From: elf@halcyon.com (Elf Sternberg)
Newsgroups: alt.sex,alt.sex.stories,alt.sex.furry
Subject: Journal Entry 999 / 9999  [ The Last Journal Entry ]
Date: 18 Jul 1996 14:50:10 GMT
Organization: Pendor, UnLtd.
Lines: 637
Message-ID: <4sliv2$pdc@news1.halcyon.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: coho.halcyon.com

<i>At the heat death of the Universe</i>

    She sighed, slowly passing a single finger over the control 
plate and dropping the shutters, closing out the dark moonscape of 
Pindam, closing out the universe.  She felt it nearly impossible to 
accept all that she had learned that day, and she knew somehow that 
Ken had meant it that way, that it was supposed to be nearly 
impossible.

    And he wasn't here to ask, anymore.  As the shutters closed so 
too she closed out Ken, who hadn't been able to accept the last 
dying sight of Pin and had followed Pin into that oblivion.  And so 
she had buried him that morning.  Burial.  The word made her 
grimace, even though nobody was there to see it.  It seemed so 
archaic, the concept of burial.  And she would have preferred a 
burial at sea, but there were no more seas.

    "Dave?" she asked for the tenth time that day, no longer 
frustrated when he failed to answer her.  She had gone down to 
Cybernetics One and checked the diagnostics; everything was running 
to specifications, but Dave just wasn't talking to her.  Someone, 
though, was watching out for her-- life support was still running 
and doors were still opening.

    "Oenone?"

    The voice stunned her, but only for less than a single firing 
of what passed in her anatomy for neurons; she whirled, mentally 
commanding every weapon she could remember extant in the Command 
Center to bear on the source of that voice.  "Freeze."

    The source of the voice was a young human woman, her apparent 
age indicative of eighteen years, not an uncommon age for someone 
to pause their aging at.  Her features were distinctly Terran 
Asian, about 160 centimeters tall with small breasts, dark hair, 
and just a hint of softness in her belly.  Like herself, the woman 
wore no clothing.  The woman smiled and said, "You probably don't 
want to shoot me, Oenone."

    With a slow snarl Oenone said, "Who are you?"

    "You don't remember me, do you?"

    Oenone thought for a moment.  "I have never met you before."

    "Yes, you have.  Think back, try and remember the voice, 
Oenone.  We spent a few weeks together, a long time ago.  If I 
remember correctly, you've moved up the timeline pretty slowly, for 
a Terran, and you're about seven thousand years old now.  For me, 
it was about three billion years."

    Puzzled, Oenone asked, "That means you could be just about 
anybody."  Deliberately punching each syllable, Oenone asked "Who 
are you?"

    "We met in Ken's car, remember?  Close your eyes and recall my 
voice, O.  Back them I was a metallic cylinder 65 cents in diameter 
and 40 cents high."

    Oenone blinked, the memory flooding her suddenly.  "You... 
you're Fawn Destiniere'?"

    "You do remember!"

    Oenone sagged.  "It's hard to forget the lady who saved my 
life, but I am not convinced.  You could still be anybody, anybody 
who gave Ken's Journals even a passing glance.  But it doesn't 
matter anymore, there are no secrets worth keeping and I don't care 
who you are.  You're  
probably the last voice I shall ever hear.  I'm not sure I haven't 
gone insane."

    "When reality is whatever we make it--"  The girl paused, 
"within limits-- insanity becomes a pretty slippery thing to 
define.  But you're  not insane.  And whether you believe me or 
not, I would like you to call me 'Fawn'.  It would make me 
comfortable, and would give you something to call me other than 
'Hey you.'"

    "Very well," Oenone agreed.  "'Fawn,' then."

    Fawn smiled.  "You're right, though," she said as she walked 
across the control room, "I am the last voice you're ever going to 
hear.  Even Dave has stopped working."

    "'Stopped working?'  Is that what you call it when one of your 
own dies?"

    "I'm not particularly artificial, O."  She smiled.  "Ken's 
peculiar idiosyncrasy of giving his AI's such intense 
self-identities cut both ways.  Dave shut down all of his higher 
functions when he was sure Ken wasn't coming back.  Ken might have 
known how to reactivate him; I think the database is intact, but I 
haven't checked.  And what about you?"

    "What about me?"

    "Well, don't you think it rather odd that the last person left 
alive in the universe is an ancient Greek water goddess stuck on an 
otherwise airless ball of rock?"

