Fear that man

cool surface. The slugs came on, apparently talking, oblivious of their presence. They walked right past the two men… and whirled! Something had registered-but too late. Buronto brought his gun up, then hesitated as if he wasn’t certain whether he should fire or not.
        “Yes!” Sam shouted. “Before they call for help!”
         Blue-blue-blue-blue. And it was over. The slugs were spattered across the floor, a few scraps of their bodies on fire, tiny yellow flames licking the rich fat.
        “We have to move faster now,” Sam said. “They find these bodies and we’re sunk.”
        They moved, faster now. Sam thought how dreamlike the last encounter had been. Without sound, it had all been a grotesque parody of reality. Death without sound. Murder without screaming. Certainly, the time was coming.
        Eventually, after many steps and many turns, the wall to their right turned from gray to a brilliant bronze. They clung to the glittering metal and followed the wall. In a few minutes, they discovered they had walked in a large circle.
        “We’re here,” Sam croaked, mouth suddenly dry, every nerve now sharp with fear.
        “Where?”
        “Ship’s Core. It’s right inside this glittering wall-not more than two hundred feet in diameter.”
        Buronto stepped ahead of Sam to a door they had passed twice during their circumnavigation of the chamber. “I’m going to get it over with.”
         So you can kill the slugs for fun, Sam thought. So you can gleefully romp through rivers of nice, thick, orange blood.
        Buronto twisted the knob, almost broke it off. The door hummed, lifted to reveal a shimmering blue chamber hung with webs and permeated with mists. There seemed to be darker hulks concealed in the fog, looming like icebergs. As Sam watched from the hall, Buronto stepped through the doorway, rifle at ready.

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    XVI
        
        Buronto stepped further into the chamber. At ten feet, the mists started to close in on him. At fifteen feet, they concealed his legs, his hips, the back of his head.
        The floor was spongy, pores beginning to open in it. It bounced as he stepped on it.
        “I’m here!” the giant shouted defiantly.
        A muffled echo was the only answer.
        Then the floor heaved, and the room was alive.
        It bucked, swayed, and Buronto went down. Wildy, he blasted it, boring holes through the sponge, holes that immediately healed over and were full again. He tried to stand, but the body of God served as a mat for no creature. Down he went, floor seeming to un-gel and clutch at him. He sank into it, kicked and tried pulling free.
        Sam leaned against the wall, gripping himself with his arms. This God was more powerful than the last, undrained. It was able to heal Itself where the other whimpered and died. More powerful, but ruling this vastly shrunken universe: one ship and spoors. He watched Buronto’s flesh peel away under the acidic touch of the floor that now resembled a tongue. All in silence, all deadly and still. A play seen through other eyes. And God was winning…
        But, Sam hoped, in winning, God would also lose.
        Buronto struggled to his feet again, fighting mightily against this much superior force, fighting with panic. Half his face was a bloody pulp. He held the beam on the floor, screaming steadily. Here comes the devil to the gates of Heaven, cursing and spraying foam, tossing the lightning bolts of his black power to tumble down the equal blackness of the divine light…
        The floor bucked again. Buronto fell. And this time, he did not get up. The floor frothed, boiled about him, and when the foam steamed away, there were only fragments of steaming, bubbling bone. No worry now about how to handle Buronto. Now all he had to worry about was whether or not the trick had worked. It should have-given one fact as a truth! God must be, like the other God, a sado-masochist by nature, liking to give pain-the omnipotent fist ringed with smiling lips. Surely, the very nature of God demanded that He be a liker of pain and a giver of much of it. If this was true in this case, as it had been with the God Hurkos had killed, then the problem was over. God was now insane.
        Only one way to know for sure. Take out the earplugs…
        Grabbing them, he ripped them free. The rush of sound almost knocked him down. But no Racesong. Racesong was dead. This was nothing more than a mad,