The Worshippers - Damon Francis Knight

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Worshipers by Damon Knight, Section one. Destiny reached out
a hand to Algernon Weaver, but he was a timid
man at first. But on the strange world of Taran
Nova there was much to be learned of Destiny and
other things. It was a very different thing Algernon Weaver decided,

(00:24):
actually to travel in space. When you read about it,
or thought about it, in terms of what you read,
it was more a business of going from one name
to another, al Gahll to serious al Deboron to epsilon Seti.
You read the names and the descriptions that went with them,
and the whole thing, although breathtaking and concept, of course,
when you really stopped to meditate on it became rather

(00:46):
ordinary and prosaic, and somehow more understandable. Not that he
had ever approved, No, he had that at least to
look back upon. He had seen the whole enterprise as
pure presumption, and had said so often the heavens were
the heavens, and the earth was the earth. It would
have been better, much better for all concerned, if it

(01:06):
had been left that way. He had held that opinion,
He reminded himself gratefully from the very beginning when it
was easy to think otherwise. Afterward, of course, when the
first starships came back with the news that space was
a swarm with creatures who did not even resemble man,
and had never heard of him, and did not think
much of him when they saw him. Well, who but

(01:28):
an idiot could hold any other opinion? If only the
Creator had not seen fit to make so many human
beings in his image but without his common sense, well,
if he hadn't, then, for one thing, Weaver would not
have been where he was now, staring out an octagonal
porthole at an endless sea of diamond pierced blackness, with

(01:48):
the empty ship humming to itself all around him. It
was an entirely different thing, he told himself. There were
no names, and no descriptions, and no feeling of going
from one known place to another known place. It was
more like it was like standing outdoors on a still
summer night and looking up at the dizzying depths of
the stars, and then looking down to discover that there

(02:09):
was no planet under your feet, and that you were
all alone in that alien gulf. It was enough to
make a grown man cry, and Weaver had cried often
in the empty red twilight of the ship, feeling himself
hopelessly and forever cut off, cast out and forgotten. But
as the weeks passed, a kind of numbness had overtaken him,
till now when he looked out the porthole at the

(02:32):
incredible depth of sky, he felt no emotion, but a thin,
disapproving regret. Sometimes he would describe himself to himself, just
to refute the feeling that he was not really here,
not really alive. But his mind was too orderly, and
the description would come out so cold and terse Algernon
James Weaver born nineteen forty two historian, civic leader, poet, teacher, philosopher,

(02:58):
author of development of the school system in Schenectady in
Skoharie County's New York Pamphlet, nineteen seventy five, An Address
to the Women's Clubs of Schenectady, New York Pamphlet, nineteen
seventy nine, Rhymes of a Philosopher nineteen eighty one, Parables
of a Philosopher nineteen eighty three, Reflections of a Philosopher

(03:19):
nineteen eighty six. Born in Detroit, Michigan, son of a
Methodist minister, educated in Michigan and New York Public Schools
BA New York State University nineteen fifty nine, MA NYSU
Extension nineteen sixty four, unmarried surviving relatives. That was the trouble.

(03:40):
It began to sound like an obituary, and then the
great humming metal shell would begin to feel like a
coffin presumption, pure presumption, none of these creatures should have
been allowed to get loose among the stars man. Least
of all, it cluttered up the universe, It undermined faith,
and it had got Algernon Weaver into a fix. It

(04:01):
was his sister's fault. Actually, she would go, in spite
of his advice, up to the Moon, to the un
sanitarium in Aristarchus. Weaver's sister, a big framed definite woman,
had a weak heart and seventy five superfluous pounds of fat.
Doctors had told her that she would live twenty years
longer on the moon. Therefore, she went and survived the

(04:21):
trip and thrived in the germ free atmosphere, weighing just
one sixth of her former two hundred and ten pounds.
Once she was there, Weaver could hardly escape visiting her.
Harriet was a widow with large resources, and Weaver was
her only near relative. It was necessary, it was prudent
for him to keep on her good side. Moreover, he

(04:42):
had his family feeling. He did not like it, not
a minute of it. Not the incredible trip, rising till
the Earth lay below like a botched model of itself,
not the silent mausoleum of the moon. But he dully
admired Harriet's spacious room in the sanitarium, the recreation room,
the auditorium, space suited. He walked with her in the

(05:03):
cold earthlight. He attended her on the excursion trip to
lay Field, the interstellar rocket base on the far side
of the Moon. The alien ship was there, all angles
and planes. It came from Zeta Ariga. They told him
it was the second foreign ship to visit Saul. Most
of the crew had been ferried down to Earth, where
they were inspecting the people without approval. Weaver was sure. Meanwhile,

(05:27):
the remaining crew man would be pleased to have the
sanatorium party inspect him. They went aboard Harriet and two
other women and six men, counting the guide and Weaver.
The ship was a red lit cavern. The crew man
turned out to be a hairy horror, a three foot
headless lump shaped like an eggplant, supported by four splayed legs,

(05:49):
and with an indefinite number of tentacles wriggling below the
stalked eyes. They're more like us than you think, said
the guide. They're mammals. They have a nervous organization. Very likely,
they're susceptible to some of our diseases, which is very rare,
and they even share some of our minor vices. He
opened his kit and offered the thing a plug of
chewing tobacco, which was refused with much tentacle waving, and

(06:13):
a cigar, which was accepted. The creature stuck the cigar
into the pointed tip of its body, just above the
six beady black eyes, lit it with some sort of
flameless lighter, and puffed clouds of smoke like a volcano.
And of course, as you see, there are oxygen breathers,
the guide finished. The atmosphere in the ship here is
almost identical to our own. We could breathe it without