    It was Oenone turn to smile.  "Not goddess, nymph.  Why does 
everybody insist on elevating me to the status of my father?"

    Fawn shrugged and stepped even closer to her.  "Perhaps because 
you're the only one left alive from that particular brood of 
self-proclaimed deities."

    "You know, ages ago that kind of statement would have 
infuriated me."

    "I know," Fawn replied.

    "There was only one real god, wasn't there?  Ken was the only 
real god the universe had that they could reach out and touch."

    Fawn shook her head, a small frown crossing her lips.  "Ken 
wasn't a god.  He wasn't even an agent of a god."

    Oenone laughed.  "He did a lot more than the Olympian Gods ever 
did!"

    "Did he?  The Olympian Gods got the Greeks through that period 
when they were most needed, during the breakdown of the bicameral 
self- identity most of humanity had.  Ken got all of sentience 
through the next step, the 'what do we do now?' step.  Maybe he 
deserves the title, then, but that's not the real point.  Ken was a 
visionary, and his vision was one that maintained his very human 
spirit while realizing the wildest potentials of whatever tools the 
universe saw fit to drop in his lap."

    "He was also very selfish."

    "Is it selfish, to want to live as long as you possibly can, 
and to see your children do the same?  How badly did it hurt when 
Pin could no longer keep Pendor viable?"

    "You know the answer to that.  He died this morning."

    "I know.  He finally did it, he finally opted out because there 
was no reason for him to stay.  It was a hard life, Oenone, 
watching all of his friend, all of his lovers die-- not because of 
him but just because he insisted on holding onto life so long and 
holding all to all those he did love so very hard."

    "Even at the cost of the rest of the universe."

    "So he stole a star or two to reverse Pin's local entropy.  He 
never stole from a sentient race, and those stars he did steal he 
stole early on, before the universe was your complete and utter 
playground.  Maybe it seems wrong to you for him to keep those 
particular playgrounds to himself, but I don't see anything wrong 
with it."  Fawn glanced over the  control panel to her left and 
typed a few commands.  "There."

    "What did you do?"

    "I accelerated the temporal differential.  We're going through 
time, Oenone, through the second half of the universe."

    "How high did you set it?"

    "A couple of billion to one, I think.  Not sure.  As high as it 
would go.  Forward time travel... you never did discover how to go 
backwards."

    "Ken thought it was impossible, even though he knows he did it 
with you."

    "It is impossible.  I suspend the rules completely."

    "Where are you taking us?" Oenone asked.  "I thought there was 
nothing to go to."

    "The universe has two halves," Fawn started.  "The expansion 
and the contraction.  The contraction had been going on for a short 
while when we met this morning, as the few burning neutron stars 
just didn't have enough energy to keep the expansion going.  Except 
for you, me, and  the fusion plant bank downstairs, the universe is 
dead, Oenone.  Heat-dead.  A static three-degrees Kelvin all the 
way across."  She paused.  "We're going to the end of the cycle, 
Oenone, and to it's beginning again.  We're going to the Big Bang."

    Oenone shivered.  "I don't want to go there."

    "I know.  But it's the only place to go, Oenone.  It's you, me, 
this rock, and dust-- there is no place else to go."

    "Maybe I'll follow Ken instead.  See if there's anything beyond 
this universe, this life."

    Fawn smiled.  "It's nice to have that kind of option."

    "What do you mean?"

    "I have to go there."

    "What?  To the Bang?"

    Fawn nodded.  "It's my assigned role."

    "Fawn, if it isn't too much to ask, what are you?"

    "I'm a... a tool, if you will.  My set purpose, as far as I 
know, is to attend the end of the universe."

    "A tool?  Whose?"

    "I don't know.  All is know is my job is to be here, now."

    Oenone looked puzzled again.  "The why all this bit with Ken?"

    "Well," Fawn said, holding up a finger, "I wanted to have some 
fun, and whoever's tool I am allowed me that privilege, with Ken.  
Because it made my assigned task easier.  All the task of building 
Pendor, of teaching Ken gengineering... all that was secondary to 
the real reasons why I came to him."

    "Ken claims he gave you to himself in an temporal loop."

    Fawn smiled.  "That's his version.  Which is true.  He did, but 
only because that's what I wanted to have happen.  This building, 
this facility, is why Ken and I were thrown together-- I see the 
question in your eyes, and the answer is still 'I don't know.'"

    "So what now?  I just get to follow Ken and leave you here?"

