"I guess you won't have to be reminded, Stanley." She was looking at him again closely. "But you have changed in some way," she ventured finally. "I don't know just how to explain it, but you seem to have more assurance. And you sure put up a good front when you were talking to God. Say! Do you suppose what you've been through the past few weeks has affected your mind?"
Further conversation was interrupted by the return of God. He pulled a chair up in front of the barred door and sat down.
"Henry is a fool," he announced. "He's trying to work his followers up to a pitch that will make it possible for him to induce them to attack heaven and kill God. Henry wants to be God. I made him a king, and now he wants to be God. But he gave them too much to drink; and now most of them are asleep in the palace courtyard, including Henry. They won't bother me tonight; so I thought I'd come down and have a pleasant visit with you. There won't be many more opportunities, for you will have to serve your purpose before something happens to prevent it. I can't take any chances."
"What is this strange purpose we are to serve?" asked Rhonda.
"It is purely scientific; but it is a long story and I shall have to start at the beginning," explained God.
"The beginning!" he repeated dreamily. "How long ago it was! It was while I was still an undergraduate at Oxford that I first had a glimmering of the light that finally dawned. Let me see—that must have been about 1855. No, it was before that—I graduated in '55. That's right, I was born in '33 and I was twenty-two when I graduated.
"I had always been intrigued by Lamarck's investigations and later by Darwin's. They were on the right track, but they did not go far enough; then, shortly after my graduation, I was travelling in Austria when I met a priest at Brunn who was working along lines similar to mine. His name was Mendel. We exchanged ideas. He was the only man in the world who could appreciate me, but he could not go all the way with me. I got some help from him; but, doubtless, he got more from me; though I never heard anything more about him before I left England.
"In 1857 I felt that I had practically solved the mystery of heredity, and in that year I published a monograph on the subject. I will explain the essence of my discoveries in as simple language as possible, so that you may understand the purpose you are to serve.
"Briefly, there are two types of cells that we inherit from our parents—body cells and germ cells. These cells are composed of chromosomes containing genes—a separate gene for each mental and physical characteristic. The body cells, dividing, multiplying, changing, growing, determine the sort of individual we are to be; the germ cells, remaining practically unchanged from our conception, determine what characteristics our progeny will inherit, through us, from our progenitors and from us.
"I determined that heredity could be controlled through the transference of these genes from one individual to another. I learned that the genes never die; they are absolutely indestructible—the basis of all life on earth, the promise of immortality throughout all eternity.