Divinity | Page 5

and muttered to himself in relief, and then the wind began to
dissipate the vapor, and on the ground there was left only part of a head
and six torn legs.
They were bowing to him and raising their voices high in thanks. It was
easy, thought Bradley. Really, it was a cinch to be a god. The beasts
that were such great dangers to them were mere trifles to him. To him,
with a gun loaded with a thousand thermal charges each of which was
capable of blasting armor plate. The thing wouldn't even have come
close if he himself hadn't been such a timid, cowardly fool. Put
Malevski in his place, and the detective would have got the creature as
it came out of the trees. He wasn't Malevski.

It was a good thing for him that they couldn't know that. Now his
position was completely secure. Now he could relax and enjoy his
divine life.
He didn't realize that a much greater danger was yet to come. He found
that out after the evening ceremony.
* * * * *
The group that came to see him this time was bigger than ever.
Evidently, to honor him they had dropped all other work. Yanyoo
seemed to have constituted himself Bradley's priest. He made a
tremendously long and rhapsodic-sounding speech, but at the end there
was no donation of the usual food and flowers. Instead, Yanyoo backed
away, all the others doing the same, and looking at Bradley as if
expecting him to follow them.
He followed. In this manner, with his worshippers walking respectfully
backwards, they arrived at what seemed to Bradley to be an ordinary
small hut. Outside the hut was what he took for a curiously shaped log
of wood. The inside of the hut was in shadow, but as his eyes became
accustomed to the dimness, he saw something in one corner. It was a
weird-looking head, also of wood.
It struck him then. The log of wood had been the old god, good enough
to worship until he had come along and shown them what a god could
really do. Now it had been contemptuously deposed and decapitated.
The hut was a shrine. It was all his.
He had been promoted after all. The thought didn't please him in the
least. Suppose he failed them too--and that was very possible, for he
had no idea of what miracles they expected of him. Then he would be
deposed and--he gagged at the thought, but he knew that he had to
finish it--decapitated.
But for the moment there was no thought of deposing him. The gifts
they offered were more lavish than ever. And in addition to the food
and flowers, there was something new. A jug, filled with a warm,

sweetish-smelling liquid. He could get the odor faintly through the
intake valve of his helmet. Later on, when his worshippers were gone
and he had his helmet off, he realized that it smelled up the entire hut.
It couldn't be harmful. Nothing that they had offered him so far was
harmful. He took a sip--and sighed with content. This was one of the
few things he had been lacking. There was alcohol, and there were
flavors and essences that reminded him of the drinks he had
encountered on a dozen planets. But this was first class stuff, not
diluted or adulterated with the thousand and one synthetics that were
put in to stretch a good thing as far as it could go.
Without realizing the danger, he downed the entire contents of the jug.
* * * * *
He felt good. He hadn't felt so good in years, not since his mother had
made him a special cake for his birthday when he was--let me see now,
was it eight or nine? No matter, it had been many years ago, and the
occasion had been notable for the fact that she had let him drink some
of the older people's punch, made with a tiny bit of some alcoholic
drink. He felt very good. He picked up his helmet and put it on his head,
and stuck the stem of a green flower rakishly through the exit valve of
the helmet, so that the flower seemed to dance every time he exhaled,
and staggered out of his hut.
He was fortunate that it was dark. "I'm drunk," he told himself. "Never
been so drunk in my life. Never felt so good. Mother never felt so good.
Malevski never felt so good."
He passed a shadowy figure in the dark and said, "Hiya, friend and
worshipper. Ever see a god drunk before?"
The figure bowed, and kept its head lowered until he had moved on.
"Drunk or sober, I'm shtill divine," he said proudly. And he