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"What can an unborn baby do?" "Must I show you, Belthar?"
"If you can!" Down on the black floor now, he strode toward her, his
great laugh booming against the dark vault. "I'm not afraid of babies."
"You ought to be." Steadfast before him, she looked up again to the
gathered gods. "Because the ultiman is heir to a new order of power, as far
superior to yours as yours was to that of the premen who made you. If you ever
had a chance to harm the ultiman, you lost it long ago."
"Daughter, we offered you our bed." He glared through scarlet fire. "Your
fantastic threats have not alarmed us, but your apparent madness compels us to
withdraw that special sign of favor." "Better listen to her, lover."
Cynthara's green-veiled image called from her transceiver prism, the tone
grave enough but the bright smile ironic. "They killed my darling Gleesh,
remember? My pretty pet. Now they've jumped this upstart infant across the
universes from Eden to your temple without a ship and in an instant a feat you
couldn't match. Perhaps we ought to reconsider "
"Reconsider demons?" Belthar bellowed. "We fight them for our lives."
"The ultiman respects your moderation." The child-goddess smiled at
Cynthara. "You'll find him far less ruthless than you have been."
Her somber eyes swung back to Belthar.
"He doesn't wish to kill, but he will not be killed or allow his people
to die. For their sake he has sent me to instruct you that all your
battlecraft in the Eden universe must be withdrawn at once."
"You dare instruct me?" His great bronze arm swept upward, the nimbus
condensing beyond it into a mighty sword of incandescent energy. "Here's my
reply to your ungodly ultiman!"
The blazing blade slashed at her.
"The ultiman regrets "
1 The falling sword had touched the cool opal shimmer of her nimbus.
Blinding light exploded. Thunder cracked, drummed against the starry dome,
rolled away into the snowy dazzle of the peaks be-neath the temple.
Belthar stood paralyzed, stiff with astonishment.
Gravely calm, the little goddess reached through that exploding fury to
touch his arrested hand.
Sudden silence. An abrupt dusk fell from the black granite vault as that
blade of fire went out. Belthar's nimbus had been extinguished. He stood naked
on the frost-sifted stone, his ruddy color swiftly fad-ing, the angry light
dying from his eyes. He shuddered. His skin turned gray. His giant body
sagged.
"What " His mighty voice had become a rusty creak. "What "
The sound became a dying sigh. The lax mouth twitched and gaped. The
vacant eyes blinked in mute bewilderment. The bloodless hands jerked and hung
slack. The body crumpled, pitched backward onto the polished stone, lay
staring blindly up at the charted stars the gods had ruled.
"The ultiman doesn't wish to kill." Small in that startled hush, yet
strong enough, Zhondra's voice lifted again to the soaring columns, where
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consternation had dimmed the imaged auras. "He will not allow his people to be
harmed, but you will not find him vengeful."
Here and there a silent nimbus brightened.
"He still requires your armada to withdraw." She swam back from the empty
body on the floor. "He still regrets what he had to do, but you will find him
secure against any attack you can mount. The Crea-tors made him superior. Your
divinity and mine is sustained by solitary transvolutionary cells scattered
through the nervous tissue. He draws power and perceptions across the
multiversal interfaces through a fully developed transvolutionary brain
center."
She recoiled again from the dead god as if his fate appalled her.
"All all he did was to freeze those transvolutionary cells." Her shaken
voice grew firm again. "When Belthar was cut off from the multiversal springs
of his divinity, his human half could not sustain it-self." Her tone lowered,
as if she were adding her own comment to the ultiman's declaration. "I guess
his body had grown too old."
Looking up, she stood waiting.
"Tell him " Cynthara's halo shone green and paled again. "Tell the
ultiman that all my battlecraft have been ordered to return at once from the
universe of Eden."
"Mine mine also." Gaining confidence, Kranthar's mellow voice echoed
against the transceiver pillars. "The truth is, I always consid-ered my dear
brother a little too vindictive in his wars against the Fourth Creation. I'm
delighted, now, to express my respect for the new ultiman. In this, I believe,
we'll all agree."
He paused, with an expectant shimmer of his nimbus. After a silent
instant the first hesitant whisper of assent began its swell toward a ringing
chorus. The pillars blazed with bright approval.
"Tell him we hope to be his friends." Cynthara was suddenly her-self
again, greenly aglow with her sleekly opulent charms. "We want to know him
better."
"I'm sure you will," Zhondra said. "But remember, he'll know you. If
there is ever danger from any of your acts or plots his sharper perceptions
will detect it. Whatever comes, he will defend himself and his people."
"Trust us!" Kranthar pealed. "We want no conflicts with such an awesome
being. When the ultiman gives commands, they'll be obeyed."
"He'll have commands." She glanced up as if to read the star-charts
overhead. "I'm to stay on Earth to be his voice. You have agreed to recall all
your forces with no harm to Eden. You must also give safe passage to the ship
I used to pilot, which is now in flight back to Earth. My friend Pipkin will
be loading supplies here for the preman colonists. Later, he will offer return
passage to Earth for any who request it."
Once more she waited, and agreement murmured through the pil-lars.
"I'll ask advice from Kranthar and Cynthara, his brother and his sister,
about rites and memorials." Her eyes fell again to the gray and shrunken thing
that had been a God. "Perhaps this temple should be preserved as his
mausoleum."
Green and golden, their auras flashed quick assent.
"The ultiman is pleased to accept your promises of loyalty." Her hand
lifted in a gesture of dismissal. "When he has another mes-sage, your
attention will be called for."
The images winked out.
The rising sun had cleared the wild surrounding peaks, and its first
golden shaft brushed the little goddess, brighter than her halo. Left alone
with the dead god on that vast snow-dusted floor, she stood gazing up at the
circle of columns soaring around her, black and enormous, empty now. Released
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