(06:35):
any discomfort whatever, Then why don't we, Weaver thought irritably.
He had been forced to wear either a breathing mask
or a pressure suit all the time. He had been
on the moon, except when he had been in his
own sealed room at the sanatorium, and his post nasal
drip was unmistakably maturing into a cold. He had been
stifling sneezes for the last half hour. He was roused

(06:56):
by a commotion up ahead. Someone was on the floor
and the the others were crowding around. Help me carry her,
said the god's voice, sharply in his earphones. We can't
treat her here. What is she a heart case? Good Lord,
clear the way there, will you. Weaver hurried up, struck
by a sharp suspicion. Indeed it was Harriet who was
being carried out, and a good thing. He thought that

(07:18):
they didn't have to support her full weight. He wondered
vaguely if she would die before they got her to
a doctor. He could not give this thought his full
attention or feel as much fraternal anxiety as he ought,
because he had he had to sneeze. The others had
crowded out into the red lit space of the control
room where the airlock was. Weaver stopped and frantically tugged

(07:41):
his arm free of the rubberoid's sleeve. The repressed spasm
was in acute agony in his nose and throat. He
fumbled the handkerchief out of his pocket, thrust his hand
up under the helmet, and blissfully let go. His eyes
were woodering. He wiped them hurriedly, put the handkerchief away,
worked his arm back into the sleeve, and looked around
to say see what had become of the others. The

(08:02):
air lock door was closed, and there was no one
in the room but the hairy eggplant shape of the oragon,
still puffing its cigar. Hey, said Weaver, forgetting his manners.
The oragon did not turn, but then which was its
front or back? The beady black eyes regarded him without expression.
Weaver started forward. He got nearly to the air lock
before a cluster of hairy tentacles parred his way. He said, indignantly,

(08:25):
let me out, you monster, let me out, do you hear?
The creature stood stock still in an infuriating attitude, until
a little light on the wall changed from orange to
red violet. Then it crossed to the control board, did
something there, and the inner door of the lock swung open. Well,
I should think so, said Weaver. He stepped forward again,
but his eyes were beginning to wooter. There was an

(08:46):
intolerable tickling far back in his nostrils. He was going
to he was eye squeezed shut, his whole body contorted
with effort. He raised his arm to begin the desperate race.
Once more, his hand brushed against something, his kit slung
just above his waist. There were handkerchiefs in the kit,
he recalled suddenly, and he remembered what the guide had
said about a Reagan air. He tugged the kit open, fumbled,

(09:09):
and found a handkerchief. He zipped open the closure of
his helmet and tilted the helmet back. He brought up
the handkerchief and gave himself over to spasm. He was
startled by a horse boom, as if some one had
scraped the strings of an amplified bull fiddle. He looked around, blinking,
and discovered that the sound was coming from the Oregan.
The monster, with its tentacles tightly curled around the tip

(09:30):
of its body, was scuttling into the corridor. As Weaver
watched in confusion, it vanished, and as sheet of metal
slid across the doorway. More boomings came shortly from a
source Weaver finally identified as a grill over the control panels.
He took a step that way, then changed his mind
and turned back towards the airlock. Just as he reached
the nearer air lock door, the farther one swung open,

(09:52):
and an instant torrent of wind thrust him outward. Strangling,
Weaver grabbed desperately at the door frame as it went by.
He swung with a sickening thud into the inner wall,
but he hung on and pulled himself back inside. The
force of the wind was dropping rapidly, so was the
air pressure. Ragged black blotches swam before Weaver's eyes. He

(10:12):
fumbled with his helmet, trying to swing it back over
his head, but it stubbornly remained where it was. The
blow when he struck the airlock wall, he thought dimly
it must have bent the helmet so that it would
not fit into its grooves. He forced himself across the
room toward the faint gleam of the origon control board,
shaped like a double horseshoe. It was around the two
lattice topped stools and bristling with levers, knobs and sliding panels.

(10:36):
One of these he knew controlled the airlock. He slept
blindly at them, pulling, pushing, turning as many as he
could reach. Then the floor reeled under him, and as
he fell toward it changed into a soft, gray, endless mist.
When he awoke, the airlock door was closed, His lungs
were gratefully full of air. The oragon was nowhere to
be seen. The door behind which he had disappeared was

(10:58):
still closed. Got up, stripped off his spacesuit, and by
hammering with the sole of one of his boots, managed
to straighten out the dent in the back of the helmet.
He put the suit back on, then looked doubtfully at
the control board. It wouldn't do to go on pulling
things at random. He might cause some damage. Tentatively, he
pushed a slide he remembered touching before. When nothing happened,

(11:20):
he pushed it back. He tried to knob then a lever.
The inner door of the airlock swung open. Weaver marched
into it, took one look through the viewport set in
the outer door, and scrambled back out. He closed the
airlock again and thought a minute. In the center of
each horseshoe curve of the control board was a gray,
translucent disc with six buttons under it. They might, Weaver thought,

(11:42):
be television screens. He pressed the first button under one
of them, and the screen lighted up. He pressed the
second button, then all the others in turn. They all
showed him the same thing the view he had seen
from the viewport in the airlock. Stars and nothing but stars.
The moon incredibly had disappeared. He was in space. His

(12:05):
first thought, when he was able to think correctly again,
was to find the Oregan and make him put things right.
He tried all the remaining knobs and levers and buttons
on the control board, reckless of consequences, until the door
slid open again. Then he went down the corridor and
found the Oregan. The creature was lying on the floor
with a turnip shaped thing over its head, tubes trailing

(12:25):
from it to an opened cabinet in the wall. It
was dead, dead and decaying. He searched the ship. He
found store rooms with cylinders and bales of stuff that
looked as if it might possibly be food. He found
the engine room with great piles of outlandishly sculptured metal
and winking lights and swinging meter needles. But he was

(12:46):
the only living thing on board. The view from all
six directions in the control room telescreens and in the
ship's direct viewports alike was exactly the same. The stars,
like dandruff on Weaver's blue serge suit. No one of
them apparently any nearer than the others. No way to
tell which, if any of them, was his own. The
smell of the dead creature was all through the ship.

