“Yes, Uncle Kronos.” Taisu said, putting away his restlessness.
Taisu’s uncle was putting the final touches to his world-palm. A touch of sodium, a pile of iron filings, four or five drops of water, of course, and plenty of energy. The ingredients were lumped together in a tiny pile at the center of his palm, a haphazard arrangement for a quick test world.
“Watch carefully, nephew,” the old man said. “You will try after me.”
Kronos brought his other hand down on the palm of materials with a resounding slap; the harder the better. Some of the stuff mixed into sludge and squeezed out from his uncle’s fingers, but Taisu hardly noticed the wasted matter.
Both uncle and nephew were engrossed with the gooey mixture sandwiched between gnarled fingers. Taisu could almost feel the waves, but, since it was his uncle’s world and not his, they were only faint stirrings, reverberations that managed to carry across the galaxies. Taisu knew that when he tried his own palm-world the feelings would much more intense.
Before Taisu could even begin thinking about what he would put into his world, Uncle Kronos released the world to oblivion and washed his hands of the muck. His face had a dazed look, the same expression every palm-world traveler has after a trip, as he prepared the ingredients for Taisu.
“Most important is the solid matter base,” Uncle Kronos told him as he arranged the ceramic bowls of powder, paste and liquid. “Water, air and energy is alright, but not too much or you’ll kill your world.”
Taisu’s hands shook as he took a liberal pinch of iron filings. He mixed in the water, added minor ingredients and dropped an energy-cube atop the pile. Slowly he held his hand out at chest-level.
“Carefully, now,” Uncle Kronos warned. “Do not go deep.”
Taisu nodded, squeezed his eyes shut, and then brought his hands together.
They connected with a wave of energy exploding into him. Taisu felt as though his veins had been replaced with live electrical wires, as though someone had set afire his body. But, despite the pain, Taisu could see…no, feel the power.
It was faint at first, the awareness, but it grew with the world. As the ingredients mixed and swirled together, Taisu felt the hydrogen in the water gather together. They formed little centers of energy, reacting upon themselves. Miniscule shards of iron and portions of sodium began orbiting these hydrogen-clusters, each piece growing larger as it collided with other pieces.
The energy had yet to expand in his hand, but already the cube had melted into plasma and was warming his hands. Had he wanted to, Taisu could have released the world without a side-affect, but he held on resolutely.
A second wave of energy raced through the pile –no longer a pile– and the clusters began forming themselves into arms, spiraling out and waving.
By the time the third wave came, Taisu was beside himself with ecstasy; he might be able to complete the last stage. The third wave, the strongest one yet, carried plasma to the arms like little messengers.
The energy reacted to the moisture attached to the iron shards, creating the one thing Taisu had been feeling for: life.
It was only a few million one-cell bodies made of primitive plasmic materials. And it didn’t last long either, a few hundredths of a second in realtime (down in the palm-world’s own time and space the one-cells probably lasted a few weeks).
“Enough,” Uncle Kronos broke Taisu trance. “Release it.”
Regretting it sorely, Taisu opened his hands to the elements and watched as the awareness, the beauty of detail –all of it– washed away from his soul. He scrutinized his palms carefully, but the spiral galaxy he’d created was not to be seen.
“Do not think your entire pile was converted, Taisu,” uncle Kronos explained. “What you felt was only one tiny galaxy revolving around a single molecule of your matter. All the rest of the pile was wasted.”
“Is there no way to create a world in which the entire pile is used?” Taisu asked, washing his hands in the water-basin.
“Easily,” his uncle snorted. “Lay your ingredients carefully on a perfectly flat surface. Ration them and spread them evenly. Use massive amounts of energy. In short, do what those in the cities have done, created palm-worlds without palms.”
Taisu nodded obediently; his uncle, like all country men, shared a deep hatred for the ‘false’ worlds created like so many faceless commercial products.
“You will be rewarded with a world so perfect, so detailed and so massive that it would take a lifetime to wander through it…but no one can, because there is no link between maker and material. The clap is the only way to create such a link Taisu, remember that.”
Taisu nodded, for the umpteenth time now, and stood to leave.
“Return for lessons tomorrow,” his uncle called after him as he ran to find his friends. “I will show you crystal interference principle…”
*
Taisu studied for many weeks with his uncle, sometimes making worlds, sometimes studying the works of old masters. A few of the best worlds had been so stable that after they were released, they continued existing, spinning like miniature tops in midair. They were mostly worlds without life, since with advanced life (and all life evolved to advanced life if given enough time) came space travel, and with it disaster for the stars of the system.
