"By you, I meant simply men like you," Tydore said. "When the first Earthmen came and befouled Mars with their presence, I knew that I must make the weapon." He smiled, showing even white teeth. "A small triumph, but things are not to be measured by whether they are great or small. Rather by their flavor, their grace, and their neatness, Marley."
"You speak of triumph, old man," snorted Marley derisively, "while your precious weapon is in my hands."
Tydore shrugged. "As I knew it would be one day when I spread the tales of what the weapon would do. It drew you as a lodestone draws a sliver of iron."
Marley felt a pang of panic. "You mean this thing is a fake?"
Tydore shook his head. "No counterfeit. It will do what I said it would do. Kill. What more can one ask of a weapon?"
It was Marley's turn to smile. "Nothing. And there is only this one. And if you were to die...."
Tydore smiled a veiled smile. "It is as the gods of sand and wind decree."
Marley pointed the weapon at Tydore. He had only to kill the old Martian and return to his ship. The mission was over. Completed. He was done with Mars and with Tydore and his subtle scorn.
He cradled the weapon lovingly, laying his cheek to the carven stock. Old Tydore had built well. There was perfect balance in the feel of it. His finger curled around the trigger and he sighted carefully down the long barrel at the robed figure of the Martian. Tydore was smiling in the face of death, and Marley wanted to laugh out loud. This is the way the world ends, he was thinking. Not with a bang but a whimper. He squeezed the trigger....
The universe exploded in Marley's face. There was a streak of searing pain that carried away half his face, and as he fell he could hear a strange sound. For the first time, Tydore was laughing aloud. It was a hideous sound. A voice for the torment and hatred of a race that had lived too long, planned too much. Marley felt the tower pinwheel around him, the flagstones leapt up to meet him, greeting the searing agony of his face with the soundless laughter of a million intricate patterns of lonely death. And blackness welled up out of the stones to engulf him, but not before he knew—