(13:09):
Weaver closed his helmet against it, then remembered that the
air in his suit tank would not last forever. He
lugged the corpse out to the airlock, closed the inner
door on it, and opened the outer one. It was
hard for him to accept the obvious explanation of the
oregan's death, but he finally came to it. He recalled
something the guide had said about the aregan's susceptibility to

(13:29):
earthly infections. That must have been it. That had been
why the creature had bellowed and run to seal itself
off from him. It was all his fault. If he
had not sneezed with his helmet open, the oregan would
not be dead. He would not be marooned in space,
and the other aregans down on Earth would not be
marooned there, though they he decided wistfully, would probably get

(13:51):
home sooner or later. They knew where home was. As
far as he could, he made himself master of the
ship in its contents. He discovered by arduous trial and error,
which of the supposed foods in the store room he
could eat safely, which would make him sick, and which
were not foods at all. He found out which of
the control boards, knobs, and levers controlled the engines, and

(14:12):
he shut them off. He studied the universe around him,
hoping to see some change. After nearly a month, that happened.
One star grew from a brilliant pinpoint to a tiny disc,
and each time he awoke it was larger. Weaver took
counsel with himself and pasted a small piece of transparent
red tape over the place on the telescreen where the
star appeared. He scratched a mark to show where the

(14:35):
star was. On each of three succeeding days, the trail
crawled diagonally down toward the bottom of the screen. He
knew nothing about astrogation, but he knew that if he
were heading toward a star, it ought to stay in
the same place on his screen. He turned on the
engines and swung the steering arm downward. The star crawled
back toward the center of the screen, then went past.

(14:57):
Weaver painstakingly brought it back, and so, in parsec long zigzags,
he held his course. The star was now increasing alarmingly
in brightness. It occurred to Weaver that he must be
traveling with some enormous speed, although he had no sensation
of movement at all. There was a position on the
scale around the steering arm that he thought would put
the engines into reverse. He tried it, and now he

(15:20):
scratched the apparent size of the star into the red tape.
First it grew by leaps and bounds, then more slowly,
then hardly at all. Weavers shut off the engines again
and waited. The star had planets. He noted their passage
in the telescreen, marked their apparent courses, and blithely set
himself to land on the one that seemed to be nearest.

(15:40):
He was totally ignorant of orbits. He simply centered his
planet on the screen, as he had done with the star,
found that it was receding from him, and began to
run it down. He came in too fast the first time,
tore through the atmosphere like a lost soul, and frantically
out again, Sweating in the control room's sudden heat, turned
out in space and carefully adjusted his speed so that

(16:03):
ship and planet drifted softly together, gently, as if he
had been doing this all his life. Weaver took the
ship down upon a continent of rolling greens and browns,
landed it without a jar, saw the landscape begin to
tilt as he stepped into the airlock, and barely got
outside before the ship rolled ten thousand feet down a
gorge he had not noticed, and smashed itself into a

(16:24):
powdering of fragments. Two days later, he began turning into
a god. Section two. They had put him into a
kind of enclosed seat at the end of a long
rotating arm, counterweighted at the opposite side of the aircar proper,
and the whole affair swung gently in an eccentric path,
around and around and up and down as the aircar

(16:46):
moved very slowly forward through the village. All the houses
were faced with broad wooden balconies stained blood red and turquoise,
umbering yellow, gold, and pale green, and all of these
were crowded to bursting with the blue and white horny
chests and the big eyed faces of the bug things.
Weavers swung in his revolving seat past first one level

(17:08):
and another, and the twittering voices burst around him like
the stars of a fourth of July rocket. This was
the fifth village they had visited since the bug things
had found him wandering in the mountains. At the first one,
he had been probed, examined, and twittered over interminably. Then
the aircar had arrived. They had strapped him into this
ridiculous seat and begun what looked very much like a

(17:30):
triumphal tour. Other aircars, without the revolving arm proceeded and
followed him. The slowly following cars and their riders were
gay with very colored streamers. Every now and then one
of the bug things in the cars would raise a
pistol like object to fire a pinkish streak that spread
out high in the air and became a gently descending,

(17:51):
diffusing cloud of rosy dust. And always the twittering rose
and fell, rose and fell, as wea we revolved. At
the end of the swinging on, one had to remember.
He reminded himself that earthly parallels did not necessarily apply.
It was undignified, certainly to be revolving like a child
on a merry go round, while these crowds glared with

(18:12):
bright alien eyes. But the important thing was that they
had not once offered him any violence. They had not
even put him into the absurd revolving seat by force.
They had led him to it gently, with a great
deal of gesturing and twittering explanation. And if their faces
were almost nauseatingly unpleasant, with the constantly moving complexity of

(18:32):
parts that he had seen in live lobsters, well that
proved nothing except that they were not human. Later, perhaps
he could persuade them to wear masks. It was a holiday,
a great occasion. Everything testified to that. The colored streamers,
the clouds of rosy dust like sky rockets, the crowds
of people lined up to await him, And why not,

