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The Gods of Knowledge
Chapter One - L'rynn
-----

"Biggest damn wolf I've ever seen.  Came outta nowhere, grabbed one of
my bulls and then left.  Poof!"  The man snapped his fingers.  The
sound was harsh in the still air.  "Just like that!  Here.  Gone.  My
bull with it."

The four men shook their heads and kept staring at the single huge paw
print and the drop of blood beside it.

One of them finally looked up and stared at something in the distance.
"Jake, if it weren't for the print, I'd think you'd been drinking
again.  Or maybe gone back to your old ways, from the sixties..."

"I'm clean!  Ask the Doc.  He'll tell you."

Dr. Tom Estaban, the man everyone called 'Doc' shook his head,
smiling.  "Jake's clean, Ben.  Cleaner than any of us.  Hasn't touched
anything stronger than herbal tea in the twenty years since he
staggered into Lily's lookin' for a handout.  I'd know it if he had."

Ben sighed and then angrily scuffed dirt over the print, as if by
covering it over he could deny its reality.  "Yeah, I knew that.
Angry.  Frustration talkin'.  That's all.  Lost a yearling colt to it
last week.  Sorry, Jake.  Same thing but all I had was a print, after.
Never saw nothin'.  Don't mean nothin' by what I said."

* * *

The fourth man stood silently, apparently lost in thought, but his
mind was moving rapidly as he considered the implications of that
single, huge, paw print.  He knew its source and he wondered...

Only to be anticipated when a 'voice' he knew well, spoke in his mind:

""L'rynn?   They fear.  Why?  I would not harm them.  I have never
harmed anyone.  But my friends were hungry.""

""F'yre.  You were seen.  You resemble one of the predators on this
world.  And, like men everywhere, they fear what they do not
understand.""

""They could not understand me even if I was explained.  My friends
were dying.  I could not wait.""

""All things on this world die, eventually.  It is their way.""

""It is their way, but it was not their time.""

The being known as L'rynn sighed.  F'yre was relatively new to her
powers, a child barely half a million years old, as this world saw
time.  This wasn't the first time her impulsiveness had caused
problems.  He shook his head sadly.  They had been able to settle
things down in the past, but he didn't know if they should, this time.
These people were wiser now, in their way, but they had blinded
themselves in other, more fundamental ways as they gained that wisdom.
It was, he decided, no longer wise to walk this planet as gods.

He and F'yre would have to find another solution, if they opted to
stay much longer.

* * *

"Larry.  Hey!  Larry!"

L'rynn looked up and frowned.  "Sorry, Jake.  You ask me something?"

"Yeah.  You're the scientist.  Any ideas?"

It was 'Larry's' turn to gaze off at the distance.  "I'm not a real
scientist."  He made the observation mildly;  it was an old, well worn
protest made from habit more than it was from any sense of making a
point.  "I read a lot and listen to the natives tell their stories.  I
get paid for doing what I'd do anyway, which is wonder about our
past."

"And you write papers, then get published in the journals and people
debate your ideas and conclusions.  If you're not a real scientist,
you'll do for now."  Jake was grinning at Larry's shock.  "I didn't
'drop out' because I was stupid.  I was bored.  Couldn't see the point
of it all.  Then the net showed up and I decided to 'tune in' again.
Seemed natural to do a little research, just for something to do.
Learned a lot more than I expected to." 

He chuckled.  "More than you expected, too, looks like.  Wonder why
that is?  Lots of famous folks decide to hide themselves away in some
small town.  You ain't done nothing unusual.

"Anyway, you know more than the rest of us and something about this
bothers you."  Jake's eyes turned shrewd but his tones stayed merely
curious.  "Any native stories about this sort of thing?"

L'rynn shivered, hoping nobody would guess the real reasons for that
shiver.  He'd been more careless than F'yre.  Because he'd chosen to
walk openly, as one of these people, he'd forgotten that their mental
isolation had forced them to create ways of making knowledge freely
available to all, not just those who shared minds.

It was, he suddenly realized, far more dangerous a situation than the
one F'yre had created when she'd chosen to gather food for her
friends, the wolves.

'What would it be like,' L'rynn wondered, 'to live in a universe ruled
by gods who believed they could learn anything they wished to know?'

