stilettos, daggers.
They were the weapons of stealth men--and sometimes women--used in the
night. The assassin's weapon, the glitter in the darkened alley.

There were the _machetes_. Jungle knives, cane-cutting instruments. The
bayonets....

You could go on and on from there, apparently. But what did you get?
They were all more or less useful, Harrison supposed. There was nothing
more you could do with any kind of sword that was designed for a
specific purpose.

Harrison sighed in despair. He had expected vastly more when he had
first heard the alien mention "test". He had expected some complex
instrument, something new to Terra and her colonies. Something involving
complex and perhaps unknown principles of an alien technology. Something
appropriate to the strange metal craft that traveled so very fast.

Or perhaps a paradox. A thing that could not be constructed without
exploding, like a lattice of U235 of exactly critical size. Or an
instrument that must be assembled in an impossible sequence, like a
clock with a complete, single-pieced outer shell. Or a part of a thing
that could be "corrected" only if the whole thing were visualized,
constructed, and tested.

No, the blueprint he held now involved an awareness that must prove
beyond mere technology, or at least Terran technology. Maybe it involved
an awareness that transcended Terran philosophy as well.

Harrison slapped the pencil down on his desk, rose, put his coat on, and
left the office.

* * * * *

"... we are guilty as the angels of the bible were guilty. Pride! That's
it, folks, pride. False pride...."

Harrison fringed the intent crowd of people cursing when, frequently,
someone carelessly bumped into him in an effort to get nearer the
sidewalk preacher.

"We tried to live with the angels above. We wanted to fly like the
birds. And then we wanted to fly like the angels...."

Someone near Harrison muttered an "Amen". Harrison wove his way through
them wondering where the hundreds of such evangelists had come from so
suddenly.

"Ya know, folks, the angels themselves got uppity once. _They_ wanted to
be like Gawd himself, they did. Now, it's us."

There was a small flutter of laughter among the crowd. It was very
quickly suppressed--so quickly that Harrison gained a new appreciation
of the tenor of the crowd.

"That's right, laugh! Laugh at our folly!" continued the thin-faced,
bright-eyed man. "It was a sword