Macroscope

CHAPTER 8

The marshes of Glynn: now they were crossed by highways, infringed upon by the welling city that sent its pseudopods of industrial flesh questing outward in a great half-circle. Brunswick — founded in 1771, now more numerously populated than the entire state of Georgia at the date of this city’s inception. The reputed cotton was gone from this area, and the pecans and the peaches, perhaps encouraged in their departure by the advice of the poet who made this region aesthetically renowned. Instead there were shipbuilding yards, the ships not necessarily of the water, and machine shops, the machines not necessarily the servants of man. The old pulp mills, their forest cellulose depleted, had been replaced by more sophisticated refineries, and the canneries by protein-simulatories. There was more to learn about chemistry in Brunswick than any man could ever know.

“Do you have your fix, Ivo? We’re moving into position above the null-G column and it may get a little breezy.”

“Almost, Harold.”

Yet the marshes remained, protected in part by statute of the Empire State of the South, that the live-oak might retain its ancestral home, and perhaps too the Cherokee rose. From the city he flew, disembodied, all observing, passing through obstacles without flinching, seeming to breathe the freer atmosphere of nature. The dusky English sparrows gave way to the red-winged blackbird; the chimney-swift to the belted kingfisher. The ugly cockroach hid, the lovely dragonfly emerged; the bold house rat yielded to the shy cottontail rabbit; the gray park squirrel faded in the face of the gleaming blacksnake.

“Are you about finished, Ivo? We’re descending toward the excavation.”

“Almost, Afra.”

The marshes: and if there were water moccasins and alligators and snapping turtles, were these not more beautiful and less destructive than the stout tourists, the hapless domesticants? From the watery inlets rose the ancient bald cypress trees, magnificently — some would say grotesquely — swollen at the base, their islands of woody “knees” adjacent. Farther along were a rare American elm, several glossy-leaved handsome magnolias, some small sassafras, large sycamore, medium tulip-tree — and finally the aristocrat of the south, the great live-oak, garlanded with hanging Spanish moss.

He came to a halt beneath it, within its somber cathedral of foliage, responding to the massive permanence of it, the solitude.

“Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven / With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven / Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs—”

“What did you say, Ivo?”

“A poem I know, Beatryx. I’m sorry; I did not mean to repeat it aloud.”

“One by Sidney Lanier? But isn’t that poetry meant to be spoken aloud? Please go on with it.”

Not really surprised, he obliged. “Emerald twilights — Virginal shy lights / wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows, / When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnades—”

He broke off, staring at the spreading oak in consternation. It was the poem of Schön’s first message, the one that lead up to the terminal thought. If Afra were to hear it and identify it—

He calmed himself. It was, after all, only a poem; it bore only obliquely on his secret. Why should he hide it? Afra must already have caught on to the truth. Significantly, she had stopped pressing him on the matter of Schön. “It goes on like that. I was looking at a tree, on Earth, and it reminded me.”

“It’s very nice,” Beatryx agreed.

He had his fix: that mighty live-oak in the marshes of Glynn. He keyed the location into the computer as the primary reference point. He was ready for the first jump.

Ready — to penetrate to the bowels of Triton, to be entombed there, to undertake, while the entire moon decelerated, the melting… and gasifying… and collision with Neptune… and compression… and…

The scene opened on his fix: the magnificent live-oak, extending its rotund branches as though to embrace all the world. The tree was hardly changed, except — yes, it was smaller, more vigorously leafed. Still bearded with Spanish moss, it was a young adult rather than a patriarch. The oval green leaves were more shiny, the acorns seemed richer in their scaly cups.

“When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnades, / Of the heavenly woods and glades, / That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach within / The wide sea-marshes of Glynn;—”

And, astoundingly, there were lovers! A young man in what Ivo took to be a farmer’s outfit and a rather pretty girl, her looks spoiled somewhat for Ivo by the dated cut of her dress. They were just leaving a bower, perhaps having completed their liaison there.

Dated dress? Ivo reproved himself. He was thinking in late twentieth century terms. He cared nothing for fashion, dictated as it was by commercially-minded foreigners, yet somehow anything not contemporary was less attractive than it should be. He suspected that he would have been quite satisfied, had he lived in this girl’s time, with her costume. It decorated, after all, the timeless attributes of the sex.

He followed them past a mighty white-oak that had been a rotting stump before and into a swampy glade where two and three foot high red-flowered knotweeds bloomed, and white-flowered arrowhead plants, and bright yellow buttercups. At the edge of an open pond stood yard-high pickerelweeds with glossy spadelike leaves as long as a spread-fingered hand, the blue flowers just forming on the upright spike; and upon the water lay the great green disks of the water-lily, not yet in bloom.

The season was late spring or early summer, Ivo decided. June, perhaps. Late enough for the first pickerel-weed, too early yet for goldenrod.

He left the couple to their silent dialogue and traveled deeper into the swamp. Yes, there was an alligator in pursuit of fish, as graceful a swimmer as any. Emerging near the city, he passed cottontail rabbits and flickers browsing for beetles in the fields. It was amazing how much closer nature came to civilization, here.

He traversed the city, and found a creosoting plant, a box factory, a conventional cannery, shipping wharves, and at last a newspaper with the date: June 5, 1930.

They had jumped fifty light-years from Earth.

And those lovers — in their early seventies, now. It was a wonderful and somewhat painful thought.

Another jump, another fix: the scene differed: The terrain was still marshy, but no trace of either the stately live-oak or huge white-oak remained. Instead it was bright dawn upon white cedars, the average tree perhaps eighty feet tall, crowded together and cutting off much of the light of the sun so that it did not touch the ground directly.

Ivo paused to consider the implications. Cedar preferred freshwater swamps, and the marshes of Glynn were salt. How had this come about?

Either his fix was off or there had been a serious change in the landscape. The computer was responsible for the fix, establishing it by the gravitic and magnetic qualities of the planet: a complex and indirect process, but thorough. The location checked out. Therefore—

How big a jump had they taken?