F'yre laughed mockingly in the back of his mind.  ""You could choose
to be, as I do, 'wise one who is without wisdom'.""
====

The Gods of Knowledge
Chapter Two - F'yre
-----

Jake settled on his porch to watch the sunset.  As the sun touched the
mountains he felt a subtle shift in the air and the resulting draft
caressed his nose with a familiar scent.

""Thank you, Jake, for my friends.""

The voice in his mind was familiar, now.  Twenty years ago it had
scared him so much he'd gone clean overnight.

It was, he mused, one hell of an effective cure for drug and alcohol
addiction.  Now, if only he could find a way to market it...

He turned to face the huge 'wolf' who sat on her haunches beside him.
"They are welcome.  'All are one'."

""Indeed.  'All are one'.""

She studied him for awhile, then turned her gaze toward the sunset.
""L'rynn fears.""

Jake shrugged.  "I thought you wanted him to.  Is this another of your
'games'?"

""Yes.  He must.  Without fear, he will refuse to grow.  Jake my human
friend, I am a child in our terms but I play no game this time.""

"Forgive me, F'yre.  To me, everything you do is a 'game'.  It is
human to mock ourselves when we are serious.  It lets us maintain a
proper perspective when things are changing."

""You and I are much alike, Jake, my companion.  Even L'rynn, who
should be my mate, is not as purpose-bonded to me as you are.""

Jake chuckled.  "Well, then, lonely F'yre who burns with her
frustration.  We'll just have to help him accept the reality that is,
won't we?"

""I like you, Jake, I have ever since the night you questioned reality
but accepted it anyway.""
====

The Gods of Knowledge
Chapter Three - Jake
-----

Jake stared at the ceiling, not seeing the rough surfaces of the beams
he'd made himself.

No...  He was seeing a night that happened twenty years ago.  It had
been a night that started with terror, only to end too soon, leaving
him filled with a sense of wonder that had been more addicting than
the drugs he used to dull his boredom into a pain he could tolerate.

He had, since then, never been able to say he was bored.

It was a wonderful feeling, a miracle--and one he accepted as casually
as he accepted the huge wolf who was not a wolf, who slept on the
floor next to his bed.

""Not sleeping.""  It was an amused protest.  ""Walking other worlds,
other times.  Just like you were.  I was there, with you.""

Jake laughed.  "OK.  Daydreaming, then."

""No.  Not a dream.  Reality.""

He sighed.  It was an old argument, and he knew she was trying to
teach him something, but no matter how hard he tried...  "Reality to
you, F'yre.  I am a human.  I am built to think in linear terms, in
one world."

""No.  You are human, yes.  But you are conditioned to think the way
you think.  The cultures you destroyed when you populated this land
understood this.""

He lay there, with his head on his pillow, mulling over her calm
words.  She must be right, but how could he ever hope to change his
thinking?  He'd grown up thinking this way. It was right.  Everything
was explained, even F'yre and her 'should-have-been-mate', L'rynn.

He didn't need to change, if he accepted what was.  Right?

Vaguely dissatisfied with that glib answer, he was pondering it,
wondering where his reasoning might be wrong, when he fell asleep.
====

The Gods of Knowledge
Chapter Four - 'Doc'
-----

Jake was sweating in the morning breeze as he took advantage of the
warm day to cut more firewood.  He looked up and waved when the sound
of a diesel powered pickup caught his attention.  He finished
splitting the log he'd been working on and slammed the axe into the
stump he used as an anvil.

A swarthy man leaned out of the cab.  "You done with that axe, boy?"

Jake laughed.  "Yeah, Doc.  And you know I wouldn't try to threaten
you with it.  You'd take it away from me again, just like you did when
I was a confused boy."

Tom Estaban chuckled as he finished getting out to walk over and shake
hands.  "Lotta years gone by since then.  You're stronger, I'm weaker.
You'd win, now."

Jake, startled at the bitter amusement he heard, studied his friend,
the man everyone else knew as 'Doc'. To Jake he'd always been and
would forever be: 'Dad'.  It was an adopted relationship, but
intensely real, for all that it had been forced on them both, some
thirty years in the past.

He was startled when he realized Tom looked old, worn out.  Not frail,
or weak, but definitely not as strong as Jake always remembered him.

"What brings you by?"

"You."

"Me?"

