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still soft. The mouth, however, was dry as any statue's.
Now how, he thought, could a man turn his protoplasm, which had only a very minute trace of
copper and, as far as he remem-bered, no tin, into a solid alloy? Even if those elements were present in
large enough quantities to form bronze, what of the heat needed?
The only explanation he could think of was that the sun was furnishing the energy and the human
body was furnishing the blueprints and, somehow, the machinery necessary. The psyche had free scope
during the seven nights of the Chance; it utilized, however unconsciously, forces that must exist at all times
around it but of which it had no knowledge.
If that were so, he thought, then man must be, potentially, a god. Or if god was a term too strong,
then he must be a titan. A rather stupid titan, however, blind, a Cyclops with a cataract.
Why couldn't a man have this power at other times than the Night? This vast power to bend the
universe tohis will? Nothing would be impossible, nothing. A man could move from one planet to the next
without a spaceship, could step from the Avenue of the Temple of Boonta on Dante's Joy some
1,500,000 light-years to Broadway in Manhattan on Earth. Could become anything, do anything,
perhaps hurl suns through space as easily as a boy hurled a baseball. Space and time and matter would
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no longer be walls, would be doorways to step through.
A man could become anything. He could become a tree, like Mrs. Kri's husband. Or, like this
man, a statue of bronze, somehow digging with invisible hands into the deep earth, abstracting miner-als,
fusing them without the aid of furnace walls and heat, with no knowledge of chemical composition, and
depositing them directly in his cells without immediately killing himself.
There was one drawback. Eventually, having gotten what he wanted, he would die. Though able
to bring about the miracle of metamorphosis, he could not bring about the miracle of living on.
This half-statue would die, just as Skelder would die when his insane lust swelled that monstrous
member which he had grown to complete his lust, swelled it until it became larger than he and he, now its
appendage, would find himself immobile, unable to do anything but feed himself and it and wear his heart
out trying to pump enough blood to keep himself, and it, the parasite grown larger than the host, alive. He
would die, just as Ralloux would die in the heat of an imagined flame of hell. They would all die unless
they reversed the leap of mind and flow of flesh that hurtled them into such rich sea-changes.
And what, he thought, what about you, John Carmody? Is Mary what you want? Why should
you? And what harm can her resurrec-tion do to you? The others are obviously suffering, doomed, but
you can see no doom to you in yourself giving birth to Mary again, no suffering. Why are you an
exception?
I am John Carmody,he whispered.Always have been, am, will be an exception.
From behind and below him came a loud roar like a lion's. Men shouted. Another roar. A
snarling. A man screamed as if in a death agony. Another roar. Then a strange sound as if a great bag
had burst. Vaguely, Carmody felt that his ankles were wet.
He looked around in surprise and saw that the moon had gone down and the sun had risen. What
had he been doing all night? Standing here on this pedestal dreaming away the purple hours?
He blinked and shook his head. He had allowed himself to be caught up in the bronze thoughts of
this statue, had felt as it did, had slowed time and let it lap around him gently and dreamily, just as he had
experienced the hard scarlet lust of Skelder, Mary's meltingness and liquid movements toward the
satyr-priest, the impact of bullets tearing into her, her terror of death, of dissolvingness, and Ralloux's
agony of flesh in his sheet of flame and agony of soul over man's damnation -- just as he had felt all these,
so now he had fallen prey to this creature's mineral philosophy; and might perhaps have ended as it had,
if something had not jarred him out of the fatal contemplation. Even now, coming out of his -- coma? --
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