Mr G Read online

Aunt Penelope emerged from somewhere, beaming with a healthy exhaustion. She was practically bent over, shouldering the piles of emptiness she’d gathered. Nothing like it, she said. Nothing like it. She looked at Uncle Deva and frowned. If you could just move a little faster, she said. Look at you. You are so confoundedly slow. And you, answered Uncle, tear through the place like … I don’t know what you’re like, but you do it. Can’t you stop and listen to the music? And can’t we walk together for once? He kissed her. Deva! she said. Not out here in the open. She gave Uncle some of the odd-shaped patches of Void to carry for her, sighed, and began walking beside us.

  I’ve made matter, I said casually.

  Really! said Aunt Penelope. She picked up Aalam-104729 and shook it. It rattled. Yes, she said, there are pieces of stuff inside it now. Congratulations again. All of these congratulations are getting tiresome, I should think. Perhaps we’ve had enough congratulations for a while.

  It’s time to put in a soul, said Deva.

  But it’s only inanimate matter, I said. I haven’t—

  We were interrupted by a howl, followed by a snicker. Then Baphomet appeared in front of us, grinning as usual. The beast jumped up and down and cartwheeled, keeping its stupid gaze fixed on me.

  “What do you want?” said my aunt. “Off with you.”

  “Him,” said the creature, pointing at me. “My master wishes to speak to Him. My master is waiting over there.” The squat beast gestured in a particular direction of the Void.

  “You are an outrage,” said my aunt. “My nephew does not answer to summons. My nephew is the summoner.”

  The beast turned to stare at Aunt Penelope with its hideous grin, snarled, and began laughing. “You forget yourself, Penelope.” Then the creature did a somersault in such an extraordinary manner that its grin seemed not to move at all while the rest of it tumbled through the Void and returned to an upright position. “My master does not like to be kept waiting,” said the beast. “Suit yourself.” It snarled again and went trotting off.

  “This is intolerable,” my aunt said to me. “This creature—whatever it is—speaks to me like … Oh, it is intolerable. Disgraceful.”

  “I observe that the making of laws has begun,” came a voice from behind us. And there was the stranger, twice the height he had been before. He bowed to Aunt Penelope and Uncle Deva. “May I see it,” he said, and somehow gained possession of Aalam-104729 without moving. “This particular universe you have chosen among all the others. I wonder why. But it makes no difference. This one it will be.” He studied it closely and sniffed it. It seemed to shudder in his grasp.

  “That does not belong to you,” said Uncle Deva.

  “It belongs to all of us,” said the stranger. “It is … how shall I put it … It will provide the path whereby we complete ourselves, make ourselves more than what we are now.”

  “Destroy this abomination,” Aunt Penelope said to me. She turned to the stranger. “Who are you?”

  “I am called Belhor,” said the stranger. “You may also call me Fedir or Belial or another name if you wish. And I apologize for any offense given.” The stranger bowed again and offered the pinched universe back to Aunt Penelope. “As I told your nephew earlier, you have very pleasant accommodations in these regions. And I must further compliment you on the lovely music.”

  “You are not entitled to exist,” said my aunt. “My nephew did not make you.”

  “Oh, but He did,” said Belhor.

  “Oh, but He did, He did, He most certainly did,” said Baphomet, and the beast erupted in laughter and performed two somersaults and a bow. “That is the most delicious part of it all.”

  “What is your business here?” I said. “Although I have unlimited power, I have limited patience.”

  “Well spoken,” said Belhor. “I would like to discuss your laws with you, the ones you are devising for your new universe.”

  “There is nothing to discuss,” I said. “The laws have been made.”

  “Ah,” said Belhor. “But the laws you have made are only the physical laws, governing elementary particles and forces. Am I not correct? At some point in the future, intelligent beings will exist in your universe, and it is the laws governing the behavior of such beings I would like to discuss. I believe that we all share the view that animate matter is far more interesting than inanimate matter.”

  “Animate matter will be governed by the same laws as inanimate matter,” I said.