"Don't be innocent with me, Jake.  I know when you're lyin' by telling
the truth.  You know more about that 'wolf' than you've been telling
people."

Jake looked down and shuffled his feet morosely, a little boy again
and caught by his father in a lie.

"Kinda felt you might have figured out some of it by now.  You want it
all, or will you trust me and let it go this time?"

""Tell him.""  

The command roared through their minds, leaving no doubts that it
*was* a command

Jake stiffened, then turned to face F'yre as she calmly walked towards
them.  

Doc looked confused, then followed his son's gaze until he saw...  A
nightmare come to life.  He'd known the wolf, if he ever saw it, would
be large.  But this wolf...

It was as tall as he was and its lupine grin was unmistakable.

It was also, he realized, coming for him and his son and he knew there
was nothing he could do about it.

""Relax, Tom Estaban who is my friend's father by adoption.  There is
no need to fear me.  I have never, will never, harm a human.""

"F'yre."  Jake, he noticed, was relaxed, even chiding.  "Be nice."

""Why?""

It was said with such artful innocence that Tom couldn't stop his
laugh.  If his laughter got slightly hysterical before he could
finally get it under control, well, who better than a psychiatrist to
understand the reasons?

He also, once he got past his fear, realized the wolf was female--and
quite, in her way, charming.

By then she'd settled on her haunches and Jake had stepped forward to
reach between her her ears and scratch her head.  Her yawn of sheer
pleasure was accompanied by a very feminine giggle in his mind.  

""Everything likes to have its ears rubbed.  Especially by their mate.
Yes?""

At first his mind froze, then he wept as he remembered his wife and
the way they'd crooned at each other while nibbling on each other's
ears, in turn.

""She will always live, as you will, as we all do.  When the time
comes, you will know how to seek her and be reunitied.  'All are
One'.""

Tom's attention was jerked away from his bittersweet memories.  She
hadn't been comforting him, she'd been stating a simple fact.  He
could tell.  That 'All are One' business had the flavor of something
more than a platitude, too.

Jake interrupted them.  "F'yre.  You could be nice because it
increases the chances of you finding a home, at last.  Children must,
as you keep reminding me, quit being children and become the person
they are meant to be."

""A child, speaking wisdom to a child.  I will think on this as you
tell your father the truth, at last.""  

She settled on her belly, then rolled to her side and to all
appearances, fell asleep.

Tom came out of his trance and looked at his son.  "A child, speaking
wisdom to a child?"

"Come on over to the cabin and I'll tell you about it.  Yeah.  F'yre
is only half a million years or so old.  Barely pubescent.  Me?  I
never did grow up.  You know that."
====

The Gods of Knowledge
Chapter Five - Reality Check
-----

Jake settled a haunch on the porch railing and chuckled as his dad
tried not to wince as he sipped his glass of cranberry juice.  "You
wanted something tart and bitter.  That's it.  That's all I have
that's even close."

"Quit dodgin' boy.  I ain't so old I can't figure out a way to catch
you and tan your ass good."  Tom studied his 'son'.  "She said 'mate'
You ain't one of them, are you?"

Jake laughed so hard he doubled over.  "Nope.  Can't happen.  Never
would have and you fixed me too good for that.  Besides, I'd be better
off flying a kite and tying a string to it in a thunderstorm.  Lot
safer, too.  Might even survive the experience if I did."

"Dodgin', boy.  Again."

Jake suddenly sobered.  "No.  I'm not.  We're what she calls
'purpose-bonded'.  Means we're on the same wavelength of reality.
Impossible, literally, for us to ever exist, one without the other.
She implies me, I imply her.  Ever thought about what happens to the
light from a flashlight when it meets a lightning bolt that's the same
frequency?  You get interference patterns, but no real interaction.

"Well, that's what we all are, even her.  Interference patterns."

Tom stared.  "You're not making sense."

Jake sighed.  "You always said I didn't think like normal folks."

"You don't, but I'd also swear on every stack of research reports I've
read that says you're crazy, that you aren't."

Jake's chuckle was dry.  "Thanks.  You don't know how much that
reassures me."

"Knock it off.  Just try and explain *that*,"  he gestured at the huge
wolf, 'in terms even I can understand without thinking I've gone over
the edge to do it."

