At last the words had been spoken and the flood gates were down in the tortured brain of the Prophet. Like a sudden conflagration, realization came—and with it, blind terror.
"No! Nonono! You cannot continue this devil's work! Think what it would mean if these things should ever be loosed on the world of Man!" the Prophet's voice was a steadily rising shrill of fear.
Han Merrick looked out across the rows of pallets, each with its burden of a superman, bound like Prometheus to the rock, helpless in hypnotic chains. It struck him again that his life had not been well spent. He looked from his charges to the ranting fear-crazed rabble-rouser. The contrast was too shocking, too complete. For the "androids" were, in fact, worthy of a dignity even in slavery that homo sapiens had never attained in overlordship. Merrick knew at last what he must do.
Racial loyalty stirred, but was quickly smothered in the humiliation of man's omnipresent thievery. For it was thievery, Merrick thought. Man was keeping for himself the heritage that was the rightful property of a newer, better race.
He took the automatic from his jumper and leveled it at Erikson's chest. He felt very sure and right. Though he knew that he was sealing the death warrant of his wife and his friends, the memory of their vacillations anesthetized him against any feeling of loss. He waited until Erikson screamed one word into the transmitter imbedded in his flesh—
The word was: "Attack!"
—and in the next instant, Han Merrick shot him dead.
he fanatics on the ridges heard the Prophet's command and sprang to comply. Energy swept out of the grids, through the coils of the projectors and out over the blind cube of the Creche.