Chapter V

When the music had done Gud picked up a curved line which was shaped like a scimetar and whacked at the whirling spheres. Each time Gud whacked, he whacked off a disk from a whirling sphere; and the disks continued to whirl and ceased not. Soon a corner of space was full of whirling wheels. And Gud wondered what made the wheels go round.

As he felt the wheels go round Gud remembered a far and distant world he had once visited before he had destroyed the universe. He remembered that this little world had been full of machines and that the machines had wheels going round, and could make things. And Gud remembered as far back as a god can remember, and yet he could not recall ever having made machines that made things. He saw that he had been unprogressive to have created with hand tools and never to have made machines nor the things that machines made.

So Gud resolved straightway to make a creating machine. He gathered the wheels together and filled them with substance from the heap of matter that he had made. And then he took squares and triangles and curves and cones and rhomboids and tetrahedrons and a great many other things that were in space; and he worked very fast and furiously, and presently he had made a machine which ground with a deafening roar, for it was a high-speed, self-acting, creating machine, the like of which had never been.

And the machine began to create and to grind out things. But there was nothing alive in the things which the creating machine ground out, for it had not in it the breath of life, but only the spirit of the machine. Those things which the machine made were other machines; and they came out of the creating machine endowed with the spirit of the machine, and straightway they began also to turn and grind with a great and discordant roar.

The machines of transportation began to distribute the other machines through space. They roared and shrieked and whistled as they hurtled thither and yon, and Gud fled before them.

Then came also great lighting machines and filled all the center of space with light, and drove the darkness into the outer edges of space, toward which Gud had fled.

There were many myriads of machines that Gud did not know, and he had no time in which to name them. But there were some machines that were very dreadful, and of these Gud knew the names and the uses, for he had seen the like of them in the little world of machines he had once visited, for these were killing machines.

But the killing machines could find nothing to kill for there was not any life, but only the machines that were fast filling all space. The spirit of the killing machines was not to create but to destroy and they boomed and shrieked mightily for their prey. Gud was sore afraid, and because of the great noise of the machines, he could not remember that he was immortal and need not fear even the killing machines.

So Gud reached the outer edges of space and stood there in the dark panting and trembling. And Gud regretted that he had made the creating machine which had made all of the other machines, and he wondered what he might do to undo what he had done. Then Gud bolstered his courage, and walked back into the midst of the roaring machines and bade the machines be still. But only hearing the machines, the talking machines and the printing machines obeyed, for they only understood the word of Gud. Then he commanded the talking machines and the printing machines to make words and news and gossip, and to proclaim to the other machines that they should cease to roar.

And the word machines obeyed Gud and made words, but the other machines harkened not unto the words of Gud.

Gud feared that if the machines did not cease to be made they might fill all space, so that nothing else could ever be. Then Gud, remembering that he was immortal, walked up to a great killing machine which gaped its terrible maw to swallow him. But Gud feared not and walked into the terrible maw and into the throat of the killing machine. And when Gud came out of the bowels of the killing machine he held in his hand a great sword that was as long as hope deferred and as broad as a liberal mind. Carrying the sword, Gud fled again from the midst of the machines and to the outer reaches of space.

And Gud swung the mighty sword and cut off the edges of space. He made haste, for the machines did fast approach and he feared that they might fill all space. So Gud ran about swinging his mighty sword, and shearing the edges of space.

The edges of space Gud trimmed off from the center of space where the machines were, so that the space occupied by the machines was bounded about by clean edges of space, beyond which no more space was and not anything at all.

And it came to pass that there was very little space for Gud to be in, and the machines came on. Gud stood against the clean edges of space and brandished his mighty sword and cried: "Come on, ye soulless machines, for I am Gud and I fear ye not."

As the machines came on, Gud swung his sword with might and valor, and the machines that fell before the sword of Gud were as many as there are ways to displease a woman. So great was the destruction of the machines that the calculating machines did call a halt and asked for a truce. But Gud would give no quarter. Then the calculating machines, leaving the others to receive the blows of Gud, hied themselves back to the center of space where the creating machine was.

As the result of their calculations, reinforcements came to the cause of the machines. These new recruits came on with whistlings and hummings and greater roaring than Gud had yet heard; and his courage was shaken so that his sword trembled in his hands, for the new recruits to the cause of the machines blew a great blast before them; for they were the fans and the blowers.

And Gud felt the blast in his face, and his sword swayed and shivered like a feather in the blast. And the blast became a mighty wind and the wind blew the sword of Gud from his hand and blew it over the edge of space, so that Gud was unarmed and cried aloud for quarter. But the howling of the blast drowned his cry, and the fans and blowers came on, blowing all before them. Gud turned and fled and ran around the narrow rim of the edge of space, but the fans and blowers followed after him and made a great cyclone that blew around the edges of space. Gud fled in the wind and was bruised and torn by the wind and the garments of Gud were shattered and torn ... and Gud was lifted out of space and hurled into an abysmal void where not even space was.