“Continental drift?” Afra inquired, her voice seeming to emerge from the cedar grove. It was not hard to picture her standing there, just behind a tree.

“Drift?” Back to the stupids again.

“The movement of the continents in the course of geologic time,” she explained. “If the expression on your face means what it surely means, your landscape has changed. You might be a mile or so from where you thought you were, and it wouldn’t be the scope’s fault. The continent itself could have shifted. Or orogeny could have—”

“Could be. I seem to be in a freshwater swamp, inland from where I was, and the fix checks. But how much time — ?”

“Oh, a few million years or so.”

He drew off the goggles and stared at her. She was smiling, as he had suspected. “Such a jump is possible, you know,” he said, nettled.

“Certainly. But not this time. Our stellar configuration establishes our continued residence within the Milky-Way galaxy, so we have to be within seventy thousand light-years or so of Earth. I would judge within ten thousand, actually. And it is also possible for rivers to change course and for beaches to submerge. A few thousand years would be enough to change your flora and fauna perceptibly.”

Ivo replaced the goggles with something less than good grace and sped toward Brunswick. His exploration, he knew now, was confirmatory only; Afra had already worked out the position by astronomical means. The very process of locating Earth established its distance, though only his own investigation could pin it down precisely. The macroscope had a sweep-adjustment that enabled it to select for a certain type of image; that was one of a number of refinements courtesy of galactic broadcasts. Otherwise the problem of locating Earth would be horrendously complicated.

There was nothing at the Brunswick location except scrub forest. “It’s pre-1771, anyway.”

He heard the rustle of her leaning forward. How he wished she would do that when his eyes were on her, when there was no technical business at hand. But she belonged to a dead man yet, however the live might yearn for her.

She murmured: “As I make it, the jumps should be gradated sharply. Probably fifty years is the minimum — forty-nine, actually — because you can’t jump from the end of one loop to the middle of the one adjacent, or from place to place within your own. The larger loops should be multiples of these, since they’re made out of looplets, and then there could be multiples of those — we don’t know how far it extends. Even a slight change in the angle of our jump could shift us from the smalls to the mediums or worse. If we assume each level is the square of the prior one, first level being roughly fifty years, the second would be two and a half thousand years and the third six and a quarter million — light-years. So just keep calm until you know which level it is.”

“Six and a quarter million?” he repeated, comprehending her reason for the private discussion. “That — that could put us in another galaxy!”

“Not likely. Probably in intergalactic space. But as I said, the local light survey places us definitely within a galactic structure, and since you found Earth where it was supposed to be, the odds are it is our own. I conjecture level two, therefore.”

“Two and a half thousand.” It was still appalling — and she wasn’t sure. It was possible, if unlikely, that this was merely an Earthlike planet occupying the same spot in another galaxy or cluster that Earth occupied in the Milky Way. Perhaps every galaxy was laid out on a common plan. Cepheid variables, novas, planets, all fitting into their destined slots…

He abolished it as fantasy. “That’s before the Christian era.”

She made no reply, but he felt her closeness, her excitement. To peer into ancient history! No man had done such a thing so directly before.

“Oh what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea? / Somehow my soul seems suddenly free—”

She replied: “Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free / Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea!” And she touched his hand.

Thus did she confess to him that she knew of Sidney Lanier and what he signified in Ivo’s life, and perhaps had known from the beginning; and her hand now squeezing his own suggested an added meaning to the words she quoted. Candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free? He dared not hope; it was most likely an intellectual game, for her.

He had tried to emulate the qualities of Lanier the person, to mold his character after that of his adopted ancestor — but it had not worked. Ivo could not create poetry, and he totally lacked Lanier’s winning ways with the ladies. How much better off he would have been to develop a personality truly his own!

“Jump it to Europe,” Afra said.

He jumped it to Europe. The time was noon at Rome — and there was no settlement of man there. “Pre-Roman,” he announced.

“Try Egypt.”

“Nothing at Alexandria,” he said after a moment. “Not even dry land.”

“Naturally not, if it’s pre-Roman. You want Memphis.”

He headed southeast, toward the noncoded location, feeling out of sorts again.

On an eastern channel of the Nile delta he discovered a bustling city, not large by his expectations but with the aura of a capital of some sort. Memphis?

“Doesn’t sound like it,” Afra said. “But any city is good news for us. Look for a palace or a temple; see if you can find written records to photograph. We should be able to date those.”

Ivo obliged, descending to street level near a complex of buildings he took to be significant. The street was narrow and filthy, lined by tiny mud-brick dwellings set close together and generally no more than a single story high. He could make out the straw coating of the weathered bricks, and fancied he could almost sniff the surrounding slum offal. Inferior residential districts had not begun with America, certainly!

The natives were human: slender, swarthy Mediterraneans with black hair and brown eyes. A number were naked, and these he presumed were slaves; their racial types were variable, ranging from Nordic blond to full black. Even the clothed ones gained little; they possessed none of the glorious habiliment he had thought of as ancient Egyptian. There were no gold ornaments or bright cloths, and not even shoes or sandals. Barefoot, bareheaded, the men were clad only in the wraparound schenti: white cloth held at the waist by a wide leather belt, the outfit reaching only to the knees. The women wore long tight skirts and a number were bare-breasted. The effect would have been delightful, had they been young, healthy and clean; these were not.

At the temple/palace grounds things changed abruptly. There were no women, and the men were much better dressed. They wore wide, short wigs, hairpiece quality a seeming guide to status. They wore full skirts with a short sleeve for the left arm only and overset by a pleated mantle of linen. Evidently the people he had seen on the street were of the lowest class.

Some stone was in evidence, but up close the structures were hardly impressive. The jewelry the personnel wore furnished most of the temple color.

