ner. It was a
weird-looking head, also of wood.

It struck him then. The log of wood had been the old god, good enough to
worship until he had come along and shown them what a god could really
do. Now it had been contemptuously deposed and decapitated. The hut was
a shrine. It was all his.

He _had_ been promoted after all. The thought didn't please him in the
least. Suppose _he_ failed them too--and that was very possible, for he
had no idea of what miracles they expected of him. Then he would be
deposed and--he gagged at the thought, but he knew that he had to finish
it--decapitated.

But for the moment there was no thought of deposing him. The gifts they
offered were more lavish than ever. And in addition to the food and
flowers, there was something new. A jug, filled with a warm,
sweetish-smelling liquid. He could get the odor faintly through the
intake valve of his helmet. Later on, when his worshippers were gone and
he had his helmet off, he realized that it smelled up the entire hut.

It couldn't be harmful. Nothing that they had offered him so far was
harmful. He took a sip--and sighed with content. This was one of the few
things he had been lacking. There was alcohol, and there were flavors
and essences that reminded him of the drinks he had encountered on a
dozen planets. But this was first class stuff, not diluted or
adulterated with the thousand and one synthetics that were put in to
stretch a good thing as far as it could go.

Without realizing the danger, he downed the entire contents of the jug.

* * * * *

He felt good. He hadn't felt so good in years, not since his mother had
made him a special cake for his birthday when he was--let me see now,
was it eight or nine? No matter, it had been many years ago, and the
occasion had been notable for the fact that she had let him drink some
of the older people's punch, made with a tiny bit of some alcoholic
drink. He felt _very_ good. He picked up his helmet and put it on his
head, and stuck the stem of a green flower rakishly through the exit
valve of the helmet, so that the flower seemed to dance every time he
exhaled, and staggered out of his hut.

He was fortunate that it was dark. "I'm drunk," he told himself. "Never
been so drunk in my life. Never felt so good. Mother never felt so good.
Malevski never felt so good."

He passed a shadowy figure in the dark and said, "Hiya, friend and
worshipper. Ever see a god drun