The Worshippers | Page 7

bring them new thing, they very happy."
Weaver mused on this, contentedly on the whole, but with a small undigested kernel of uneasiness, until they reached the next village. Here he found a crowd of Terranovans of both sexes and all ages at a feast of something with a fearful stench. He asked what it was; Mark's answer had better not be revealed. Feeling genuinely sick with revulsion, Weaver demanded, "Why do they do such an awful thing? This is ten times worse than the other."
This time Mark answered without hesitation. "They do this like the other, for more change. Is not easy to learn to like, but they do, so not to make themselves have tiredness."
* * * * *
There were three more such incidents before they reached the village where they were to sleep that night; and Weaver lay awake in his downy bed, staring at the faint shimmer of reflected starlight on the carved roof-beams, and meditating soberly on the unexpected, the appalling magnitude of the task he had set himself.
From this, he came to consider that small dark kernel of doubt. It was of course dreadful to find that his people were so wholly corrupt, but that at least was understandable. What he did not understand was the reason they could be so easily weaned from their wickedness. It left him feeling a little off-balance, like a man who has hurled himself at his enemy and found him suddenly not there. This reminded him of ju-jitsu, and this in turn of the ancient Japanese--to whom, indeed, his Terranovans seemed to have many resemblances. Weaver's uneasiness increased. Savage peoples were notoriously devious--they smiled and then thrust knives between your ribs.
He felt a sudden prickling coldness at the thought. It was improbable, it was fantastic that they would go to such lengths to gratify his every wish if they meant to kill him, he told himself; and then he remembered the Dionysian rites, and a host of other, too-similar parallels. The king for a day or a year, who ruled as an absolute monarch, and then was sacrificed--
And, Weaver remembered with a stab of panic, usually eaten.
He had been on Terranova for a little over a month by the local calendar. What was his term of office to be--two months? Six? A year, ten years?
* * * * *
He slept little that night, woke late in the morning with dry, irritated eyes and a furred mouth, and spent a silent day, inspecting each new batch of natives without comment, and shivering inwardly at each motion of the clawed arms of Mark, Luke or John. Toward evening he came out of his funk at last, when it occurred to him to ask about weapons.
He put the query slyly, wording it as if it were a matter of general interest only, and of no great importance. Were they familiar with machines that killed, and if so, what varieties did they have?
At first Mark did not understand the question. He replied that their machines did not kill, that very long ago they had done so but that the machines were much better now, very safe and not harmful to anyone. "Then," wrote Weaver carefully, "you have no machines which are made for the purpose of killing?"
Mark, Luke and John discussed this with every evidence of excitement. At last Mark wrote, "This very new idea to us."
"But do you have in this world no large, dangerous animals which must be killed? How do you kill those things which you eat?"
"No dangerous animals. We kill food things, but not use machines. Give some things food which make them die. Give some no food, so they die. Kill some with heat. Some eat alive."
Weaver winced with distaste when he read this last, and was about to write, "This must stop." But he thought of oysters, and decided to reserve judgment.
After all, it had been foolish of him to be frightened last night. He had been carried away by a chance comparison which, calmly considered, was superficial and absurd. These people were utterly peaceful--in fact, spineless.
He wrote, "Take the aircar up farther, so that I can see this village from above."
He signaled John to stop when they had reached a height of a few hundred feet. From this elevation, he could see the village spread out beneath him like an architect's model--the neat cross-hatching of narrow streets separating the hollow curves of rooftops, dotted with the myriad captive balloons launched in honor of his appearance.
The village lay in the gentle hollow of a wide valley, surrounded by the equally gentle slopes of hills. To his right, it followed the bank of a fair-sized river; in the other three directions the checkered pattern ended in a careless, irregular outline and was replaced by the larger pattern of