  The stranger laughed. “For someone as powerful as you … I am afraid it is not so simple. As we said earlier, the mind is its own place. None of us, and especially you, should underestimate the complexity and subtlety of a mind, once formed. Do you mean to say that every action and every thought of an intelligent creature in your universe will be determined by preexisting physical laws?” I nodded. “In that case,” continued Belhor, “your intelligent beings will have no independence of movement or thought. They will be completely controlled by you, or rather, by the physical laws that you have created, which is tantamount to the same. In fact, could we not say that their lives are already prescribed? Am I understanding you correctly?”

  “Oh, what fun this is,” said Baphomet. “I’m so glad I came.” The beast turned to Aunt Penelope, grinning its unceasing grin. “Didn’t I tell you that my master was not to be trifled with? Didn’t I? Didn’t I?”

  “I can see that you have been thinking about this,” I said to Belhor. “Yes, what you say follows logically. The thoughts and actions of animate matter, if such matter comes to exist, are already determined by the laws I have made and by cause-and-effect relationships. That is my intention. If there are rules, there are rules, and no exceptions for animate matter.”

  “So you wish for total control over your creations, animate as well as inanimate,” said Belhor.

  “Nephew, you must do away with this monster,” Aunt Penelope said to me. “He is bullying you.”

  “No, Aunt. This discussion interests me.”

  Belhor bowed. “Thank you for your respect,” he said. He looked at me for a few moments without speaking. “And I say to you, with equal respect, I believe that you are allowing your ego to get in your way. Why do you require such complete control? Do you not trust your intelligent creations to act on their own, without your supervision? Do you think they may do something to embarrass you, or something you consider unseemly or unworthy?”

  “It is not a matter of trust,” I said to him. “It is a matter of self-consistency.” I found myself concerned, and I wanted to examine my concern, to turn it around in my mind and to explain it with clarity. “Surely you can understand that I do not want the universe to be a hodgepodge of contradictory rules and events. Where would that lead? All of us appreciate a certain amount of ambiguity and subtlety, but there must be limits … Animate matter should be subject to the same laws and rules as inanimate matter. Since those laws completely determine the behavior of inanimate matter, they also completely determine the behavior of animate matter.”

  “Then animate matter is no longer interesting,” said Belhor. “I am disappointed in what I have heard. And, for the moment, I have no further business with you.”

  “Oh, my master is disappointed,” said Baphomet, who had snatched the universe from Aunt Penelope and was tossing it up and down like a plaything. “My master is sooooo disappointed, and it is a very bad thing to disappoint Master Belhor.”

  “Please excuse Baphomet,” said the stranger. “He lacks manners, and he gets excited. Now, we will be off.”

  The Universe Nurtures Itself

  What a disagreeable fellow, said Uncle Deva. And arrogant. Did you see how he strutted about, as if he owned the place.

  He has a bad odor, said my aunt. I’d like to know his origins. If I had the power, I would—

  I fail to understand why we have to tolerate that disagreeable fellow, said Uncle. He is causing discord and bad feelings, after eons and eons in which everyone here in the Void got along beautifully.

>   Quite right, said Aunt. Then she began looking about. She frowned. Where is our universe? Did that abominable creature, that Baphomet, take it with him? We’ve lost the universe. The last time I saw it, the beast was batting it back and forth, acting like he was going to eat it.

  My uncle and aunt began pacing about in search of Aalam-104729, she moving much more rapidly than he, of course. They peered under layers of nothingness, thrashed at diaphanous tendrils and veils of the emptiness, listened intently as if they might hear the slight rumblings and regurgitations of the infant universe.

  Where is it? muttered Aunt Penelope. I will strangle that monster myself. Both of them. Where could the universe be? It was not so large, really. Still a small universe. Not so big. Not so big. Where is it? Where is it? Aunt Penelope was walking around in great circles, periodically returning to where Uncle stood, glancing at him with a frown, then setting off again. Meanwhile, my uncle toddled about in no particular direction, confused and concerned.

  I am not sure how much time passed in this state of affairs, as I was brooding over the conversation with Belhor. Finally, my aunt spoke up: Nephew, don’t just stand there. Might you take it upon yourself to provide some assistance?

