Algis Budrys

“ Greaves, Adelie and Vigil stood beside the beast-couch. "All right," Greaves said. "Now there are things I want to know, and I want no quarrels, Vigil."
"And by what right do you order me around?" the old man growled. "You may be a god to some, but you are not my god."
"You owe it to me, atheist. If I was awakened today, at this pat moment, I could have been awakened before. I wasn't. You kept me asleep, guardian, when I could have been free as any other man. So you owe me."
The old man grunted. "You're brave with Mayron and brave with me. But all men are brave, each in his own way. ”

“ The god who was David Greaves again, when the rage had passed—that image which Man himself had made stood blazing his fury in the Chamber of Shadows, and the Universe of Man was free and safe. But in the places of the Shadows there was no hope, no joy, no place of refuge. Mankind was come forth, and galaxies were dying. ”

“ She added softly: "My name, though you did not ask, is Adelie." She paused. "I, too, am one of your worshippers. Wherever there are human beings, throughout the Universe, you are worshipped."
He looked at her more closely. There was a lift to one black-winged eyebrow that was less reverent than a god might like, though a man could have no quarrel with it. She stood gracefully on sandaled feet, dressed in a single white garment girdled around her waist by a belt made of the same metal in which the monsters were cast. ”

“ An untailed fox is safe from catching by the tail. A Shadow has no spirit, no humanity, no—soul. But there are always dunderheads. Mayron has them, and down in that city of his down there—" the old man waved a hand at the horizon, but all Greaves could see from where he stood were the glowing tops of what he took to be three fitfully active volcanoes—"he has a city full of dunderheaded shadows who go to some temple he has built and enter the Shadow chamber to be changed. The admission is easily gained; the price of freedom from human care is humanity." ”

“ Greaves said.
"The city that was once the First City of Man," Vigil said bitterly. "That Mayron has made into an outpost of Hell. Where no man dares live; where they say that those with Shadows, once they were in sufficient number, dragged women and children into the Chamber of Shadows so that their men, heart-broken, joined them when their Shadow-children returned to plead with them." ”

“ Greaves turned to Adelie, who waited, poised, while old Vigil and the young man quarreled. "Tell me the situation," Greaves said.
Adelie's lips parted. But the old man interrupted.
"The situation is that you have been awakened needlessly and would best go back to sleep at once. My daughter and these fanatical sheep—" he waved an angry arm at the standing worshippers—"have forced me to permit this. But in fact Humanity neither needs you nor wants you awake."
"Oh, on the contrary," the young man said. "Humanity needs its gods very badly at this hour. But you are only a man, not so?" ”

“ Perhaps on the other side he put on his human form again. Greaves could not tell. The sun was down, and only a little light glowed on the far horizon. The torches guttered in the court of monsters, and the worshippers were hurrying up the steps, out through the temple and away. ”

“ When Man himself can rescue himself? But, no, this one, this superstition-ridden tramp I wish I'd strangled in her cradle—she stirred the worshippers up, she arranged the combat between yourself and Mayron, she—"
"When and where?"
"What?"
"This fight Mayron and you have both spoken of."
"Tomorrow at noon. In the city. But there's no need for it. Tomorrow Mayron dies, and the other Shadows die. You can watch or not—as long as you stay out of the way."
Greaves looked at Adelie. "Your daughter, Vigil, does not look much impressed." ”

“ Greaves said, "other dunderheads come to gain what in exchange for what?"
"Gain at least some sort of affirmation at the cost of remaining men!" the old man growled. "If they are simple, at least they are human! And even an intelligent man can see the value in what is embodied here." ”

“ Now he saw that he had been cradled in the arms of a great black metal beast. It crouched atop the dais. Its head was bent supplicatingly, bright oily metal barely visible at the joinings of its mechanical body.
He glanced quickly up at the monsters atop their columns. "Are they all like that?" he asked Adelie.
An old man's gruff voice answered him from the other side of the beast-couch. "They won't spring down to devour you—you needn't be afraid of that." Two men came into view, one old, one young and very slim. The old one rapped the couch with his knuckles. ”

“ And you repaid him by testing it on him. As he well suspected you might. It's not only humans who can be brave. Or sacrifice themselves for the ferocity of their race. Or were you too busy taking Humanity's name in vain to ever consider that? You never dreamed that gun. Not you—you may be foolish, but you don't hate this Universe."
Vigil was blinking at him. "What—?"
Adelie laughed. "Last night, father. He asked me about weapon poets. There's no use trying to lie out of it."
Greaves smiled at her. "That's right. I asked you, and from that moment on you knew I was cleverer than Mayron thinks. ”

“ This gun was made as a song or a poem is made—in the mind of a man who dreams weapons where another man might dream bridges ... and when the gun finds its fruition, tomorrow when Mayron expects no mightier enemy than you, then the beam will sweep that city, and when it stops Mayron's city will be a tomb for empty skins. And Man will build another First City, and those who fled shall have a place again, and—"
"Who built—who dreamed—this piece of ironmongery?" Greaves growled. ”

“ Greaves stared at the old man through narrowing eyes.
"A beam of power, made of the stuff that spins within all things—the pure force of this continuum."
"You mean this thing is some kind of particle emitter—an electron or photon gun?"
"Our science need not concern itself with crudities like names, barbarian. ”

“ It seemed only fitting that we should bring to you the trophies of our achievements. It seemed only right to believe that you had survived to some purpose—that a day would come when Man would need his greatest hero. ”

“ But the couch has been attending to that—with some exceptions—for centuries. And you may be assured, Man's history has not been one unbroken triumph, nor his civilization any steady upward climb. But we built while you slumbered. ”