"What are you building out there?" he asked. "I thought you had all the equipment in."
"A monument to human stupidity," Underwood growled. Then he told Phyfe of the orders he had received. "We're putting in a balcony so that the faithful can look down upon their Great One. Boarder says we'll have to put up with this nonsense for six months."
"Why six months?"
"Demarzule will be revived by then or else we'll have failed. In either case, the Disciples will have come to an end."
"Why?"
Underwood glanced up in irritation. "If he's dead, they won't have anything to worship. And if he lives, he certainly won't have anything to do with them."
"I could ask another 'why,'" said Phyfe, "but I'll put it this way. You know nothing of how he will act if he lives. And if he dies he'll probably be a martyr that will establish a new worldwide religion—with those of us who have had to do with this experiment and its failure being burned at the stake."
Underwood laid down the sheaf of films. Out among the asteroids he had learned to respect the old archeologist's opinions but Dreyer had already laid more of a burden upon him than he felt he should bear.
"The technological aspects of this problem are more than you say you have found?"
"Fortunately for us, certain Stroid records were small metallic plates whose molecular structure was altered according to script or vocal patterns. Some of the boys in the lab have developed a device for listening to the audio records. We have actually heard the voices of the Stroids! At least there are sounds that resemble a spoken language. But it is what we have found on the written records that brought me here.