Once more Jeremy's fingers worked feverishly and constricting force beams slowly brought the chaos under control. At last there gleamed on his screen the steady glare of a hot new sun.
Now that he had the sun material to draw upon, he easily reconstructed the entire system he had been assigned. By setting up stresses and strains within the star he caused huge chunks to spin off and take up orbits about it.
The problem so engrossed him that he scarcely noticed the passage of time. Periodically he would get hungry or thirsty. It was a simple matter to press the proper buttons and hurriedly gulp the foods that appeared. Whenever he tired mentally, he tilted his chair to a comfortable position and slept.
And as the days passed, the facsimile took shape under his genius. Each separate world became a duplicate of its original. Mountains were born; the seas dashed at first against shores that were bare and bleak; then the magic of plant life on all the varied worlds assumed a rainbow of colors. The ooze of the oceans began to crawl. On land and in the air animals appeared.
At last, through fatigue-rimmed eyes, he looked at what he had created and it was good. With a smile on his lips he relaxed. Although he reached out to cut off the power to his Thought Augmentor, he didn't quite reach the switch before he fell into a restless sleep. He tossed and turned, twitched and dreamed.
When he awoke, he noticed that the power was still on. He quickly turned it off. A hurried, searching glance at the screen assured him. The facsimile was still good. Then he pressed the switch marked—INSTRUCTIONS.
"You are finished, Student Hovah?"
"Yes, Instructor!"
"It took you a long time—six whole days."