(18:55):
clearly they had never before seen a man. He was
unique a personage to be a visitor, descended from the heavens,
clothed in fire and glory, like the Spaniards among the Aztecs,
he thought. Weaver began to feel gratified, his ego expanding experimentally.
He waved to the massed ranks of bug things. As
he passed them, a new explosion of twittering broke out,

(19:17):
and a forest of twiglike arms waved back at him.
They seemed to regard him with happy awe. Thank you,
said Weaver, graciously, thank you. In the morning, there were
crowds massed outside the building where he had slept, but
they did not put him into the aircar with the
revolving arm again. Instead, four new ones came into his
room after he had eaten the strange red and orange

(19:39):
fruits that were all of the bug diet he could stomach,
and began to twitter very seriously at him, while pointing
to various objects, parts of their bodies, the walls around them,
and Weaver himself. After a while, Weaver grasped the idea
that he was being instructed. He was willing to cooperate,
but he did not suppose for a moment that he
could master the birdlike sounds they made. Instead, he took

(20:01):
an old envelope and a stub of pencil from his
pocket and wrote the English word for each thing they
pointed out. Orange, he wrote, it was not an orange,
but the color was the same at any rate. Thorax
wall Man mandibles in the afternoon, they brought a machine
with staring lenses and bright lights. Weaver guessed that he

(20:24):
was being televised. He put a hand on the nearest
bug thing's shoulder and smiled for his audience. Later, after
he had eaten again, they went on with a language lesson.
Now it was Weaver who taught, and they who learned. This,
Weaver felt was as it should be. These creatures were
not men. He told himself. He would give himself no
illusions on that score. But they might still be capable

(20:46):
of learning many things that he had to teach. He
could do a great deal of good, even if it
turned out that he could never return to Earth. He
rather suspected they had no spaceships. There was something about
their life, the small villages, the slowly drifting air cars,
the absence of noise and smell and dirt, that somehow
it did not fit with the idea of space travel.

(21:08):
As soon as he was able, he asked them about it. No,
they had never traveled beyond their own planet. It was
a great marvel. Perhaps he could teach them how. Sometime,
as their command of written English improved, he catechized them
about themselves and their planet. The world as he knew already,
was much like Earth as to atmosphere, gravity, and mean temperature.

(21:29):
It occurred to him briefly that he had been lucky
to hit upon such a world, but the thought did
not stick. He had no way of knowing just how
improbable his luck had been. They themselves were, as he
had thought, simple beings. They had a written history of
some twelve thousand of their years, which he estimated to
be about nine thousand of his. Their technical accomplishments he

(21:50):
had to grant equal to earths, and in some cases
surpassed them. Their social organization was either so complex that
it escaped him altogether, or unbelievably simple. They did not,
so far as he could discover, have any political divisions.
They did not make war. They were egg layers, and
they controlled their population simply by means of hatching only

(22:12):
as many eggs as were needed to replace their natural losses.
Just when it first struck Weaver that he was their
appointed ruler, it would be hard to say. It began
perhaps that afternoon in the aircar, or a few days later,
when he made his first timid request for a house
of his own. The request was eagerly granted, and he
was asked how he would like the house constructed. Half timidly,

(22:34):
he drew sketches of his own suburban home in Schenectady,
and they built it, swarms of them, working together, down
to the hardwood floors and the pneumatic furniture, and the
picture moldings and the lamp shades. Or perhaps the idea
crystallized when he asked to see some of their native dances,
and within an hour the dancers assembled on his lawn,
five hundred of them, and performed until sundown. At any rate,

(22:58):
nothing could have been more clear correct. Once he had
grasped the idea, he was a man alone in a
world of outlandish creatures. It was natural that he should lead.
Indeed it was his duty. They were poor things, but
they were malleable in his hands. It was a great adventure.
Who knew how far he might not bring them. Wea

(23:18):
we embarked on a tour of the planet, taking with
him two of the bug things as guides and a
third as pilot and personal servant. Their names in their
own tongue he had not bothered to ask. He had
christened them Mark, Luke, and John. All three now wrote
in read English with fair proficiency. Thus Weaver was well served.
The trip was entirely enjoyable. He was met everywhere by

(23:41):
the same throngs, the same delight and enthusiasm as before.
And between villages there seemed to be nothing on the
planet that could be called a city. The rolling green countryside,
dotted with bouquets of yellow and orange flowered trees, was
most soothing to the eye. Weaver noted the varieties of
strangely shaped and colored plants, and the swarms of bright
flying things, and began in aboartive collection. He had to

(24:04):
give it up for the present. There were too many
things to study. He looked forward to a few books
to be compiled later when he had time for the
guidance of earth men at some future date. The flora
of Terra Nova, the fauna of Teranova, all that was
in the distant future. Now he was chiefly concerned with
the Teranovans themselves, how they lived, what they thought, what

(24:26):
sort of primitive religion they had, and so on. He
asked endless questions of his guides, and through them, of
the villagers they met, And the more he learned, the
more agitated he became. But this is monstrous he wrote
indignantly to Mark and Luke. They had just visited a
house inhabited by seventeen males and twelve females. Weaver was

(24:47):
now beginning to be able to distinguish the sexes, and
he had inquired what their relations were. Mark had informed
him calmly that they were husbands and wives, and when
Weaver pointed out that the balance was uneven, had written, no,
not one to one, all to all, all husband and
wife of each other. Mark held Weaver's indignant message up

(25:08):
to his eyes with one many jointed claw, while his
other three forelimbs gestured uncertainly. Finally, he seized the notepad
and wrote, do not understand monstrous, Please forgive they do
for more change, so not to make each other have tiredness.
Weaver frowned and wrote, does not your religion forbid this?

