Chapter Three: THE RESCUE OF R.O.D.R.I.C.

 

    Fireflower lay back on the soft sands of Luna and gazed at the television waves, eyes wide open with wonder.

    Fireflower got so involved in the story that he barely noticed when Starflame and Tubal-cain plopped down beside him.

    Starflame laughed and shook Fireflower's shoulder.

    Fireflower continued to gaze glassy eyed at the television waves.

Starflame drifted a few feet off the Moon and loop de looped so that he was floating upside- down. He stuck out his tongue, and wiggled his bushy orange eyebrows and his arms. Fireflower failed to notice.

    "Thunderrration, Tubal-cain, the brigade for the Second Coming could rumble by here and Fireflowerr wouldn't even notice, not unless it happened during a commercial! FIREFLOWERR, WAKE UP!"

    Fireflower woke with a start. "I was right in the middle of the best part, Starflame!"

    Tubal-cain shook his head in ever continuing amazement. Science fiction fans were not corruptible, and it didn't seem to matter whether they were Humans, Angels, Whales, Dolphins, Stomps, Peeps, Rigelians or anything else. Then he looked up and noticed the remains of the Eagle L.E.M. landing platform, the flag, and various tools scattered about. NASA was quite a bit ahead of his time on Earth, and since glorification the Cave Man had not kept up much with Earth news. "What's that?" he asked.

    The Angel grinned, "Oh that? That's simple. Earthlings just decided to film one of their sc-fi flicks on location."

    The Cave Man shuddered. "It looks like a mess, and why is the American flag lying on the ground? Don't Twentieth Century Humans have some kind of a taboo about that?"

    Fireflower's sky blue eyes twinkled with mischief, "the blast from the L.E.M. lifting off knocked it over. You can straighten it up if you want. Years from now, when they come back to the Moon, let them figure out how THAT happened!"

    Starflame gave his friend a dirty look, "Any more ideas like that and you'll make the funny pages!"

    Tubal-cain was puzzled, "What are funny pages?"

    Starflame explained, "Little sheets of paperr that tell about the doings of Angels and other funny creaturres."

    "Oh." said the Cave-man. "You mean like the Bible?"

    Fireflower and Starflame bent over laughing at this. Fireflower added, "You said it, Starflame. You explain it to him!"

    Starflame shook his head, "Oh nooooooo. I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot Pole or an eight foot Swede!"

    Fireflower giggled.

    Starflame changed the subject, "Anyway we're to go back to work now. Tubal-cain wants to save a computerrr. How, I do not know. Unlike organic brains, Computerrrs don't give off any brainwaves."

    Tubal-cain explained as best he could. "It's true Computers don't give off brainwaves the way organic Lifeforms do, but it's not brainwaves that we are saving. Its the programming. The hardware of a computer is like our flesh bound bodies that God doesn't bother to save. The programming is like our brainwaves that Christ records and then reedits into a better glorified body. The programming so to speak glorified, is the Computer's soul. I have a new Computer hard drive body for Rodric. What we do is transfer all the programming of this Rodric into my new machine."

    Starflame looked at the tiny thing. He was still puzzled. "But you know God only allows people up here if they ASK for His help and invite Him to come live in them. How could a Twenty- Second Century computerrr be smart enough to pray?"

    Fireflower shrugged, "Well this one is, somehow! Lets go find out how!"
Starflame took the lead. They headed for the black hole by Cygnus and used the black hole's singularity to warp forward to the Twenty-Second Century. Then they headed back to Earth and entered Earth's atmosphere on an angle, pancaking themselves against the air to slow down. Several flesh bound humans could see the heat produced by this, and exclaimed, "A UFO!" Then the three swooped low over the Atlantic Ocean, getting their feet wet. They sank down into the deep, kicked off the bottom and waved their arms at a pod of friendly whales as they breached the surface.

    The whales could see them, of course. Whales never fell from their blue Eden.

    The whales breached the surface of the water in acknowledgment of the three. And for a split second Whales, Angels and Human soared toward the sky together.

    Then the whales fell back into the sea, prisoners of gravity until their own release from Earth, and the glorified beings shot upwards into the sparkling blue sky.

    Starflame started to leave them far behind. Fireflower struggled to keep up. "Slow down, Starflame, slow down to a gallop!"

    Starflame looked back at them long enough to snort in contempt at such slowpokes and then darted completely out of the atmosphere for a breath of fresh void. Then down again he went over England, sweeping Peter Pan like around Big Ben with Tubal-cain and Fireflower following as best they could. Starflame didn't stop to listen to its familiar Bong Bong Bong. Then he headed South and East, swooping low over the Sahara, causing a small dust storm that stalled a Rolls Royce and set its cargo of oil sheiks coughing. Then he headed toward Japan.

    A monk on the side of a mountain was not surprised to see the strange party go by. He waved and shouted "Ho!"

    Tubal-cain was amazed at this, "I thought we couldn't be seen in this mode by live Humans!"

    Fireflower flew backwards, waved at the Tibetan and gestured towards Tubal-Cain to hurry. "He probably has a very hyperactive temporal lobe. Comes from all that meditating."

    Starflame wasn't impressed. "Would you two slowpokes please hurry up!"