He explored several private cells, finding them routinely occupied. If this were a place of worship, it was decadent; if a palace, the Pharaoh was far away. One section even seemed to be still under construction. Here there were guards, their spears, axes and pear-shaped shields set aside as they watched lethargic slaves chipping stone under the supervision of a harried elderly taskmaster. There was no particular brutality about it; only the supervisor — probably the responsible one — showed any urgency, and his gesticulations went largely unheeded.

Ivo came in for a closer look, knowing that where there was activity of this nature there had to be some kind of blueprint or written directive. If that document were dated, or carried the name of the chief executive—

At this point another man came into the scene. His hair was divided and partly shaved above the ears, and he had a long braided lock falling in front of one ear and curling up at the end. Two bright feathers decorated the remainder of his hair. His arms were tattooed, as were his thighs, in crosshatched patterns. He wore a wrap of decorated fabric that looped around the body and anchored to one shoulder, the hem richly bordered.

This man looked up, facing Ivo. His mouth parted in an O of surprise. He gesticulated.

The guards woke up. In a moment they were beside the man, bright headpieces in place, short-sleeved metal shirts gleaming, ox-hide shields up. There were many more of them than Ivo had suspected. Some must have been summoned by the commotion from elsewhere on the grounds. Many were Egyptian, while others were racially similar to the recent arrival. Ivo realized he was dealing with a superimposition of cultures. The Egyptians must have been conquered recently.

The feather-headed man pointed. There was no question who commanded, here. The guards lifted their spears, and some dropped back to notch arrows. All looked toward Ivo.

They saw him!

Now the slaves were looking too, desisting from their labors. Frightened, they clustered on the far side of the court, while the guards formed a defensive line. Postures were aggressive, but no one took action. They were waiting for the command.

“What is it?” Afra’s voice demanded nearby, jolting him. He had thought for a moment that one of the guards had spoken audibly — a ridiculous notion. Thousands of years separated scene from viewer, and the macroscope did not transmit sound.

Almost as ridiculous a notion, actually, as that of these men of the past seeing Ivo, as though this were merely a window.

The feathered leader made his decision. His mouth moved as he barked commands. The guards began to move, closing in on—

Without answering Afra, Ivo manipulated the controls convulsively and shot straight up two hundred feet, instinctively fleeing from the situation. The faces of the warriors turned up to follow him, and he could see that they were afraid.

“Ivo, you saw something!” Afra persisted.

“Nothing,” he said, feeling himself shaking. Lanier had had courage! “Must be a little tired.” He was drifting far above the city now, finding a certain birdlike security in height.

“Maybe you should take a break,” she said with concern. “These transformations are weakening us all, and we don’t know how much of your strength this searching draws. No point in risking—”

“I’m okay.” He was ashamed to admit what form his fatigue had taken, and did not trust the result of his observation. Non-Egyptians in ancient Egypt? As rulers? He was sure Egypt had done the conquering, not the reverse.

Of course he had become sleepy, letting a dream-image replace that of the scope. He had known something like that to happen when reading: the words on the page would become more and more fantastic, until with a start he realized that his eyes were closed. Returning to the real book he would find his place, noting where the mundane text diverged from the astonishing vision — only to drift off again similarly.

He understood that this could happen to a fatigued driver, too. The man would spy something incredible, like an ocean liner crossing at an intersection, and realize that he was dreaming at the wheel. If he were sensible, he would pull over immediately and rest, lest the next nod be fatal. The mind had intriguing ways to sublimate strain.

He was tired; that explained it, though he did not feel depleted. Perhaps it was not so much a physical effect as a psychic one. Knowing how far they had ranged from Earth — so far that light reflected from their base of operations, the planet Neptune, would not reach home for thousands of years — knowing this, he unconsciously sought a closer identification with the home planet. He wanted to step into the world he saw, somehow, much as a child wanted to step into a storybook picture. A world of ancient adventure and glory, where the threat of nuclear holocaust or mind-destruction did not exist. For all its primitive faults, a better world…

If it happened again, he would quit. Afra was right; there was no point in wearing himself out, when his mission was so important. A misreading of a year or two might throw them a light-year or two off course. Better to be sensible: to wait a few hours and do it properly, than to risk inaccurate information.

And it was important, he reminded himself again. They were not just traveling; they were attempting to map the convolutions of the cosmos as the jump cycles penetrated them, and in that sense an error of as much as a day might invalidate the phase. How much would a tiny inaccuracy be magnified by a large jump? There was no point in the map unless it were precise, and without the map they would never be able to return physically to Earth. Only the macroscope could pinpoint their location so exactly; the telescope, over a distance of a thousand light-years, was a blunderbuss.

“You know best, Ivo,” she said quietly.

Almost, he quit then. “Thanks,” he said, meaning it. “I don’t think Egypt is doing us much good. Where else should I try?”

“You might try Damascus. That’s traditionally the oldest city in the world, and a very important one. Move northeast about four hundred miles—”

“On my way.” He could jump there instantly by touching the correct coding, since Damascus was on the list; but he preferred to make the trek by, as it were, his own power. It gave him badly needed confidence.

He shot across the delta of the Nile at jet-plane velocity and intersected the coastline. His route would take him over the southwest corner of the Mediterranean Sea — probably the same route used by the Egyptian ships in the course of trade or war with Asia minor. Except that he was high above the ground. Even so must the fabulous spirits of Near East legend have swooped in minutes over land and sea — the godlets, the genii, gaseous creatures of malevolence and power. Their number was supposed to have been severely curtailed by Biblical King Solomon, who confined them to bottles when they would not swear fealty to him. Some were said to have remained helpless in such confinement for thousands of years. Could they be considered in fact travelers via the macroscope, able to witness without participating? What a horrible fate, to be corked forever, sentient, within a tiny sphere!

Time had passed during his sojourn in the land of Egypt, and his exodus was late. The day was terminal, dusk approaching, and he was traveling into it. The descending sun sparkled from the waves and tinted the edges of clouds. “How still the plains of the waters be! / The tide is in his ecstasy. / The tide is at his highest height: / And it is night.” And what if this were the Mediterranean instead of the marshes of Glynn? The words of the poet still applied.