"K.  It's an analogy, and you really, really have to stretch it out of
shape, and I don't think it will work for you completely, but if you
can use it to build an analogy of your own, you'll understand.  I
understand some, but not enough.  If I did, just one of the things I'd
be is consciously immortal.  I'd also be something beyond a god.  I
wouldn't be power, I'd be something else."

"What's that?"

"I'd be a zero to infinite resistance, 100% efficient switch, for
everything."  He pointed at F'yre, who had come over to settle on her
haunches and watch the show. "Like she is.  Like the being who is
supposed to be her mate, is."

"I think you're crazy."

Jake just laughed.  "I wish I was.  F'yre?  I think he needs a
demonstration."

She giggled.  ""Oh, very well."" She blinked out of existence only to
appear ten feet higher, upside down and rolling on her back like a
puppy in a sunny meadow, except there was no meadow, only ten feet of
empty air between her and the ground.

She finally rolled back to her feet, then, still standing on air, sat
on her haunches again.  ""Is this enough, Tom?""

She giggled again.  ""Jake?  I think he needs something stronger.""

Jake chuckled and held his hands over his dad's glass, then carefully
positioned them, as if he were shading it from two different light
sources..  He held the pose briefly, then pulled his hands away.  "No
mirrors, and the best I can do.  Take a sip."

"You ain't Jesus, boy.  And I never did buy that 'water to wine' hocus
pocus."

"Just sip, Dad.  OK?"

Tom's eyes never left his son's face as he carefully lifted the glass
to his lips.  His nose told him one thing but he had to actually taste
it to believe.  "Rum and Coke?"

"Yeah.  Used to be my favorite so it's my strongest memory.  And...
Who, in their right mind, wants to waste that sort of power on wine?
Especially if it's going to be the stuff I used to drink?"

"Got a point."  He sipped appreciatively.  "Cute trick.  Man could
learn to like that sort of power.  How?"

"Remember I said we're interference patterns?  Well, I used my hands,
which are interference patterns, to change the reality that reached
your glass so the interference pattern that used to be cranberry juice
changed until it was identical to the one that's a 'Rum and Coke'.
Then I sort of let my mind freeze it so it wouldn't change.

"You always told me that 'perception is reality'.  Truth is,
'perception creates reality'."

"Son, I almost understood that.  But this 'change reality' you
mentioned.  How can you 'change reality'?  It just is, isn't it?"

"Nope.  It's a standing wave.  A resonance that's stable.  Change the
conditions slightly, and it changes.  Has to.  If you know what you
want, you can change the conditions until you generate a resonance
that you can see, a 'reality' that's stable until something else
changes the conditions again.  Then the reality changes until it's
stable.  Most times, since the conditions change in a pattern, the
reality is dynamically stable.

"Oh, those conditions?  Interference patterns.  And guess what?  I'm
an interference pattern.  Everything is.  'All is One'.  QED.

"BTW, Jesus was an alky.  Wino.  Damn good mind, but he was drunk most
of the time.  Didn't have real good control, but he had it almost
right except for one thing.

Bemused, Tom asked the inevitable question that Jake seemed to want
him to ask.  "Assuming I buy in, what did he get wrong?"

"Everything.  The universe creates itself from scratch billions of
time a second.  How long does it take to generate an interference
pattern?  What happens if one of the beams is blocked?"

Tom gaped.

"What happens if you turn on millions of beams of light in a perfectly
reflective sphere with a rough surface and then turn them off again?
Hell, you only need one, once.  Now put a finite number of rough
surfaced spheres that are, relatively speaking, very, very small,
inside your first sphere."

Jake was shaking his head wearily.  "I said it was a stretch but...
You get lots and lots of interference patterns.  And you get standing
waves if the wavelength is large enough that it 'steps over' the
spheres.  You also get 'eddies' and interference patterns that are
varying degrees of stable.  Any of it, of course, can 'creep' while
staying stable."

He looked at his father, then F'yre.  "And that's what she is, a
stable interference pattern that's also a standing wave.  Very, very
stable, since the standing wave won't vanish until the light does, or,
in this case, the reality wave.

"Since that's not going to happen, she always was, always is, and
always will be.  We're just large enough to be dynamically stable but
capable of being disrupted, so we can 'die'.  But, with the universe
being recreated all the time and being finite, our interference
pattern will always exist somewhere or be duplicated, all the time. We
just don't know it unless our ability to manipulate the interference
of the reality waves reaches a threshold.  Do it in the right way and
our interference pattern becomes another standing wave.

