The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blessed Are the Meek, by G.C. Edmondson

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Title: Blessed Are the Meek

Author: G.C. Edmondson

Illustrator: Freas

Release Date: December 7, 2007 [EBook #23762]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note: This e-text was produced from Astounding, September,
1955. Extensive research did not reveal any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.

Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.

[Illustration]

BLESSED ARE THE MEEK

_Every strength is a weakness, and every weakness is a strength.
And when the Strong start smashing each other's strength ... the
Weak may turn out to be, instead, the Wise._

BY G. C. EDMONDSON

Illustrated by Freas

The strangers landed just before dawn, incinerating a good li of bottom
land in the process. Their machines were already busily digging up the
topsoil. The Old One watched, squinting into the morning sun. He
sighed, hitched up his saffron robes and started walking down toward
the strangers.

Griffin turned, not trying to conceal his excitement. "You're the
linguist, see what you can get out of him."

"I might," Kung Su ventured sourly, "if you'd go weed the air machine
or something. This is going to be hard enough without a lot of
kibitzers cramping my style and scaring Old Pruneface here half to
death."

"I see your point," Griffin answered. He turned and started back toward
the diggings. "Let me know it you make any progress with the local
language." He stopped whistling and strove to control the jauntiness of
his gait. _Must be the lower gravity and extra oxygen_, he thought. _I
haven't bounced along like this for thirty years. Nice place to settle
down if some promoter doesn't turn it into an old folks home._ He sighed
and glanced over the diggings. The rammed earth walls were nearly
obliterated by now. _Nothing lost_, he reflected. _It's all on tape
and they're no different from a thousand others at any rate._