    "That's your decision, O.  But I would ask you for a favor, 
before you go."

    "And that is?"

    "Oenone... I don't exist very much.  That sounds weird, I know, 
but take it as faith-- I don't exists very much.  Most of my life I 
spend over and over as Ken's library, time machine and life 
support.  And this is one of those rare occasions where I get to 
spend my life as an organic, as a person."  She smiled slightly and 
reached out to touch Oenone's skin.  "I don't get to do this much, 
to touch another person, or to talk to her.  Oenone..."  Her eyes 
were wide and sad and hopeful.  "Would you make love to me?"

    Oenone returned the touch, two fingers tracing along Fawn's 
collarbone.  "I always wondered how I would thank you if I ever met 
you again."

    "I can't think of a better way," the brown-haired girl replied, 
her eyes smiling.

    "Neither can I."  Oenone leaned over and kissed Fawn, her lips 
meeting soft warm flesh that she felt she never wanted to let go, 
even knowing that eventually she would have to.  And part they did, 
Oenone looking down into Fawn's eyes.  Oenone tried to organize her 
feelings and failed; she couldn't reconcile the feeling that she 
was the older, more experienced woman, knowing that Fawn had to be 
much older, much more different, than she.  "Fawn, come with me to 
the pool," she suggested.

    Fawn nodded.

    Oenone tool Fawn's hand in her own and led her out of the 
command center, down a hallway and into the rock-carved grotto, a 
plant-lined room with a large, warmed pool as its centerpiece.  She 
slid into the water, sighing gently as she did so.  Fawn followed.

    Oenone touched Fawn's shoulder gently, turning the smaller 
woman to face her.  "Fawn, can I ask you a favor, since you're 
asking me for one?"

    "Anything."

    "When you leave this room, I'm going to stay, with my last pool 
of water, and the plants, and the life.  I don't want to be with 
you... watching the universe die isn't my job.  Would you... turn 
off the life support when you close the door behind you."

    "I... Yes."

    "I can't imagine how you feel, Fawn, but I want to stay here, 
because this place is still a part of Pendor, and still a part of 
the house where the happiest memories of my long and eventful life 
are.  I'm just going to sink into the water and take my form as 
water, and I just want to freeze solid that way.  It's a natural, 
static state for a water goddess, and that's how I want to go."

    Fawn nodded, tears forming in her eyes.  She sagged, laying her 
head against Oenone's ample chest.  "I hate this job.  I hate this 
damned impulse that forces me to be here and to go on."

    Oenone wrapped her arms around Fawn and stroked her gently, 
feeling the skin sliding under her fingers.  "Fawn... it's all 
right.  You're right, I didn't want to be the last person left 
alive in the universe, but I think I learned Ken's lesson better 
than even he did.  I don't want to die, but I just don't want to go 
where you're going."

    Fawn nodded, rubbing her cheek against Oenone's chest.  "I 
understand.  even if I didn't want to understand, I do.  I think 
it's kind of sad about you and I.  I only get to know you for two 
days, separated by thousands or millions of years, depending on how 
you look at it."

    Oenone sat down and pulled Fawn into her lap, pressing her lips 
to the younger girl's softly.  Fawn kissed back, seemingly 
desperate as she  did so.  Oenone's fingers ran gently over Fawn's 
chest, caressing her nipples, teasing her.  Fawn squirmed in her 
lap, moaning.  "Ohh..."

    "You're very sensitive," Oenone said.

    "One give from whoever sends me; she apparently didn't intend 
for me to be a numb and boring lover."

    "'She?'"

    "I just needed a pronoun...  there are only women left, 'she' 
seemed appropriate."

    Oenone nodded.  "You could never be boring to me anyway, Fawn.  
With only one chance to hold you and handle you, you could never be 
anything but fascinating, Fawn, even if you were completely 
unresponsive."

    "Really?" Fawn asked, hugging Oenone tightly.

    "Well, if you were completely unresponsive I would wonder why I 
bothered, but apparently you're not."

    Fawn shivered gently, returning the strokes she was receiving, 
if slightly awkwardly.  "No, I guess not."  She caressed Oenone's 
oversize breasts carefully, holding each one gently underwater and 
appreciating the buoyant weight of Oenone's flesh.  "You're so 
beautiful."

    "So are you, Fawn, so are you."  Oenone's fingers slid down 
between Fawn's thighs and caressed the light fur she found there, 
sliding her fingers down along the legs and over her knees.  She 
smiled and said, "Even if we are the only people left, and who are 
we to judge what is beautiful and what isn't?"

