"The people responded well," He said. "I am pleased."
Simon said, "They will work hard to please You, Master. You bring great 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 fore-section of the sanctum. "What business have you for Me today?"
"There is the matter of the novel, Master," 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 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. "You may come near Me," He said. "Show Me how these 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 breech, according to Your direction. Here is the mechanism which turns and aims the weapon, as You commanded. It is shown in greater detail on this second sheet.... And here, on the third, is the missile itself. It is hollow and filled with explosive powder, as You ordered, 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 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 a hundred in one month—but for the first two or three months, Master, two weapons in a month is all that Your unworthy servants 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 Terranovans 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 and Asia, and they were so lettered on the globe. In the southern hemisphere, besides the tips of Europe and 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 Terranova, but that was small loss: Weaver had never thought highly of Africa.
The planet itself, according to the experts who had been assigned 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 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, 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 the fraction of an inch. Even His lips were as stiff as that marble outside. Only the fingers of His right hand, clutching a pen, felt as if they belonged to Him.
A metal frame supported a note-pad where His hand could reach it. Then he wrote, "Yes. Proceed 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 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 bored a tunnel 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 thought, He could rest. His cities were built, His church founded, His guns built and tested, His people trained. The Terranovans were as civilized as He could make them in one generation. They had literary societies, newsstands, stock markets, leisure and working classes, baseball leagues, armies.... They had had to give up their barbaric comfort, of course; so much the better. Life 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 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 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, all His moods.
It had 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, 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 very different now, eh?"
"Very different, Master. You made many changes. The people are very grateful to You."
He could see the broad outlines of the colossal figure now: the arms, in their heavy ecclesiastical sleeves, outstretched in benediction, the legs firmly planted. But the bowed head was still a rough, featureless mass of stone, not yet shaped.
"Do you know," Weaver wrote, on impulse, "that when I first came, I thought for a time that you were savages who might want to eat Me?"