The crowd cheered for many minutes. Finally, he raised his hand for silence, and he got it at once, except for the babies, who were crying again.

'The Return is close, but there is much work to be done before then. Tomorrow, your leaders will tell you what the details are; you know the outline of the plan. Thus, I will not, as I have in the past, spend this day with you.'

The crowd groaned.

He smiled, and said, 'But I will not be going back to my home as soon as I have been accustomed to. This time I will be with you for two weeks.'

A million cheered.

Hfathon bellowed in Orme's ears. 'You four are especially honoured! He must be staying because of you!'

Orme scarcely heard him. He was getting numb, though not so much that he was not aware of his trembling. He felt an intense painful urge to urinate. The figure of Jesus was wavering as if he were seeing it through heat waves.

Jesus lifted his hand. Again, as if a switch had been pulled, the noise of the mob was turned off.

'Go now, my children, to the synagogue and worship your Father and afterwards enjoy yourself with feasting and laughter and love and all the good things that your Father has blessed you with. Shalom.'

Jesus turned then and walked towards the four. Orme sank to his knees and kissed the hand held out to him.

'Forgive me, Lord,' he said. 'I doubted; I've done bad things. I...'

Everything whirled. The next he was aware, he was on his back looking up at the bearded face.

'What happened?'

'You fainted,' Hfathon said. 'So did Madeleine.'

The four Terrestrials were in the front room of the Shirazis' house.

'It was all emotional,' Orme said. 'A matter of conditioned reflexes; my childhood beliefs took over. I'm okay now. Cool, real cool. I can look at him objectively.'

He added, grinning faintly, 'As long as he isn't around.'

Madeleine had said very little since she had left the platform and, supported by Nadir, had walked home. Orme supposed that she was ashamed and humiliated. No wonder. She'd been a staunch atheist since she was eighteen. She openly scorned those who believed that God could exist and she laughed at those who claimed that Jesus was His Son. It was true that the Martians had made no claim about virgin birth. In fact, they denied it.

Nevertheless, the sight of a man floating down from the sun, a man whom the Martians not only believed had lived over two thousand years but who could prove it, and this man's close resemblance to the portraits hanging in her parents' home and to those in churches and art galleries, all this had stormed through her. And the long-buried but never-dead beliefs had taken over.

Or was it that she had suddenly doubted that she had been right? And her self-image as a scientifically minded sceptic, a thoroughly rational person, had been destroyed? One of the worst things that could happen to a human being was to have the self-image brutally crumbled and swept away in a very short time. There were no defences against that except insanity or suicide - unless the ravaged person was very strong.

She was strong, or at least he had always thought so until now. At this moment she looked as if she were partially recovered from a long illness.

Avram Bronski broke the long silence that had followed Orme's words.

'I was almost overcome, too,' he said. 'So don't you feel so bad about it, Richard. It was a tremendous experience. However, as you say, we have to remain cool. After all, there are explanations for his being able to float through the air without any visible means of support. Visible is the key word. Who knows what device he had under his robe? That aircraft that took us to the platform didn't have any visible means of propulsion either. So why couldn't he?'

This was reasonable. Yet no one really thought this was the right explanation. The man called Jesus radiated a power that made it very difficult not to believe that he was what the Martians claimed he was. It wasn't his words, since these were not extraordinary. Nor was it his features or bearing, which, though handsome and strong and imposing, were equalled or exceeded by many men they'd known. It was a force, a charisma (a word which meant little now because it had been used too much and too inappropriately), an invisible lightning leaping from him. The Krsh and the humans here strongly desired to see him, touch him, be with him, so they could receive this flow of power. But the four Marsnauts were afraid of him and dreaded seeing him again. At the same time, they were attracted by the human magnetic field he radiated. But they had to be with him in the near future. There was no easy way of avoiding it.

Perhaps it was not that they feared him: they feared themselves.

His force was not restricted to contact with the flesh. Later that morning when they turned on the TV, they saw him coming out of the main government building, and the effect of the holograph image was almost as great as that on the platform. Danton got up in the middle of the programme and turned it off. No one objected.

'I don't know,' Madeleine said, shaking her head.

'Don't know what?' Nadir said.

'I just don't know.' Without excusing herself she went into the bedroom. The Iranian started to get up to go after her but changed his mind. Sitting back down, he said, 'I'm worried about her. I can't get her to talk about what's troubling her.'

'You know what it is,' Orme said. Shirazi didn't reply. What was the use?

At that moment the TV came alive, and Hfathon's two-foot high image was standing before them.

'Shalom,' he said. 'I'm inviting you to come at once to the university so you can start work on the next transmission to Earth. After that is sent, you'll be allowed to talk with your people from time to time.'

If he'd expected joy at this news, he was disappointed. The three looked gloomy and for a moment didn't speak.

Then Orme said, 'We'll be right over, Hfathon. Three of us will be, anyway. I don't know about Madeleine.'

The Krsh's feathery eyebrows rose. 'She doesn't have to if she doesn't want to. But you'll have to explain to your colleagues on Earth why she's absent. Otherwise, they might have some sinister interpretations.'

Orme knocked on the bedroom door, since Shirazi showed no signs of going after her. Surprisingly, she said she'd be out in a minute. Orme returned grinning to the front room.

'Maybe we're overly concerned about her. She sounds okay to me. After all, she's about as psychologically stable as a person can get. If she wasn't, she wouldn't be here.'

Bronski smiled lopsidedly. 'Everybody has a breaking point, and the breaking can be caused by things that don't show up on a psych profile.'

'That's right,' Orme said. 'Be a pessimist.'

Madeleine was not actually vivacious, but she did talk when spoken to. But when they entered Hfathon's office, she gasped, and she looked as if she would like to run away. Orme didn't blame her; he was startled, too. Sitting at the Krsh's desk was the Messiah.

He rose and said pleasantly. 'Shalom, my friends. I'm here to help you prepare your programme. I can expedite matters considerably.'

Orme reached down inside himself and dragged up his courage. Why should he feel like a naughty child who'd been caught doing something very bad by a stern powerful elder? He was a man and a damn good one, and it was ridiculous to let this man buffalo him. Jesus hadn't threatened him. He seemed very friendly, quite ready to treat others as almost-equals. So why shouldn't he relax?

That was easier thought than done. Nevertheless, he advanced to Jesus, his hand out, and he managed a weak smile.