Once, Orme quoted the New Testament.

'The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.'

Wang said, 'So, you know that statement of the Messiah. Then you have read The Testament of Matthias?’

Orme explained that Earth had testaments from other disciples of Yeshua'. These had been collected to make a book which was the sequel to what Terrans called the Old Testament, the holy book of the ancient Jews and of the modern ones, and also one of the holy books of the Christians.

Gulthilo said, 'Yes, we heard about that. Two weeks from now the first of a series of programmes will be given which will tell us about the history of the followers of the Messiah since Matthias the prophet left Earth.'

Bronski had been the chief informant for those preparing the series, though Orme had contributed as much as he could. But he had been more chagrined than pleased because of his ignorance of his own religion. The scholarly Jew had known far more about it than he.

'To get back to The Testament of Matthias,' Wang said. 'You didn't say whether or not you'd read it.'

'I'm about a quarter of the way through it,' Orme said. 'It's hard going for me because I'm not fluent in Krsh yet. On the other hand it is in simple language. I can't read the original at all, which is in Greek.'

'And do these New Testament writers, as you call them, agree with Matthias?'

Orme smiled. 'Well, in many places, yes. But in many others, no. He says nothing of the virgin birth, for instance, or the Holy Trinity, or Jesus's genealogy, or... many things.'

Bronski, who had by now read Matthias four times, had told Orme that all of the New Testament books were written long after Jesus had been crucified. And many, especially Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, showed evidence of tampering.

Orme had denied this, but Bronski, whose Biblical scholarship was profound, had cited him chapter and verse of the Book and the many commentaries on it.

'Matthew, Mark, Luke and John never heard of the virgin birth. Paul never mentions it, and you can bet that if he had, he'd have made a long comment on it. The references in the first four gospels are obviously later interpolations, pious frauds. And it's evident from the first four gospels that Jesus was a Jew who thought of himself as the Messiah of the Jews, the saviour of them only.

'The extension of the faith to the Gentiles was chiefly the work of Paul and Barnabas. Most Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah, and so certain accommodations of the Mosaic Law were made for the pagans. Such as, for example, giving up circumcision and the dietary taboos. Also, the belief in virgin birth was common among the pagans; their myths and legends had hundreds of accounts of them.'

'Why hadn't I heard about all this?' Orme had said.

'Because, like most Christians, you didn't bother to read what was available. Of course, many have, but they've rejected scholars' findings. They ignore them. They believe blindly. Or if they do accept them, they rationalise them and become watered-down liberal Christians. On the other hand, the fundamentalists believe everything in the Bible in a literal sense. That is, there was an Adam and an Eve and a garden of Eden and the snake did tempt Eve to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, and the snake was cursed and lost its limbs and had to crawl on its belly forever after. Haw, haw!'

Orme had got angry and had finally quit arguing with Bronski.

He couldn't deny that Matthias knew nothing about Jesus's resurrection, though he had heard rumours of it. And he, the thirteenth apostle, had known intimately all those closely connected to Jesus, and none had claimed to have seen the risen Jesus.

'So,' Bronski said, 'the accounts of this in the four Gospels are fabrications attached to them. Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John give contradictory stories, and the Christian apologists have written many books attempting to explain these discrepancies. None are convincing. They're splendid examples of the power of the human mind to rationalise, and that's all!

'The only conclusion to draw from this is that Jesus is a few mouldering bones in some stone tomb or merely dust. But then there is undeniable proof that Jesus did suddenly appear on Mars shortly after the digging into Mars had started. He wasn't on the Krsh ship when it left Earth, at least his presence aboard had gone undetected, and then presto! There he was! And Matthias, who'd known him well, recognised him. It was then that Jesus said that he had died on the cross and been buried in a tomb. But, unlike the accounts in the Gospels, some of his disciples had taken the body away and reburied it. They were accused of doing that by their enemies, you know.

'However, this Jesus said that his spirit had been taken to heaven, and then he was sent back to the material world by God, but not to Earth. God had informed Jesus that he had been mistaken - Jesus, not God, of course - about the nature and the time of the Last Days. He was sent in a new body, which looked just like his old one, to Mars to rule over his people there and to prepare them for their rule in establishing Zion on Earth. What do you think of that?'

Numbed, Orme could only reply that he had nothing at this time to say. Except that it sounded very fishy to him.

'The fish was the symbol of the early Christians,' Bronski said. Orme didn't ask him what he meant by that.

Meantime, he was reading Matthias's testament as fast as his ability permitted him. So far he had only got to the section where Matthias and his companions were sick with the plague in Libya and praying that The Divine Presence would deliver them from evil as He had the Chosen People in the time of Moses.

The rest of the meal was occupied with Wang's jokes. He seemed to be a great story teller, and Orme could easily have spent the day there trading stories with him. However, none of Wang's tales were 'dirty'; that was forbidden.

Finally, Wang said he had to get back to his chores, and Gulthilo had to start the lessons. Orme thanked them for the meal and got into the car while the others stood on the porch saying goodbye and inviting him to come again.

Before he could drive away, the blonde ran down from the porch. She leaned across the seat and touched his wrist.

'Maybe we really shouldn't see each other again,' she said. 'But I would like it if we did. If you come this way again, ask for me in the village of Nod. Or you can call me through the TV.'

'I'd like that very much. But I don't know. The authorities might interfere. And what would your family do if they thought I was courting you?'

'We'll worry about that when it's time to do so,' she said.

She withdrew her hand, leaving a warm tingling spot on his wrist. 'It's up to you. I've been too bold as it is.'

He drove away without looking back. It had been a pleasant experience, one which had done much, even if only temporarily, to alleviate his loneliness.

Except when he was with Philemon and his fellow athletes, he'd felt that he was truly an alien. What was it? 'A stranger in a strange land.'

The hospitality and the genuine friendliness of the family, and the attraction Gulthilo felt for him, had made him feel warm and somewhat secure. But, he warned himself, this was illusory. There was danger in seeing the blonde, and the Ben-Hebhels had shown to their guest a welcome that their Law probably required.

No, that wasn't fair. Their reception of him had not been the polite formality that was demanded if correct behaviour was to be observed. They'd seemed genuinely interested in him. Of course, that could be because he was a curiosity, something they could talk about to their friends, a conversation piece.

As long as he had no evidence, he told himself, he was being paranoid again. Why take them at their face value until he had proof it was false?