Chapter Two: THE THRONE

    Fireflower and Tubal-cain soared upwards until Tubal-cain's world was nothing but a blue dust speck. They soared past the sun that gave the world most of its heat and light and soared past all the outer planets. Then they headed outwards into purple vastness. Tubal-cain had no trouble keeping up with Fireflower. The Angel was going VERY slowly.

    "WHY?" The Cave Man wanted to know, "are we creeping along at just under the speed of light?"

    Fireflower explained, "God exists in all times and all continuums, but especially in the future. As you know there are three ways to get to the future. One is to wait. It'll get to you eventually. One other is dive through the singularity of a black hole, but I just don't feel like doing that right now. The third way is to use relativity."

    "What's relativity?"

    "It has two meanings Tubal-cain. One is what you get when you buy a beach house in Florida. The other is an interesting phenomenon first noticed by a Human named Einstein on Earth, Torus on Rigel and by who knows who everywhere else. If you go just under the speed of light time slows down for you, and from your point of view speeds up everywhere else."

    Tubal-cain shrugged, Oh. so THAT is what that's called. I've been doing that for ages."

    Fireflower nodded, "Yup. That's what old Einstein called it; relativity. He also stated that things couldn't go faster than the speed of light which is true if you are a material object, but as for a glorified being.... well no one is right all the time. Einstein also said that God doesn't play dice with the Universe. Well how can he? You can't gamble if you know EVERYTHING. His discoveries also led to the invention of the H bomb, but then what's a little fission between friends?"

    With Fireflower watching to make sure they didn't run into anything, Tubal-cain decided to travel backwards. As they loped along Tubal-cain watched his little solar system disappear amongst all the other stars in Snickers, and then watched Snickers get lost amongst all the other galaxies. The galaxies streaked by, red and then green dopplered by the relativistic speeds they were going. As they sped along, time did indeed seem to speed up everywhere else. Tubal-cain watched the implosion of the entire Universe. He was not happy.

    The Angel explained, "We call it the giB gnaB."

    Tubal-cain gave the Angel a dubious look.

    Fireflower shrugged, "Well you didn't think it was going to last forever, did you?"

    Now all around them was blackness. No light shone except the light they themselves were glowing with. Angels are luminous beings, and so are glorified Humans. The Cave Man gulped, "Ah Fireflower, don't you think we are maybe forgetting something? Like perhaps the entire Universe!!!"

    Fireflower grinned, "Another one'll be along any minute now."

    Sure enough there was; A sudden explosion of light in the endless darkness. The Cave Man began to realize what it must have meant to God, when He said, "Let there be light," and then there was light. Light is beautiful. Darkness made the Cave Man shiver. He remembered many a day sitting around a fire using the light of the fire to scare off wild beasts. He wondered if there were spectral tigers out there in the dark, being scared off from the Universe by its light. He was glad he had the Angel with him.

    Universe after Universe burst into light and then imploded again, and still they zoomed on. Suddenly there was a bigger light ahead of them, bigger than any that the Cave Man had ever seen before. Suddenly an explosion of thought-sound slammed into them. It was so loud it was hard to travel through. Tubal-cain put his hands to his glorified ears but it did little good.

    Fireflower smiled, "Catchy isn't it?" Beethoven, Bob Dylan and Slither of Rigel collaborated on it. "

    The Cave Man gave Fireflower a most vehement head shake, I HATE these new fangled instruments! "When I was alive we made sensible music on drums and rattles. We didn't use these ultramodern monstrosities like harps, and flutes and supersonic hypersynthesizers!"

    Fireflower giggled, "Well, fellow. Number one, you can't expect musicians to restrict themselves to the precious few instruments and collaborators they had available to them when they were only in their flesh life. And number two, His Big Book doesn't say it actually has to be music. It says, 'make a joyful NOISE unto the Lord."

    The Cave Man shuddered, "I hate it when people interpret the Bible so literally!"

    The Angel giggled.

    Soon they were close enough to make out more details. The Throne was surrounded by a multitude of beings, some Angels, some Humans, some Rigelians some Stomps, some Peeps and creatures from all over the Universe. The Throne was the most wonderfully awesomely loving place in all of Creation, for while the Lord of the Universes was everywhere and everywhen at once, He never left His Throne. It held terror only for fallen Angels and people uncovered by Christ's grace. Neither Fireflower nor Tubal-cain fit into these categories. To them the Most Awesomely Wonderful Presence was so strong here it was almost more beauty and wonder than they could bear. It was all Tubal-cain could do to keep from bursting into song.

    Fireflower didn't bother to fight the urge. He opened his mouth and sang with all the gusto of an Italian tenor. He stretched his arms wide and joined the chorus Angels, loud as he could in their wild Angelic melody. Unfortunately Fireflower did not have Tubal-cain's finely tuned ear. It sounded to the Cave Man like an Arabian Harem dance played backwards, combined with an unoiled wagon wheel played forwards.