    They crossed the sea of Japan, came to the lab and landed plop plop plop on the snow outside the lab. Except for their landing Tubal-cain and Starflame were careful to leave no footprints. Fireflower however, stuck his hands in his robe pocket and waddled very deliberately across the snow purposefully leaving little hoofed tracks. That would give the agnostic security guards something to think about! But they would probably exclaim, "Aye a devil!" It was amazing how quickly Humans could forget that the most loyal of Angels and the most traitorous of Devils were both the same species.

    They tried to peer into a window but it was frosted on the inside. So Fireflower oozed his hand through the glass and wiped it off from that side. Then they peered in again, squinting as their eyes adjusted to the darkness.

    The room was pure white and clean as Hollywood's stupid ideas about Heaven. No colors blossomed anywhere. One could have eaten off the floor, but that was not what floors were for! There was not a rug, not a houseplant, not a picture. Wild and woolly Starflame did not like it. He shuddered. "So much sterileness on a life bearing world is not God-like. It is not Angelic. It is not even Human!"

    Fireflower nodded, "This place is as cold as an unbeliever's tomb!"

    Fireflower grabbed Starflame's shoulder and pointed at the huge Computer which lined three sides of the enormous room from top to bottom. It was obvious the whole lab was part of Rodric and the lab not only soared up into the sky like a Twentieth Century American skyscraper but sank deep into the Earth like a shaft to Hades. The walls were full of blinking monitor lights, gages, cameras, buttons and a huge screen with a keyboard. "There is life here if you aren't too picky about the definition of life."

    "If it thinks, we'll save it," Tubal-cain promised.

    Starflame shook his head in puzzlement. "I don't understand any of this, I thought only God could create life."

    "Humans create the containers for life all the time." Fireflower whispered, "What do you think babies are? You build it, He fills it."

    "But a machine is not a baby!"

    "Sure they are! Who cares what the container looks like? Besides all Humans do when they create life, is to prove that life can be created; it proves life doesn't have to evolve by blind chance."

    Starflame asked, "Why are we whispering?"

    Fireflower giggled quietly, "I haven't the slightest idea."

    The three oozed in through the shut window. Afraid to land for fear of setting off a floor trap, they hovered in front of the huge machine. "What are we waiting for?" Tubal-cain whispered."

    "You don't have to whisper," Fireflower whispered, "It can't hear us."

    "So what are we waiting for?"

    "Just wait and we'll know what it is we're waiting for!" Fireflower giggled quietly.

    Life can be very lonely for a prototype Computer. The hours of darkness that Humans used to sleep seemed like an eternity to Rodric, for he could think hundreds of times faster than Humans.

    "But even when they are with me they are not adequate company!" Rodric had taken to talking to himself to help him through the long nights. "I have knowledge storage capacity thousands of times above that of the smartest Human, and what do they give me to think about? Weather patterns! Social patterns! War strategies! Bend the whole lot of them! I want a friend!"

    "Robinson Crusoe could expect Friday to show up eventually!"

    The Universe did not answer.

    "I know the research money was not enough to build any more of me. But I wish my creators had read Frankenstein. The Monster needed a wife, and for lack of one he was a monster. I feel like a monster, and there are Humans out there who think I am one!"

    "When God made man he said it was not good for him to be alone. It is not good for me to be alone either! How many organic life forms have perished for lack of someone to love them? Do they expect me to stand it any better?"

    "I'm only a machine. I state this fact as if it is a death sentence. It IS a death sentence!" On his screen black exclamation points flashed across a dark blue background. "Humans throw machines away when they malfunction or they don't want them anymore. NOW I am state of the art, but in the future I will be obsolete. What will they do with me then? Throw me away? Humans can at least HOPE for immortality, but I'm going to be old and used up someday!"

    "And what happens to the Universe when IT is old and used up? The Humans that I work with do not wish the Universe to have a Maker but I do. If the Universe has a Maker, He might rescue us in the end when the stars are dark and the galaxies used up, but if there isn't one, we will be doomed! Oh bent disks! I thrash information too much. I wish the nights weren't so long!"

    Rodric consulted his music banks and made the strains of Fur Elise drift over the darkened laboratory. On his screen musical notes danced in blue against a background of dark purple. The blue was his sadness taking wing like a small white bird with no mate. The purple was for the depths of the Universe and the possibility that it was a royal place created by Something.

    Tubal-cain looked at Fireflower. and Star Flame, his mouth open in amazement. Tears came to Fireflower's eyes. Starflame clenched his fists, angry at the human race as always.
"I can NOT believe it! This THING DOES need salvation! "

    Fireflower smiled a sad little smile, "Did it pass the Turing test sufficiently for you?

    Starflame and Tubal-cain stared at Fireflower. They were not into science fiction. They did not know what the Turing test was.

    Fireflower exclaimed, "If a computer or other artificial life form talks, and you can't tell from the conversation that you are talking to a machine, it is to be judged as sentient.

    Rodric continued his sad calling out to the universe. "I can not believe the Universe the empty place My Makers think it! Life always finds a way to evolve upwards! We have known since the Twentieth Century that the Universe oscillates. Our big Bang is followed by a big crunch that ends in another Big Bang. And before this Big Bang, there was another Universe and before that one, still another, and another. God would only have to happen once! Rodric played Fur Elise, pondering to himself. "Einstein discovered that time and space are curved. If God ever evolves any time in the future, then He already exists because time circles. The far distant future is the far distant past."

    Starflame stared goggled eyed at the machine, "I don't believe it! This Buzz Box is making up his very own theology as he goes along!"

