The three major continents trailed downward like fleshy leaves from the north pole; He had called them America, Europe and Asia, and they were so lettered on the globe. In the southern hemisphere, besides the tips of Europe and Asia and fully a third of America, there was a fourth continent, shaped rather like a hat, which He had called Australia. There was no Africa on Terranova, but that was small loss: Weaver had never thought highly of Africa.
The planet itself, according to the experts who had been assigned the problem, was a little more than ten thousand miles in diameter. The land area, Weaver thought, probably amounted to more than fifty million square miles. It was a great deal to defend; but it must be done.
"Here is your next assignment," He told Luke. "Put a team to work on selecting and preparing sites for these guns, when they are built. There must be one in every thousand square miles...."
Luke bowed and took the plans away.
... For otherwise, Weaver thought somberly, another ship might land, some day. And how could I trust these children not to welcome it?
Sunlight gleamed brilliantly from the broad, white-marble plaza beyond the tall portico. Looking through the windows, He could see the enormous block of stone in the center of the plaza, and the tiny robot aircar hovering near it, and the tiny ant-shapes of the crowd on the opposite side. Beyond, the sky was a clear, faultless blue.
"Are you ready now, Master?" asked Luke.
Weaver tested His limbs. They were rigid and almost without sensation; He could not move them so much as the fraction of an inch. Even His lips were as stiff as that marble outside. Only the fingers of His right hand, clutching a pen, felt as if they belonged to Him.
A metal frame supported a note-pad where His hand could reach it. Then he wrote, "Yes. Proceed with the statue."