  I, who could see everything at once, perceived that Aalam-104729 was some distance away behind a fleeting hillock of nothingness, lying on its side as if it had been carelessly tossed away by the ever-grinning Baphomet. There it is, I said.

  Oh, cried Uncle, and he shuffled over to the spot and scooped up the castaway universe and cradled it against himself. I am getting attached to this little universe, he whispered. I am embarrassed to say that I am becoming attached to it. He held the universe for a while and then placed it gingerly in a fold of the Void.

  Attachment leads to disappointment, I said. I liked to ruffle Aunt and Uncle now and then when I could.

  Yes, yes, I know, said my uncle.

  I found myself still agitated, as I was after Belhor’s first intrusion. But when I gazed upon Aalam-104729, a rosy plump ball, already considerably larger than when I had last noticed it, I felt a sense of calm and hopeful expectation. So much was possible with a new universe. And I now understood Belhor’s comment that this universe would make all of us more than we were now. For vast epochs of unmeasured time, we had slumbered, we had existed in beautiful but vacuous nothingness. In retrospect, we had been colossally bored. This plump, expanding sphere, ripening with possibilities, could change everything. It was smaller than us, but also bigger. And there it sat quietly in a small furrow of the Void, seemingly none the worse for its rough handling by Baphomet.

  It will want some tending, said Aunt Penelope.

  I don’t think so, I said. I’ve given it several laws and a few quantum parameters. Cause and effect. I think it can fend for itself.

  Please, said Aunt P. The thing is so … Tender, said Uncle Deva.

  To oblige my uncle and aunt, I entered the universe again and looked about. Indeed, the cosmos was humming along, in no need of my help. Since my last visit, the universe had cooled, and more kinds of particles were able to sustain unions with one another under their mutual attraction. I was intrigued by the varieties of things and effects. Triplets of quarks had combined to form neutrons and protons. These flew about at a ferocious speed, surrounded always by an ultraviolet haze of soft gluons and occasionally emitting gamma rays as they ricocheted off other frenetic nuggets of matter. Particles spun about their internal axes. Particles swerved in magnetic fields. Particles careened and accelerated and annihilated into pure energy. Here and there, bunched pockets of electrons or positrons would form, slight deviations from the mean density, and these unbalanced charged regions oscillated and vibrated in response to the electrical attractions and repulsions between them. Following my laws for the electromagnetic force, each such quivering of charged particles unleashed a flood of polarized photons with kaleidoscopic colors, creating a display far more spectacular than the evanescent veils of the Void. There were cascades and blooms of light, spiraling helices of energy, resonant oscillations of quark clouds. And the most eerie sounds: ultra-high-frequency moans and rips and dissonant crescendos as the gaseous plasma filling up space shuddered with each passing shock wave and compression of energy. Necessarily, there were small valleys and summits of matter and energy, inhomogeneities. The force of gravity struggled to strengthen these scattered accumulations, but the particles were so energetic and hot that gravity seemed almost nonexistent. That situation would eventually change as the universe expanded and cooled further. Between condensations of matter, the vacuum was constantly erupting with pairs of particles and their antiparticles so that there was not a single dollop of space that could be said to be sleeping. Indeed, the “vacuum” of space seethed with the creation and annihilation of new particles. In these early moments of the new universe, every pinprick of mass flew about with nearly the same speed as the photons, the maximum speed allowed by the laws. Space was a buzzing blur of subatomic particles, whizzing about at fantastic speed in crisscrossing patterns, zipping about and deflecting and colliding with one another. Energy fields lay across the cosmos in vast, floppy blankets, slightly shuddering as they created each new particle or absorbed other particles into their folds. And in every volume of existence, quantum physics held sway. Particles acted as waves, waves as particles. Alternate realities shimmered at every position of space. Matter and energy appeared and disappeared, merged into each other, and exchanged identities. And at the tiniest sizes of somethingness, quantum fluctuations and gravity conspired to tessellate the very geometry of existence.

