THEY WENT INTO other buildings and placed more pickups. They set a few around some of the shops and hid others in the parks.

The parks were everywhere. They were furnished with gorgeous purple blooming trees and cobblestone walkways and flowering plants in a stirring array of colors. There were benches, low and wide, impossible for either Digger or Kellie to use, but perfect for the locals. And there were statues, usually of Goompahs, sometimes of animals. One, depicting several winged Goompahs, formed the centerpiece among a group of walkways. The subjects were displayed in licentious poses. They wore no clothes, although genitals were discreetly hidden. The females, they could now confirm, did have breasts on the order of human mammaries.

“Incredible,” said Digger, just before a cub—what did you call a young Goompah? — crashed into him and sent them both sprawling. But none of the adults noticed anything unusual. The pup squalled and pointed at the spot where Digger had been standing and looked puzzled. A female helped him to his feet and chattered at him. Watch where you’re going, Jason.

Two teams of seven players engaged in a game that looked remarkably like soccer. On another field, riders on the fat horses careered about, chasing a ball and apparently trying to unseat each other, using paddles as swatters. Small crowds gathered to watch both events. At the swatting-match, it was hard to tell whether it was an individual sport or teams were competing. If the latter, Digger could see no way to distinguish the players. But the crowd got involved, jumped up and down, stomped their feet, and cheered loudly whenever someone fell out of his saddle.

KELLIE WAS MOVING too quickly for him. Digger had not entirely adjusted to using the lightbender. Not being able to see his own body, but only a luminous silhouette, still threw him off-balance. He hadn’t been aware that he watched his feet so much when he walked.

“You all right, Dig?” Kellie asked.

“Sure,” he said. “I’m fine.”

They were walking near the north end of the park, an area lined with fruit trees. In fact, Athens almost seemed to have been built within a huge grove. Greenery was everywhere, and edibles just hung out there waiting for someone with an appetite. No wonder these creatures seemed to have so much time for leisure.

“This place might be like some of the South Sea islands,” said Digger. “Everything you need grows on the vine, so nobody has to work.”

THEY SPENT THE afternoon trying to analyze how the city functioned. This looks like a public building, probably the seat of government. And that is maybe a courthouse or police station. (Digger had seen a uniformed functionary going in.) I’d say that’s a library over there. And look at this, a Grand Square of some sort, where the citizens probably gather to vote on issues proposed by the town council. “You think they vote here, Digger?”

“Actually,” he said, “I doubt it. Place like this will probably turn out to be run by a strongman of some sort.” Around him, the shops seemed prosperous, the Goompahs content. Other than the one uniform, there was no sign of armed guards. “Still, you never know.”

They peeked through the windows of a two-story building and saw rows of Goompahs sitting on stools, copying manuscripts.

They visited a blacksmith, watched an artisan crafting a bracelet, and got stranded in a physician’s quarters when someone unexpectedly closed a door. They tried to abide by Jack’s dictum that the natives not be allowed to see unexplainable events. So they sat down in the presence of the physician and his patient, and waited for their opportunity.

The patient was a male with a bright blue shirt. He was apparently suffering from a digestive problem. It was then that Digger first noticed the ability of the natives to bend their ears forward. While the patient answered questions, his doctor did precisely that. They left a pickup.

Later, they wandered through the markets near the waterfront. This was the same area that Digger had visited on that first night, when he’d placed the original set of pickups. The shops were decorated with brightly colored linens and tapestries. Pennants flew from rooftops. There were quarrels, beggars, some pushing and shoving, and once they saw a thief get away with what looked like a side of beef. So maybe Athens needed some policing after all.

Barter was in effect, as well as the monetary system.

Several times, Digger brushed up against the creatures. It was hard to avoid. What was significant was that the Goompahs, after they’d bounced off empty space, stared at it in surprise, moved their jaws up and down and muttered the same word. It was always the same. Kay-lo. The same thing the Goompah in the quarrel had said. He filed it away as an expletive, or as strange.

Two buildings on opposite sides of an avenue each contained a raised platform, centered among rising rows of benches. Concert halls? Places for political debate? Theaters in the round? They were empty at the moment.

“I’d like to see the show,” he told Kellie.

“We can come back this evening,” she said, “and take a look.”

IT WAS TIME to go see the temple.

It stood atop a crest of hills on the southern edge of the city, gold now in the approaching sunset. They climbed a road and finally a wide wooden staircase to get to it.

