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Forever Underfoot
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Larry
Hodges
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At the loud thump, Gavv and Zax poked their wizened heads out of their hole. A rolling beer bottle just missed hitting the two tiny humanoids. Teenage laughter disappeared into the distance as an empty pizza box and more beer bottles rolled onto the side of the highway.
"Look what they have done to this place!" Zax fumed, turning violet. "Just a few hundred years ago there was nothing but trees and peace and quiet. Now it's roads and cars, pollution and noise!" He shook his wrinkled head, floppy ears flapping about.
"And you thought we'd leave this all behind when we left the old world," Gavv said, calmly staying blue. He was even more wrinkled than Zax, with even bigger ears and a longer nose. They wore matching outfits--today was "green" day. Gavv looked forward to tomorrow, which was "stripes" day.
"I can't take this anymore," Zax exclaimed. "We have to find another place. I can't concentrate with all this. We don't want to mess up the universe again."
Gavv shuddered, remembering the last time he'd fixed the settings on the gravitovitor. The variables have to be set precisely, or there's havoc throughout the universe. Last time he'd been careless and everything's mass had tripled for an hour.
He'd had to change the time flow on the chronovitor, move back in time, reset the gravitovitor, and start time all over again. The havoc he'd caused--death and destruction on a galactic scale – had no longer ever happened, but it left a scar on him that never went away.
"We just moved here three hundred years ago. I don't want to pack up and move again," Gavv said. "It's such a hassle." Another car zoomed by, leaving behind a cloud of smoke. Zax shook his fist at it. Gasping and coughing, the two grangs disappeared back into their hole.
It was time to adjust the settings and it was Gavv's turn. One by one he went over the instruments carefully, as he'd and Zax had been doing for 15 billion years. Someone had to keep the wheels of the universe turning, and the Master had taught them well. They were conscientious about their work. He adjusted the entropitor, the chronovitor, the photonovitor, and others. When he had entropy, time, light and most of the other instruments working smoothly, he worked on the force instruments, adjusting the electro-magnetic force, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. He saved gravity for last.
The gravitovitor was always the tricky one. With great care he typed in the proper queries, pushed the proper buttons, turned the proper dials, and calculated the proper settings. Then he input the settings-
CRASH!
Startled at the unexpected noise from outside, Gavv hit the wrong button and once again it was havoc throughout the universe as gravity disappeared. Gavv shot toward the ceiling as his face turned violet. Not again! He felt sick.
The two grangs, floating in their hole, worked to fix things. Over the next hour there was no gravity to hold things down on large objects like planets. Everything either floated away, or if the large object was rotating, shot out into space at the speed of the rotation. Out shot people and cows, spiders and slugs, rocks and oceans, lawyers and doctors. Worse, suns no longer had gravity to hold themselves together, so they exploded outwards.
All this ... his fault....
Outside their hole, the two men who had crashed their cars into each other, causing the loud CRASH, had gotten out of their cars. Each wanted to tell the other what he thought of the other's ancestry. When gravity stopped, both shot upward at an angle as Earth's rotation shot them outward. Also shooting up were their cars and much of the surrounding area. A green SUV approached them at a great velocity, zooming through the air. The SUV smacked into the two men, killing them, and disappeared into the sky.
The grangs finally fixed the gravitovitor's settings. They ran time backward with the chronovitor to the moment when things had gone wrong. None of the disasters ever took place as time replayed.
From outside came the sounds of the two men standing by the grang's hole, shouting what each thought of the other's ancestry. A green SUV drove by. The sun shone dully through a smattering of smog. Things were back to normal.
"That's it!" exclaimed Zax, his body now well into the ultraviolet with rage. "We're moving."
Gavv, still subdued, had to agree that it was time to find a quieter, more relaxing place. The universe depended on them and he'd let it down again. What would the Master think?