A ship came into sight upon the ocean. He swerved to study it: a stout galley, a dozen or fifteen oars stroking the water rhythmically on each side. So they really did use them, in the olden days! It had a mast, but the sail was furled: not enough wind. Probably anxious to get home tonight, he thought fondly, and no wonder; this ship could not be much over fifty feet long. Compared to the modern liners, a thousand feet from stem to stern (he smiled a little wistfully, remembering Brad’s pun)… though this one did not appear to have much of a stem… or even the three-hundred-foot sailing ships…

No. This toy dared not stray far from its port.

He was too low, too slow; he wanted to reach Damascus before nightfall. He could not afford to tarry beside every curiosity along the way, tempting as such diversions might be.

He lifted — and did not rise. The ocean was nearer now, less placid; the green waves slopped randomly fifty feet beneath him. He felt cold.

He concentrated on the macroscopic controls, closing his eyes to the scene around him. If this were a second snooze, he wanted to pull out of it before admitting defeat. Pride required at least an orderly retreat. If it were a momentary slip of the fingers, no problem. The spherical control was in his right hand, guiding his journey as he automatically adjusted it, hardly conscious of his manipulation. A twist—

The ball was gone! His fingers closed on air.

He opened his eyes. The living liquid was twenty feet below and he was falling.

He grabbed at the goggles. His hand smacked into his bare face.

“Ivo!” Afra’s voice, from a distance.

The water struck, the force and chill of it numbing his naked body. Brine slapped into his eyes, his mouth, blinding and choking him.

He forgot about the niceties of perception and probability, and swam. His head broke surface and he coughed out the spume fogging his lungs and shook the sting from his eyes.

He was here. No doubt of that. Had he really heard Afra cry his name, as though she cared, just before the splash? Academic curiosity, now.

Who was he to claim the thing was impossible? He could drown in mid-protest. Better to deal with reality as he found it.

He had fallen somewhat ahead of the ship, and to the side. He did not know how far he was from land, but it was too far. He was not that strong a swimmer, and the cold was getting to him already, and he did not even know the direction. His best hope was to intercept the galley; otherwise—

He swam. His arms were heavy already, unused to these conditions and probably fatigued in advance by the melting/gastifying/compression cycle, though he had no personal awareness of the details. They had set the program, and had gone under the melt-beam… and come out of it to find space shifted about them. Space travel, in practice, was that simple. Afra no longer demanded the handling, such was her own confidence now. Meanwhile, it was hard to keep from breathing the water, since the waves came irregularly and he was not adept at the crawl breathing cycle. Finally he lifted his head and switched to breast-stroke/frog-kick, watching for the ship.

It seemed it was easier for him to traverse the light-years than to cover a hundred feet of choppy water.

The galley was in sight! The oars lifted and stroked, lifted and stroked, and the vessel cut through the sea at an impressive rate, large and sleek from this lowly angle. Circular shields lined the top, and in occasional swells he could see the great front ram lift: a warship.

He was not going to make it. He was still a little ahead, but his rate of progress toward it was insufficient and getting slower. Already the numbness of his arms had reduced him to a dog-paddle. In a few minutes the ship would pass him and be on its way, leaving him to tire at last and sink. Would that return him to their Neptune-base, buried deep in the continent of Triton with the screaming methane storms above and impacted matter below? Or would it simply be the end?

He did not have the nerve to find out. His struggle had to be for life as he experienced it; he could not end this adventure by suicide, even if it were no more than a nightmare.

He saw the galley now with sharp clarity: dark brown wood low in the water surmounted by the row of oar-holes, and above them square windows with additional mountings for oars. The bow was vertical and without ornament, curving forward near the waterline to project into the massive six-foot spike that clove the ocean and, upon occasion (he was sure), the hulls of enemy ships. The rear curved up and back like the neck of a swan, terminating in a forward-tilting point twelve feet above the waterline. The last oar-brace was larger, and from it came the sturdy rudder, resembling a paddle inserted backwards. The side of the vessel above the oar-banks was checkered with alternate wooden and wickerwork panels, and the capping row of multicolored circular shields contributed to the galley’s increasingly formidable aspect.

There was a lookout sitting high in the bow, now directly opposite him. Ivo yelled.

The head swung around immediately: no snoozing there. An exclamation, and other heads appeared. The banks of oars lifted and paused at the height of their uniform backstroke, and the ship coasted to a halt. Then a chain of gruff orders, and it spun neatly and shot toward him.

Had he thought it a toy, from the patronizing vantage of his macroscopic elevation? This was a precisely disciplined, highly maneuverable warship!

It hove-to above him and he clambered clumsily aboard the ram — Aries the ram? — immensely grateful for its support. He discovered that it was triparte: the major portion was an extension of the narrow keel, reinforced with bronze plates, with two braces converging from the sides of the bow. The entire thing could be crushed or broken off without holing the ship proper. It must have seen action recently, too, for there were no barnacles on it.

Hands reached down from the upper deck. Ivo braced himself against the curving bow and stood up, clinging weakly against the motion of the boat. He was just able to reach the proffered assistance, and in a moment they had him hauled roughly aboard, bruised, chilled through and as tired as he had ever felt, but intact.

A short warrior stood before him, resplendent in metal helmet and leather armor unlike that of the Egyptians: evidently the captain. He studied Ivo, who stood naked and shivering violently in the slight evening breeze. “Who are you?” the captain demanded brusquely.

“Ivo Archer.” He realized that these people were not going to help him until they were satisfied he was not dangerous to them.

“Ivarch,” the captain repeated. “Slave, free or royal?”

“Free.” But how could he prove it, naked as a slave and without money or home-address or friends?

“Which nation?”

“America.”

“Arpad?”

“America.” Naturally they would not have heard of it, but there seemed to be no point in prevarication.