(25:29):
Mark consulted in his own piping tongue with the other two.
Finally he surrendered the notepad to Luke, who wrote, do
not understand religion to forbid please excuse with us many religion.
Some say spirits in flower, some say in wind and sun,
some say in ground. Not say to do this, not

(25:50):
to do that? With us all people the same. No
one tell other what to do. Weaver added another mental
note to his already lengthy list build churches. He wrote,
tell them this must stop. Mark turned without hesitation, to
the silently attentive group and translated. He turned back to

(26:12):
Weaver and wrote, they ask please what to do now
instead of the way they do. Weaver told him they
must mate only one to one and for life. To
his surprise, the translation of this was greeted by unmistakable
twitterings of gladness. The members of the adulterous group turned
to each other with excited gestures, and Weavers saw a

(26:32):
pairing off process begin. With much discussion. He asked Mark
about it later, as they were leaving the village, how
is it that they did this thing before for more variety,
as you say, and yet seem so glad to stop.
Mark's answer was they very glad to do whatever thing
you say. You bring them new thing, they are very happy.

(26:54):
Weaver mused on this, contentedly on the whole, but with
a small, undigested kernel of uneasiness, until they reached the
next village. Here he found a crowd of Terraanovans of
both sexes and all ages. At a feast of something
with a fearful stench. He asked what it was. Mark's
answer had better not be revealed. Feeling genuinely sick with revulsion,

(27:14):
Weaver demanded, why do they do such an awful thing?
This is ten times worse than the other. This time
Mark answered, without hesitation, they do this like the other
for more change. It is not easy to learn to like,
but they do so not to make themselves have tiredness.
There were three more such incidents before they reached the
village where they were to sleep that night, and Weaver

(27:37):
lay awake in his downy bed, staring at the faint
shimmer of reflected starlight on the carved roof beams, and
meditating soberly on the unexpected, the appalling magnitude of the
task he had set for himself. From this, he came
to consider that small, dark kernel of doubt. It was,
of course dreadful to find that his people were so
wholly corrupt, but that at least was understandable. What he

(27:59):
did not understand was the reason they could be so
easily weaned from their wickedness. It left him feeling a
little off balance, like a man who has hurled himself
at his enemy, and found him suddenly not there. This
reminded him of jiu jitsu, and this, in turn, of
the ancient Japanese, to whom, indeed his Teranovans seemed to
have many resemblances. Weaver's uneasiness increased. Savage peoples were notoriously devious.

(28:23):
They smiled and then thrust knives between your ribs. He
felt a sudden prickling coldness at the thought it was improbable,
It was fantastic that they would go to such lengths
to gratify his every wish if they meant to kill him,
he told himself, And then he remembered the Dionysian rites,
and a host of other two similar parallels, the king
for a day or a year, who ruled as an

(28:44):
absolute monarch, and then was sacrificed, and Weaver remembered with
a stab of paddic usually eaten. He had been on
Terra Nova for a little over a month. By the
local calendar, what was his term of office, to be
two months, sick, a year, ten years. He slept little
that night, woke late in the morning with dry, irritated

(29:06):
eyes and a furred mouth, and spent a silent day,
inspecting each new batch of natives without comment, and shivering
inwardly at each motion of the clawed arms of Mark,
Luke or John. Toward the evening, he came out of
his funk at last, when it occurred to him to
ask about weapons. He put the query slyly, wording it
as if it were a matter of general interest only

(29:28):
and of no great importance. Were they familiar with machines
that killed, and if so, what varieties did they have?
At first Mark did not understand the question. He replied
that their machines did not kill, that very long ago
they had done so, but that the machines were much
better now, very safe and not harmful to anyone. Then

(29:48):
wrote weaver carefully, you have no machines which are made
for the purpose of killing. Mark, Luke and John discussed
this with every evidence of excitement. At last Mark wrote
this very new idea to us, But do you have
in this world no large, dangerous animals which must be killed?
How do you kill those things which you eat? No

(30:10):
dangerous animals? We kill food things, but not use machines.
Give some things food which make them die, Give some
no food so they die, Kill some with heat some
eat alive. Weaver winced with distaste when he read this last,
and was about to write this must stop. But he
thought of oysters and decided to reserve judgment. After all,

(30:32):
it had been foolish of him to be frightened last night.
He had been carried away by a chance comparison which
calmly considered was superficial and absurd. These people were utterly peaceful,
in fact spineless. He wrote, Take the aircar up farther,
so that I can see this village from above. He
signaled John to stop when they had reached a height

(30:53):
of a few hundred feet. From this elevation, he could
see the village spread out beneath him like an architect's model,
the neat cross hatching of narrow streets separating the hollow
curves of rooftops, dotted with the myriad captive balloons launched
in honor of his appearance. The village lay in the
gentle hollow of a wide valley, surrounded by the equally
gentle slopes of hills. To his right, it followed the

(31:16):
bank of a far sized river. In the other three directions,
the checkered pattern ended in a careless, irregular outline and
was replaced by the larger pattern of cultivated fields. It
was a good site, the river for power, sanitation and transportation,
the hills for a sheltered climate. He saw suddenly, in complete,
sharp detail, how it would be. The trip is over,

(31:38):
he wrote, with sudden decision. We will stay here and
build a city. Section three. The most difficult part was
the number of things he had to learn. There was
no trouble about anything he wanted done by others. He
simply commanded, and that was the end of it. But
the massive knowledge about the Taranovans and their world before
he came appalled him, not only by its sheer bulk,

