Damon Knight

“ 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. ”

“ Finally he seized the note-pad 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?"
Mark consulted in his own piping tongue with the other two. Finally he surrendered the note-pad 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 to do that. With us all people the same, no one tell other what to do." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Here he found a crowd of Terranovans 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, 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. Is not easy to learn to like, but they do, so not to make themselves have tiredness." ”

“ 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?
Weaver 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 and read English with fair proficiency; thus Weaver was well served. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One star grew from a brilliant pinpoint to a tiny disk, 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 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 directly toward the star, it ought to stay in the same place on his screen. He turned on the engines and swung the steering arm downward. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ju-jitsu, and this in turn of the ancient Japanese—to whom, indeed, his Terranovans seemed to have many resemblances. Weaver's uneasiness increased. Savage peoples were notoriously devious—they smiled and then thrust knives between your ribs. ”

“ 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 triumphal tour. Other aircars, without the revolving arm, preceded and followed him. The slowly floating cars and their riders were gay with varicolored 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, diffusing cloud of rosy dust. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 the devil of a fix.
It was his sister's fault, actually. She would go, in spite of his advice, up to the Moon, to the UN sanatorium in Aristarchus. Weaver's sister, a big-framed, definite woman, had a weak heart and seventy-five superfluous pounds of fat. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Most of the crew had been ferried down to Earth, where they were inspecting the people (without approval, Weaver was sure) . Meanwhile, the remaining crewman 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 "crewman" turned out to be a hairy horror, a three-foot headless lump shaped like an eggplant, supported by four splayed legs and with an indefinite number of tentacles wriggling below the stalked eyes. ”

“ He opened his kit and offered the thing a plug of chewing tobacco, which was refused with much tentacle-waving, and 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, they're oxygen breathers," the guide finished. "The atmosphere in the ship here is almost identical to our own—we could breathe it without any discomfort whatever."
Then why don't we? Weaver thought irritably. ”

“ He discovered, by arduous trial and error, which of the supposed foods in the storerooms he could eat safely, which would make him sick, and which were not foods at all. He found out which of the control board's knobs and levers controlled the engines, and he shut them off. He studied the universe around him, hoping to see some change. ”

“ For it was perfectly clear and all of a pattern.
The marriage laws. Thou shalt not live in adultery.
The dietary laws. Thou shalt not eat that which is unclean.
And the logical concomitant, the law of worship. Thou shalt have no gods before Me.
The apostles ... Mark, Luke and John. Later, Matthew, Philip, Peter, Simon, Andrew, James, Bartholomew and Thomas. ”