The feel of the pick slashing through it told him that: it was like hitting an overripe melon. The globe recoiled, dragged itself off the pick, and sank toward the floor, wobbling and dripping yellow ooze, with its aura of energy fading quickly into air. Jerran said quietly, "No others in sight. We're lucky!" and began to make a hole in a pile of discarded rocks. "Help me hide it, Revel." "You can't hide it," he said dully. "They're telepathic, after all. It must have signaled its consorts." "They can't hear or send messages through rock," said Jerran, working away. Revel automatically started to help him. "How do you know?" "We've proved it." Revel heard the phrase, wondered who "we" might be; but so much had happened in the last seconds that he did not question Jerran. He couldn't absorb all the shattering facts. A man could not only touch a god, he could murder it! The gods were not all-powerful, for they could not perform telepathy if rock were in the way. Truly it was a morning of wonders. The world was falling around him. * * * * * He stared at the limp corpse of the globe. The tentacles were already shriveling up, the emanation of energy that surrounded the living orbs was gone. He bent, sniffed; no odor. He peered at it keenly, in the soft blue light of the mine's lanterns, then straightened. A hand fell on his shoulder. He spun on one heel, the pick arcing round to gut whoever was behind him. He had a glimpse of a short red beard and a popping walleye, and stopped his whirl by an instantaneous checking of his whole muscular system. The pick's point, still splattered with god's gore, was nudging his brother's belly. "Nobody could have halted such a swing but you, Revel," said Rack absently. His good eye, ice blue and sharp as a bone needle, was fixed on the dead globe. "What happened?" "An accident," said Jerran. "The god interposed itself between your brother's pick and the coal." "That's right," said Revel. He had been lying to his brother for years, but he never grew reconciled to it; still, Rack was a man with but one brain, and that one servile and obedient to every whim of the gentry, the priests, the gods. So he had to be lied to. Rack brought his gaze to Revel's tense face. "I got in the way of your pick," he said heavily. "You have the keenest nerves, the strongest body in the mines. This was no accident." Revel began to grow cold in the head and the bowels. If Rack was convinced that he'd slain the god on purpose, then he'd report him. The religion that held the world so tightly was greater than any family bonds. He looked up at Rack. The man was a giant towering four inches over Revel's six feet one, and sixty pounds heavier. Rack's eyes were blue and white, Revel's lustrous brown; the elder's hair and beard were flame-colored, the younger had a sleek chocolate-brown thatch with a hint of rich black in its sheen, and was clean-shaven.