Mars wasn't a killer, in spite of his bully-boy tactics. He had too good a military mind to discipline a valuable man to death. But he was more than willing to go as near to that point as possible, if he thought it justified. And what he allowed as justification resided in a code all his own.
"Right" was what was good for Mars. "Wrong" was what disturbed him. That was the code, as simple, as black and white, as you could ask for. Vulcan was one of the results.
Vulcan had been Venus' lawful husband, as far as the laws of the Gods went. That didn't matter to Mars--when he wanted Venus. He had thrashed Vulcan, and the beating had left permanent damage.
The damage was translated into Vulcan's limp. Any God's ability to heal himself through the machine's power was dependent on the God's own mentality and outlook. And Vulcan had never been able to cure his limp; the psychic punishment had been too great.
Forrester ordered another drink and tried to think about something else. The prospect of a fight with Mars was sometimes a little too much for him to handle.
The drink arrived and he sipped at it vacantly, thinking back to Diana and her story of the Gods.
There was one hole in it--a hole big enough to toss Mount Olympus through, he realized. Where had the Gods gone for three thousand years? And how had they gotten to Earth in the first place?
Those two unanswered questions were enough to convince Forrester that, in spite of all he knew, and in spite of the way his new viewpoint had turned his universe upside down in a matter of hours, he still didn't have the whole story. He had to find it--even more so, now, as he began to realize that the human race deserved more than just the "security" and "happiness" that the Gods could give them. It deserved independence, and the chance to make or mar its own future. Protection was all very well for the infancy of a race, but man was growing up now. Man needed to make his own world.
The Gods had no place in that world, Forrester saw. He had to find the answers to all of his questions--and now he thought he knew a way to do it.
The bartender's voice roused Forrester from his reverie. He had absent-mindedly finished brandy-and-soda number eight.