(32:00):
but by its intricacy, the unexplained gaps, the contradictions. For
a long time after the founding of New Washington, later
New Jerusalem, he was still bothered by a little doubt.
He wanted to learn all that there was to learn
about the Pteranovans, so that finally he would understand them
completely and the doubt would be gone. Eventually, he confessed
to himself that the task was impossible. He was forty

(32:22):
seven years old, he had perhaps thirty years ahead of him,
and it was not as if he were able to
devote them solely to study. There was the written history
of the Terranovans, which covered minutely a period of nine
thousand years, though not completely. There were periods and places
which seemed to have left no adequate records of themselves.
The natives had no reasonable explanation of this phenomenon. They

(32:44):
simply said that the keeping of histories sometimes went out
of fashion. Then there was the biology of Teranovans and
the countless other organisms of the planet. Simply to catalog
them and give them English names, as he had set
out to do, would have occupied him for the rest
of his lifetime. There was the complex and puzzling field
of social relations. Here, again everything seemed to be an

(33:05):
unaccountable flux, even though the overall pattern remained the same
and seemed as rigid as any primitive people's. There was physics,
which presented exasperating difficulties of translation. There was engineering, There
was medicine, There was economics. When he finally gave it up,
it was not so much because of the simple arithmetical
impossibility of the job as because he realized that it

(33:27):
didn't matter. For a time, he had been tempted away
from the logical attitude towards these savages of his, a
foolish weakness of the sort that had given him that
ridiculous hour or two when he now dimly recalled, he
had been afraid of the Terra Novans, afraid of all
things that they were fattening him up for the sacrifice.
Whereas it was clear enough, certainly that the former state

(33:48):
of the Terra Novans, their incomprehensible society and language and customs,
simply had no practical importance. He was changing all that
when he was through, they would be what he had
made them, no more and no less. It was strange,
looking back to realize how little he had seen of
his destiny there at the beginning, timid little man he thought,

(34:09):
half an amusement, half contemptuously nervous and fearful seeing things
small built me a house like the one I had
in Schinectady. They had built him a palace, no a temple,
and a city. And they were building him a world,
a planet that would be his to the last atom
when it was done, a corner of the universe that

(34:29):
was Algernon James Weaver. He recalled that in the beginning
he had felt almost like these creatures servant public servant.
He had thought, with self righteous lukewarm pleasure. He had
seen himself as one who built for others, the more virtuous,
because those others were not even men. But it was
not he who built, they built, and for him it

(34:52):
was strange. He thought again that he should not have
seen it from the first, for it was perfectly clear
and all of a pattern. The marriage law thou shalt
not live in adultery, the dietary laws thou shalt not
eat that which is unclean, and the logical can comminant
the law of worship, thou shalt have no gods before me.

(35:13):
The apostles Mark, Luke and John, later Matthew, Philip, Peter, Simon, Andrew, James, Bartholomew,
and Thomas. He had a feeling that something was wrong
with the list, besides the omission of Judas. Unluckily he
had no Bible, but it was really an academic question.
They were his apostles, not that others. The pattern repeated itself,
he thought, but with variations. He understood now why he

(35:37):
had shelved the project of Christianizing the natives, although one
of his first acts had been to abolish their pagan sex.
He had told himself at first that it was best
to wait until he had put down from memory the
salient parts of the Holy Bible Genesis, say, the better
known Psalms, and a condensed version of the Gospels leaving
out all the begats and the Jewish tribal history, and

(35:58):
awkward things like the songs of Solomon. Thy mandibles are
like pomegranates. No, it wouldn't do. And of course he
had never found time to rack his brains for the
passages that eluded him. But all of that had been
merely a subterfuge to soothe his conscience while he slowly
felt his way into his new role. Now it was

(36:18):
almost absurdly simple. He was writing his own holy book,
or rather Luke Thomas and a corps of assistants were
putting it together from his previous utterances, to be edited
by him later. The uneasy rustling of Chitnis arms against
white robes recalled him from his meditation. The swarm of priests,
altar boys, and the rest of his retinue was still
gathering around him, waiting until he should deign to notice

(36:41):
them again. Really, God thought with annoyance, this wool gathering.
At such a moment. The worshippers were masked in the temple.
A low, excited twittering rose from them as he appeared
and walked into the beam of the spotlight. The dark
lenses of television cameras were focused on him from every
part of the balcony. At the rear of the hall,
the microphones were ready. Weaver walked forward as the congregation

(37:04):
knelt and waited an impressive moment before he spread his
hands in the gesture that meant rise, my children. Simon
previously coached translated. The congregation rose again, rustling, and then
was still. At a signal from Simon, the choir began
a scurling and screeching, which the disciples warranted to be music,
religious music composed to fit the requirements he had laid down.

