Regeneration | Page 5

more about religion, Thor or Thougor. Maybe soon they would forget the whole thing. Now he could go back to teaching the youngsters and some of the brighter oldsters the methods of writing in symbols instead of drawing pictures.

Hours and days turned into weeks and months as Builder taught his people what feeble knowledge he possessed in arithmetic, simple engineering--such as the dam--and most of all, instilling in them the will to want to learn and investigate and question anything they came in contact with--even the very thing he was asking them to do.
As the weeks passed on and the dam was completed, he gradually gathered around him an ardent little group of seeker after that most elusive of all things--"Truth".
But Builder knew that his days were numbered now, and his work completed; there was still one thing he had to do, and that was permanently to do away with Thor by dropping the idol to the bottom of the dam; he still hadn't examined the god hidden under his sleeping pile.
One evening after returning from a solitary walk above the dam, he entered his shack and lit a torch, then almost dropped it from shock!
His dwelling was a wreck. The place had been ransacked from top to bottom. His sleeping pile lay in the middle of the floor--the idol was gone!
He turned and fled from the room, but before he could take a dozen steps towards the village, several shadows glided out from behind trees and rocks in the moonlight, resolving themselves into men.
Before he could cry out or struggle, strong arms pinned his arms to his body and someone clapped a dirty hand over his mouth. He was forced back into his hovel and the door slammed shut. Standing in front of him was a very bedraggled figure whom he recognized as Thougor. He also recognized his three other captors; all were elderly reactionaries of the tribe who had disapproved of him from the beginning. In spite of his predicament Builder felt a warm glow of happiness course through him. If these were the only cronies Thougor could round up, that meant the rest of the villagers were sympathetic with his cause. He suddenly became aware of Thougor's grating voice:
"It took me a little time to piece things together, but once I did, it didn't take me long to come back and find the god where I might have at first suspected it would be--right here! For your sacrilege you will pay with every last drop of blood you have in your scrawny old body--and now!" Whereupon Thougor disappeared out of the hovel.
Somehow Builder had known they wore going to kill him before arousing the rest of the tribe to the fact that Thor was back. Thougor was taking no chances of his standing in the way of him or Thor ever again. But Builder didn't care: he had sown his few seeds of knowledge and wisdom well. Although Thougor didn't know it, this time he wouldn't have complete homage from all the tribe. There would now be doubts and questionings and tests for both Thor and Thougor in the ways of truth and righteousness.
Then Thougor returned to the shack with what, Builder thought, must be Thor. The hand over his mouth had twisted his head back so that he only got a glimpse, but he didn't miss the long knife Thougor pulled from beneath his tattered skins, nor the large sacrificial bowl one of the others held below his neck. Then his head was tilted forward and sidewise, and he got his first full look at the god Thor. At the sight, his whole body shook with smothered laughter. Below the two arms and etched thunderbolt were large block letters standing out in bold relief:
THOR Automatic Dishwasher Atomic Powered 1999

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A WORD FROM PROJECT GUTENBERG
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