Moving was a big job. Their hole was full of knick-knacks they'd accumulated over the past few billions years, in addition to the instruments used to keep the universe running. Gavv gathered the instruments together while Zax threw their personal things into boxes and bags. They'd get everything out of the hole and load everything into the transporter. They worked all night, moving things out of the hole one by one, and by morning they were almost ready to go. All the instruments, boxes and bags were scattered about the hole's entrance.
#
Officer O'Brien slammed on the brakes and the police car skidded to a stop.
"What'd you do that for?" asked his new partner, Officer Smith. "I almost went through the windshield!" He belatedly put on his seatbelt, something he'd remember to do the next time he was in a car with O'Brien.
O'Brien pulled the car off to the side of the road. "Look at this!" he said, pointing out the window. There was a pizza box and several beer bottles on the side of the road. "What have they done to this place! I remember when New Jersey was clean!"
The two got out of the car and approached the trash, the short, fat Smith waddling with short steps while the tall O'Brien took long strides. Smith looked the trash over. "It appears to be Pizza Hut and Budweiser," he said. "Are you going to write this up?"
O'Brien was doing just that.
"I was joking!" Smith exclaimed. "It's just trash!"
"And it's people like you who let things go that allow it to happen! Well, no more. We're going to show them there are good policemen ready to fight back!" After writing down the particulars of the case, he pulled on a pair of white gloves and began carefully putting the trash into plastic bags.
"What are you doing?" Smith asked.
"Evidence. There might be fingerprints. We might be able to match them to someone on record."
Smith watched, aghast at his new partner. He decided that he'd apply for a new partner the next day. He didn't want to be stuck with this fanatic forever.
A glint of color on the ground caught Smith's eye. Glancing over, he saw a group of tiny, colorful objects scattered about a small hole in the ground. He moved to get closer, but was cut off by O'Brien.
"More trash?" O'Brien said, stepping toward the colorful objects. "I hate trash!" As his size 13 boot came down next to the hole, there was a tiny squeak as he said, "I can't believe-"
O'Brien, Smith and everything else froze.
#
The squeak was from Zax, now partly under Officer O'Brien's boot. Also under the foot were many of their instruments, hidden from view. The instruments were indestructible, but when the foot came down, it hit the off button on top of the chronovitor, turning off time. Only the grangs weren't affected by this; the Master had made them invulnerable to these things.
"My leg!" Zax screamed. "I can't get it out--and it feels like it's on fire!" He lay on his back, with the huge foot covering his legs from the knees down. Three of him laid end to end might have matched the length of the boot.
"Let me help," Gavv said. He grabbed Zax's arms and pulled.
"Stop it!" Zax screamed, louder than before. His face was well into the ultraviolet. But with a heave, Gavv pulled him out.
"My legs are crushed," lamented Zax. "I'll need a few minutes." Five minutes later, Zax stood up, legs healed.
The two looked up at the two towering but frozen humans and grimaced. "Savages!" Zax exclaimed.
The practical Gavv was already looking at the foot. "We'll have to dig out the chronovitor," he said. Grangs were good diggers and it didn't take them long to reach the device.
Gavv said, "I'll reverse the time flow direction and move time backward just enough so he'll lift his foot. Then we can move all the instruments out." A moment later, the foot lifted upward and stopped as Gavv stopped time again.
He flipped the time flow direction back to normal--forward--but left time turned off. The two began carrying out the instruments.
But they still had to stoop to get under the foot. Zax decided to raise it slightly. He thought time was still reversed, so all he had to do was turn time on for a second and the foot would lift upward. He reached for the chronovitor controls.
Seeing this, Gavv yelled, "NO!" and dived after his fellow grang before disaster struck. With time moving forward again, the giant foot came crashing down.
The two grangs were nearly immortal, or they wouldn't have survived 15 billion years. Due to the Master and some of the devices he'd left them, they didn't need to eat or drink, getting sustenance directly from air and sunlight. They weren't susceptible to disease and healed in minutes from almost anything. They were cautious in their activities, avoiding any type of danger. They were almost indestructible. Almost.