The captain hesitated, probably uncertain whether a citizen of an unknown country deserved courtesy or rebuke.

At length he made his choice. “Mattan will decide.”

Mattan: a superior? A god? Fate?

The captain wheeled neatly in military fashion. “Clothe this man and feed him.” A man of decision, he.

They brought Ivo an abrasive fiber blanket and put him belowdecks where the air was steamy from the perspiration of the naked oarsmen. The stench was terrific, but the warmth made it worthwhile. Before long the stiffness withdrew from his limbs and he felt his vigor oozing back.

He was seated in the stern just ahead of the rudder — man’s compartment. There was a center aisle about five feet across that ran the length of the hull, cluttered with boxes and buckles. On either side were the narrow benches upon which the oarsmen sat, one per oar. They heaved in unison, as they had to, for in these cramped quarters any wrong or poorly timed motion would create chaos. Every second oar projected well into the aisle, but the men did not bother with the added leverage available. They were slaves, obviously, but none was chained or, as far as he could tell, unhappy. Most of them were light-skinned.

Night, and the hold grew dark. The officer at the far end terminated the cadence and bawled out his orders. The oars were shipped, their ends pushed to the floor and fastened there with stiff leather straps. There followed a period of fifteen minutes while the slaves stood up, stretched, chatted, and relieved themselves into the available containers. The rudderman — another officer, since he wore the leather armor — tied his own oars and used the bucket. Ivo, seeing the way of it and finding himself in need, availed himself in like fashion of the facilities. More of the reason for the intense atmosphere was now evident; not all of it was sweat.

But was it any worse than the broken toilet and steaming garbage of a twentieth-century slum dwelling?

Under the supervision of the bow officer, the slaves hauled on the bottom panels of the lower deck and handed up from the bilge the supplies: rolls of hard bread, goatskins of wine. The rudderman went topside and returned shortly with two legs of smoked goatmeat, one of which he passed to the cadence officer. Rank had its privileges.

Ivo took one of the rolls and found it wooden. It had not occurred to him just how solid unleavened bread could be. He couldn’t bite it; he had to gnaw. Soon the saltiness of it inspired thirst, and he borrowed a skin. He squeezed it the way he had seen the others do, to arc a stream into his mouth without contaminating the nozzle with his saliva. The brownish stuff splashed across his face, bringing laughter from the slaves.

Ivo laughed too, sensing no enmity from these people, and wiped the burning fluid out of his eyes and off his hair. This concoction was beyond contamination! On the second attempt he managed to center on his mouth, though he did not have the technique of swallowing while squirting and had to break off quickly. Wine? This brew tasted like overripe dishwater with frogjuice in it, but it was wet.

Some of the slaves had brought out fine lines of knotted tendon and were dangling these out the oar-ports. Soon Ivo saw why: they were fishing, and not without success. The fish liked the chips of bread! There was air-space around the rising mast, and in an enormous ceramic bowl they built a smoky fire to roast their catches against. The lucky slaves might well sup better than the masters!

While this was not the life Ivo would have chosen for himself, he did find a certain appeal in it. A man here had only to pull his oar and keep the cadence, and he was adequately fed and sheltered and protected, with little to worry about (except an enemy ram?) and plenty of company.

After an hour the crude tallow candles were snuffed. The men returned to their places and slept, seemingly not discommoded by the cramped discomfort. The officer-shift changed; the two hitherto on duty went above, while a single armed soldier paced the aisle. Any slave could have grabbed him from behind, but none was interested; this was token force to keep order, nothing more. Probably the slaves had no knowledge of sailing or of navigation; mutiny was pointless.

Ivo lay down on the filthy deck and slept without difficulty, only moderately queasy from the constant rocking of the boat.

At break of day a rising wind rocked the ship more violently. The slaves grinned as they heard the sounds of the great sail being unfurled and hoisted: no rowing this morning! The breeze took hold and the sidewise rhythm subsided, making Ivo feel better. He was not ordinarily subject to motion sickness, but the combination of smell, wine, fatigue and wind had assaulted his intestinal well-being.

About noon orders began to fly above. The men came alive, taking their places and unshipping the oars, though the craft was still under sail. The alternate men who had the projecting oars stood up this time, grasping the tips. The center aisle was now filled, one man standing behind another, arms resting on wood held waist-high.

The cadence began and the oarsmen strove vigorously. The ship — still under sail! — accelerated. Then Ivo heard distant cheering, and understood.

The ship was coming home.

The cadence accelerated and the men fairly bent the oars in their effort, muscles glistening. Ivo peered through the nearest port with some difficulty and was able to make out the outlines of a walled city. Nothing like putting on a show for the homefolk!

Then halt! and the oars reversed as the sail dropped, braking the ship within a few feet of the dock.

The captain had not forgotten Ivo. Two soldiers came to escort him from the ship. He blinked in the brightness of day, topside, then was hustled over the gang to the dock. The harbor was in the southern section of the city; the sunlight slanted over his right shoulder as he walked.

The terrain was rocky, houses perched upon slanted foundations, and the narrow streets curved a great deal. It was a wealthy city. Some buildings were of stone and wood, built to last, though most were of many stories and crowded into very small areas, making the streets seem like mere crevices in a solid mass of residence. Almost every house had its terrace, however, which helped.

Ivo was delivered to an antechamber where an elegant assortment of bedsheets were hung. The two guards departed, but he was sure they were not far away. What next?

A girl, bare of head, foot and breast, entered and approached him with provocative confidence. He decided to go along with whatever was expected.

Efficiently she stripped the soiled blanket from him and deposited it in a corner. She brought a basin of cold water and sponged his body down and rubbed scented ointment into his muscles. Since she was obviously trained for this and competent, he maintained his composure; but it was only the continuing feeling of unreality that enabled him to put up with such familiar handling by an unfamiliar woman. The arms and legs weren’t so bad, but the buttocks—

And how had Afra felt, being handled by him?