(37:28):
Weaver endured it, thinking that some changes must come slowly.
The hymn wailed to an end, and Weaver gripped the lectern,
leaning carefully forward toward the microphones. My children, he began
and waited for Solomon's twittering translation. You have sinned greatly
Twitter and in many ways Twitter, but I have come

(37:49):
among you Twitter to redeem your sins. Twitter and make
them as though they had never been twitter. He went
on to the end, speaking carefully as sonorously. It was
not a long sermon, but he flattered himself that it
was meedy. At the end of it, he stepped back
a pace and folded his arms in the long white
silk sleeves across his chest. Simon took over now, and

(38:13):
so far as Weaver could judge, he did well. He
recited a litany which Weaver had taught him, indicating by
gestures that the congregation was to repeat after him every
second speech. The low chirping welled from the hall, a comforting,
warming sound, almost like the responses of a human congregation.
Weaver felt tears welling to his eyes, and he restrained

(38:34):
himself from weeping openly, only by a gigantic effort. After all,
he was a god of wrath, but the love which
swept towards him at this moment was a powerful thing
to gainsay. When it was all over, he went back
to his sanctum, dismissed all his retinue except his regular assistance,
and removed the ceremonial robes. The people responded, well, he said,

(38:54):
I am pleased. Simon said they will work hard to
please you. Master, you bring great health happiness to them.
That is well, said Weaver. He sat down behind his
great desk, while the others stood attentively below him in
the sunken four section of the sanctum. What business have
you for me today? There is the matter of the novel, master,

(39:15):
said Mark. He stepped forward, mounted the single step to
Weaver's dais, and laid a sheaf of papers on the desk.
This is a preliminary attempt which one called Peter Smith
has made with my unworthy help. I will read it later.
Weaver told him it was poor stuff, no doubt. What
else could one expect? But it was a start. He

(39:35):
would tell them what was wrong with it, and they
would try again. Literary criticism, armaments, tariffs, manners. There was
no end to it. What else? Luke stepped forward. The
plans for the large weapons you commanded your servants to design. Master.
He put three large sheets of parchment on the desk.
Weaver looked at the neat tracery on the first and frowned.

(39:56):
You may come near me, he said, show me how
the are meant to operate. Luke pointed to the first drawing.
This is the barrel of the weapon, Master, he said,
as you commanded, it is rifled so that the missile
will spin. Here the missile is inserted at the breach
according to your direction. Here is the mechanism which turns
and aims the weapon as you commanded. It is shown

(40:18):
in great detail on this second sheet. And here on
the third is the missile itself. It is hollow and
filled with explosive powder, as you ortered, and there is
in the tip a device which will attract it to
the target. Weaver gravely nodded. Has it been tested in
models only? Master, If you direct, the construction will begin

(40:39):
at once. Good proceed, How many of these can you
make for me within a month? Luke hesitated. Few. Master,
At first, all must be done by hand methods. Later
it will be possible to make many at a time,
fifty or even one hundred and one month. But for
the first two or three months, Master, two weapons in
a month is all that you are unworthy. Serve Pants

(41:00):
can do very well, said Weaver. See to it. He
turned and examined the large globe of the planet which
stood on his desk. Here was another product of his genius.
The Taranovans had scarcely had maps worthy of the name
before his coming. The three major continents trailed downward like
fleshy leaves from the north Pole. He had called them America, Europe,

(41:21):
and Asia, and they were so lettered on the globe.
In the southern hemisphere. Besides the tips of Europe, in
Asia and fully a third of America, there was a
fourth continent, shaped rather like a hat, which he had
called Australia. There was no Africa on Terra Nova, but
that was small loss. Weaver had never thought highly of Africa.
The planet itself. According to the experts who had been assigned,

(41:44):
the problem was a little more than ten thousand miles
in diameter. The land area, Weaver thought, probably amounted to
more than fifty million square miles. It was a great
deal to defend, but it must be done. Here is
your next assignment, he told Luke. Put a team to
work on selecting and preparing sites for these guns. When
they are built, there must be one in every thousand

(42:05):
square miles. Luke bowed and took the plans away, for otherwise.
Weaver thought somberly, another ship might land some day, and
how could I trust these children not to welcome it?
Sunlight gleamed brilliantly from the broad white marble plaza beyond
the tall portico. Looking through the windows, he could see
the enormous block of stone in the center of the plaza,

(42:26):
and the tiny robot aircar hovering near it, and the
tiny ant shapes of the crowd on the opposite side.
Beyond the sky was a clear, faultless blue Are you
ready now, master, asked Luke. Weaver tested his limbs. They
were rigid and almost without sensation. He could not move
them so much as a fraction of an inch. Even
his lips were as stiff as that marble outside. Only

(42:49):
the fingers of his right hand, clutching a pen, felt
as if they belonged to him. A metal frame supported
a notepad where his hand could reach it. Then he
wrote yes seed with the statue. Luke was holding a
tiny torpedo shaped object that moved freely at the end
of a long jointed metal arm. He moved it tentatively

(43:09):
toward Weaver's left shoulder outside the hovering aircar duplicated the motion.
The grinder at its tip bit with a screech into
the side of the huge stone. Weaver watched, feeling no discomfort.
The drug Luke had injected was working perfectly. Luke moved
the pantograph pointer again and again until it touched Weaver's
robed body. With every motion, the aircar boored a tunnel

(43:32):
into the stone to the exact depth required, and backed
out again. Slowly a form was beginning to emerge. The
distant screech of the grinder was muffled and not unpleasant.
Weaver felt a trifle sleepy. The top of one extended
arm was done. The aircar moved over and began the other,
leaving the head still buried in stone. After this, Weaver

(43:53):
thought he could rest. His cities were built, his churches founded,
his guns built and tested, his people trained. The Taranovans
were as civilized as he could make them. In one generation.
They had literary societies, news stands, stock markets, leisure in
working classes, baseball leagues, armies. They had to give up
their barbaric comfort, of course, so much. The better life

(44:16):
was real life was earnest. Weaver had taught them that
the mechanism of his government ran smoothly. It would continue
to run with only an occasional guiding touch. This was
his last major task. The monument something to remember me by,
he thought, drowsily, myself in stone, long after I am gone.
That will keep them to my ways. Even if they

