Godhome let him eat and think in friendly silence, while hot food drove out the last of the fear that had gripped him, letting him think calmly. What had happened hadn't harmed him, and he realized it had been the only way to get him here.
(The Tarlac-fragment agreed, amused. The two of them had quite a bit in common, it seemed.)
Kranath could imagine how he'd have reacted to a simple invitation: "Hello, I'm Godhome. I'd like you to visit me." He smiled, and thought he felt answering amusement from the computer. No, Godhome had known exactly what it was doing.
He could feel no more lingering resentment about his capture. He was here to learn, then to make a decision, and the psionic computer was to serve him. As the table vanished and his chair became a recliner, he found himself looking forward to it. He might, he hoped, even find out what a psionic computer was. The miracles he was experiencing made it clear that it was something only the gods could build … or create.
"Quite true." That Godhome had followed his thoughts didn't surprise Kranath; like miracles, such things were to be expected of the gods and their servant. "Although," Godhome went on, "they did not think of themselves as gods, any more than you think of yourself as one." It paused briefly. "Put yourself in the place of one of your remote ancestors some millennia ago.
"A large metal bird lands in front of you, and someone climbs out of it. This being speaks into a small box that answers him, can kill at a great distance with a loud noise and a flash of light, can ease pain with a touch. How would you, in those times, have thought of him?"
Kranath thought briefly. Metal planes and hand-held radios were still to come, but the analogy was clear. "You are saying the gods are to us as we are to our ancestors."
"Yes. You see the difference perhaps ten thousand years has had on what your race can do; now try to imagine the difference had you had a thousand times as long to develop."
Kranath did try, struggling to grasp the immensity of ten million years of progress. He failed.
"Don't let it concern you," Godhome said. "I wanted you to understand the basic concept, which you do: those who went before were much further advanced than you are, much more powerful, but not supernatural. And they foresaw how your race would develop. They have helped it in the past, and knew you would need help again—but they could not stop their own development, which was moving them to a plane I am not equipped to understand.