you the trophies of our achievements. It seemed only right to believe that you had survived to some purpose—that a day would come when Man would need his greatest hero."

"Precisely," Vigil snorted. "Man worships nothing but himself. You were a convenient symbol. It did no harm. It may have done some good. Of course, the chuckleheads took it all literally. And so—thanks to Man's stupid persistence in breeding idiots as well as men with some brains, you, whoever you are, whatever kind of filibustering bravo you actually were, have become the focus of a cult populated by the credulous, the neurotic and those who profit by them. I hope you are grateful for your legacy!"

Greaves looked up at the stars. There were some constellations that might have been the ones he knew, distorted by his transit to another viewpoint ... or by time. He was no astronomer.

I've come a long way, he thought, and I wonder what the end of it will be. "Those who profit from the credulous, hmm?" he said to Vigil.

"I am your guardian and I guarded you. As many others have done before me, from various motives. This is not your first court, nor your tenth. The ritual around you is compounded from thousands of years of hogwash, as witness my worshipful daughter who inherits a post from some time when every venturing hero had to have a leman patiently awaiting his return. My duties no doubt were originally medical. But the couch has been attending to that—with some exceptions—for centuries. And you may be assured, Man's history has not been one unbroken triumph, nor his civilization any steady upward climb. But we built while you slumbered. I had thought to prevent your besmirching Man's greatness with your cheap legend."

"Or perhaps he was afraid of the god he denies," Adelie murmured, her eyes glowing warmly.

Greaves looked from her to her father. "So she believes in me and you do not," he said to Vigil. "But it may be you're not entirely sure—and from the looks she gives me, it may be she isn't, either." He grinned crookedly. "Man may have climbed, but I assure you he hasn't changed."

He smiled at the looks on both their faces. Divinity was new to him, but humanity was not. If these two had thought perhaps they had some dull-witted barbarian here—the one for his faith in his faithlessness, the other for her pleasures—it had been time their error was corrected.

"Old man, god or not I have been called 

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