"They're mine as well, and most of them don't even make love anymore.

Soon none of them will. You've doomed them to stagnation. You've d.a.m.ned them with harmony and serenity."

"You don't have the right."

"Yes. I do. I'm the only one who does I had been the serpent, Loki, Coyote, that same genetic component embedded in all men and mischief makers who stepped out of line and lived by their own set of values, leaving a barren, blank-faced world behind, teaching them how to dance, to fight, to cause trouble and garner their own will.

"I opened their eyes. I opened your eyes."

"You tricked my wife."

"She's my wife, too, and I saved her."

What he lacked in verve he made up for in patience.

He'd become as drowned by his antiquity as any of the corpses that had bobbed beside me in the pipe.

"Have the offspring of Seth done so much better with the world? They've brought it to the edge of ruin."

"I know, they botched it, too, but at least they came by their triumphs honestly. They may have made the wrong choices, but at least they were genuine."

"Genuine? Using organ donors to prolong their lives and viral nano-infections that can alter their personal traits? Men who cut throats in the darkness?"

I thought about it. In the early days, in the garden, back when First Man and Monster Slayer strode the earth before the face of the Great Spirit, and Adam slumbered naked without knowing he was naked, things had been much simpler. He refused to remember that we existed in all men, and always would. I'd forever rise against him with whispers to his wife, my wife, because that was our fate, and the fate of the world.

"Don't you understand yet?" I said.

"You always invite me in."

I reached for the door of the black box hot zone.

It lacked the subtlety I'd been known for, but I didn't have much choice.

"Oh, G.o.d, what are you doing?" he said. He still called on G.o.d, even now as the purveyor of new races and deities, and I didn't know what to make of that.

"No. No, you're insane."

"Maybe."

"You'll destroy the world."

"Not all of it. Anybody who struggles hard enough to survive will live. They'll have the choice to fight or to die. That's what I'm supposed to do."

I gave him credit because he lunged for me then and tightened his hands around my throat. I respected him more in that moment than ever before in our endless lives. His hands were my hands, and it was like staring into my own furious eyes as we wrestled and spun across the floor in the cool room where the earth might be saved or doomed.

I called to her.

"Open it."

"No!" he shrieked, just as he had after they'd tasted the fruit.

She moved forward shakily, always so beautiful and unsure, but listening to me because she listened to her heart. She unlocked the door to the black box, and gripped the handle.

I gasped, "You know that it's the right choice to make."

"No, I'm not sure I do know that, Seth. I'm not certain of anything anymore."

"Don't!" he screamed at her, as he forever would though she never listened. He chewed his lips until they bled.

"I'll still be here," he hissed at me as we pressed nose to nose.

"Even if only a handful of people survive in a world of murdered children, I'll be inside one of them."

"So will I."

Her knuckles turned white, then blue, as she clutched the handle of the hot box. In the warm glow of the past and the burning, needy fate of the future that would befall us again, groping for what lay ahead and hoping it would be like that day in the garden before the Lord G.o.d tempted me too boldly, when I dripped the venom of love upon my wife, we could feel earth and heaven about to tilt in a new direction.

He tightened his hold on my throat, on his own throat.

Our lives and souls set in our duty, I wondered which of us would crawl on our bellies in the dust next time, and which would stand and whisper warm words of temptation to our beautiful love, and taste the sweetness of her sugar-smeared lips in the next unbearable Eden.

by Ron Goulart

The work of Ron Goulart has its roots in many genres. His science fiction has elements of mystery, his mysteries have elements of fantasy, and almost everything is infused with wit. Under numerous pseudonyms he has written dozens of novels, short stories, novelizations, and comic strips, including recent nonfiction in The Big Book of Noir.

THE dog started complaining even before he was completely unpacked.

"Quit goosing me with that crowbar," he requested in his piping voice as he spit out twists of plaz excelsior.

"You might as well stay in the crate. Tinker," suggested Jack Bowers, setting the crowbar down on his lucite desk next to the packing container.

"You're obviously far from repaired."

"And you. Jack, are still a dim bulb said Tinker/ 236-HMX, poking his chrome-plated nose over the edge of the partially opened neo wood crate.

"My quick wits and gift for sparkling repartee are innate qualities of this particular model of Forensic Computerbot/Compact Police hound Format."

"Sparkling repartee is one thing. Tinker, and wisea.s.s insults are something else again."

"Suppose we get down to business." suggested the robot dog.

"I was languishing in the Stemwinder Electronics International Repair Shop in the benighted Pasadena Sector of Greater Los Angeles for nigh on to a full trapping week. If I know you, the detective agency is on the brink of being in the toilet by now."

"Actually, Jack Bowers, Hollywood Detectives, Inc.

has been thriving while you were getting overhauled."

"Hooey," said Tinker.

"If you go more than another couple of days without me on the staff, you'll have to sign up for the SoCal Dole." Giving an impatient snarl, the chrome-plated little got lifted his silvery right forepaw.

A thin beam of purplish light emanated from the paw. When it touched the neo wood slats, they swiftly disintegrated into sooty powder.

"I told them to deactivate that disintegrator of yours."

Tinker hopped free of the confines of the packing crate, booted it with a glittering hind foot, and sent it sliding free off the desktop and onto the paisley thermocarpet, along with Jack's electro pen and three fax memos

"Sounder minds prevailed."

"When I pay $7,400 for a complete tune-up and overhaul, I expect those half wits at SEI to follow the instructions that--" "Being a shade wiser than you, kiddo, they had the good sense to consult me before performing any sacriligious acts upon my person." The dog hopped off the desk and landed in Jack's chair.

"What sort of caseload has been piling up in my absence?"