Even considering the paranoidal tone of the last sentences, this was an extraordinary speech for Frederick. As a rule he didn’t condescend to explain himself. Jim’s quirked eyebrows rose.

“Really, Dr. Frederick, he didn’t know. I’m sorry if you feel that way-”

“Your regret or lack of it is irrelevant,” Frederick interrupted. “Even if your sentiments are genuine, which I am inclined to doubt, they would be of no practical use, since it is your employer who determines your actions. Come, Sandy, I want to get back to the site this afternoon.”

Naturally enough, this piece of rudeness wiped the conciliatory expression off Jim’s face and restored his original look of suspicion and hostility. I didn’t blame him. I could have slapped my father. However, it wasn’t fair of Jim to blame me for somebody else’s bad manners. He didn’t give me a chance to apologize or explain or smile, or anything. He threw down a handful of change, pushed his chair back and walked off, fairly radiating anger with every muscle in his body. It was a nice body, too, lean-hipped and broad-shouldered, like those of the bull dancers.

Frederick was several yards away, walking fast. I trotted till I caught up with him. He didn’t slow down.

“Why the hell did you have to be so rude?” I demanded.

“I cautioned you, I believe, against speaking to anyone you met here on Thera.”

“No, you did not!”

“Then you ought to have had the elementary good sense to know it without being cautioned. It is imperative that your identity remain a secret-”

“Then why did you speak to me? I figured-”

“You did not figure, if by that you mean ‘think sensibly.’ It will be evident, as soon as you appear on the dig, that you are working with me. The important thing is to keep people from suspecting that you are planning to dive professionally. There can be no objection to your swimming or diving for pleasure, and if you are thought to be a casual acquaintance, with no training in archaeology, suspicion will not arise. That is why I explained your presence as I did.”

“Well, you might have told me that before,” I grumbled. “And I still don’t see why you had to be so nasty to-to him.”

“His name is Sanchez,” said my father obtusely. “He is the assistant to Sir Christopher Penrose, who is conducting a dig on the other side of the village. There is a Minoan town there; house remains were found almost fifty years ago. Sir Christopher is probably preening himself because he believes he has taken the area I wanted. He hopes to find a palace. He is mistaken. The palace is not east of the village, it is west, part of it is submerged, that is why it is necessary for you to dive. Must I explain in laborious detail why I don’t want that inquisitive young man hanging around you? His superior is one of my chief antagonists. He would like nothing better than to find me violating some idiotic regulation, so he can have me expelled from the island.”

I was tempted to write this speech off as incipient paranoia, but I couldn’t. The article I had read in the dentist’s office all those months ago had told me what the rest of the world thought of my father and his work. Some of the reading I had done since proved to me that scholars can be as petty-minded and vindictive as mean little kids. Sir Christopher might be like that. And if this incident was a sample of how my father behaved with his colleagues, I didn’t blame them for hating his guts.

He had been arrogant enough when I first met him. Here, on his native turf, he was overpowering. He had my stuff collected and put into his rented Land Rover before I had time to draw a deep breath, and my feeble suggestions about lunch didn’t even win a glance of acknowledgment. His Greek sounded as fluent as his English. I wondered if the content was as rude. I couldn’t judge from the faces of the islanders he was dealing with, they were studiedly blank or studiously polite. Certainly he got results, and we were out of town before I realized that not only had I missed lunch, but I hadn’t even gotten a good look at Phira.

To complain would have been to waste my breath, so I settled back and tried to enjoy the scenery-not an easy job, since the roads were bad and the Land Rover had long ago lost any springs it possessed. Frederick drove the way I would have expected, with competence and with complete disregard for the comfort of himself or his passenger. However, the scenery wasn’t awfully scenic. The country was rough, cut by ravines and rising to mountains of considerable height. The soil was a dismal dusty gray, with big lumps of lava and pumice. Volcanic soil is richer than it looks, though; Thera produces good wine and vegetable crops such as tomatoes. The fields, outlined by low stone walls, were terraced to make the most of the uneven terrain. Rows of young vines curved around the flanks of the hills like green contour lines.

We passed a quarry that looked like a lunar ruin, ragged and silvery. I remembered reading that the hardened ash is used in making cement. And I remembered that Thera had once been called Kalliste, “the Beautiful.” The name wasn’t very appropriate now, and yet there was a kind of stark grandeur about the place.

The village was only about six miles from Phira, but it took a long time to get there because of the roads. They wound all over, skirting ravines and mountain slopes. A mile or so out of town the road I had considered rotten petered out to a goat track, deeply rutted and barely wide enough for the car to scrape between the stone walls. Finally we climbed a steep slope, bumped precariously along the top of a ridge-and down below was the village, Zoa. The white houses, with their distinctive arched roofs, were huddled together as if they needed mutual support to keep from falling down the hillside into the sea.

As we plunged downward, on no road that I could see, I asked, “Where are we staying? Is there a hotel?”

I should have known better. A hotel, even a primitive hotel, would have had some labor-saving devices, such as maids. A hotel would have had people. Frederick didn’t like people and he wasn’t particularly interested in saving me any labor. No, we had a house, a ramshackle four-room structure some distance from the village. One look at it brought out housewifely instincts I never knew I had. I even forgot about my empty stomach. I couldn’t have eaten in that house, and the courtyard was worse.

I spent the rest of the day shoveling out the debris and burying the smellier parts of it. Frederick disappeared while I was working, presumably back to his dig. It was obvious that he wasn’t going to help with the housework. I assumed that the cooking was supposed to be my province too. The kitchen was distinguished from the other rooms by the fact that it contained cases of canned goods and a camp-type Coleman stove.

There was plenty of food and enough bottled water to last for weeks. I wasn’t so sure that was good news. It implied that Frederick wasn’t planning on many outside contacts. Surely, I thought, we could get fresh provisions from the villagers-tomatoes and wine, at least. It was too late to go shopping by the time I had made the house semi-habitable, so I got into my bathing suit. There was a tiny beach below the house, separated from the village harbor by a spur of rock. The path going down to it must have been made by goats, but I managed it without too much trouble.

The water felt like a benediction. It washed away the grime of the house and most of my tiredness. When I came up, a spectacular sunset was streaking the sky, and rosy reflections shimmered across the darkening water. I could have stayed there for hours. The place was utterly silent, except for the swish of the waves. But I decided I had better get back up the cliff before it got dark. I was hungry.

When I reached the top of the cliff, I saw a light in the house. I followed it to the kitchen. Frederick was sitting there eating soup and reading, by the light of a single lamp. He glanced up at me and went back to his book.