Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny Page B

inquire in the Hall of Karma after your body."
    "And if I elect godhood?"
    "Your brains will not be probed. The Masters will be advised to serve you quickly and well. A flying machine will be dispatched to convey you to Heaven."
    "It bears a bit of thinking," said Sam. "I'm quite fond of
this
world, though it wallows in an age of darkness. On the other hand, such fondness will not serve me to enjoy the things I desire, if it is decreed that I die the real death or take on the form of an ape and wander about the jungles. But I am not overly fond of artificial perfection either, such as existed in Heaven when last I visited there. Bide with me a moment while I meditate."
    "I consider such indecision presumptuous," said Brahma, "when one has just been made such an offer."
    "I know, and perhaps I should also, were our positions reversed. But if I were God and you were me, I do believe I would extend a moment's merciful silence while a man makes a major decision regarding his life."
    "Sam, you are an impossible haggler! Who else would keep me waiting while his immortality hangs in the balance? Surely you do not seek to bargain with
me
?"
    "Well, I do come from a long line of slizzard traders—and I do very badly want something."
    "And what may that be?"
    "Answers to a few questions which have plagued me for a while now."
    "These being . . . ?"
    "As you are aware, I stopped attending the old Council meetings over a century ago, for they had become lengthy sessions calculated to postpone decision-making, and were primarily an excuse for a Festival of the First. Now, I have nothing against festivals. In fact, for a century and a half I went to them only to drink good Earth booze once more. But, I felt that we should be doing something about the passengers, as well as the offspring of our many bodies, rather than letting them wander a vicious world, reverting to savagery. I felt that we of the crew should be assisting them, granting them the benefits of the technology we had preserved, rather than building ourselves an impregnable paradise and treating the world as a combination game preserve and whorehouse. So, I have wondered long why this thing was not done. It would seem a fair and equitable way to run a world."
    "I take it from this that you are an Accelerationist?"
    "No," said Sam, "simply an inquirer. I am curious, that's all, as to the reasons."
    "Then, to answer your questions," said Brahma, "it is because they are not ready for it. Had we acted immediately—yes, this thing could have been done. But we were indifferent at first. Then, when the question arose, we were divided. Too much time passed. They are not ready, and will not be for many centuries. If they were to be exposed to an advanced technology at this point, the wars which would ensue would result in the destruction of the beginnings they have already made. They have come far. They have begun a civilization after the manner of their fathers of old. But they are still children, and like children would they play with our gifts and be burnt by them. They are our children, by our long-dead First bodies, and second, and third and many after—and so, ours is the parents' responsibility toward them. We must not permit them to be accelerated into an industrial revolution and so destroy the first stable society on this planet. Our parental functions can best be performed by guiding them as we do, through the Temples. Gods and goddesses are basically parent figures, so what could be truer and more just than that we assume these roles and play them thoroughly?"
    "Why then do you destroy their own infant technology? The printing press has been rediscovered on three occasions that I can remember, and suppressed each time."
    "This was done for the same reason—they were not yet ready for it. And it was not truly discovered, but rather it was remembered. It was a thing out of legend which someone set about duplicating. If a thing is to come, it must come as a result of factors