Then she sat him down upon a bench and brought out a horrendous iron blade. While he watched with alarm, she sharpened it assiduously against a leather strap. The insecurity of his present situation impressed him strongly.

Carefully she bathed his face and shaved him, never cutting his flesh despite the irregularity and clumsiness of the razor. She finished by rubbing perfume into his hair and combing it back.

The bedsheets he had noted before turned out to be apparel: lengths of embroidered cloth. The girl took one down and wrapped it about him in a series of convolutions surely as intricate as any of the folds of macroscopic space and pinned it into place. He emerged from her ministrations in a handsome red tunic and soft leather sandals. He was sure he could never duplicate the costume by himself, should it come undone; he might even have trouble getting out of it on his own! When a citizen of this city retired at night, did he have a girl like this come to undress him properly? Hm.

Suitably prepared, he followed her to his interview with Mattan.

Mattan was mortal and courteous: an official of some importance in the city, if appearances were any guide. He reclined beside a tray of pastries and ripe fruit, dressed in a bright yellow robe and assorted jewelry. The tray was a sheet of almost-transparent glass: undoubtedly a rarity in this age, and a sign of wealth and power. He gestured Ivo to a couch opposite.

“And how do you find the Hegemony of Tyre, Ivarch of Merica?” Mattan inquired politely. His voice was soft and sure.

So it was to Tyre he had come — one of the old Phoenician cities on the coast of Asia Minor. Perhaps this was as good for his purpose as Damascus. Tyre had been a leader for many centuries, until — he strained to remember — it had finally fallen to Alexander three centuries before Christ. Had it warred with anyone else? He wasn’t sure.

“You do not choose to comment?” Mattan inquired, too gently. “One could be led to the impression that you were averse to our hospitality.”

“I have not been in this area long,” Ivo said hastily, wondering what the man’s purpose was.

“Merica is very far away, then.”

“Very far.”

“But surely not so far that its citizens have not heard of the might of Tyre?”

“Not that far.”

“And what brings you here so precipitously?”

“I — got lost on my way to Damascus.”

“Your ship was wrecked?”

“In a manner of speaking.” How could he explain what had happened? He hardly understood it himself. Somehow the world he had only watched had become physically real, and his twentieth-century existence unreal. Another macroscopic trap more subtle yet? Time travel? How could he, denuded of his equipment and thrown upon his personal resources, find his way back?

Mattan nibbled at a grape, not offering any to Ivo. “It occurs to me that we are not being entirely candid with each other, Ivarch.”

“I don’t think you would believe my story.”

“Perhaps not. Still, I would certainly like to hear it. I am informed that you were picked up thirty miles out to sea, in a region clear of enemy ships, and I can see for myself that you are not locally sired. In fact,” and he peered knowledgeably at Ivo’s face, “I am at a loss to define your ethnic heritage. Tyre is as eclectic a pot as any in the world, but you are a veritable cauldron of race! I observe traces of so many things — Mycenaean, of course, but also Egyptian, Cimmerian, Nubian and others I hesitate to mention. Yet you know the tongue of Canaan as well as any native of the Seven Cities, while professing ignorance of our ways. In fact, I do not see how your story can be anything less than incredible.”

“The tongue of Canaan?” But then, had he really expected them to speak American English? “I have no secrets, but I just don’t think my story would help you.” Or me, he thought.

“Perhaps I should judge that for myself. Is there any way I can facilitate the spinning of your yarn?”

“Well, yes. I need to know the date.” Or was that concern now pointless?

“You were not aware that this is the summer season in the thirty-ninth year of Hiram?”

“I was not aware. It seemed like winter when I was in the water.” And it did not help much. When was Hiram — presumably their king — on the Christian calendar? Five hundred BC? Two thousand?

“Nor that Hiram died six years ago?”

“No. But why did you number—”

“Forgive me for verifying your ignorance. It had entered my mind — purely as a matter of speculation, naturally — that you could be considered to be the representative of a hostile power.”

“A spy?”

“That was not precisely my term. But I am inclined to discredit the possibility. You are far too naïve.”

Ivo was becoming less so rapidly. “What happens to — representatives of hostile powers?”

“That depends on their, shall we say, cooperation. An incorrigible — that is, one who cannot or will not provide us with sufficient and significant information — may be offered in sacrifice to Baal Melqart. Our Baal prefers tender children or succulent infants, naturally, and this is said to be a distressing demise for an adult, since the facilities are not wholly adequate. Still—”

The threat was adequate, whatever the condition of the facilities. Human sacrifice! And he had been shocked by Brad’s revelation of the black-market in human bodies in his own time! At least that had been for a purpose, grisly as its practice was. Here it would be sheer waste. “What of a person whose story is merely unbelievable?”

“Sooner or later it must, in the nature of things, become believable.” Mattan shrugged away the unpleasantness. “Perhaps if I were to clarify the current situation for you, you would then find it easier to relate your framework to ours.”

“I think I would.” Was Mattan permitting him to stall for time, or was he really trying to be helpful? The Tyrean was an educated and intelligent man, but Ivo needed to know more of his attitudes before trying to explain the concept of time travel — particularly when Ivo himself did not believe in it. Did Mattan, for example, believe in magic? If so, that might be the most promising approach. He suspected the man would not put up with delay beyond a certain point; the mailed fist was only casually veiled.

Mattan settled back on his couch, looked at the cedar-paneled ceiling, and took an ample breath. This was evidently the type of dialogue he preferred. “In the days of Tyre’s origin there were three equal powers, three equivalent spheres of influence that parceled the civilized world between them. The first was Egyptian, extending from northern Africa, along the banks of the emperor of all rivers — the Nile — to the fourth cataract, and as far north as Damascus. The second was Hittite, including all of Anatolia and the region of the coast south as far as Damascus. The third was Assyrian, whose sphere was east of the other two, including the remainder of greater Syria and virtually all of Mesopotamia.