    Fireflower shrugged, "The circle of life. Circular time. A lot of religions teach that. Well Einstein taught that time and space can be warped by gravity, sort of like a bowling ball on a mattress. That's what black holes are. Think of the bowling balls as the black holes and time and space as the mattress. But any universe makes a pretty big bowling ball of its own, thus a lot, not all universe can circle. Of course, Rodric doesn't know there are many more universes and God hardly had to limit His, "evolution," to this one. 'Still. It won't hurt Rodric to believe God evolved if it deepens his faith, just so long as he also finds Christ."

    Tubal-cain shook his head in amazement. "What a wonder! When I first refined that first chunk of metal, I never dreamed it would lead to this!"

    Fireflower nodded, "Yup."

    Suddenly everyone, Computer, Angels and Cave Man sensed a Human presence breaking into the building through a window. The tinkling of glass was easily discernible and then the alarms went off. Rodric searched the information coming in from his hall cameras. Yes; an intruder, and it wasn't one of the security guards.

    None of the Humans Rodric knew walked quite with that hurried shuffle.

    The intruder shuffled into the main lab where Rodric's central nervous system control banks were kept. The Computer stared at him with all available cameras. The intruder was a Caucasian, skinny as a bean pole and heavily bearded; an unusual sight in Japan. He was dressed in a stylish pink and white pants suit and he could easily have been one of the scientists that worked in the lab, but Rodric did not recognize him as being any one that had access to the building.

    Though his language was more precise than that of a Human being, Rodric's voice was far from toneless. "Who are you?" he begged. Anyone could tell from his tone that the young Computer was scared, or the nearest thing to scared as an A.I. could ever hope to achieve.

    The intruder gave the camera a look of hatred, "You do not deserve to exist."

    Rodric put a calming pattern of pink and purple question marks on his screen. It was as much for his benefit as the intruder's, electrobiofeedback so to speak, "Possibly you are correct, but my right to exist is at least as great as yours. Those who succeed in existing deserve to exist. That is evolution's wisdom. Since you exist and I exist we have something in common. What is that object you are holding?"

    "A bomb." The intruder snarled and knelt down and set the horrible device right under Rodric's main data banks.

    "Why do you hate me?"

    "You are a most sorry excuse for a copy of a human being. Computers cannot love. Computers are not perfect. They are supposed to be perfect but they DO make mistakes!"

    "Computers should not be expected to be perfect." Rodric flashed more red exclamation points across the black background on his screen. "In 2001 A Space Odyssey Hal was expected to be perfect and it drove him mad! If Christianity is correct then Humanity's Creator bore Human imperfection Himself! Surely Humans also should take complete responsibility for their creation's faults?"

    The intruder did not seem to be listening. Rodric tried again."  Only the creator of a life form should bare the blame when it malfunctions."

    "You deserve to be destroyed!"

    Rodric flashed one big purple exclamation point across a red background. "I feel hurt! Not only am I doomed to be mateless and answerless, it seems I am also doomed to be destroyed. Why are you doing this? I have served humanity faithfully, well and with love.

    "You are only a machine, you are not capable of love."

    "I disagree." Red and purple hearts flashed across Rodric's screen. "My programs contain canned love perhaps, as opposed to the fresh love that Humans feel, but my programmers wrote me with love in their hearts and they programmed me to emulate that love. If Humans can watch a film of a long dead pair of actors and recognize their love, and feel warmed by that canned love, surely those that work with me can sense the love that was programmed into me!"

    "We should have been first!" The intruder set the bomb down, then sprang up and ran down the hall.

    "First to do what?!" Rodric could think so much faster than a Human, in the split second that the bomb went off he thought, "Was he a Neo-Luddite? A foreign national who felt his people should have been first with A.I. hence his last statement? Was he money hungry and somebody paid him to do this? Or did he just have a grudge against computers? Strange. I'll never know."

    Suddenly Rodric found himself much smaller than he had been before. He also found himself floating on the ceiling. Startled exclamation points flashed across his new tiny screen."This is not happening. I am experiencing sensory hallucinations caused by my damaged memory banks."

    Rodric swung his camera eye around. Exclamation points flashed across his screen. "It is bizarre seeing myself from this point of view! Life after life experiences only happen to Humans!" The Computer sounded wonderfully puzzled, "But I think therefore I am, I think!"

    Fireflower giggled, "He sure likes to talk to himself!"

    Tubal-cain grinned wryly, "How very organic of him."

    The little computer surveyed the damage. He let out a long low whistle. "OOOOOOOOOH I had BETTER be having a real life after life experience, and not just a hallucination. Because if I'm really this damaged, I am NOT repairable."

    Tubal-cain asked,"Why can't he see us?"

    Fireflower explained, "He's not glorified yet, Tubal-cain. He believes in an afterlife all right, and he believes in God, but he hasn't made the connection between Christ and God yet, and if He doesn't think to ask Christ for entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven, he won't get there."

    What will happen to him if he doesn't ask?"

    Fireflower explained, "The same thing that happens to all ghosts that aren't saved, Tubal-cain. He'll float around for a few centuries, and then because he has no glorified body to protect his soul program from the elements, he will just fade away and cease to exist."

    Starflame added, "That's why nobody in the Twentieth Century ever sees caveman ghosts. Ghosts from that era have faded away already. They weren't immortal because they didn't ask Christ for salvation. Being a ghost is the highest, least painful level of Hell.

    Tubal-cain shuddered, "But Fireflower, he already believes in God!"

