Orme abandoned these speculations as Jesus gently landed on the floor. He said something, smiled, and then turned towards the seats and pointed directly at Orme. At least, he seemed to be doing so.

'He's going to...' Bronski said in a low but excited voice.

Richard Orme didn't hear the rest. Suddenly, he was floating up and off the seat and moving out over the floor towards the man whose finger had been pointed at him.

Orme didn't struggle. After all, he was used to freefall. He felt numb, but not so much that he hoped that he didn't look scared or ridiculous. The least that Jesus might have done was to warn him.

'Do not be frightened!' Jesus shouted in Krsh. 'You will not be harmed!'

He said something in Greek, probably, Orme thought, a translation of what he'd just said. Orme didn't have time to consider this trivial item. He shot upward then, until his head was almost touching the ceiling. To one side and below, the cameramen in the balcony had their cases centred on him. He tried to smile, but he went into a somersault then, and, still spinning, though not so swiftly he got dizzy, he descended.

Seven feet from the floor, the whirling stopped, and he hovered.

'My apologies to you, Richard Orme,' Jesus said. 'But it is necessary that I do this, since you are the captain of the Earthmen, and your word should have great authority.'

He crooked his finger, and Orme landed gently upon his two feet. Suddenly, weight was restored. He stood there, blinking and smiling now. It was a foolish smile, though.

'Now,' the man in the blue robe said, 'I would be pleased if you would tell your people, in English, of course, that there was no trickery involved.'

The large deerlike eyes seemed to twinkle. But Orme felt that the light was reflected from steel. And, though stars twinkled, their light came from a fire that could destroy a man in a microsecond.

Orme started to speak, realised he was panting, waited until he'd got his breath, and spoke.

'What Jesus says is true. There were no wires attached to - me, no propulsive devices... nothing. And this was a complete surprise to me. I don't know how he did it, but...'

He should not have used the name of Jesus. That would indicate that he believed this man to be what he claimed.

Well, didn't he?

'Thank you,' Jesus said.

Orme turned and started to walk towards the seats. He stopped. He was trembling too much to continue; his legs felt as if they would give way. And then he was lifted up and propelled towards the chair, was halted just above it, turned, and lowered gently onto it.

The crowd boomed, 'Ya Yeshua' ha-Meshiakh!'

Jesus held up his hand. There was silence. Presently a Krsh and a man came into the lights. They pulled on ropes to which a wheeled cage was attached. Inside it was a huge ram. Behind the cage was a Krsh carrying in one hand a short slender spear with a bulb on its butt and in the other a large axe.

The ram bleated and thrust its horns against the bars in front of the cage. Whatever fate awaited it, it was not afraid. It was ready to fight.

The men halted near Jesus, bowed to him, and one opened the door of the cage. For a minute the ram stood motionless but not silent, then it charged out of its prison, making straight for the man in the blue robe. The crowd gasped, and some called out. Jesus paid them no attention. He fixed his gaze and the point of a finger upon the ram, and it stopped, quivering.

The Krsh, a male much more massively muscled than most of his fellows, stepped forward. Standing to one side of the animal, he lifted the axe. Light reflected from the steel of the head.

Jesus said something, and the Krsh brought the axe down. Its edge sheered through the woolly skin, the heavy muscles of the neck, the bones, and the skin. The head fell off; blood spurted out, soaking the lower part of the blue robe and the bare feet beneath.

Orme felt as if he would vomit. Bronski and Danton said something strangled. Shirazi exclaimed in Persian. The crowd, however, remained silent.

Bronski whispered, 'That's not the proper, kosher method of killing an animal. But I suppose it's not going to be eaten, so it makes no difference.'

Jesus walked through the blood, stopped, picked up the ram's head and held it high. The blood ran down his hands and arms. Then he got down on his knees, affixed the head to the ram's body, and stood up. He raised his eyes upward; his mouth moved silently. He knelt down again, ran his fingers over the severed portion, and stood up. He backed away.

The ram rose groggily to its feet. Its head did not fall off.

Jesus pointed a finger, and the beast trotted off into the cage. The door was closed, and the cage and the two haulers and the axeman went into the shadows.

'Ya Yeshua' ha-Meshiakh!'

The shout was a mixture of awe and triumph.

Bronski clutched Orme's arm. 'For God's sake, the blood is evaporating!'

It was true. The red liquid was boiling away. Within twenty seconds, the floor, the robe, and the man were as clean as before the butchery.

Jesus lifted his hands and uttered something in Hebrew, probably a benediction. Then he walked away, and Orme saw no more of him that day.

Though Bronski was as shaken as his companion, he still retained his rabbinical curiosity.

'I wonder,' he murmured, 'if he has to be ritually cleaned now that he's been drenched with blood? Or if, being the Messiah, anything he does is kosher? Or, perhaps, since the blood was evaporated and he's physically clean, there was no uncleanliness? Or what?'

At 'sunset' in the cavern, an observer on the central administration tower would have seen no light except for the two Gentile houses and the pale globe hanging below the roof of the hollow.

And then, suddenly, tiny lights would appear in the front windows of every house as if God had said, 'Let there be light.' These were the lamps which the men of the house lit, lamps of burning oil made from the fat of 'clean' animals. By their flames the evening prayers were said, the families standing by the window while the father recited the litany to the Creator.

Afterwards, the lamps were extinguished and the electric lights were turned on, and the families sat down to a good and generous meal and cheer flowed like the wine.

The supper that evening in the Shirazis' house, where all four Terrans were eating, was lively though not cheery.

'The sheep could have been a robot,' Madeleine Danton was saying. She put down her fork by the plate, on which her food grew cold. 'In fact, it must have been. That's the only reasonable explanation, and I'm not going to listen to anything unreasonable.'

'You're unreasonable,' her husband said. 'Could we make such a lifelike robot?'

'Not quite. But then these people are far ahead of us in technology.'

'Perhaps you think that Jesus is a robot. Or that all the Martians are.'

'You needn't be so sarcastic, Nadir. Nor do I care for your implication that

I'm paranoiac.'

'I don't think that,' Shirazi said. 'What I do think is that you are not taking a scientific attitude. You're too stubborn. Not only about this but about other things, too.'

He was still angry because Madeleine refused to cook their j meals. She claimed that that was no more her responsibility than his. Anyway, she didn't know how to cook.

'And you a biochemist,' Nadir had said disgustedly. That remark hadn't lessened the tension between them.

'Well, I'm not a robot,' Orme said. 'And I know that no mechanical or electrical devices were used to levitate me. If these people have antigravity, they didn't attach any anti-gravity machines to me.'