A Different Deal

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And he went through a lot of species until he came to Man. And he decided to take Man into his confidence. A little.

"I get a kick out of thinking up ways to wipe out species," said God. "My favorite was how I did for all those big, creepy lizard things. Hit 'em with a great, big space rock, I did."

"Why are you telling me this?" asked Man.

"Well, it gets a bit lonely up here," admitted God. "It's fun jerking species around, but I miss having someone smart enough to tell it to."

"Oh, well, that's good," said Man. "If you need us to confide in, you're probably not going to be hitting us with any big space rocks, then, huh?"

God was silent for an uncomfortable interval. "Now, I wouldn't exactly say I'm not going to hit you with any space rocks. More like, I will hit you with something, but probably not a big space rock, since I've already done that."

"But, but, but, ..." stuttered Man, "that would be a dismal thing to do, don't you think? To the only species intelligent enough for you to talk to and all."

"Well, I wouldn't call you that intelligent," said God.

"But you're the one who brought up the intelligence," said Man, a might reproachfully. "Listen, it's really cruel to dance the Space Rock Tango on us, or anything else that yields the same results. We may not be as smart as you, and I say this because it never hurts to butter up the powerful a bit, but we're intelligent enough to know what's happening, and maybe even do something to stop it. But if you spring a great, big catastrophe on us, all at once, we won't have enough time to react."

God thought about that for a moment, then said, "I like you, ... Adam, is it? I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'll make it into a sort of game. I won't just hammer you out of the blue, as it were. I'm getting some good ideas for what I want to do with you guys, but I'm going to go the gradual route. There will be clues all along the way, and your species will be able to survive, if you spot them and make the right decisions. There will be plenty of clues and plenty of chances. That should be a fair test for an intelligent species, don't you think? But I have to warn you: If you blow it, the end won't be any better than the space rock. What do you say?"

"You're on!" said Man. "There's no way we can screw this up!"