Fear that man

live again.
        “Where?” Gnossos asked.
        Then they saw it. It was poised on the rim of the Shield itself. It was a small, pink, formless thing. It had not refrained from transferring itself simply because it was too big. It had sent Sam first for the simple reason that Sam would be more effective than it would have been. For a moment the dreams surged back, but Hurkos used his own, greater powers to fight them away. Then the Mue raised a chair, smashed it into the pink slug. Again, again, and again. He mashed with a fury that Sam would not have guessed him to possess.
        And Hurkos killed God.

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    XI
        
        Breadloaf came through the door of the saloon, stopped a moment to search them out, then smiled as he sighted them. Only seven hours had passed since he had died, but he looked healthy and cheerful. More cheerful, in fact, than they had ever seen him look. He made his way through the crowd, nodding to friends, stopping now and again to shake hands with those who were oblivious to his recent adventure. Finally he reached their table, sat down. “I passed the church on the way. The Christians are moving out of their homes in the basements, bundles on their backs. In a way, it’s a shame. Their lives have amounted to nothing.”
        “They can take the shots now,” Hurkos said. He was relaxed for the first time in a long, long while. He had gotten his revenge, more revenge than any man could hope for. Sam had wondered, at first, if Hurkos could be deranged, for he had, after all, killed. But he had not killed a man. Therein lay the key. What he had killed was a rung lower than Man, really, therefore an animal. “They can live eternally.”
        “Some of them probably will. But they are old, remember. Fifty, some sixty, while the rest of us are thirty or under. It will not be completely pleasant to be eternally near-old in an age of eternal youth.”
        “Tragic and ironic,” Gnossos said, sipping his drink. “How do you feel?”
        “Better than ever,” Breadloaf answered punching the robotender for drinks and trying unsuccessfully to ward off Gnossos’ hand as it thrust coins into the machine.
        “I guess so,” Hurkos said. Then: “Gnossos, I killed God tonight. How’s that for an epic poem?”
        “I’ve been thinking,” the poet said. “But it would have been better if He had been a Goliath. There is nothing particularly heroic about smashing a helpless slug to pulp.”
        Sam finished his drink, set the glass down. “I’m going for a walk,” he said, standing. “I’ll be back in a while.” Before anyone could speak, he turned for the door, struggling through the crowd, and stepped outside. Night was giving way to day; a touch of golden dawn tinted the horizon already.
        “You all right?” Gnossos asked, stepping out beside him.
        “I’m not sick, if that’s what you mean. Not exactly.”
        “Yeah. Yeah, I know what you mean.”
        “The purpose of life: to overcome your creator.”
        “But what can a walk do? Me? I’m getting drunk.”
        “Yeah,” Sam said slowly. “But you know that won’t work. Maybe I’ll get drunk too, later. But now I’ll walk.”
        “Want me to come along?”
        “No.”
        Sam stepped off the curb and into the cobblestoned street. The ways here were twisted, for the aesthetic quality was supposed to be reminiscent of an old Earth city-though much cleaner and far more efficient. He found streets that tangled in on themselves, twisted through tree-dotted parks and between quaint old buildings. With him were memories of the chamber beyond Breadloaf’s office wall, pictures of cold emptiness. He could still feel the cool breeze rippling through his hair from the gaping, empty tank.
        He walked past the park where the lake stretched away in the distance. There was a gentle slapping of its waves against the pilings of the free-form walkway that bridged its shallower portions. There was the sound of fish jumping now and again. Somewhere a dog barked. And in his mind, there were questions.
        Who was he?
        What had been his past?
        And where-oh, where!-was he bound?

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    TWO: SOULDRIFT
        
    And men shall be torn between the old way and the new…
    (Compiled from several entries in the diary of Andrew Coro)

----
        

    I
        
        Long ago, shortly after my mother’s blood was sluiced from the streets of Changeover and her