Zax was crushed to death instantly. Gavv was knocked on his back and pinned from the chest down, with just his head and shoulders sticking out.
As the foot hit the chronovitor, it once again hit the off button on top. Time stopped and the foot froze. A split second longer and Gavv too would have been crushed.
Gavv's legs were smashed. His torso was squeezed tightly, but a slight indent in the ground had saved him. The pain was more than he'd ever experienced. He went into shock.
He slowly recovered, the pain still severe, but gradually numbing. He realized what had happened to poor Zax and could barely control his grief. Zax had been the only friend he'd ever had.
He tried pulling himself out, but he was firmly entrenched under the giant foot. He struggled for days, then weeks and months (from his point of view, since elsewhere time did not pass), but to no avail.
Time had stopped and wouldn't start again unless he reached the chronovitor and started time again. But he couldn't.
#
The pain in his legs and the pain at losing his friend went away slowly. Years went by as Gavv lay on the ground. It was a boring existence, lying on your back with a large foot crushing your legs.
Centuries went by. Tens of centuries. A million years.
A fly was flying about when time stopped and was frozen in midair a few feet from Gavv. He spent long hours staring at it, even talking to it.
When it started talking back, he knew he was going crazy.
He imagined himself back with Zax, arguing about things, making fun of humans, wondering when the Master would return. He replayed games they'd played, the way they constantly redecorated their cluttered hole, and the now somewhat funny times when they'd mess up the universe, and how they'd always fix things so the problems had never happened.
Billions of years went by. Zero time went by.
The hallucinations became rather tiresome, and during a somewhat lucid period he began to think about things. With nothing else to do, it became his only pastime and he became better and better at it. This went on for millions of years, then billions. He contemplated the universe and was able to deduce most of its laws.
After he had learned all that could be learned, he became bored. What more is there to do? he wondered. He brooded on it for another billion years, then found an answer.
All that thinking had expanded his mind. He found that if he focused on specific parts of the universe, he could move his mind there and explore that region directly.
He took a tour of the universe with his mind.
But since time had stopped, everywhere he went, all was still. Gavv grew depressed. It was all his fault.
He searched the universe for anything, anything, that might be interesting. He was interested in everything and found nothing of interest.
He sent his mind to the very limits of the universe and detected movement. Impossible! But sure enough, at this distance, time was alive and well. He deduced that the chronovitor was not instantaneous, that it took time for its effects to move through the universe. Although it had been billions of years since time had stopped on Earth, the effects hadn't reached here yet. But it was coming, and he deduced it would be here in just a few million years. Then time really would stand still everywhere.
Something caught his attention. Near the edge of the universe he detected a sun with a number of planets. One of the planets was very Earthlike, and he detected radio waves coming from it, a sure sign of civilization. He moved in closer to study it.
Gavv surveyed the people rapidly--and realized they were grangs! During his billions of years on Earth, he'd known only Zax to be like him. As he explored the people, dim memories came back to him, memories that had long ago faded but his expanded mind now recalled. It had been 30 billion years since the foot had trapped him, 45 billion years since he had been born.
Then two of the grangs caught his attention. If he'd still been in his body, he'd have gone violet in surprise and shock. Two young grangs were playing in a field. He zoomed in, and watched in wonder.
"I got it!" a very young looking Zax said, racing to catch a ball that a very young looking Gavv had thrown. At the last second, Zax dived, got his hand on the ball, but dropped it. The Gavv on the ground giggled. Zax chased after the ball and threw it back. Gavv raced after it, grabbed it, dropped it, and giggled. The disembodied Gavv couldn't help but giggle at the antics of his younger self, and be pleased at the sight of Zax, once again alive. The two wore matching outfits (stripes), the beginning of a 15 billion year habit.