It was bigger up close than Digger had expected, round and polished, without ornamentation other than an inscription over the front entrance. Doric columns. A winged deity guarding the approaches, and watching over an ornate and lovely sundial, as though she were keeper of the seasons.

Walkways curved around the building and arced out to the highest point of the promontory, overlooking the sea. There were a goodly number of Goompahs, some simply strolling along the paths, others wandering among the columns and through the temple itself. There was no mistaking the sacred tone of the place. Voices were lowered, heads bowed, eyes distant. It was there that Digger first felt a serious kinship with the Goompahs.

A young one was being taken to task by a parent for breaking into a run and making a loud noise. A pair, male and female, approached the front entrance hand in hand, drawing closer together. Digger saw one bent with age struggle to kneel on the grass, lift a hinged piece of stone (by a ring installed for the purpose), and put something beneath it. Money, Digger thought.

An offering?

Moments later, a child who’d been with him retrieved the object. Or retrieved part of it.

“What do you think?” Digger asked.

Kellie’s hand was on his arm. “Don’t know. Passing the torch, maybe. Bury in sacred ground and recover. Pass it on beneath the eyes of the gods. Probably leave part of it for the religious establishment.”

The winged deity was about three-times life-size, and, unlike the ones in the park, this one was clothed. The wings were larger, sweeping, regal. She—there was no question it was female—carried a torch which she held straight out from her body. Save the wings, the figure shared all the physical characteristics of the natives, but Digger would never have considered calling her a Goompah.

They mounted the steps. Digger counted twelve. And he thought immediately of twelve months, twelve Olympians, twelve Apostles. Was all this stuff hardwired into sentient creatures everywhere?

The columns were wide, maybe twice as far around as he could have reached. The stone felt like marble.

The interior was a single space, a rotunda. The ceiling was high, possibly three stories, and vaulted. A stone platform, perhaps an altar, stood in the central section. Other statues gazed down at them. None had wings, but all shared a sublime majesty. They wore the same leggings and pullovers and sandals as the locals, but in the hands of the sculptors they’d become divine effects. One male divinity looked past Digger with a quiet smile, a female watched him with studied compassion. Another, more matronly, female cradled a child; a large warrior type was in the act of drawing a sword.

Not entirely without conflict, were they?

An older deity, with a lined face and weary eyes, bent over a scroll. A girl played a stringed instrument. And a male, overweight even for a Goompah, was transfixed in the act of laughing. He seemed somehow most dominant of all, and he set the mood for the place.

“Are you thinking what I am?” Kellie whispered.

That all this was going to be destroyed? That the circular shape of the temple was unlikely to save it because it was much too close to the city? “You know,” he said, “I’m beginning to get annoyed.”

The floor was constructed from ornately carved tiles. There were geometric designs, but he could also see depictions of the rays of the sun and images of branches and leaves. There were more columns in the interior. These were narrower, and they were decorated by the now-familiar symbols of the Goompah language. They moved through the temple, taking pictures of everything.

The worshipers walked quietly. No one spoke; the only sounds came from the wind and the sea and the periodic scream of a seabird. In the west, the sun was sinking toward the horizon.

An attendant passed through, lighting oil lamps. “It’s getting late,” Kellie said. “You ready to go back?”

Digger nodded. He removed a pickup from his vest, kept it carefully hidden in his hands, until he’d inserted it in the shadows between a column and a wall. “Last one,” he said.

“You think there’s much point, Dig? I don’t think anybody here says anything.”

“It’s okay. The atmosphere of this place is worth recording and sending back.”

But he knew they wouldn’t capture the atmosphere on disk. Hutchins, sitting in her office three thousand light-years away, would never understand what this place felt like.

They stood a moment between two columns and watched a ship pass. Digger tried to remember what the ocean looked like to the east. How far was the next major landfall?

“Traffic must all be up and down the isthmus,” said Kellie. “North and south.”

Not east and west. There was no evidence the Goompahs had been around the world. Strictly terra incognita out there.

The visitors to the temple were filing away; Digger and Kellie were almost alone. The lamps burned cheerfully, but their locations seemed primarily designed to accent the statuary.

Digger looked at the flickering lights, at the figure of the woman and child. What was the story behind that? The images were aspects, he knew, of the local mythology. Of the things that the Goompahs thought important. This was information that Collingdale would want to have.