Hours and days turned into weeks and months as Builder taught his peoplewhat feeble knowledge he possessed in arithmetic, simple engineering--suchas the dam--and most of all, instilling in them the will to want to learnand investigate and question anything they came in contact with--even thevery thing he was asking them to do.
As the weeks passed on and the dam was completed, he gradually gatheredaround him an ardent little group of seeker after that most elusive of allthings--"Truth".
But Builder knew that his days were numbered now, and his work completed;there was still one thing he had to do, and that was permanently to doaway with Thor by dropping the idol to the bottom of the dam; he stillhadn't examined the god hidden under his sleeping pile.
One evening after returning from a solitary walk above the dam, he enteredhis shack and lit a torch, then almost dropped it from shock!
His dwelling was a wreck. The place had been ransacked from top to bottom.His sleeping pile lay in the middle of the floor--the idol was gone!
He turned and fled from the room, but before he could take a dozen stepstowards the village, several shadows glided out from behind trees androcks in the moonlight, resolving themselves into men.
Before he could cry out or struggle, strong arms pinned his arms to hisbody and someone clapped a dirty hand over his mouth. He was forced backinto his hovel and the door slammed shut. Standing in front of him was avery bedraggled figure whom he recognized as Thougor. He also recognizedhis three other captors; all were elderly reactionaries of the tribe whohad disapproved of him from the beginning. In spite of his predicamentBuilder felt a warm glow of happiness course through him. If these werethe only cronies Thougor could round up, that meant the rest of thevillagers were sympathetic with his cause. He suddenly became aware ofThougor's grating voice:
"It took me a little time to piece things together, but once I did, itdidn't take me long to come back and find the god where I might have atfirst suspected it would be--right here! For your sacrilege you will paywith every last drop of blood you have in your scrawny old body--and now!"Whereupon Thougor disappeared out of the hovel.
Somehow Builder had known they were going to kill him before arousing therest of the tribe to the fact that Thor was back. Thougor was taking nochances of his standing in the way of him or Thor ever again. But Builderdidn't care: he had sown his few seeds of knowledge and wisdom well.Although Thougor didn't know it, this time he wouldn't have completehomage from all the tribe. There would now be doubts and questionings andtests for both Thor and Thougor in the ways of truth and righteousness.
Then Thougor returned to the shack with what, Builder thought, must beThor. The hand over his mouth had twisted his head back so that he onlygot a glimpse, but he didn't miss the long knife Thougor pulled frombeneath his tattered skins, nor the large sacrificial bowl one of theothers held below his neck. Then his head was tilted forward and sidewise,and he got his first full look at the god Thor. At the sight, his wholebody shook with smothered laughter. Below the two arms and etchedthunderbolt were large block letters standing out in bold relief:
_THOR_ _ Automatic Dishwasher_ _ Atomic Powered 1999_
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