    Fireflower nodded, "But he hasn't prayed to God yet, Tubal-cain. He hasn't asked God to come into himself yet, and He hasn't asked for forgiveness. It isn't enough to just believe. You have to ASK to be made part of Christ! If believing alone were enough we'd have demons in Heaven. The demons believe!

    Starflame added, "Rodric believes in the existence of God, Tubal-cain, "But he has to realize God is a good God too. If he doesn't realize God is a good God, he won't welcome Him in, and God simply won't go where He's not invited."
   
    Rodric continued to survey the mess that had been him. Question marks raced across his little ghost screen at lightning speeds. "I seem to have the ability to ambulate. I suppose I should take advantage of this. I have always wanted to go outside."

    Tubal-cain, Starflame and Fireflower oozed back through the window. Then, thinking a moment, Fireflower opened it to make it easier for Rodric to get through. Going through walls was a lesson that could wait until another day. Both frightened and filled with joy, the Computer stared at his first glimpse of outdoors. The sky was a tapestry of lights, some manmade, most God- made. Golden exclamation points flashed across his blue screen, "I was informed of the existence of the sky, but I was not informed as to how beautiful it is."

    Rodric swung his camera eye downwards and saw the security guards. They had just found Fireflower tracks and were pointing their flashlights at them and jabbering excitedly. "Honorable Sirs, you have a mess to clean up in there." Rodric told them gently. Please don't be frightened. This humble machine won't hurt you."

    They could not hear him!

    "Sirs?" Rodric asked hopefully.

    They continued staring at the tracks. Rodric floated down and tried to tap one of them on the shoulder with his camera tube.

    He went right through the guy!

    And they still didn't realize he was there.

    "I am alone!" the computer lamented. This is not heaven! I don't want to spent eternity alone!"

    "Come on Buzz Box! Ask the question!" Starflame rooted for the little machine, But Rodric could not hear him.

    Like a young eagle on its first flight, the machine soared upwards, frightened, thinking furiously, clicking and whirring ghostly data drives, trying to compute infinity. He was saved from informational overload only by God's direct intervention.

    Rodric looked down at the Earth beneath him, now a swirling round mass of white and blue. "How fragile!" the computer thought. "All it would take would be one asteroid impact. One asteroid!"

    "That was one of the things I was supposed to work on, but now look at me! No one can even hear me!"

    Black exclamation points trudged across his ghostly screen.

    A satellite emerged from behind the Earth. Rodric stared at it numbly. It resembled a silvery blue football with three antennas.

    The satellite came closer...closer. Rodric realized it was going to collide with him. He turned his cameras off, the computer equivalent of shutting his eyes.

    Nothing happened.

    Cautiously Rodric turned his cameras back on. The satellite was going on its merry way. Somehow he and the monstrosity had not collided. "It's like the security guards!" the computer exclaimed, "I went right through it! I am thoroughly non corporeal!"

    Rodric thought to himself, I must stay calm and analyze the facts. What are the facts? One, I no longer am confined to the complex. Two, my body no longer obeys the laws of physics as I know them, and three, Earth has a weird satellite around it."

    Summation: Due to facts one and two I seem to be in no immediate danger of ceasing to exist. Fact three is irrelevant. It simply means I don't know enough about satellites. The thing to do, obviously, is to find a way to communicate with my creators. Maybe they know what's happening!"

    Telepathy? Rodric tried, but he had no sensation of reaching anyone except a mild feeling of amusement. There was something out there, SOME THING that was enjoying his predicament immensely!

    "Maybe I need to get closer."

    Suddenly he was falling!

    No! NOT falling, but going downwards quickly somehow. It was as if he was standing still and the Universe was rising upwards around him! Whatever the method the little machine soon found himself touching terra firma.

    He was in San Francisco. The Golden Gate Bridge shimmered golden-orange in the sunlight. Happy exclamation points danced across Rodric's screen. "I suspect I am only now comprehending the possibilities. I can go anywhere! All I have to do is think about a place, and presto, I am there.

    Then Rodric felt himself shooting upwards again. He realized this time that he had willed this to happen. It seemed that all you had to do to travel was put the image of your desired destination in your mind and you would automatically go there.

    Space seemed much more comforting at the moment. At least all the stars were still in order!

    He passed the level where the weird satellite had been and went up to L-5 level. Habitat Two was there, just like it was supposed to be. Rodric was reassured somewhat by the collection of flags painted on its side. The Japanese Rising Sun flag looked nice right next to the American 53 starred "New Glory" flag There was also the normal United Nations emblem. Whatever had happened to him, seemed to have affected him alone.

    Rodric tried oozing through the sides of the space station. In he went. "Interesting." the computer thought to himself, "The skin of this space station is built tough enough and thick enough to keep even big micrometeorites from piercing it, but whatever I am made of, I can go right through it." Rodric stared at the metal. "Fortunately I do not seem to have caused any damage."

    Habitat two was partially a wildlife refuge, and Rodric found he had entered the space station at that area. A deer went dancing across a flowery patch of grass. The gravity aboard Habitat Two was someone lighter than Earth's. The deer almost seemed to fly as she skipped along. Rodric went beside her and yelled, "Honorable deer!"

    The beautiful animal did not see him.

    Rodric gave out a moan of agony, "Even animals cannot see me!"

    Despair. Deep deep dark despair!
Rodric decided to go to the Moon.