(44:37):
should be tempted to them. I will still be here,
standing over them. Gigantic, imperishable. They will still have something
to worship. Stone dust was obscuring the figure, now glittering
in the sunlight. Luke undercut a huge block of the stone,
and it fell, turning lazily, and crashed on the pavement.
Robot tractors darted out to haul the pieces away. Weaver

(44:59):
was glad it was Luke whose hand was guiding the pantograph,
not one of the bright, efficient younger generation. They had
been together a long time, Luke and he almost ten years.
He knew Luke as if he were a human being,
understood him as if he were a person. And Luke
knew him better than any of the rest. Knew his
smiles and his frowns, and all his moods. It had

(45:21):
been a good life. He had done all the things
he set out to do, and he had done them
in his own time and his own way. At this distance,
it was almost impossible to believe that he had once
been a little man among billions of others, conforming to
their patterns, doing what was expected of him. His free
hand was growing tired from holding the pen. When all
the rest was done, Luke would freeze that hand also,

(45:43):
and then it would be only a minute or so
until he could inject the antidote. He scribbled idly, Do
you remember the old days before I came? Luke? Very well, Master,
said the apostle. But it seems a long time ago, Yes,
Weaver told himself contentedly, just what I was thinking. We
understand each other, Luke and I, he wrote, Things are

(46:04):
very different now, eh, very different. Master, You made many
changes that people are very grateful to you. He could
see the broad outlines of the colossal figure now, the
arms in their heavy ecclesiastical sleeves stretched in benediction, the
legs firmly planted, but the bowed head was still a rough,
featureless mass of stone, not yet shaped. Do you know

(46:25):
we were? Wrote on impulse that when I first came,
I thought for a time that you were savages who
might want to eat me. That would startle Luke, he thought,
But Luke said, we all wanted to very much, But
that would have been foolish. Master. Then we would not
have had all the other things, and besides, there would
not have been enough of you for all. The aircar screeched,

(46:46):
driving a tunnel along the edge of the parted vestments.
God felt a cold wind down the corridor of time.
He had been that close, after all. It was only
because the natives had been cold bloodedly foresighted that he
was still alive. The idea infuriated him, and somehow he
was still afraid. He wrote, you never told me of this.

(47:07):
You will all do a penance for it. Luke was
dabbing the pointer carefully at the bald top of Weaver's head.
His horny, complicated face was unpleasantly close, the mandibles unpleasantly big,
even behind his mouth veil. Luke said, we will very gladly,
except that perhaps the new ones will not like it.

(47:28):
Weaver felt bewildered. In one corner of his mind, he
felt a tiny darkness unfolding, the kernel of doubt, forgotten
so long, but there all the time, growing larger, now
expanding to a ragged, terrifying shape. He wrote, what do
you mean, what are the new ones? Luke said, we
did not tell you. We knew you would not like it.

(47:49):
A space ship landed in Asia two months ago. There
are three people in it. One is sick, but we
believe the other two will live. They are very funny people, Master.
The pantagraph pointer moved down the side of God's nose,
and another wedge of stone fell into the plaza. They
have three long legs and a very little body, and
a head with one eye in front and one behind. Also,

(48:11):
they have very funny ideas. They are horrified at the
way we live, and they are going to change it.
All around. Weaver's fingers jerked uncontrollably, and the words wavered
across the page. I don't understand, I don't understand. I
hope you are not angry, Master said Luke. We are
very grateful to you. When you came, we were desperately bored.

(48:32):
There had been no new thing for more than seven
thousand years since the last ship came from space. You
know that we have not much imagination. We tried to
invent new things for ourselves, but we could never think
of anything so amusing as the ones you gave us.
We will always remember you with gratitude. The pantograph was
tracing Weaver's eyelids, and then the unfeeling eyes themselves. But

(48:54):
all things must end, said Luke. Now we have these
others who do not like what you have done, so
we cannot worship you any more. And anyway, some of
the people are growing tired. It has been ten years
a long time, one thought pierced through the swirling fear
in Weaver's mind. The guns built with so much labor,
the enormous guns that could throw a shell two hundred miles,

(49:16):
the crews manning them night and day to destroy the
first ship that came from space, and they had never
meant to use them. Anger fought with caution. He felt
peculiarly helpless, now locked up in his own body like
a prison. What are you going to do? He scrawled,
Nothing that will hurt Master, said Luke. You remember I
told you long ago we had no machines for killing

(49:37):
before you came. We use other things like this drug
which paralyzes you will feel no pain. Algernon Weaver's hand,
gripping the pen as a drowning man holds to a stave,
was moving without his volition. It was scrawling in huge letters,
over and over. No, no, no, it is too bad.
We cannot wait, said Luke, But it has to be

(49:58):
done before the new ones get here. They would not
like it, probably. He let the pointer go, and it
hung where he had left it. With two jointed claws,
he seized Weaver's hand and straightened it out to match
the other, removing the pen. With a third claw, he
thrust a slender needle under the skin. Instantly, the hand
was as rigid as the rest of Weaver's body. Weaver

(50:18):
felt as if the last door had been slammed, the
telephone wire's cut, the sod thrown on his coffin. This
is the way we have decided, said Luke. It is
a shame because perhaps these new ones will not be
as funny as you after all, but it is the
way we have decided. He took up the pantograph pointer again.
In the plaza, the aircar ground at the huge stone

(50:39):
head outlining the stern mouth, the resolute bearded jaw. Helplessly,
Weaver returned the stare of that remorseless, brooding face, the
face of a conqueror and of the worshippers by Damon
Knight