    "We are," Fawn said, holding one breast up far enough to expose 
the nipple to the air and taking it between her lips, sucking and 
licking.  Oenone moaned softly, her nipples hardening instantly in 
the cool air.  Fawn bit gently in Oenone's pliant flesh, leaving 
soft teethmarks as she wend her way across Oenone's chest from one 
nipple to the other, her fingers kneading and caressing as she did 
so.

    Oenone was surprised at how vociferous Fawn was in her 
attentions, in her determination.  "Slow down, Fawn."

    "I don't want to," Fawn said, breathing against Oenone's skin.  
"I want to live, O, I want to get it all in, now."  She descended 
beneath the water, attacking Oenone's belly with her mouth, teeth.  
Oenone laughed slightly at the tickling sensation, but inside she 
felt hurt at the request Fawn had made of her, the demand to get 
all of life, even her life, lived within one hour, one day.  She 
reached down into the water and shifted to her pure water form, 
dissolving under Fawn's caresses, to reform once more behind the 
oriental girl and pull her up to the surface.  "I don't want you to 
drown."

    Fawn reached back behind her and help onto Oenone's thighs.  
"You don't have to worry.  I won't.  I don't think I can."

    Oenone smiled, then picked Fawn up and dropped her in a 
kneeling position on the stone bench set underwater, her buttocks 
just barely above the level of the water.  "I don't think I want to 
find out.  I just want you to feel good."  She caressed Fawn's 
thighs gently, staring, as she was, directly at Fawn's rounded butt 
and lightly furred cunny.  She leaned in and licked, once, 
carefully, at Fawn's slit.

    Fawn shivered.  "Please."  Oenone licked harder, sliding her 
tongue in as deeply as she could, pressing the lips of her mouth to 
lips of Fawn's cunt, sucking at the girl's sweet juices.  Fawn's 
moans were distinct and punctuated, and Oenone thought it sad that 
nobody but her would ever be there to hear them.  "Lick me harder," 
Fawn sighed.

    Oenone complied; her mastery of the element water was as 
powerful and as significant as ever.  She no longer needed 
worshippers or totems to be what she was when she was first saved.  
As she dipped her tongue deeper down between Fawn's thighs and up 
against her clitoris, two fingers slid in and up against Fawn's 
cervix; she need only to pull more water up and into her and she 
slowly enlarged them, adding more volume to herself, pressing up 
and filling the young girl whose mons she so enthusiastically 
licked and sucked.  Fawn leaned over the edge of the stones and lay 
her head down on the soft grass, moaning ever more loudly.  Oenone 
attacked her with her own ferocious lust, her own efforts feeling 
as if they might cause herself to orgasm as they reached  for 
Fawn's inevitable climax.

    Fawn had other ideas.  "Stop it!" she moaned suddenly shifted 
her hips out of Oenone's reach, slipping away from Oenone's probing 
fingers.  She turned to face the water nymph, her face flushed.  "I 
want to watch you, too."

    "Then sit up and watch me.  Or would you like me to make love 
to you like a man?"  Oenone smiled.

    "You can do that?"

    "I am, as you pointed out, the child of deity."  With a slight 
effort, but more than she usually found necessary, she shifted her 
form; her breasts sank into her body like melting ice, and between 
her thighs a penis seemed to grow out of the running water she was 
made of.  The rest of her body shifted as well, the very obvious 
feminine characteristics fading from sight to be replaced by a 
broader chest with a more defined musculature.  Despite this, the 
effect was very androgynous, and Oenone full well knew it, and 
liked it.  His long blond hair flowed down around his back in 
copious streams; his face retained the high cheekbones and soft 
feature he had when he was female.  "What do you think?"

    "I.. I don't know.  Do you want to make love to me like that?"

    Oenone smiled and walked through the water with as little 
effort as Fawn would exert walking through air.  "I think I would.  
I was made to be everything Paris could ever dream of, except for 
freedom.  And it may sound kind of silly, Fawn, but despite the 
'who cares' attitude most of Pendor had, I tend to be very 
heterosexual, and since you can't change, I did."

    "What makes you think I can't change?" Fawn asked, reaching out 
with some confidence to touch Oenone's belly.  His cock twitched 
gently at her touch.

    "Can you?" Oenone asked, surprised.