“Of these three superpowers, I would deem the most formidable to have been the Hittite, chiefly because of the vigor of their leadership and their facility with the working of iron. Unfortunately, they also had the worst enemies. The northern nomads — Cimmerians and Cythians and such — raided constantly, and the western barbarians — Thracians and Greeks — invaded in masses. The Phrygians even set up a kingdom in western Anatolia, and the Hittite empire finally collapsed. This left a power vacuum of monstrous proportion that was to cause interminable trouble. For a time the entire countryside was a nest of robber barons.

“This left two superpowers — but both were hard-pressed. For a time Assyria expanded, but eventually it fell into stagnation and merely defended itself against the nomads from the south, the Arameans. Egypt lost its possessions in Palestine and resisted the incursions of the fierce Peoples of the Sea with difficulty.

“The result was that a number of lesser powers developed, feeding on the decay of the great ones. Perhaps none of this anarchy would have happened if the Hittite empire had survived.” He stood up and drew aside a curtain. There, set into the wall, was a huge cedar panel with a painted map. Ivo recognized the crude outlines of the far eastern Mediterranean. His host really was a student of history!

“The Philistines,” Mattan continued, touching a section of the Asia Minor coast, “invaded Palestine from the sea, having been repulsed by Egypt. The Hebrews, meanwhile, invaded from the desert, having also been repulsed by Egypt. Thus were the rightful residents of the land between Egypt and Damascus dispossessed: we Canaanites, who had occupied it for a thousand years in peace. We could have repulsed one invader, meager as our military posture was compared to that of the superpowers, but the combination was beyond our means. Our enemies were numerous and savage, while we were civilized. Fortunately, Tyre and her sister cities along the northern coastline — Acco, Sidon, Berytus, Byblos, Arwad and Ugarit — these seven were strong even then, and we were able through our developing naval power and coastal fortifications to hold off the despoilers and to succor many of our victimized kinsmen. We developed our industry and improved our craftsmanship and made our fair cities a sanctuary for vigorous men of all types, even the Mycenaeans. Thus did we begin to prosper from out of the ashes of holocaust.”

Holocaust! One by one, Ivo thought, the pet fears of his own time were realized in this earlier age. So little seemed to have changed. The weakening of superpowers, the onset of anarchy, the high hopes for a new beginning — what remained to distinguish his own world from this one?

The destroyer remained! Nothing like that could exist here. Nothing.

“That is where it stands today,” Mattan said. “The great destroyer Assyria remains confined—” His eyes narrowed as Ivo jumped. “Though I believe strong leadership could make it great again, and may do so to our cost. The Hittite empire is beyond redemption, however. And Egypt has been taken over by the Libyans.” Again he noted Ivo’s reaction, but continued talking. “Sheshonk calls himself Pharaoh, but he is only a usurper thinking to build his capital at Bubastis. Of course he does have a certain barbarian vitality. He is laying siege to Ugarit now and has his eyes on Byblos. But he will be wise not to interfere with Sidon or Tyre.”

Ivo had followed only the gist of all this, more concerned with his own situation. At least the mystery of his Egyptian experience had been partially alleviated. There was a superimposition of cultures: Libyan over Egyptian. The main question remained unanswered, however: how could he be participating? Probably he would have found himself physically in Egypt, had he not fled immediately… and had he had the sense to quit then and rest for a few hours away from the macroscope, none of this present adventure might have come to pass.

Well, recrimination was futile. Mattan was waiting for his comment on the local situation. The Pharaoh of Egypt was attacking Ugarit. “But aren’t the Phoenician cities being attacked? Why don’t you help them?”

“That becomes problematical. For one thing, their colonies along the African coast — and there is more to Africa than you might suspect — are competing with ours. For another, we can’t afford to weaken our comparative standing with our rival Sidon, and Sidon has not agreed to match any assistance we might grant. For a third, we have a continuing contract with the Kingdom of Israel, and a war effort against even a decaying giant like Egypt at this time would seriously interfere with this. That would be bad business.”

“Israel? But I thought you were at war with the Hebrews!”

“Not currently. Hiram and Solomon got along well enough, and now that the Hebrews have split up into Israel and Judah, they’re not so much of a threat. There is still much copper and iron to be had from Wadi Arabah, in their present territory. One must appreciate the practical side of things.”

Mattan, like the deceased Senator Borland, was a practical man. And Sidney Lanier had inveighed (would inveigh?) against cruel trade! He had been a trifle late.

Then another thought: “Solomon? You mean this is that time?”

“Ah, you have heard of David’s son. Almost as great a king as our own Hiram, in his fashion, and he certainly did a good deal with the kingdom he had. It isn’t easy to bring culture to nomads. Solomon died only three years ago, and his empire broke up. Too bad; Sheshonk will overrun them before long. For a while it seemed as though a new power were developing in that area, but that’s all over. Tyre will have to carry the burden alone.” He brought his gaze to bear on Ivo “And now, Ivarch, if you please, your story.”

This still posed a problem. Mattan had showed no inclination toward superstition or magic; rather, he was extremely pragmatic. It hardly seemed likely that he would go for anything as fantastic as the macroscope.

“First,” Mattan said, “explain to me exactly where Merica is.” He gestured to the map. “Is it represented here?”

“No. It is much farther away. Do you have a map of the world?”

“This is the map of the world.”

Oh-oh. “You mean the civilized world, don’t you? There are lands beyond it.”

Mattan nodded. “I misunderstood. Yes, there are regions beyond and we are exploring them. Suppose you sketch a map of your own?”

The tone remained mild, but Ivo realized that he was being tested again. This man was determined to take his measure, and smart enough to know that he didn’t have it yet. Ivo also seemed to remember that the Phoenicians had traveled out quite far in search of trade and exploitation, as had their rivals the Greeks, and were secretive about any important discoveries. Hadn’t they mined tin or something in Britain? And what about the story of the lost Phoenician ship, blown from an attempted circumnavigation of Africa over to South America, where its craftsmen inspired Western pyramid-building? Still, he was on much firmer ground here.

