"I went out to space to escape the environment. Now I'm right back in it, only worse than ever." "Well, look, Underwood, why can't you just build a sort of balcony with a ramp running across the lab so that these Disciples of the Great One can look down into the bath? You could feed them in at one end of the building and run them out the other. That way it wouldn't upset you. After all, it's only going to last six months." "When the Stroid revives, they'll probably want to put him on a throne with a radiant halo about his head." Boarder laughed. "If he represents the civilization whose artifacts we've found on the asteroids, I think he'll take care of his 'Disciples' in short order. Anyway, you'll have to do as they demand. It won't last long." Boarder cut off and Underwood turned back to the bland Hennessey, who sat as if nothing would ever disturb him. "You see," Hennessey said, "I knew what the outcome would be. I had faith in the Great One." "Faith! You knew that the scientific committee would back you up because you represent eighty million neurotic crackpots. What will you do when your Great One wakes up and tells you all to go to hell?" Hennessey smiled quietly. "He won't. I have faith." _CHAPTER SIX_ Two days later, Underwood received a call from Phyfe, asking for an appointment. It was urgent; that was all Phyfe would tell him. The archeologist had not heard of the demands of the Disciples. He was surprised to see the construction under way in the great central hall where the restoration equipment was installed. He found Underwood with Illia in the laboratory examining films of the protoplasmic growth. "What are you building out there?" he asked. "I thought you had all the equipment in." "A monument to human stupidity," Underwood growled. Then he told Phyfe of the orders he had received. "We're putting in a balcony so that the faithful can look down upon their Great One. Boarder says we'll have to put up with this nonsense for six months." "Why six months?" "Demarzule will be revived by then or else we'll have failed. In either case, the Disciples will have come to an end." "Why?" Underwood glanced up in irritation. "If he's dead, they won't have anything to worship. And if he lives, he certainly won't have anything to do with them." "I could ask another 'why,'" said Phyfe, "but I'll put it this way. You know nothing of how he will act if he lives. And if he dies he'll probably be a martyr that will establish a new worldwide religion--with those of us who have had to do with this experiment and its failure being burned at the stake." Underwood laid down the sheaf of films. Out among the asteroids he had learned to respect the old archeologist's opinions but Dreyer had already laid more of a burden upon him than he felt he should bear. "The technological aspects of this problem are more than you say you have found?"