    "I don't know," Fawn admitted.  "Doesn't mean I can't... I 
wouldn't be surprised if I could.  After all, the last time I 
looked I was a steel cylinder."  Fawn smiled and slid her hand down 
over Oenone's smooth, uncut cock.  His muscles tensed under her 
touch.  "You still look very feminine."

    "I know," Oenone admitted.  His voice sounded deep, even to 
him.  "Ken liked this look, although that's not something he would 
often admit."

    Fawn canted her head to one side; among furries it had been a 
common expression of confusion, and Oenone found it fetching in 
Fawn.  "Very rarely," Fawn said.  "It's not in any of my records."

    Oenone reached out and began to caress Fawn's nipples softly, 
his fingers closing and twisting gently.  "I think it was a late 
development; sometime around his first millennia, when he met 
Sufi."

    "That might explain it," Fawn admitted.  She rubbed the head of 
his cock in the palm of her hand, and Oenone groaned loudly.  "Like 
that?" Fawn asked.

    "Hurts," he said.  "Feels good, but it hurts, too."

    "It's making you hard," Fawn teased him gently.  "Lick me some 
more."

    Oenone grinned and settled further into the water as Fawn 
vaulted out and sat on the edge of the pool.  He leaned in between 
her parted thighs and began licking insistently.  "I want to make 
you come," he said.

    "And I want you to make me wet," Fawn replied, the last word 
dying in a moan of pleasure.  "That's good."

    "Good," Oenone said, smiling.  He held her cunt open with the 
index finger of each hand and licked the pink labia before his 
eyes, caressing her clitoris with his lips.

    Fawn kicked slightly in the water, her legs trembling with 
every direct flicker of his tongue, releasing tiny whimpers of new 
pleasure.  She reached down and took Oenone's head in her hands and 
lifted him up.  "Make love to me, O."

    "I thought that's what I was doing," he said as he leaned up 
over her, his straight erection pressing up between them.  With a 
single gesture Oenone pressed his cock downward into her channel, 
and a gentle push buried him deep within her cunt.  "Yes," they 
both sighed, almost simultaneously.

    Oenone laughed and began to stroke back and forth.  His cock, 
deliberately sized to standards he had established when exploring 
her earlier, filled her and pushed her.  He started hard and never 
let up, making love to her violently; the fact that he was standing 
in a meter of water never slowed him down, and if anything it gave 
him a faerie's strength and impetus.  Fawn gripped his shoulders 
and moaning, pressing her head forward against his broad chest.

    His cock slid in and out, a mercifully unforgiving engine of 
her pleasures as he bucked between her legs.  Fawn let go of his 
arms and fell back against the carefully maintained grass that 
surrounded the pool, her legs dangling in the water.  Oenone 
followed her down, helping her from dropping too hard, and picked 
up speed, making love ever more powerfully than before.  Fawn 
moaned incoherently, the pleasure on her face more than clear to 
him.  Oenone smiled and pressed harder still, his own orgasm 
imminent.  Wordless, he pressed deeper into her, his complete 
mastery of water and everything it pervaded giving him every last 
thing he wanted to know about she was going to climax, instantly, 
before those thoughts were destroyed in the screaming crash of 
their simultaneous orgasm.  He pounded her cunt over and over as he 
came, shooting into her even he knew not what as she thrashed, her 
back arching and her mouth open with a quiet scream.

    He held himself up over her, letting her catch her breath as 
she panted and gasped.  Then he lay down, and they were quiet as 
his erection shrank and slipped out of her.  He concentrated for a 
moment more and slowly shifted back to his prior, more common form 
as a woman.

    Fawn sat up, slowly, accepting Oenone's grasp to help her.  "I 
think... I think that was all worth it.  Thank you, Oenone."

    "You're welcome," Oenone replied, her voice returning to its 
normal, sweet and seductive pitch.  She sat up and settled back 
into the pool, reaching out a hand again as she did so.  Fawn took 
it and allowed herself to be pulled into Oenone's lap.

    The say, looking at each other, and Fawn shivered.  "You want 
me to go, don't you?"

    Oenone shrugged, the expression on her face one of resignation.  
"I've lived a long life, much, much, longer than the one offered 
even by my life as a child of Poseidon.  I've had more than my fair 
share.  And I'm not going to die, Fawn, I'm just going to go back 
into the water and be frozen; I had sisters who did this every 
winter, every year, for three centuries."

    Fawn nodded and climbed out of the pool.  She knelt down then 
and gave Oenone one last, long, lingering kiss.  As they parted, 
Oenone said "Stay a moment."

