* * * * * "Our science need not concern itself with crudities like names, barbarian. 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. "Who was the poet--you?" "Yes! Why not? Do you think because I am an old man--" "A heedlessly spiteful one who hasn't stopped to think." "Stopped to think! _Look!_" Vigil seized the torch at the doorway and lifted it high. "Did you think I wasn't sure? That the weapon has not been tested?" Now Greaves could see why the gun sang rather than rested in quiet patience. A Shadow hung against the far wall, supported by its out-stretched arms, its hands sunken wrist-deep in the stone. And though it jerked its legs and struggled feebly to be free, the hands remained trapped. Under the sound of the idling gun, he could distinguish a quiet, thin, whimpering. Adelie laughed softly to herself. Vigil crowed: "He cannot move--what little strength remains to him is needed for bare existence ... if I were to touch that control-- "The weapon is at its lowest setting--it has incomparably more power than that; it has the power of all the Universe in it--and look what it can do when it is barely tapped in to its source of power!" Greaves rumbled in his throat. Suddenly the gun's song was more than he could stand. He barely seemed to move, but Vigil had time to shout, the outraged cry beginning to echo in the chamber when suddenly there came the snap of rending metal, and a choked stammer from the gun. And then Greaves had the gun in his hands, completely torn from its pedestal. He threw it out into the night in a bright flash of fire that bathed them all in a thunderclap of light. Greaves stared after it, his teeth bared, the horrid sound of his hatred still rumbling within him. When that had dwindled, leaving him with his heavy chest heaving for air, the trapped Shadow had vanished, no doubt to tell Mayron that Humanity's godling had gone insane. Adelie was very pale. Vigil was trying to speak. And that from the old man was enough to bring back the first scarlet edge of the fury he had turned on the gun. "Close your mouth!" Greaves commanded him. "I have to go fight Mayron tomorrow, and I don't want another word out of you. Go find something useless to do. Adelie, I want a bath, some food and drink. Right now!" IV