at deal to defend; but it must be done.

"Here is your next assignment," He told Luke. "Put a team to work on
selecting and preparing sites for these guns, when they are built. There
must be one in every thousand square miles...."

Luke bowed and took the plans away.

... For otherwise, Weaver thought somberly, another ship might land,
some day. And how could I trust these children not to _welcome_ it?

* * * * *

Sunlight gleamed brilliantly from the broad, white-marble plaza beyond
the tall portico. Looking through the windows, He could see the enormous
block of stone in the center of the plaza, and the tiny robot aircar
hovering near it, and the tiny ant-shapes of the crowd on the opposite
side. Beyond, the sky was a clear, faultless blue.

"Are you ready now, Master?" asked Luke.

Weaver tested His limbs. They were rigid and almost without sensation;
He could not move them so much as the fraction of an inch. Even His lips
were as stiff as that marble outside. Only the fingers of His right
hand, clutching a pen, felt as if they belonged to Him.

A metal frame supported a note-pad where His hand could reach it. Then
he wrote, "Yes. Proceed with the statue."

Luke was holding a tiny torpedo-shaped object that moved freely at the
end of a long, jointed metal arm. He moved it tentatively toward
Weaver's left shoulder. Outside, the hovering aircar duplicated the
motion: the grinder at its tip bit with a screech into the side of the
huge stone.

Weaver watched, feeling no discomfort; the drug Luke had injected was
working perfectly. Luke moved the pantograph pointer, again and again,
until it touched Weaver's robed body. With every motion, the aircar
bored a tunnel into the stone to the exact depth required, and backed
out again. Slowly a form was beginning to emerge.

The distant screech of the grinder was muffled and not unpleasant.
Weaver felt a trifle sleepy.

The top of one extended arm was done. The aircar moved over and began
the other, leaving the head still buried in stone.

After this, Weaver thought, He could rest. His cities were built, His
church founded, His guns built and tested, His people trained. The
Terranovans were as civilized as He could make them in one generation.
They had literary societies, newsstands, stock markets, leisure and
working classes, baseball leagues, armies.... They had had to give up
their barbaric comfort, of course; so much the better.