Brutha tried to keep hold of the idea, but the sheer enormity of it kept wrenching it from his mental grasp.
“But you're not dead,” he managed.
“Next best thing,” said Om. “And you know what? No other small god is trying to usurp me. Did I ever tell you about old Ur-Gilash? No? He was the god back in what's now Omnia before me. Not much of one. Basically a weather god. Or a snake god. Some?thing, anyway. It took years to get rid of him, though. Wars and everything. So I've been thinking . . .”
Brutha said nothing.
“Om still exists,” said the tortoise. “I mean the shell. All you'd have to do is get people to under?stand.”
Brutha still said nothing.
“You can be the next prophet,” said Om.
“I can't! Everyone knows Vorbis will be the next prophet!”
“Ah, but you'll be official. ”
“No.”
“No? I am your God!”
“And I am my me. I'm not a prophet. I can't even write. I can't read. No one will listen to me.”
Om looked him up and down.
“I must admit you're not the chosen one I would have chosen,” he said.
“The great prophets had vision,” said Brutha. “Even if they . . . even if you didn't talk to them, they had something to say. What could I say? I haven't got anything to say to anyone. What could I say?”
“Believe in the Great God Om,” said the tortoise.
“And then what?”
“What do you mean, and then what?”
Brutha looked out glumly at the darkening court?yard.
“Believe in the Great God Om or be stricken with thunderbolts,” he said.
“Sounds good to me.”
“Is that how it always has to be?”
The last rays of the sun glinted off the statue in the center of the courtyard. It was vaguely feminine. There was a penguin perched on one shoulder.
“Patina, Goddess of Wisdom,” said Brutha. “The one with a penguin. Why a penguin?”
“Can't imagine,” said Om hurriedly.
“Nothing wise about penguins, is there?”
“Shouldn't think so. Unless you count the fact that you don't get them in Omnia. Pretty wise of them.”
“Brutha!”
“That's Vorbis,” said Brutha, standing up. “Shall I leave you here?”
“Yes. There's still some melon. I mean loaf.”