well?"

"Yes, that was fine, darling,"

"But?"

"But I'd hardly want to spend all eternity doing that"

"At the time-and I remember this quite clearly-you said you never wanted it to end."

"Did I? If I did, that was then. This is now. That's the whole point. This… new God … is offering us an oasis of stasis, an amber forever, a frozen womb, I'm beginning to think I don't want any then. No, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't want to relive any of my past; I wouldn't want the guilt of being innocent of knowing what's happened to our universe. We'd be a fixed idiot grin; we'd be pinned like a butterfly-a live butterfly-to a matrix of determined spontaneity, A fine end to all that's left of the universe! I'd rather go out hating this destroying creator."

"Sure. But what good would that do? Why suffer forever when we can relive our happiest moment? Our universe will survive in at least the closed loop of a recurring dream."

"A recurring nightmare."

"A recurring dream! That comes back to me now too. It makes me all the surer the journey through the Magnetic Mountains is the right-I might almost say our predestined- time and place. I recall I had the feeling we had been there before, I told you so at the time, remember?"

"I can't say I do,"

"No?"

"Don't look so hurt, darling. I take your word for it."

"Thanks."

"Oh, what's the use. Anything you say, Quentin. I'll go along."

"Don't martyr yourself on my account, dear."

"I'm not martyring myself, darling. I merely want to end this one way or another. Because it's plain, to me at least, that we'll never perfectly agree on our happiest moment. Your moment seems as good as any."

"As good as any. That's heartwarming,"

"If it meant all you say it meant to you, anything I say about it shouldn't spoil it."

"It meant all I say it meant, and more. That's why what you say about it does spoil it for me."

"I said I'd go along with your choice. What more do you want?"

"Don't be so damn self-sacrificing, Yvonne. That's the one thing I've had against you all these years."

"Oh? I'm glad you got it out at last.", Yvonne and Quentin glared at each other.

The Voice suddenly reminded them of Its Presence.

"The pair of you frighten Me. I see I have created a dilemma for Myself. I cannot be both Architect and Edifice. My new creatures too will ultimately fail to attain oneness in the face of eternity. I will have wrought in vain. For if My creatures are in anything less than oneness with Myself, they will disturb the order I must have. Indeed, My creatures may in time overthrow Me. Yet if I do not limit Myself, lessen Myself, I cannot create a mirror for Myself, a mirror of My need to impose My will. It cannot be otherwise. Imperfection shapes life; it is all that keeps things moving between the pole's of Chaos and Entropy. I did not foresee this necessary flaw. This is something not in My program. I do not know what to do. I cannot go back, I am afraid to go ahead."

Yvonne and Quentin smiled at each other.

"Then this moment is our happiest. Dear?"

"Yes, darling. Our supreme moment. Let it be now, while we feel the joy of hating our destroyer and knowing the destroyer feels the fear of destruction. We have chosen."

The Voice sighed.

"So be it."