Weaver's fingers jerked uncontrollably, and the words wavered across the page. "I don't understand. I don't understand."
"I hope You are not angry. Master," said Luke. "We are very grateful to You. When You came, we were desperately bored. There had been no new thing for more than seven thousand years, since the last ship came from space. You know that we have not much imagination. We tried to invent new things for ourselves, but we could never think of anything so amusing as the ones You gave us. We will always remember You with gratitude."
The pantograph was tracing Weaver's eyelids, and then the unfeeling eyes themselves.
"But all things must end," said Luke. "Now we have these others, who do not like what you have done, so we cannot worship you any more. And anyway, some of the people are growing tired. It has been ten years. A long time."
One thought pierced through the swirling fear in Weaver's mind. The guns, built with so much labor, the enormous guns that could throw a shell two hundred miles. The crews, manning them night and day to destroy the first ship that came in from space. And they had never meant to use them!
Anger fought with caution. He felt peculiarly helpless now, locked up in his own body like a prison. "What are you going to do?" he scrawled.
"Nothing that will hurt, Master," said Luke. "You remember, I told you long ago, we had no machines for killing before you came. We used other things, like this drug which paralyzes. You will feel no pain."
Algernon Weaver's hand, gripping the pen as a drowning man holds to a stave, was moving without his volition. It was scrawling in huge letters, over and over, "NO NO NO"....
"It is too bad we cannot wait," said Luke, "but it has to be done before the new ones get here. They would not like it, probably."