From deep in his mind, he remembered the scene, but from the point of view of Gavv Junior, as he now thought of his younger self. He knew what he had to do.
He spoke directly to their minds, as he remembered the Master doing so long ago. "Do not be afraid," he thought. "I won't hurt you."
Gavv Junior dropped the ball and his jaw, as he and Zax froze, their faces turning violet. "Who--or what--are you?" Gavv Junior asked.
"I am a friend," Gavv said, remembering.
"Where are you? What are you?" Gavv asked.
"You can't see me, but I'm here ... all around you. And I have a task for you and Zax."
The two were somewhat hesitant at first, but as he knew from his own memory that they would, they began to trust him as their faces turned blue with calm. Soon he had the two hard at work, gathering materials and tools, and then putting it together in the way he directed. After a few weeks, they had a working transporter and a time shield, the latter to protect them from the time stoppage in the rest of the universe.
Gavv Junior and Zax Junior transported to Earth. He followed them with his mind. Soon the three surveyed the scene he'd left behind.
The two giant humans still stood over their hole, frozen, with Zax Senior crushed under the boot. Gavv Senior's body was still pinned down, unmoving since his mind had left. At some point Gavv's body, not stopped in time like its surroundings, had finally died.
Gavv had the two dig out the bodies and the chronovitor. Neither Gavv or Zax Junior recognized their elder selves, to Gavv's relief. Gavv and Zax had gotten their share of wrinkles over 15 billion years, and their noses and ears had grown longer, making them unrecognizable. Besides, neither of the young grangs had ever seen death before, and nervously hadn't looked too closely.
They gave the elder Gavv and Zax a proper burial. Gavv was surprised at how sad this funeral made him feel.
All the instruments, boxes and bags were still scattered about. They moved everything back into the hole, then restarted the chronovitor.
#
"-these idiots!" O'Brien finished smoothly 30 billion years later. "They just leave trash everywhere. Well, I'm going to hunt them down, one by one, until New Jersey is clean! Someone has to put their foot down!"
He got down on his hands and knees to look at the colorful objects. But they had disappeared. He crawled about, searching through the grass, but couldn't find anything. He peered into the hole in the ground, but it was too dark to see anything, although he thought he saw a faint light coming out of it, even the sound of faint laughter. Irritated, he grabbed the plastic bag with the pizza box and beer cans and returned to the police car. He'd have those fingerprints checked, and if he found a match ... by golly, he'd get them....
Officer Smith rolled his eyes. He wanted a new partner; he'd been with this guy long enough.
#
Gavv taught the two young grangs about each of the instruments used to run the universe. He taught them how they were made, how they worked and how to run them. He taught them how to run the devices that made them nearly immortal and able to live off of air and occasional sunlight.
Gavv Senior stayed with them until he was confident in their abilities. But he also knew that someone had to run the universe from its beginning--and that had to be he and Zax, just as before.
They built shielded life support systems, just as they had done so many billions of years ago. Then, along with their instruments, they transported to the beginning of time, 45 billion years ago.
Watching from outside of time in the life support systems, they saw the universe as it began--and with their instruments, they regulated it until it was able to run mostly on its own, with occasional fine tuning.
They settled on a planet circling a sun that wouldn't go nova for 10 billion years. He instructed them on when they'd have to leave this planet and where they'd go at that time--back to Earth.
He told them that in 15 billion years they would need to avoid the clumsy human that would later cause so much trouble. They could change time and break out of this time loop.
He also knew what he had to do next and told them.
"But why must you leave, Master?" asked Gavv Junior.
"The job you have before you is your job, and yours alone," Gavv Senior said. That was what the Master had said to them so many billions of years ago. He was now the Master--or was he just acting the part, mimicking what he remembered from Gavv Junior's point of view, so long ago. Was he the Master or a mannequin? He wasn't sure.
The clock was ticking, he was no longer needed here, and he had other universes to explore. He left.
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