'How did you know my name?' Hal said.

'I followed you and listened to you talk. I could not understand you. But, after a while, I heard you respond to the name of Hal Yarrow. Learning your name was nothing at all. What puzzled me was that you and that other man looked like my father, must be human beings. Yet, because you did not speak my father's language, you could not have come from his planet.

'Then, I thought, of course! My father had once told me that his people had come to Wuhbopfey from another planet. So, it was a matter of logic. You must be from there, the original world of human beings.'

'I don't understand at all,' said Hal. 'Your father's ancestors came to this planet, Ozagen? But... but there is no record of that! Fobo told me–'

'No, no, you do not understand, yes! My father, Jean-Jacques Rastignac, was born on another planet. He came to this one from that. His ancestors came to that other planet which revolves around a star far from here from an even more distant star.'

'Oh, then they must have been colonists from Earth. But there is no record of that. At least, none that I have ever seen. They must have been French. But if that is true, they left Earth and went to that other system over two hundred years ago. And they could not have been Canadian French, for there were too few of them left after the Apocalyptic War. They must have been European French. But the last speaker of French in Europe died two and a half centuries ago. So–'

'It is confusing, nespfa? All I know is what my father told me. He said he and some others from Wuhbopfey found Ozagen during an exploration. They landed on this continent, his comrades were killed, he found my mother–'

'Your mother? Worse and worse,' Hal said, groaning.

'She was an indigene. Her people have always been here. They built this city. They–'

'And your father was an Earthman? And you were born of his union with an Ozagen humanoid? Impossible! The chromosomes of your father and of your mother could not possibly have matched!'

'I do not care about these chromosomes!' said Jeannette in a quavering voice. 'You see me before you do you not? I exist, do I not? My father lay with my mother, and here I am. Deny me if you can.'

'I did not mean... I mean... it seemed...'He stopped and looked at her, not knowing what to say.

Suddenly, she began sobbing. She tightened her arms around him, and his hands pressed down on her shoulders. They were soft and smooth, and her breasts pressed against his ribs.

'Save me,' she said brokenly. 'I cannot stand this any more. You must take me with you. You must save me.'

Yarrow thought swiftly. He had to get back to the room in the ruins before Pornsen woke up. And he couldn't see her tomorrow, because a gig from the ship was picking up the two Haijacs in the morning. Whatever he was going to do would have to be unfolded to her in the next few minutes.

Suddenly, he had a plan; it germinated from another idea, one he had long carried around buried in his brain. Its seeds had been in him even before the ship had left Earth. But he hadn't had the courage to carry it out. Now, this girl had appeared, and she was what he needed to spark his guts, make him step onto a path that could not be retraced.

'Jeannette,' he said fiercely, 'listen to me! You'll have to wait here every night. No matter what things haunt the dark, you'll have to be here. I can't tell you just when I'll be able to get a gig and fly here. Sometime in the next three weeks, I think. If I'm not here by then, keep waiting. Keep waitingl I'll be here! And when I am, we'll be safe. Safe for a while, at least. Can you do that? Can you hide here? And wait?'

She nodded her head and said, 'Fi'.'

Two weeks later, Yarrow flew from the spaceship Gabriel to the ruins. His needle-shaped gig gleamed in the big moon as it floated over the white marble building and settled to a stop. The city lay silent and bleached, great stone cubes and hexagons and cylinders and pyramids and statues like toys left scattered by a giant child who has gone to bed to sleep forever.

Hal stepped out, glanced to his left and right, and then strode to an enormous arch. His flashlight probed its darkness; his voice echoed from the faraway roof and walls.

'Jeannette! Sah mfa. Fo tami, Hal Yarrow. Jeannette! Ou eh tu? It's me. Your friend. Where are you?'

He walked down the fifty-meter-broad staircase that led to the crypts of the kings. The beam bounced up and down the steps and suddenly splashed against the black and white figure of the girl.

'Hal!' she cried, looking up at him. 'Thank the Great Stone Mother! I've waited every night! But I knew you'd come!'

Tears trembled on the long lashes; her scarlet mouth was trembling as if she were doing her best to keep from sobbing. He wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, but it was a terrible thing even to look at an unclothed woman. To embrace her would be unthinkable. Nevertheless, that was what he was thinking.

The next minute, as if divining the cause of his paralysis, she moved to him and put her head on his chest. Her own shoulders hunched forward as she tried to burrow into him. He found his arms going around her. His muscles tightened, and blood lunged down into his loins.

He released her and looked away. 'We'll talk later. We've no time to lose. Come.'

