'Do you think for one moment that all this hasn't put the public into a frenzy? They'll find the money, you can bet on that!'

Orme paused, then said, 'Okay. Now here's what's happened to us.'

There was a short silence after he had finished. Then Shirazi said, 'So these people are Jews? Including the Krsh?'

'Yes,' Bronski said.

'Yet they mentioned lesous ho Christos, that is, Jesus Christ. And they claimed, by implication anyway, to be Christians?'

The Iranian-Scot was pale. No wonder, Orme thought. He's a Muslim. Maybe he's not orthodox enough to satisfy the more religious of his compatriots, but he was brought up by zealous parents. And he is convinced that Mohammed was the last and the greatest of the prophets, even if he doesn't take literally everything in the Koran, the Moslem scriptures.

But if it was a shock for Shirazi, it had also been one for Orme, the only professed Christian of the four. And Bronski, though not an orthodox Jew, was also disturbed.

What about Danton, who had been raised in a devout Roman Catholic family, though she was now an atheist? She was sitting fairly relaxed, her legs out straight before her, her hands quiet on her lap. She was wearing a maroon robe given her by the captors, her slightly thick ankles and broad sandalled feet showing. Her garment hid the too-wide hips and the very narrow waistline but could not conceal the superbly large breasts. She had a rather striking face, broad, high-cheekboned, wide-mouthed, and big-eyed. Her nose was a ^little too long and curved, but it enhanced, rather than detracted from, her features. She'd had two husbands and was said to be a devil to get along with in her laboratory. But her brilliance in her field, biochemistry, and her overall psychological profile had made her one of the four top candidates for the crew. Certainly, during the training and the long flight, she had co-operated fully. She'd had no personality conflicts, and she was congenial enough, if you stayed away from the subject of religion. Then she clammed up, though it was obvious she would like to argue. And had the circumstances been different, she would have.

Perhaps she looked so... serene... because here, finally, would be proof that the founder of her natal religion was only a man. It was obvious that the human beings here had been brought by the Krsh and picked up about 50 AD. It was also obvious that some of them had been acquainted with Jesus.

At least, it seemed to Orme that it was so. These people might have records, writings of eyewitnesses, perhaps even filmed interviews and testimonies from men and women who'd known Jesus intimately.

His heart was beating fast, and he was shaking a little.

Abruptly, Hfathon's image, smaller than the other two, and hanging above them, appeared in the set. He spoke to Bronski, and he disappeared.

The Frenchman said, 'We're being cut off. Good night, you two. Perhaps soon we'll be talking in person.'

The set went blank. Both were silent for a minute.

'I wonder,' Bronski said slowly, 'why the Martians permit the depiction of animal and human life on these sets yet bar it in their art? Theoretically, the Mosaic law should apply to images in TV, too. But then they may not be as orthodox as I'd supposed.'

Orme was somewhat irritated. 'Good God, Avram! Why worry about such a minor thing? We've got real troubles and big questions to consider, so who gives a hoot?'

Bronski shrugged. 'What else have we got to think about? There's nothing we can do except go along with our, uh, hosts. Anyway, points like that interest me.'

'Yeah? Me, too, when I've got time on my hands.'

Bronski looked around and smiled wryly. Orme burst into laughter.

'I see what you mean. What else do we have but time on our hands, heh? Well, let me ask you. Do orthodox Jews watch TV?'

'There's an ultraorthodox group in Israel, the Neturai Karta, who refuse to own or watch TV, or listen to radios, for that matter. They claim to be the only true Jews left in the world. They even refuse to recognise Israel as a state. But they're almost extinct, and the orthodox regard them with horror - or perhaps pity. Yes, the orthodox do watch TV, though they turn it off on the Sabbath. But the

Martian Jews could be the Terrestrial counterpart of the Neturai Karta, though I'd doubt it.'

Orme said, 'These people have been here for two thousand years. Surely, they've changed in that time? Even your superorthodox Jews don't stone women caught committing adultery or punch out a man's eye because he blinded someone?'

'I wouldn't expect it. The Mosaic laws were rigorously applied when the Hebrews were nomadic tribes, wild Bedouins, in many ways. The laws were barbarically harsh, but they were necessary to keep order and to preserve the faith. Savage as they seem to us, they were more humane than the laws of their contemporaries. After the Jews settled down in Palestine and became civilised, they gradually softened the letter of the law with the spirit of humanity and in accordance with the circumstances of the times and the environment. A century before Jesu's birth, stoning as a punishment for adultery had ceased.'

'But John says that when Jesus was in the temple some doctors of law and some Pharisees brought to him a woman caught in the act of adultery. They said, that Moses had laid down the law that such women were to be stoned, and they asked him what he thought about it. They hoped to frame a charge against him. Now are you saying that story wasn't true?'

'The story may be true,' Bronski said, 'but its location could not have been Jerusalem. The incident probably took place in Galilee, where the natives were more conservative in religious matters - in some respects, anyway - and probably did stone adulterers, if they could do so without attracting the attention of the authorities. It was the law that any adulteress had to be brought to Jerusalem for judgement. There they would only have had to undergo the test of the bitter waters, and if they failed, they would have been punished - but nothing like stoning or in fact any capital punishment whatsoever. They probably would have been divorced and returned in disgrace to their family.

'Anyway, the Martian Jews have had no alien interference or influence for two thousand years. So you can't expect them to have developed as their Earth counterparts did.'

'No alien influence?' Orme said. 'You unpuckering me, man? What about the Krsh? I'd say they're about as alien as you can get. They're not even human!'

'In a physiological sense, no. Otherwise, judging from our very brief acquaintanceship, I'd say they're very human.'

He sat up in the chair and then leaned towards Orme, his hands clasped.

'But here's what puzzles me about them. They were considerably more advanced technologically two thousand years ago than the people they picked up. In fact, they must have been more advanced than we are now. So, they were the superior species. To the humans, the Krsh must have seemed like gods. Angels, anyway. For the humans, the cultural shock would have been great. They would've been numbed.

'Any effect would have been one-way, from the Krsh to the humans. After all, what did the Terrestrials have to offer the Krsh? Now, we know that the Krsh language is the common speech of both Krsh and humans. Greek and Aramaic have been preserved, but only among scholars, and Hebrew is mainly a liturgical language. This is to be expected.'

He sat back but with his hands still gripping each other.

'We would also expect that the religion of the inferior peoples - don't grimace; I use "inferior" in the sense that the humans were technologically inferior and relatively deficient in knowledge - these inferiors would have been tremendously influenced by their superiors. Just as all primitive cultures either perished or were tremendously influenced and changed by the impact of the technologically advanced Westerners. Well, that's not exactly right, since the Eastern civilisations caused less advanced societies to run, die, or change. They were every bit as ruthless, exploitative, and uncomprehending as the Western...'