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, 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 this. 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."
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? Who are 'the new ones'?"
Luke said, "We did not tell You. We knew You would not like it. A spaceship 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 pantograph pointer moved down the side of God's nose and another wedge of stone fell in the plaza.
"They have three long legs, and a very little body, and a head with one eye in front and one behind. Also 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. 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 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. The crews, manning them night and day to destroy the first ship that came in 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 before you came. We used 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 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 felt as if the last door had been slammed, the telephone wires cut, the sod thrown on the 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 head, outlining the stern mouth, the resolute, bearded jaw. Helplessly, Weaver returned the stare of that remorseless, brooding face: the face of a conqueror.