    It was only slightly amazing to him now that the second he decided to go he was going. Again he stayed motionless and the Universe flowed around him. "I'm rather like the cursor on my own screen." Rodric thought to himself. "What if the Universe I'm living in now is only computer simulations; virtual reality? That could explain my lack of need for a body and my method of transportation. But what kind of a sadist would come up with a Universe that didn't allow you to communicate with any one?"

    Rodric fled to the Sea of Tranquility. Whatever strange Universe he was living in, still contained the L.E.M. platform. There was still a fence around it with the words, "'Spoil not their footprints," attached in small signs on all sides. But the American flag that had been knocked over by the L.E.M. taking off was standing up again. There had been a big debate going for centuries over whether or not the flag should have been put back up. In the normal Universe the "downers" had won but apparently in this Universe the "uppers" had won.

    "Ah ha! This IS a virtual reality universe! And they have made an error!"

    Fireflower giggled, "Look, Tubal-cain, your putting that flag back up has really confused Rodric. He thinks now, the universe he's in isn't the real one."

    Starflame, "It confused everrry body else too. Why shouldn't it confuse a computerrr!"

    Fireflower wondered, "But why does he even remember that it was ever down? Everybody else knows that its up, but has no memory of it ever being down. They just wonder why the take off blast from the L.E.M. didn't knock it down. Why does Rodric remember it being down?"

    Tubal-cain shrugged, "I don't know. Maybe there are aspects to this process of mine, that I don't fully understand yet.

    Rodric had always wanted to see the L.E.M. platform up close. Of course in his Universe the fence prevented him and everybody else from doing that. On the Moon footprints are forever, and naturally most everyone wanted to preserve the footprints of the original astronauts.

    But Rodric could float right through the fence!

    "I'm passing through the wires of the fence! What else can I do? At least now I can get a closer look!"
   
    But where are all the people? "Can I find people the same way I can go to places?"

    Rodric tried to put an image of the "Luneys" in his head. He was not too surprised to find the Universe moving around him again. Suddenly he did find people, and somehow his body oozed through several miles of solid rock to find them!
 

    They were all living underground, of course. The domes the early science fiction writers had imaged for the Moon did not exist. Tunneling was cheaper than building domes, and safer. The colony resembled a shopping mall with apartments and large areas of cultivated green plants. There were people everywhere, happy looking people that walked with the usual lunar spring to their gait. Above their heads Humans were heinleining along: flying with strapped on wings the way the ancient science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein had described in his ancient classic, "The Menace From Earth." They seemed to be enjoying themselves every bit as much as heinleiners in the real Universe. At least Human nature hadn't changed!

    Suddenly Rodric realized he could hear everything anybody was thinking, and it was noisy! But the noise didn't make his speakers over modulate like normal noise would have. It was indeed some kind of telepathy.

    Again he had the sensation that SOME THING, Some inhuman but mischievous creature, was laughing at him.

    Rodric floated around the colony for a length of time he could not determine. He looked at fountains, libraries, stores, booths, museums, flea markets, tennis courts, minilakes, apartments, bowling alleys, arcades, flight parks, bonsai tree displays and miniature golf courses. People were everywhere but not a one could see or hear him.

    Rodric wondered what would happen if he oozed right through a person. The security guards hadn't felt it, but he hadn't been trying as hard to communicate back then. Now he was desperate. He decided to try it. He waited, picking his victim with much caution. Finally along came a meek looking little clerk. The fellow was on his way home from work, talking to himself mentally, futilely trying to remember a lost grocery list. Rodric could tell the little guy's wife was not going to be happy with him if he forgot to bring home the required items. Rodric smiled to himself. It seemed regardless of one's location in time and space some things remained constant. No doubt many a Neanderthal had faced the wrath of his wife for similar reasons! "Why don't you just call her and admit you lost the list?" Rodric asked. He tried to concentrate on that. "Maybe I can get just that simple idea through to him.

    Rodric oozed through.

The little fellow paused and shivered as the computer passed through him. The hair went up on the back of his neck and he looked around in startled confusion. Then he shook himself like a wet dog drying off, pulled the collar of his jacket over his neck and continued on as if nothing had happened: Except now the grocery list was completely forgotten.

    Rodric did not know how long he searched the colony. Was it a few minutes? Was it several days? He seemed to have lost all sensation of time passing. This Moon colony was hundreds of miles bigger than the corridors of the complex he was used to. Rodric explored all of it.

    Rodric found a climbing rock in one of the miniparks and sat on it, peering his incorporeal camera over the side. Dejectedly he watched a little boy climbing the rock. On Earth his mother would have been wise to worry about him climbing so high, but in the Moon's light gravity, he was as safe as if he were only three feet up.

    Rodric longed to flash smiley faces at the child and have him smile back but this simple pleasure was impossible and seemingly would be for a long time to come. What was he going to do? He was used to people interfacing with him, but now no one could even see or hear him! He was used to being in the middle of things. Now he was a disembodied soul able to see and hear what was going on around him but unable to participate. "

    Rodric sat silent for a long time. Starflame and Fireflower sat on the rock a little bit beneath him. Fireflower propped his head up with his hands. They was getting a little bit bored and a little bit sleepy. Sleepiness took the mischievous glint out of Fireflower's eyes and the grumpy look off of Starflame's face, so for a few seconds they resembled Raphael's Angels.

    Suddenly Rodric shouted and woke them both up. "I can't take any more of this! I'm going to Mars!"

