At the beginning of the day, awakened beside snoring Quenelle Uganda, Krug felt an enormous surge of energy, an upwelling of the vital force. He had rarely known such strength within himself. He took it as an omen: this was a day for activity, a day for the display of power in the pursuit of his various ends. He breakfasted and sped through the transmat to Denver.

Morning in East Africa was evening in Colorado; the late shift was at work on the starship. But Alpha Romulus Fusion was there, the diligent foreman of the vehicle-assembly center. He told Krug proudly that the starship had been transported from its underground construction hangar to the adjoining spacefield, where it was being readied for its first flight-tests.

Krug and Alpha Fusion went to the spacefield. Under a dazzle of reflector plates the starship looked plain and almost insignificant, for there was nothing unusual about its size — ordinary systemships were much larger — and its pebbly surface failed to gleam in the artificial illumination. Yet it seemed unutterably beautiful to Krug, second only to the tower in loveliness.

“What kind of flight-tests are planned?” he asked.

“A three-stage program. Early in February,” Romulus Fusion said, “We’ll give it its first lift and place it in Earth orbit. This merely to see that the basic drive system is functioning correctly. Next will come the first velocity test, at the end of February. We’ll put it under the full 2.4 g acceleration and make a short voyage, probably to the orbit of Mars. If that goes according to plan, we’ll stage a major velocity test in April, with a voyage lasting several weeks and covering several billion kilometers — that is, past the orbit of Saturn, possibly to the orbit of Pluto. Which should give us a clear idea of whether the ship is ready to undertake an interstellar voyage. If it can sustain itself under constant acceleration while going to Pluto and back, it should be able to go anywhere.”

“How has the testing of the life-suspension system been going?”

“The testing’s complete. The system is perfect.”

“And the crew?”

“We have eight alphas in training, all experienced pilots and sixteen betas. We’ll use them all on the various testing flights and choose the final crew on the basis of performance.”

“Excellent,” said Krug.

Still buoyant, he went to the tower, where he found Alpha Euclid Planner in charge of the night crew. The tower had gained eleven meters of height since Krug’s last visit. There had been notable progress in the communications department. Krug’s mood grew even more expansive. Bundling up in thermal wear, he rode to the top of the tower, something he had rarely done in recent weeks. The structures scattered around the base looked like toy houses, and the workers like insects. His pleasure in the tower’s serene beauty was marred somewhat when a beta was swept by a sudden gust from his scooprod and carried to his death; but Krug quickly put the incident from his mind. Such deaths were regrettable, yes — yet every great endeavor had required sacrifices.

He traveled next to the Vargas observatory in Antarctica. Here he spent several hours. Vargas had found no new data lately, but the place was irresistible to Krug; he relished its intricate instruments, its air of imminent discovery, and above all the direct contact it afforded him with the signals from NGC 7293. Those signals were still coming in, in the altered form that had first been detected several months earlier: 2-5-1, 2-3-1, 2-1. Vargas by now had received the new message via radio at several frequencies and via optical transmission. Krug lingered, listening to the alien song on the observatory’s apparatus, and when he left its tones were pleeping ceaselessly in his mind.

Continuing his circuit of inspection, Krug sped to Duluth, where he watched new androids coming from their containers. Nolan Bompensiero was not there — the late shift at Duluth was staffed entirely by alpha supervisors — but Krug was shown through the plant by one of his awed underlings. Production appeared to be higher than ever, although the alpha remarked that they were still lagging behind demand.

Lastly Krug went to New York. In the silence of his office he worked through to dawn, dealing with corporate problems that had arisen on Callisto and Ganymede, in Peru and Martinique, on Luna, and on Mars. The arriving day began with a glorious winter sunrise, so brilliant in its pale intensity that Krug was tempted to rush back to the tower and watch it gleam with morning fire. But he remained. The staff was beginning to arrive: Spaulding, Lilith Meson, and the rest of his headquarters people. There were memoranda and telephone calls and conferences. From time to time Krug stole a glance at the holovision screen that he had lately had installed along his office’s inner wall to provide a closed-circuit view of the tower under construction. The morning was not so glorious in the Arctic, it seemed; the sky was thick with ragged clouds, as if there might by snow later in the day. Krug saw Thor Watchman moving among a swarm of gammas, directing the lifting of some immense piece of communications equipment. He congratulated himself on the choice of Watchman to be the overseer of the tower work. Was there a finer alpha anywhere in the world?

About 0950 hours Spaulding’s image appeared on the sodium-vapor projector. The ectogene said, “Your son just called from California. He says that he regrets having overslept, and he’ll be about an hour late for his appointment with you.”

“Manuel? Appointment?”

“He was due here at 1015. He asked several days ago that you hold some time open for him.”

Krug had forgotten. That surprised him. It did not surprise him that Manuel would be late. He and Spaulding reshuffled his morning schedule, with some difficulty, to keep the hour from 1115 to 1215 open for the conference with Manuel.

At 1123 Manuel arrived.

He looked tense and strained, and he was, Krug thought, dressed in an odd way, odd even for Manuel. Instead of his usual loose robe, he wore the tight trousers and lacy shirt of an alpha. His long hair was drawn tightly back and fastened in the rear. The effect was not becoming; the openwork blouse revealed the unandroidlike shagginess of Manuel’s torso, virtually the only physical feature he had inherited from his father.

“Is this what the young men of fashion have taken up?” Krug asked. “Alpha clothes?”

“A whim, father. Not a style — not yet.” Manuel forced a smile. “Though if I’m seen this way, I suppose, it could catch on.”

“I don’t like it. What sense is there going around dressing like an android?”

“I think it’s attractive.”

“I can’t say I do. How does Clissa feel about it?”

“Father, I didn’t make this appointment so we could debate my choice of costume.”

“Well, then?”

Manuel put the data cube on Krug’s desk. “I obtained this not long ago while visiting Stockholm. Would you examine it?”

Krug picked the cube up, turned it over several times, and activated it. He read:

And Krug presided over the Replication, and touched the fluids with His own hands, and gave them shape and essence.

Let men come forth from the Vats, said Krug, and let women come forth, and let them live and go among us and be sturdy and useful, and we shall call them Androids.

And it came to pass.

And there were Androids, for Krug had created them in His own image, and they walked upon the face of the Earth and did service for mankind.

And for these things, praise be to Krug.

Krug frowned. “What the hell is this? Some kind of novel? A poem?”

“A bible, father.”

“What crazy religion?”

“The android religion,” said Manuel quietly. “I was given this cube in an android chapel in the beta section of Stockholm. Disguised as an alpha, I attended a service there. The androids have evolved quite a complex religious communion, in which you, father, are the deity. There’s a life-size hologram of you above the altar.” Manuel gestured. “That’s the sign of Krug-be-praised. And this—” he made a different gesture — “is the sign of Krug-preserve-us. They worship you, father.”