After the longs hours of scrutinizing ingredients and mixing powders, uncle Kronos now believed Taisu was qualified enough to create worlds on his own. Taisu enjoyed the privilege greatly, but not so much the work that came with it; grinding down materials until they were fine enough to be used, distilling water, capturing energy in the plasma-cubes….the list went on.
One principle that Uncle Kronos taught everyday was the subject of timing.
“Never hold a world until it spins out of control,” Uncle Kronos said. “Disasters can and will happen to those who let their worlds go too late. Always release your world at the first sign of a supernova.”
Taisu had listened to him then, but, filled with dreams of a perfect, stable world like those of the masters, he was determined to let his world ‘bake’ for as long as possible.
Iron, plenty of iron, and hydrogen as well. The water was perfect, and Taisu had spent hours grinding down the magnesium pills. Sodium there was, and phosphorus too, but the most important ingredient of all, the energy-cube, was a masterpiece.
Taisu had spent hours collecting energy for the cube, making sure that not one ray of impure photonic waves got in. The pyramid-shaped casing was pure plasmesh, reinforced at the apexes with a few drops of liquid barium.
One day, when his uncle was busy enough to skip a lesson, Taisu took his chance. He mixed the powders, brought together a spiral pattern of dust, and dropped water over it freely.
It was the moment of truth, this final moment before the clap, but Taisu had no sentimental quavering about it. Without delay, he slapped his palms and held them tight, bracing himself for the first wave.
It came like a shock to Taisu, similar to his first experience of a supernova, but purer in a way. The hydrogen gathered as it had with his first palm-world, bringing elements to it like filings drawn by a magnet.
The second wave came hard and fast, and the spiral Taisu had made began rolling. The boy wasn’t couldn’t tell, but he was sure that very little of the original material was wasted.
The third wave, worse then the other two combined, forced pre-existing lumps of dust into a state of consciousness, far higher up the intelligence scale than Taisu had ever seen his creations. The shapeless blobs soon evolved, shifted their forms and multiplied. The major center of production was on a tiny iron-and-moisture speck, revolving slowly around a hydrogen giant. Other specks orbited the same giant, but none of them had any life as far as Taisu was aware.
As time passed (both in the palm-world and in realtime) the world became more and more developed, more complicated, more detailed. Taisu could feel the wonder rolling off the spiral arms more than anything else.
And then, the specks gained the ultimate intelligence. They began questioning life, trying to understand the why and who of their world. Taisu could only smile at some of their proposed theories, but he had to admit that their ideas of a massive being in the sky were pretty close to the actual truth.
Suddenly, faster than Taisu could see, the specks discovered space travel, colonized, killed or joined with their brothers and became the single species governing the world, his world.
Somewhere in the center of the galaxy a supernova erupted, but Taisu was too interested to notice. The heat grew, but there were wars, alliances and ideas swirling over the fray, the cacophony of details too loud to understand, but, taken as a whole, acted like a pointillism painting.
Without warning, searing heat bit into Taisu’s palms. Supernovas ripped through the center, the eruptions spreading through the arms as the stars got old and died. Still though, the specks were trying to devise ways to save themselves, and their attempts to secure their eternity were both futile and amusing, Taisu stayed to watch.
Suddenly, a solution was found, and the specks left their galaxy, elsewhere, in the other galaxies, the same thing was happening. The specks turned their ships towards the highest of dreams: to leave the galaxies behind, to operate in the realm of the supernatural.
Taisu released the world, but the unbelievable happened when his awareness left the palm-world. The mixture floated before Taisu, a stable and revolving world. The link was still strong, so Taisu was painfully aware of the fact that tiny ships were shooting out of the galaxy he’d created.
“Help!” Taisu cried, running for help. “Somebody help me!”
He’d heard the horror stories of black holes, unstable nuclear explosions and other scuttlebutt surrounding the art of palm-worlds. Still, despite the fact that it was dangerous, Taisu turned to look back before leaving completely.
The once palm-sized world had grown to nearly a foot across, trillions of light-years in the palm-world’s space measurement. At the center, a bulge of impossible blackness opened up, yawning wide and sucking in stars, planets, dust and asteroids. Twin pillars of light shot out from the bulge, singing the air until it shimmered.
Taisu had a split-second of consciousness before the world, his creation, sucked him into nothing.
Spoiler! :
. The story was based on an idea I’ve tossed around for quite a while now.
I'll be as harsh as I can!
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