thing came
on. Bradley fumbled for his gun, and almost dropped it in his
excitement. When he finally brought it up into aiming position, his hand
was trembling, and his finger could hardly catch the trigger.

The thing leaped into the air at the old man, Yanyoo, just as the gun
went off. The body vaporized first, leaving for a fraction of a second
the fierce head and the powerful legs apparently supporting themselves
in the air. Then part of the head went, and the rest fell to the ground.
But sheer momentum carried the green smoky vapor on, so that it
surrounded first the old man, then several of the girls, and after them,
Bradley himself. They were all yelling, all but Bradley, who put away
his gun and muttered to himself in relief, and then the wind began to
dissipate the vapor, and on the ground there was left only part of a
head and six torn legs.

They were bowing to him and raising their voices high in thanks. It was
easy, thought Bradley. Really, it was a cinch to be a god. The beasts
that were such great dangers to them were mere trifles to him. To him,
with a gun loaded with a thousand thermal charges each of which was
capable of blasting armor plate. The thing wouldn't even have come close
if he himself hadn't been such a timid, cowardly fool. Put Malevski in
his place, and the detective would have got the creature as it came out
of the trees. He wasn't Malevski.

It was a good thing for him that they couldn't know that. Now his
position was completely secure. Now he could relax and enjoy his divine
life.

He didn't realize that a much greater danger was yet to come. He found
that out after the evening ceremony.

* * * * *

The group that came to see him this time was bigger than ever.
Evidently, to honor him they had dropped all other work. Yanyoo seemed
to have constituted himself Bradley's priest. He made a tremendously
long and rhapsodic-sounding speech, but at the end there was no donation
of the usual food and flowers. Instead, Yanyoo backed away, all the
others doing the same, and looking at Bradley as if expecting him to
follow them.

He followed. In this manner, with his worshippers walking respectfully
backwards, they arrived at what seemed to Bradley to be an ordinary
small hut. Outside the hut was what he took for a curiously shaped log
of wood. The inside of the hut was in shadow, but as his eyes became
accustomed to the dimness, he saw something in one cor