"Instant immortality."

Jake resettled on the railing and chuckled.  "Reality didn't start
with a bang, but a flashbulb called 'reality' going off.  Everything
since is afterimages, so to speak."

Tom gaped, then slugged back his drink.  "You sound crazy, but all
that almost made sense."

Jake laughed, this time.  "It should have,  It's interference pattern
was pretty similar to yours.  The two of you resonated.  It couldn't
do anything other than reinforce your pattern. So, to you, it 'made
sense'."  He turned to display a grin.  "You and it make friends, get
to know each other and if you ever get your frequencies close enough,
'wham!'  Big flash and you're immortal.

"Oh, that reminds me.  Mom says 'Hi, and no hurry.  You've got forever
anyway, it doesn't matter when you figure it out.  It's not that long,
relatively speaking, and she can find plenty to do while she's
waiting.  Only an eyeblink anyway--for her'."

"Damnit, you've gone too far!  Don't you ever tease me like that!"

"I'm not.  She also said the nuzzle a bit ago was nice, she's missed
that."

"You couldn't have known about that..."  It was a plea for
understanding.  "She died with your mother and father, in that
wreck--and I know I've never mentioned it to you.  NEVER!"

"Right.  She did.  Just a few minutes ago.  Dreams, any of them, are
just another form of reality. Match the interference patterns and you
move there.  Can't be any other way."

Now, Jake slid over the railing and walked to where F'yre was
floating, calmly settled on nothing.  He looked up, frowned and then
suddenly he was standing next to her and he reached to scratch an ear
while he grinned at his dad.  "Perception creates reality.  I can
understand that just enough...  To do simple things.  I can't do much
more than what you've seen.  Not yet."
======

The Gods of Knowledge
Chapter 6 - God Baiting
-----

Tom finally remembered what he was there for.  "That's a damn
effective distraction, but it didn't quite work.  You never did say
why you're messing with Larry."

Jake sighed.  "You asked for an explanation.  OK.  It's real simple.
Larry's real name is L'rynn and he's supposed to be F'yre's mate. He's
got his head up so far he hasn't accepted that fact and she's tired of
waiting so she asked me to help her do some rough and tumble therapy
to remind him they should have mated millenia ago."

F'yre took over and interjected her comments.  ""Crude, but that's
essentially the truth as you people can understand it.  L'rynn is too
used to being a god to you folks and he hasn't accepted that you will
eventually replace us as the supreme observers.  Bluntly, he fears
what you will become.

""I'm tired of putting up with his refusal to grow up.""

Jake and Tom both winced at the heavy dose of irony that colored her
thoughts, then looked at each other.  
Jake recovered first.  "So that's what I'm doing.  'Tough love for a
god'.  Interested in helping Larry grow up?"

Tom's mind shied away from thinking about the implications.  Instead,
"You want to do that waving of your hands again?  I *need* a drink."

Jake laughed and held his hands behind F'yre's head, then wiggled his
fingers as if they were ears. After a few seconds he pulled them away
and grinned at his dad.  "Drink up.  I made it a little stronger this
time so be careful with that first swallow."

"Hell with careful, boy.  Go suck your own eggs."  Tom slugged the
contents back in one go and then coughed, whooped, pounded his leg as
he recovered his breath and finally peered through watery eyes at his
son and the huge wolf.  "You two mind settling somewhere more natural?
You make me dizzy."

He squinted at them.  "Yep.  Never thought I'd see anything that made
me feel like I was airsick but that definitely does the trick.  Get
yourselves on something solid before I puke all over this nice porch
of yours."

Jake and F'yre laughed, then suddenly appeared on the ground in the
same postions they'd been in.  

F'yre giggled in their minds.  ""Better?""

"Yup!"  Tom leaned the chair against the wall and studied them
thoughtfully.

"How the Hell do you apply tough love to a god?  And why would I want
to get mixed up in it?  I know damn well all about what happens to
mortals when you mess in the affairs of the gods.  You, Jake.  Thought
you had more sense than that."

Jake's grin was huge and it made Tom nervous. 
---

End: The Gods of Knowledge
======

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Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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