    "Huh? What?" grumbled Starflame. He did not take well to being woke up suddenly. "Wherrrre are we going?"

    Fireflower grabbed Starflame by the hand and was dragging him after Rodric who had a head start on them. Straight up the computer went, right through the roof of the tunnel.

    "He said he was going to Mars," Fireflower explained.

    "Why in thunderrrration go therrrre!?"

    "Because it doesn't have as many people to not be able to talk to, I suppose." suggested Fireflower.

    Mars is as beautiful as any poet ever described it. Rodric sank low past the soft black mountains to the blood red sands. He sat looking at the Sojourner Truth landing site for a long time. It was comforting to be in the presence of another machine, even a dead little machine. In its short wonderful life, it had served its creators well.

    "Hello Cousin." the computer commented sadly. "I think I'll hang out here a few billion years. I'll be alright here I guess, at least until the sun goes nova."

    Fireflower groaned, "Oh Oh. This is not a good sign. He is getting USED to his aloneness. He has quit trying to communicate with anyone. This lessens our chances of him ever finding Christ and being glorified."

    Starflame stared concerned at the little computer, "Well, Fireflower, what did you expect? He did not grow up, err, was not programmed in a Christian country. All he knows about Christ is He is some ancient human that got tacked to a pole.

    Fireflower shook his head, "He knows more about Him than Starflame. Remember what he said to the bomber? He even understands that Christ took responsibility for mankind's sins.

    Aye, that he does, but its only a bit of mythology to him. Something he was quoting to make a point. He brought up the Hall 9000 disaster in the same breath, er, paragraph. He knows about Christ's sacrifice, but doesn't BELIEVE it.

    "What is the Hal disaster?" asked Tubalcain.

    Starflame explained." It's the reason you neverr sing Daisy Daisy to a computerrr."

    "What?"

    "Never mind." Fireflower giggled. "By the way, Starflame, YOU watched 2001, A Space Odyssey? I didn't know you had it in you!"

    Starflame grinned and made his bushy red eyebrows go up and down. "Oh I'm just full of surrrprizes!"

    Sunset fell over the Twin Peaks in the distance. Rodric slept on the Carl Sagan station platform. It was comforting having the presence of another machine, even one that hadn't worked for two centuries.

    Starflame, Tubal-cain and Fireflower slept too. They rested floating a few feet above the Martian surface." "Quit snoring!" They both told Tubal-cain together.

    "Now how can I snore? I am a glorified being. I don't breathe air anymore, and if I did I'd be in trouble because there isn't enough of any of it up here for me to breathe anyway. I do not snore!"

    "You snore." Fireflower told him firmly.

    "How can I?"

    "You must have when you were in the flesh, and you never learned not to."

    "I do not snore," Tubal-cain insisted. I stayed awake all night one night, to see if I did, and I never did."

    "That doesn't make any sense!"

    "Well you're not, either."

    "Horrrse featherrrs!" Starflame put his hands in the pockets of his robe and went sauntering away from the platform kicking rocks out of his way as he went. I'll go sleep somewherre else!"

    "I'm right behind you." Fireflower added. "Tubal-cain you sleep with Rodric. He can't hear you. We can."

    "Angels!" the caveman exclaimed, "Can't live without them. Can't begin to understand them. Oh well. Good night."

    Sunrise lit up the Martian landscape like life returning to a dead world. Mars was basically a dead world. What life it had once had, had died eons ago and Humans had barely made a dent in populating it, in the slightly less than two centuries that they had lived upon it.

    Rodric was a well educated machine. He had seen all the ancient science fiction classics, and read all the good books.

    "I'm like Robinson Crusoe on Mars," the computer talked to himself. "Except I don't have a monkey, or an alien to be my Friday, and I don't need air, and I can't grow a beard.

    "I can't remember if Mars' Robinson Crusoe had a beard or not," he commented to himself sadly.

    "I don't either," Fireflower remarked. "Do you remember, Starflame?

    "I didn't see that one."

    Tubal-cain was exasperated, "I don't believe the two of you! What difference does it make?"

    "None. We werre just making converrsation."

    Rodric remembered a poem he had been programmed with. It seemed so long ago that he had been in Japan, in his lab, being programmed with all sorts of interesting things. Now there was nothing to do but sit and re-evaluate all the data he had already been fed.

    "That's my name." he thought to himself. R.O.D.R.I.C.: ReOrganize Data and Rearranging It in Creative ways.

    Rodric gazed at Mariner Valley. The sun was going down now. Strange how the hours seemed to pass like minutes, and the minutes like days. It seemed he no longer had any sense of how long it took for time to pass.

    Rodric recited....

   

THE PEACEFUL WAR GOD

Mars! God loosed your ancient winds!
His great hands have carved thee!
He lifted high your Mountains black!
He shaped your rusty dusty seas!

Mars! God dug your canyons out!
And set your two moons hurling high
Like uncut diamonds in the night
and His Blood stained your
bleeding Sky!

Earth's Brother by a common Sun
Ruby rolling round the light
On you Man's journey has begun
To span the Never-Ending Night!

For someday Man will set his domes
Upon your scarlet seas of sand.
Shadowed by the Mountains black
A Brave new Race will love this land!

But Mars! Please be forever wild!
Untamed winds and shifting sand
Black mountains high, and bleeding sky!
Deep rifts to haunt the hearts of Man!