Silently, she followed him until they came to the gig. Then, she hesitated by the door. He gestured impatiently for her to climb in and sit down beside him.

'You will think I'm a coward,' she said. 'But I have never been in a flying machine. To leave this earth . . .'

Surprised, he could only stare at her.

It was hard for him to understand the attitute of a person totally unaccustomed to air travel.

'Get in!' he barked.

Obediently enough, she got in and sat down in the copilot's seat. She could not keep from trembling, however, or looking with huge brown eyes at the instruments before and around her.

Hal glanced at his watchphone.

'Ten minutes to get to my apartment in the city. One minute to drop you off there. A half-minute to return to the ship. Fifteen minutes to report on my espionage among the wogs. Thirty seconds to return to the apartment. Not quite half an hour in all. Not bad.'

He laughed. 'I would have been here two days ago, but I had to wait until all the gigs that were on automatic were in use. Then, I pretended that I was in a hurry, that I had forgotten some notes, and that I had to go back to my apartment to pick them up. So, I borrowed one of the manually controlled gigs used for exploration outside the city. I never could have gotten permission from the O.D. for that if he had not been overwhelmed by this.'

Hal touched a large golden badge on his left chest. It bore a Hebrew L.

'That means I'm one of the Chosen. I've passed the 'Meter.'

Jeannette, who had seemingly forgotten her terror, had been looking at Hal's face in the glow from the panel light.

She gave a little cry. 'Hal Yarrow! What have they done to you?' Her fingers touched his face.

A deep purple ringed his eyes; his cheeks were sunken, and in one a muscle twitched; a rash spread, over his for-head; the seven whipmarks stood out against a pale skin.

'Anybody would say I was crazy to do it,' he said. 'I stuck my head in the lion's mouth. And he didn't bite my head off. Instead, I bit his tongue.'

'What do you mean?'

'Listen. Didn't you think it was strange that Pornsen wasn't with me tonight, breathing his sanctimonious breath down my neck? No? Well, you don't know us. There was only one way I could get permission to move out of my quarters in the ship and get an apartment in Siddo. That is, without having a gapt living with me to watch my every move. And without having to leave you out here in the forest. And I couldn't do that.'

She ran her finger down the line from his nose to the corner of his lip. Ordinarily he would have shrunk from the touch because he hated close contact with anybody. Now, he didn't move back.

'Hal,' she said softly. 'Maw sheh.'

He felt a glow. My dear. Well, why not?

To stave off the headiness her touch gave, he said, 'There was only one thing to do. Volunteer for the 'Meter.'

"Wuh Met? 'Es'ase'asah?'

'It's the only thing that can free you from the constant shadow of a gapt . Once you've passed it, you're pure, above suspicion-theoretically, at least.

'My petition caught the hierarchy off guard. They never expected any of the scientists – let alone me – to volunteer. Urielites and Uzzites have to take it if they hope to advance to the hierarchy–'

'Urielites? Uzzites?'

'To put it in ancient terminology, priests and cops. The Forerunner adopted those terms – the names of angels – for religious-governmental use – from the Talmud. See?'

'No.'

'I'll explain that later. Anyway, only the most zealous ask to face the 'Meter. It's true that many people do, but only because they are compelled to. The Urielites were gloomy about my chances, but they were forced by law to let me try. Besides, they were bored, and they wanted to be entertained – in their grim fashion.'

He scowled at the memory. 'A day later, I was told to report to the psych lab at twenty-three hundred S.T. – Ship's Time, that is. I went into my cabin – Pornsen was out – opened my labcase, and took out a bottle labeled 'Prophetsfood.' It is supposed to contain a powder whose base is peyote. That's a drug that was once used by American Indian medicine men.'

'Kfe?'

'Just listen. You'll get the main points. Prophetsfood is taken by everybody during Purification Period. That's two days of locking yourself in a cell, fasting, praying, being flagellated by electric whips, and seeing visions induced by hunger and Prophetsfood. Also subjective time-travelling.'

'Kfe?'

'Don't keep saying "What?" I haven't got time to explain dunnology. It took me ten years of hard study to understand it and its mathematics. Even then, there were a lot of questions I had. But I didn't ask them. I might be thought to be doubting.

'Anyway, my bottle did not hold Prophetsfood. Instead, it contained a substitute I'd secretly prepared just before the ship left Earth. That powder was the reason why I dared face the 'Meter. And why I was not as terrified as I should have been . . . though I was scared enough. Believe me.'

'I do believe you. You were brave. You overcame your fear.'

He felt his face reddening. It was the first time in his life he had ever been complimented.