    Fawn knelt, holding still, as Oenone closed in on her cheek and 
kissed her there, her tongue licking gently.  As she settled back 
into the water, she said, "The salt, the water of your tears tells 
more about you than I think either of us will ever know, and if I 
survive this cycle, I'll never forget you, Fawn."

    Fawn nodded.  "I'll never forget you, either.  Good-bye, 
Oenone, child of Poseidon."

    "Good-bye, Fawn Destiniere'."

    Fawn stood and slowly walked towards the door, not looking 
back, but she knew that the sound she heard, the soft chime of 
running water, was Oenone dissolving into the pool.  There was 
something about the way all this was happening that made her want 
to cry, and she did, quietly, as she walked down the hallway and 
passed the modular bulkhead.  She closed the airlock-level door 
behind her, and typed in a sequence of commands to deactivate life 
support, temperature regulations first.  The lights shifted slowly 
from blue to red (green had been avoided, she knew, because Kennet 
had been slightly colorblind, a condition he had never had 
corrected) and as she watched the temperature dropped on the other 
side of the door, the heat dissipating into a jealously cold and 
lonely universe.  She wiped the tears away, but more came after 
them.

    She walked into the Command Center, turning off the rest of the 
base as she did so; she required little of the life support 
mechanisms and entertainments scattered throughout the facility.  
Somewhere down there, under the rock, lay hidden the biogene tanks 
that had given birth eventually to literally hundreds of species 
and millions of individuals.  Also, somewhere under there was the 
old interface she had used to build Halloran, back when she had 
been a computer herself.

    She didn't know where the knowledge to do whatever is was she 
needed to do came from, but every step of the way when she needed 
to know what this button or that lever did, the knowledge came to 
her without question or comment.  She smiled gently and waited.

    Time passed.

    How much time, even Fawn was not sure.  She spent very little 
of her time actually thinking, but there came a time, when the 
lights in the white and plastic Command Center had faded, darkened, 
and gone out, when she became aware that the universe had ended, 
and that it existed only in two separate and disparate forms- the 
singularity that had once been everything else, and this facility, 
that was still in the form everything else had once been, separated 
by that perversion of the laws of physics, the temporal disunity.  
And whatever was prodding her along made her aware that the mass of 
the facility stuck within the temporal disunity field was all that 
was required to start the whole thing over again.  The universe had 
existed because the singularity that started it all was only 
slightly overburdened with being; any less, she knew, and the Big 
Bang would never have happened.

    But along with this knowledge was a realization of her purpose.  
The Power That Be (for lack of a better term, she thought) 
preferred this particular form of the universe that had been, with 
the four basic interatomic forces and the nature of things as she 
had known them and as  she was constructed.  The influx of material 
such as hers into that process when "everything else" had been 
compressed into the reality astrophysicists had referred to as "The 
Time of Dragons" would influence the next Big Bang, making at least 
the initial process resemble the previous one, and she was to be 
the agent of that decision.  All she had to do was press one 
control button.  That button, she thought, looking down at the 
control panel with eyes that had never required photons to see.

    But, it occurred to her, there should be something said.  
Something dramatic was always said at momentous events, and the 
heralding of a new universe was certainly a momentous event, at 
least in the histories of the people she had most interacted with, 
and influencing the future of the next version of the universe 
certainly qualified as a momentous event.

    But what to say?  What to say, what to say, she kept wondering.  
Her mind cast back to the Hebrew Book of The Dead, the tradition 
from which Kennet had come from, and since he had been the human 
she had had the most interaction with, maybe it was something from 
that tradition she could use.

    But what?  The words in that text that heralded Creation 
certainly were dramatic, but they weren't quite right.  It wasn't 
true that light came first.  But then what?  The words repeated 
themselves in her mind over and over, and as she concentrated her 
thoughts were interrupted, and from that interruption came the 
perfect thing to say; not four words, as recorded in the text, but 
three, were necessary.  Only three words.

    She said, "Let there be."

    She pressed the button.

    And there was.

--
"Journal Entry 999 / 9999  [ The Last Journal Entry ]"
The Journal Entries of Kennet R'yal Shardik, et. al., and Related Tales
are copyright (C) 1989-1995 Elf Mathieu Sternberg.  Redistribution of
this work for profit is reserved to the author.  Redistribution by
portable media (CD-ROM, floppy, paper, etc.) is expressly forbidden.
Any redistribution must include this copyright notice intact.