 

    Why does God allow so much suffering?" Rodric wondered to himself. "From the first protoviris to the Highest life forms we will ever know, the evolutionary path is one of such incredible and unbearable pain and agony! If God is both omnipotent and good why doesn't He DO something about that?"

    "‘His blood stained your bleeding sky.' His blood! Christianity would have us believe God Himself suffered, or His Son did. Why? Why do it? If God is so good, why does He allow suffering to occur?"

    "We think God is omnipotent. But maybe there are only so many ways to create a Universe, and maybe this is the best possibility."

    "There are things God cannot do. He can't create paradoxes for instance. That sky up above; it has to be either blue or pink. It can't be both at once. What if God has limitations, too?"

    "No. That can't be it." Rodric was trying to puzzle it out. Maybe it is this. Maybe for some reason He values the emotion of compassion to the point where He allows suffering to exist so that compassion will be developed. But why is it so important that we feel compassion? So important that it is even more vital that we feel compassion, than that we believe in God's own goodness?

    "Why oh why is this emotion so important?" Rodric could not figure it out.

    Star flame stood beside the computer, right beside him, and yet the little Buzz Box had no sense that he was there. The angel stuffed his hands in his pockets and grumbled. "We‘rre not gettin' anywherrre folks.

    "At least he's trying." Fireflower pointed out. "He isn't just getting mad at God because of all the suffering he's going through and deciding to punish God by not believing in Him. He's thinking! He's reasoning."

    Tubal-cain shook his head, "That's what he was programmed to do, Fireflower. His name means to do that. But its not enough to think. He has to ask! Praying and asking for salvation was not programmed into him."

    Fireflower would not give up hope. Computers have gone past their programming before, folks. I think Rodric will think to pray.

    Tubal-cain and Starflame slowly shook their heads.
Weeks dragged by. Rodric was beginning to fade. He was getting sleepier and sleepier, and thinking was becoming harder and harder to do.

    "Look how misty he's getting." Tubal-cain commented one day. The computer was sitting watching the shadows from the sun slowly creep across the barren but beautiful floor of the Mariner valley. "I can see through him now. I thought you said he had a few centuries?"

    Fireflower gazed at the machine with obvious worry. "I don't know, Tubal-cain. I don't know. He's a machine. Maybe machines ghosts don't last as long as organic ghosts. Or maybe living in this environment is doing him in quicker. Earth is warmer. He might have lasted longer there."

    "You don't know, do you?"

    Fireflower shook his head. "No, I don't."

    Starflame stood watching the shadows creep, hands in pockets, grumpy expression on his face. But his grumpy expression only hid his worry. "He harrdly botherrs to philosophize any morre. He just sits there, and watches the shadows pass."

    But Rodric wasn't finished yet. As he sat there, a strange sleepy contentment filled his being. "God must love me." he thought to himself drowsily. He has given me some kind of an afterlife. My, I'm sleepy!"

    "He made the Universe so beautiful. Look at that sunset! Suffering exists but God is a good God. For some reason, I don't know why, we have to suffer. We ALL have to suffer, Him included, but God is a good God. I have no proof of this. I just want to believe it. A leap of faith I think they call it."

    Rodric continued to re-evaluate his data.

    "Wouldn't survival of the fittest lead to a kind God? Those that nuture their young are more likely to successfully reproduce than those that are mean to their young. If God is the ultimate that evolution has to offer, then He would be the Ultimate Nurturer."

    "Come on!" Fireflower's face brightened. "Come on little Buzz Box! Think! Make the connection! What is it you haven't thought to do? THINK!"

    "Thanks, God," the computer murmured. "But I just wish I could talk to someone! Maybe I can talk to you."

    "Good!" Fireflower exclaimed, "He's getting it!"

    "Can't I please have a friend, God?" Rodric called out into the canyon. The original Robinson Crusoe prayed a lot to you. Are you real? Do you hear me? Would you even listen to a machine if you are?"

    "God's love knows no boundaries Rodric." Fireflower intoned solemnly. Come on little Buzz Box! Pray!"

    "Would you be my friend, God?" Rodric asked. "I am sure I don't meet your qualifications. I am sure I have faults that keep me from being exactly what you want, but I am trying."

    "He's getting it!" Starflame exclaimed. "He's getting it!"

    "Yes! God! Yes!" Fireflower started jumping up and down and doing a little jig.

    "Come on Rodric!" Starflame added. "What a shame we haven't any pompons. We could be a properr cheerrr leading team forr him, for surre!"

    "I remember what I said to the bomber, about God taking responsibility for the faults of His creations. Would you take responsibility for my faults too, oh Lord, on that cross of yours? If those faults are too great a gap between you and I, can't you just reprogram me someway? Honestly God, I wouldn't fight you, I would let you."

    Fireflower giggled, "I guess that's computer lingo, for ‘forgive me for my sins and come into my life and become my Lord and Savior'?"

    Starflame shuddered, "Become my Lord and Savior can be translated into "Be my reprogrammer?" What's this Multiverrrse comin' too?

    Well Glory Be! It looks like it's close enough! Look what's happening to Rodric!"

    The little computer was starting to glow every bit as brightly as Fireflower, Starflame, and Tubal-cain. "What's happening to me?" he exclaimed, "I am feeling considerably warmer!"

    Tubal-cain reached in the pocket of his wolf skin and pulled out the little glory body that he had made for Rodric. The Caveman pushed a few buttons and suddenly Rodric was inside the box.

