A vast murmur of pleasure ascended from the crowd. Many of them, it
might have been noticed, looked relieved. They wiped sweat off their
brows, and glanced furtively at their companions to see if they had
noticed the doubt on their faces.
The Elders of the Truncated, gathered upon a raised platform in the
center of the square, lifted their arms and began the ritual whose
words would start the gears of the final minutes of the Day into
spinning.
As Blueprinted, the sky paled and became its normal afternoon azure.
The citizens stood hushed, gazing expectantly upwards. After a tense
two minutes, the sky suddenly turned black again. This time, however,
streaks of blue appeared between the black clots. In a moment, it was
seen that the sable hue had been caused by a host of figures, so many
they had almost blotted out the blue.
It was as if the sky were an upside-down sea out of which dived a
thousand bodies, plunging earthward head foremost.
A shout of rapture swelled from the ground to meet them. The dead
Truncated were descending from Heaven to crown the faithful living!
But there was one man who did not scream with joy. He was B. T.
Revanche, clad in a white robe and showing a nose from which the
plastiflesh had been removed. He was there because he had insisted to
Da Vincelleo that he could not get his money's worth unless he actually
participated.
"You can't taste blood over a TV set," he had growled.
So it was that he was the only one of the throng who did not at the
next moment fall silent in an amazed numbness. For the falling figures
did not carry laurels with which to crown the faithful on the ground.
Far from it. They held swords before them--long and broad two-edged
blades that flashed ominously in the bright sunlight.
A scream of mingled outrage and terror tore the air into tatters.
Something was wrong! Somebody had thrown a monkey wrench into the
celestial gears! The Blueprint had said nothing about this!
The figures swelled in size as they came closer. They slowed their
headlong rush, uprighted themselves, and floated feet first to earth.
There they paused a minute, glaring about, until the entire army had
descended.
The multitude looked at the swordsmen, who were close enough to be
discerned in detail. They breathed out one marveling and shocked
syllable: "X!"
Yes, each one of the thousands of descended beings was a replica of
X, the entity known in other lands and other tongues by a thousand
other names. X was one of his signs, and it was the one chosen by
the prophet Dafess to designate the entity because X was an unknown
quantity to the pagans.
It was X, so wrote the prophet, who had visited Dafess in person and
assured that man of wisdom that he alone was being given the monopoly
of the sacred teachings. Nor did it matter to the prophet that hundreds
of others had made prior claims. He, Dafess, was sure that only his
descendants were to be X's heirs on earth until such time as the entity
returned.
To prove it, they had marched into the wilderness and built this city,
and had then written a thousand books to bolster the tradition.
"I will carry a sword," X had promised.
The Dafesses believed this, but they had been assured by their Elders,
who were skilled in reading between the lines, that the sword would be
for the Untruncated. The peace would be the Truncateds'.
Now X, as foretold, had returned to their city. He brought a sword,
and if he also carried peace with him, it was a peace that passed
understanding. And his name, in this place and time, had suddenly
become Legion.
Each one of the horde was X, but such an X as had never been dreamed
of. He was eight feet tall, and made of eternalloy over which
plastiskin had been stretched to simulate flesh. So clever was the
craftsmanship that only one who knew beforehand, like Revanche, that
the creature was begotten in the factory could have told that here was
not a living X.
The artistry extended to the magnificent body, which had broad
shoulders that tapered to slim hips and long, panther-muscled legs. The
delicate feet were shod in brass, as the gods of old Egypt were reputed
to be shod.