deed, made for the sole purpose of being
smashed. He wondered how many other tribes had tricked their gods
similarly.

No, they were not at all stupid. It struck him that with such advantages
of civilization as he himself had enjoyed, they would have gone much
further than he did. Two weeks or so after he had come down from the sky
to be their god, he saw that they had learned from him. One of the young
men appeared during the day wearing a wooden helmet. It was a helmet
obviously patterned after his own, although it had no glass or plastic,
and the openings in front of the eyes were left blank. The mythical
Earth-hero, Prometheus, had brought fire down from the skies. He had
brought the Helmet. He was Bradley, the Helmet-Bringer.

Even at that he had underestimated his worshippers. He had thought at
first that the helmets were meant merely for ornament and decoration. He
learned better one day when a swarm of creatures like flying lizards
swept down out of a group of trees in a fierce attack. He had not known
that such creatures existed here, and now that he saw them, he realized
how fortunate it was that they were not more numerous. They had sharp
teeth and sharper claws, and they tore at his head with a ferocity that
struck fear into his heart. His gun was of less use than usual against
them. He could catch one or two, but the others moved too swiftly for
him to aim.

By this time, others of the natives wore wooden helmets, and he could
see how the sharp claws ripped splinter after splinter from them. But
the birds or lizards, or whatever they were, didn't go unscathed. From a
sort of skin bellows, several of the natives blew a gray mist at them,
and where the mist made contact with the leather skin, the flying
creatures seemed to be paralyzed in mid-flight, and they fell to the
ground, where they were easily crushed to death. By the time they had
given up the fight and fled, half a dozen of them were lying dead.

They were evidently useless for food because of the poison they
contained. He was surprised to see, however, that the natives still had
a use for them. They dragged the dead creatures into a field of growing
crops, and left them there to rot into fertilizer.

But such incidents as this, he found, were to be rare. For the most
part, the life here was peaceful, and he found himself liking it more
and more. Now, without laughter, he wondered again what his mother would
have thought of him.

She would ha