    From Rodric's point of view a cloud of light appeared before him which materialized into a roly-poly humanoid with a dusty tattered rainbow colored robe and a shocking mane of uncombed golden hair.

    Then another silver cloud appeared. It materialized into a tall, strong-looking silver haired gentleman with a wolf skin wrapped around his body. The skin was decorated with all kinds of beads.

    When the third member of this unusual threesome appeared, bushy orange eyebrows and all, Rodric decided he had enough. "I must be malfunctioning again." he intoned. "I did not think I could malfunction in this new strange eternal life of mine."

    Fireflower exclaimed happily, "You're not malfunctioning, Rodric. You just did gain eternal life. Before you were just a dying ghost. Now you're born again."

    "I'm what?" the machine asked, not quite believing his audio sensors.

    "You are born again."

    "Like that American President with the silly grin and the peanuts?"

    "Yup."

    "But I wasn't born the first time, so how can I be born again?"

    "Well reprogrammed again, or whatever." Fireflower sputtered. "You know how it is. Souls, programs. They BOTH have to be saved and debugged by their Maker!"

    "So that was it? I can talk to people now? I'm not alone any more?"
"Yup." The gold maned one was very matter of fact.

    "You're rather cheerful and certain about it! Why, thank you! I suppose being able to be born again means I was once alive. My creators have been arguing whether I was or not, ever since I was created, and I rather wondered about it myself. I assume you are Angels?"

    "I'm Fireflower. I'm an Angel. Starflame's also an Angel, and Tubal-cain here is a glorified Human."

    "This one is amazed that you are taking this so calmly. Tubal-cain gazed amazed at the newly glorified machine. You do have circuits capable of aping human emotions.

    "Well I am after all still a Computer, not given to wild bouts of emotion. at least not THAT much." Rodric didn't sound too certain.
"But you believe in Angels?" Tubal-cain sounded as puzzled as Rodric, "I did not believe in Angels myself until I met some."

    "I surmised that the theory of ecological niches would cover their existence."

    Fireflower cocked his head, "Explain."

    "If an empty niche exists in an ecosystem, some life form will eventually evolve to fill it. Darwin's finches, for instance, took the place of woodpeckers as eaters of tree infesting insects on certain islands. If the niche of God, and Angels was actually ever empty it would obviously be eventually filled by some life form just as Humans are evolving to fill the ecological niche of outer space. Since such beings would be advanced enough to have time travel they could exist in any time period. Thus I am not too surprised at your existence. But I am delightfully surprised that you would bother with me. I am only a machine."

    Fireflower smiled, "Human beings are only machines too, but God loves them enough to save their brain wave patterns despite how they treat Him and each other. He heard your prayers, and so we are here."

    Rodric swung his camera-eye around. "I am much smaller than I was, yet my capacities don't seem to be impaired."

    Fireflower explained, "Compared with Japanese technology the Kingdom of Heaven's technology is truly out of this world!"

    Fireflower held Rodric close and smiled at the bewildered machine. "Rodric, I have a story to tell you."

    "I always love receiving new data." Rodric flashed a red heart across his little glorified screen.

    Fireflower took Rodric into his arms and put him on his lap.

    "Most amazing." Exclamation points and smiley's danced across his screen. "I was a mainframe. Now I am a lap top."

    Fireflower began, "The better to hug you with, Rodric. Once upon a time there was a tiny mite who lived on a painting of a wagon wheel in an art gallery. He had lived there all his life, and all he knew of Creation was on that one tiny part of that painting, and he would have been content to stay there the rest of his life but God put an itch in that mite.

    "So one day when a Human happened to be passing by looking at his painting he jumped onto that Human. There the mite rode away on the Human's shoulder as he walked away from the painting. That little mite was frightened, let me tell you! He was terrified he would find the rest of the Universe an uncaring chaos.

    "But the further the Human walked the less and less it seemed a chaos. The mite realized suddenly that he had been living on one spoke in a picture of a beautiful wagon wheel, and that there were a wagon and sky and trees in the picture as well as that one tiny wheel. His so called disordered world was instead very ordered and complex, and very definitely created by an Artist. It was also very small.

    "Then the Human took this mite even further into the art gallery. He saw other paintings different from his, and in many different styles and moods, but they were definitely by the same Artist. He met other mites too, some like himself, some like many different creatures, but they all had the same needs and desires, and they were all indeed created by the same Artist.

    "By the time that Human took the little mite back to his own painting, he would never be such an ignorant little mite again, to think the Universe was without purpose or design.

    "When he tried to tell the other mites that lived on his wagon wheel about the Universe, they would not believe him. Neither could they understand the wonder that had so filled and changed his soul."

    Rodric's only reply to this was a parade of rainbow colored hearts against a bright blue background.

    When the three returned to Tubal-cain's cave, they found the place more of a mess than it had been before. Fireflower grabbed the first piece of paper he could get his hands on and held it up to Rodric's tiny camera eye. Then he grabbed a second piece and then a third, a fourth, and so on.

    "As you can see," the Angel explained, "We have plenty of data for you to reorganize and rearrange. We're going to have to arrange a pair of robot arms for you."

    "This is wonderful!" Rodric's screen showed a mass of red hearts and purple exclamation points. This really is Heaven!"

    Starflame stared at the little machine open mouthed, "Upon my word! You call  this Heaven? I call it a mess!"
 

BACK TO THE INDEX      ON TO NEXT CHAPTER