    How was the Lord taking this? Tubal-cain finally dared look up.

    God was smiling at Fireflower! Tubal-cain's jaw dropped in amazement. Not only did their Creator respect Fire flower's less than elegant musical attempt. He was encouraging it. Among other things God had an enormous heart and strong eardrums!   

    He had to have! Fireflower was not the only original sin(g)er in the group. Suddenly the chorus Angels broke into a new song. It sounded very much like a cross between Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" and Handel's "The Messiah." The musical accompaniment for this chorus did indeed consist of quite a number of the traditional instruments but that wasn't all. There were several African looking instruments and a harpsichord, a thousand or so electric guitars and a huge electric light organ. There were several instruments that didn't even look (or sound), Earthling in origin.

    Tubal-cain shuddered "If Beethoven weren't up here he'd be whirling in his grave!"

    Fireflower giggled. "Beethoven helped Elvis and Big Crosby arrange the final version."

    "Who?"

    Fireflower gave him a dirty look, "Do you realize there are Humans that would kick you right out of Technoheaven for having to ask that question?

    The Cave Man protested, "It sounds like a hound dog in pain!"

    Fireflower shrugged, "What do you expect these composers to do? Spend their whole eternity playing reruns? They play the old pieces a lot but they also play new pieces. Every one of those music makers you like, that withstood the test of time, were first noticed because of their daring originality: their courage to try things new and different. Now they are all up here together. The have the whole Multiverse before them with every possible way of producing sounds that God has ever created. They can create with frequencies that flesh bound beings can't sense, and run music at speeds fast or slow, beyond what flesh bound beings can stand. Did you really expect them to limit themselves to the precious few instruments they have available in one time period on one small dust speck?"

    Tubal-cain folded his arms, "Yes." But he was grinning at his own stubbornness.

    "Well don't blame us Angels. We just held off the groupies while they worked."

    "You've got groupies up here!" Tubal-cain was very definitely turning green. "The very thought is worse than the music!"

    Fireflower shrugged, "It's one of the prices one pays for being so loved, but most superstars love their fans right back. Maybe that's how they got to be superstars in the first place."

    Tubal-cain shook his head, "I'm glad inventors don't attract such followings."

    Fireflower nodded at that, "That's the truth! You'd never get anything done!"

    When their turn came, God took all both of them into His arms, and somehow each one had the impression that each was the only one being hugged and listened to at the time.

    It was Tubal-cain's first time at the Throne, and he was a little shy but God smiled at Tubal-cain and his smile was like the glow of a quadrillion giant suns. He took Tubal-cain into His arms and hugged and hugged him close. His voice was as loud as a thunder clap and as quiet as a field mouse's nudge, both at the same time. God said, "I know why you are here."

    Tubal-cain said, "Of course, Lord."

    The Lord gave the Cave Man a quick hug and then said, "I am delighted to let you upload animals and edit the bits and pieces of dreams and desires from dedicated science fiction fans into a real starship crew. In fact I have a special assignment for them." God bent down and whispered something in Tubal-cain's ear.

    The Cave Man gasped

    "I know God, but wow! What an idea!"

The Most High nodded, "I have been thinking about it for a long time, a long time even for Me. Now go on and do what you were going to do. And oh yes, Sherman Homes fans have been begging me for Eons to do just what you are going to do with those science fiction characters of Fireflower’s. Don't forget them. Also there are other characters that it would be fun to have up here."

    Tubal-cain nodded.

    The Lord leaned back and stretched, "There is a suitable artificial intelligence program on Earth in the Twenty Twenties, in Japan. His name is R.O.D.R.I.C. That stands for Reorganizing Data and Rearranging It into Creative Combinations. He'll be just perfect for the soul-program editing you need to do. When you get him, tell him I'm putting a bumper sticker on my Throne."

    Fireflower giggled, "What's it going to say, God?"

    The Most High smiled, "Ask me about My grandchildren!"

......................................................

    As Fireflower and Tubal-cain rushed back to the Cave Man's virtual reality world Fireflower commented, "You know, Tubal-cain, there are going to be real problems with your idea. Let's suppose you create Sherman. For Sherman it won't be a very heavenly existence if Dr. Datson isn't there, but Datson is also going to want his wife Maria created, and she's going to want her friends and family created, and so forth and so on. To keep your creations happy you are going to have to create people even the fans haven't thought much about. How do you select tape somebody if you don't have enough thoughts and dreams to work with? And where is all this going to end? You have all eternity, an infinite number of eternities, but lets face it, this new interest of yours is going to keep you busy for a long loonnnnnng time."

    The Cave Man nodded. "I know. I wonder myself what all of this is going to lead to. I thought God had made enough worlds. Now I'm not so sure."

    Fireflower nodded, "I think He's going to have to get busy again reaaaal soon. Day Nine heeere we come!"

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