  It was exhilarating. It was glorious. It was more than I had imagined. At the same time, it was all entirely logical. All of it followed inexorably and irrefutably from the few laws I had laid down. I had to do nothing but sit back and watch as the cosmos unfolded in time.

  The Quantification of Reality

  Time. As yet, time was unmeasured and unmeasurable. But that was soon to change, with the formation of hydrogen atoms.

  As Aalam-104729 continued to expand and to cool, there came a point at which it was sufficiently tepid that electrons could be captured and held by protons to form atoms of hydrogen, the simplest of atoms. In each hydrogen atom, a single electron orbited a single proton. Hydrogen atoms were my first atoms. They were lovely. Some were spherical, others ovaloid or dipoloid, depending on the quantum state of the orbiting electron. Patterns within patterns within patterns, all perfect as the number π and precisely determined by the few quantum rules I had given. The atoms glowed as their revolving electrons emitted photons. They faintly hummed. And the atoms gave matter a sponginess, a kind of cushiony texture it did not have before.

  Most importantly, hydrogen atoms served as the first clocks. The light emitted by these atoms vibrated with a precise regularity in time, always exactly the same, each vibration being one tick of the clock. Peak and trough and peak and trough and peak and trough—tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Now any duration of time could be measured by how many ticks of an atom of hydrogen. In these terms, Aalam-104729 was at this instant 4.52948 x 1029 atomic ticks old. The first neutrons and protons had begun forming at about 2.5 x 109 atomic ticks after the birth of the universe, the first atoms at about 3 x 1028. I was somewhat surprised to realize that a great deal of time had already elapsed, at least in terms of the beats of the atoms of hydrogen.

  Now we had clocks. Now time not only existed, but it could also be quantified, it could be measured, it could be carved up into pieces equal to the quantum throbbings of atoms. Now we could do far more than say that something happened in the past. We could say precisely how far in the past. And the duration of happenings and events, the time elapsed between A and B, could be assigned a definite number. The concepts of fast or slow, lazy or brisk gained a definite meaning. At last, I could measure the interval between Aunt Penelope’s great heaves and snores as she lay sleeping (typically 1020 atomic ticks when she retired in a good mood, less when she was disgruntled)
. One of Aunt P’s interminable speeches, advising me to do this or that, often took 1021 or 1022 ticks. And one of Uncle D’s leisurely walks around the Void occupied between 1025 and 1026 ticks. (Compared to these events, my thoughts were so rapid as to be almost instantaneous, occupying a mere one-millionth of one-trillionth of one-trillionth of a single atomic tick.) I hesitated to calculate exactly how long I’d been doing absolutely nothing, how long all of us had slept in our torporous amnesia.

  As time and space were connected by the speed of light, the quantification of time naturally led to a quantification of space. Now any length could be measured in terms of the distance traveled by a photon of light during one tick of an atomic clock. In these terms, the diameter of a neutron was one-hundredth of one-millionth of a light-atomic-tick. The diameter of an atom was a hundred thousand times larger. The diameter of the entire universe, judging by how long it took a photon to traverse the distance, was 9 x 1029 light-atomic-ticks, and growing larger each moment.

  Delighted to have a reliable method to quantify reality, I immediately set about measuring everything I could find. I measured the size of certain quark condensations: 10−7 light-atomic-ticks. The average size of a matter inhomogeneity: 1027 light-atomic-ticks. The time for a particular basin of antimatter to annihilate with matter: 1,003 atomic ticks. The time for the universe to double its size: 1030 atomic ticks.

  Uncle Deva was appalled that I might now lay ruler and clock to the Void. He appreciated what I had achieved, he said, but I was going too far. Too far? Tell me, said my uncle, what do you know about a thing when you know precisely its size and its duration? You know precisely nothing, that’s what you know. But how can you compare the thing to other things? I protested. Why should you compare? said Uncle. Each thing possesses its own special essence, which has nothing to do with anything else. Understand the essence of a thing, said Uncle, and you know everything you need to know. And I guarantee that the essence is not how many what-you-may-call-it atom flicks you’ve got. No sir. You’re only fooling yourself.