While in the contexts of his novels there are many statements about human nature, it is Zelazny's shorter works that make the most profound statements about so many facets of our lives. In his introduction to Four for Tomorrow, Theodore Sturgeon had this to say about the story:

[It] is one of the most important stories I’ve ever read—perhaps I should say it is one of the most memorable experiences I have ever had—it is one of the most beautifully written, skillfully composed and passionately expressed works of art to appear anywhere, ever.

Maybe Sturgeon is overstepping his bounds a little to make such a claim, but I do have to say that, even as I have read this story for the third time, I always get entirely engrossed in the endgame to the point where it seems I read the last pages all in one breath, and my heart is left racing when it’s over.

It is a story about one of—perhaps the most profound influence on humanity: religion. While religion does not play as direct a role in many people’s lives at present as it once did, there is no one whose life has not been affected by it. Most of us realize that the majority of religions say the same things and serve the same purpose for their followers. And it is this aspect that Zelazny demonstrates in one man’s rescue of an ancient culture from a self-imposed death sentence.

This man, Gallinger, is a poet with a prodigious gift for languages, which has led him to be chosen for a second expedition to Mars to study the people’s culture and history. His father was a preacher, whom he does not remember all too fondly, but to whom he probably owes his livelihood. “When Daddy wasn’t spreading hellfire and brimstone, and brotherly love, he was teaching me to dig the Word, like in the original. Lord! There are so many originals and so many words!” Once Daddy died, “I was free not to preach the Word. But now I wanted to, in a different way. I wanted to preach a word I never could have voiced while he lived.”

Although Gallinger never followed directly in his father’s footsteps, he learned a great appreciation for religions, and the holy texts of all the cultures of the world. And he did study all of them in their original languages. So when he finally earned the honor of learning the High Tongue of the Martians and began to study their religious histories, he realized very soon that “They wrote about concrete things: rock, sand, water, winds . . . It was like parts of the Old Testament . . . the Book of Ecclesiastes.” Primarily as a means to exercise his new language, but also to show them that an Earth man had once had the same thoughts as their prophet, he began translating the Book into the High Tongue. He didn’t know then what an important exercise that would be.

The story is sprinkled through with religious references, but not too much as to seem unsuited to the character, a cultural scholar and the son of a preacher. From Zelazny’s other short story collections, which contain essays on how he creates and researches his work—one with specific introductions to each story—I have learned that he will go through a lot to have authentic references and factual descriptions. Unfortunately, he gives no introduction to this story, so I cannot say how much he knew or how much he had to learn before writing it, but I can attest to his great skill at weaving each reference into the brilliant tapestry of his work. The most beautiful passage was his description of the 117th Dance of Locar, starting with Gallinger’s introduction to the youthful dancer. I wish I could reproduce it all here, but instead I’ll tear from it a small piece: “The music was as formal as Job’s argument with God. Her dance was God’s reply.”

I’m afraid without a brief summary of what happens next, I cannot make a proper conclusion, but I’ll try to keep it brief. Gallinger and the dancer, Braxa, become lovers (The Martians are, apart from a greatly extended lifespan, human.) and he learns from her and his continuing study of their religious history that something happened a long time ago that left their race sterile, and that this would be the last generation of a culture that had existed for millennia. As it is written in their holy book, the people are resigned to their fate, saying that they have seen and done everything anyway. But he learns that Braxa has become pregnant by him; only the men are sterile. Their race can be saved! But how can he convince the old Mothers—how ironic!—who rule by the word of their god?

He must fight fire with fire. He bursts in upon one of the temple’s holy meetings, attended by all that’s left of a planetful of people. (He does not even remove his boots.) Gallinger, the religious poet, preaches to them in their own words about Man’s indomitable spirit, tells them how “it is our blasphemy which has made us great.” Then he gives them the Book of Ecclesiastes, full of words echoing those of their own prophets. He speaks through the night and on into morning and finishes in a silent room. He leaves the temple and sits in the anteroom, thinking he has failed.

But then the Matriarch M’Cwyie comes to him and says, “The prophecy is fulfilled. My people are rejoicing. You have won holy man.” She goes on to explain that his coming and doing what he did was prophesied. She tells him, “You read to us his words, as great as Locar’s. You read to us how there is “‘nothing new under the sun.’” And you mocked his words as you read them—showing us a new thing.” She told him how Braxa was only doing her duty to her people and that she did not love him. At last he went away, feeling awful after saving a race from extinction . . . “suddenly knowing the great paradox which lies at the heart of all miracles. I did not believe a word of my own gospel, never had.” And to their god, his thoughts: I have conquered thee, Malann—and the victory is thine! Rest easy on thy starry bed. God damned!