He accepted the blank scroll Mattan provided and drew a tiny copy of the wall-map. Then he extended it to complete the closure of the Mediterranean. He was no cartographer; his rendition was crude and not particularly accurate, but he doubted that mattered. “Here is Italy,” he said, “and Sicily — the boot tripping over the rock.” Mattan nodded thoughtfully, and Ivo knew that this was a geography so far familiar to the man.

“Here is the western coast of Europe, and the British Isles.” Mattan was so carefully noncommittal that Ivo was certain he knew something of this area also. “And to the south is the rest of the continent of Africa, so.”

“What lies to the east?”

“A huge continent.” Ivo sketched an exceedingly crude Asia.

“And where is Merica?”

“Across the sea to the west.” He began to sketch it in, leaving inadequate space for the width of the Atlantic because of the limitation of his map-surface.

“I see,” Mattan said as Ivo’s charcoal rounded the peninsula that would later be Florida. “And in what manner did you travel here?”

Ivo took hold of himself and gave the only answer. “I flew.”

“And can you fly for me now?”

“No.”

“I see.” Mattan thought a bit more. “And do they speak Phoenician in America?”

“No.”

“How did you master it, then?”

“I don’t know. It just seemed to come to me when I needed it.”

“I see.” The two words became more ominous with each repetition, and this time the pause was very long. “You are, then, laying claim to the godhead?”

The godhead: the attributes of deity? Ivo wondered how far he could get by breaking and running. “In America, these things — like flying, I mean — are not surprising. There is nothing supernatural about it.”

“America is a land of gods, then.”

“No, no! It—” But how could he explain, to this intelligent yet so ignorant man? Here there were many gods, and they were no more supernatural than the One God of Christian times. Mattan’s suspicions were quite justified, by the standards of his age. Any further attempts to clarify the nature of the divine would merely make things worse.

“Were it not for your distinctive physical makeup and your cognizance of certain matters no local could know, I would brand you a champion prevaricator,” Mattan said. “As it is, I confess to certain doubts. Your misinformation is as intriguing as your information, and I cannot tell whether you are preposterously clever or preposterously inept at invention. Either way, you are preposterous. I do not see how you could be what you call a spy, yet I am at a loss to explain what you are.”

There was a silence.

“I think,” Mattan said at last, “that this is properly a matter for the priesthood.”

Ivo felt cold again, and the increasing hunger he had felt while watching Mattan eat departed abruptly. “I have spoken heresy?”

“By no means. You have not remarked at all on Melqart, and in any event your Merica appears to be beyond the dominion of our Baal. But since I seem to have exhausted the procedures available to me…”

If this were the final threat, it had become subtle again. There had been no further mention of sacrifice. “I suppose I could talk to your priests, though I can’t tell them anything I haven’t told you.”

“Excellent. My men will show you the way. I’m sure you will reach an understanding with Melqart, and perhaps complete unity.”

Ivo was not entirely satisfied with that phrasing, but he accompanied the two husky guards without explicit objection. He noticed that they, like every person he had seen here and aboard the ship, were shorter than he. He was a virtual giant in this city. Though he hardly thought of himself as the physical type, his superior size and weight would give him a certain advantage if trouble came.

These soldiers were better armed than the ones he had observed in Egypt, possessing vests of metal mesh and well-fitted low helmets, as well as long spears and sharp swords. Tucked in each stout belt was a wicked battle-axe.

Ivo had a second thought about his supposed physical advantage.

“Strange,” the guard on his right remarked as they entered the slender street. “I have never seen a lamb go to the sacrifice so calmly.” He spoke a different language from Phoenician, and Ivo realized with a start that these were conscripts from some other area, mercenaries who did not realize that he could understand their dialogue.

“Mattan probably told him he was going to witness the ceremony,” the other said. “And him already shorn!”

Ivo noticed now that both men were bearded — as had been Mattan. Why, then, had the visitor been so painstakingly shaved?

“Well, he’ll get a fine view — of the fiery stomach of Baal!” the first agreed, laughing. “I thought every fool knew that no one but a priest ever leaves the temple.”

“You are mistaken,” the other replied. “Every day the urns go out to the burial ground.”

“His bones would not fit in a child’s urn, even after cremation,” the first protested. “Far too long.”

They were at the foot of the steps leading to an elegant stone building. Two mighty columns stood beside the entrance, one painted yellow, the other green. The second guard turned to Ivo and put out his calloused hand. His short sword hung from a chest harness, sheathed in leather, the hilt almost brushing Ivo’s left elbow. “Let me help you up these hallowed stairs, sir,” the man said in Phoenician.

“The priests would be very unhappy if such an honored guest were to stumble,” the other said. “And Baal would be fuming.” And, in the other language: “Yes — look at the length of that humerus!”

Ivo looked up and saw a white-robed priest coming to meet them. Several temple guards accompanied him. All looked purposeful.

He grabbed at the left guard’s sword and drew it from the scabbard before the man reacted. Then he shouldered past and turned to face the second, afraid that flight would bring a spear at his back. But that guard also had been slow to react, perhaps not expecting the lamb to turn, and stood open-mouthed, hand not even on his weapon.

The guard who had donated his sword tripped over his battle-axe and sprawled on the ground. His shield, that had been hooked in some fashion to his left hip, lay between them on the lowest step. Ivo swooped at it and picked it up with his left hand, fumbling a moment with the grip. It was surprisingly light: an oval disk of wood, padded behind the hand-strap, nocked at the rim from countless military encounters. Obviously it was intended for active defense; one had to meet the oncoming sword or spear with it and deflect or snare the barb, rather than simply hiding behind the shield.

The other guard had finally caught on that something was wrong. He drew out his sword and raised his own shield, advancing cumbersomely on Ivo. It was hard to believe that these were veterans; they were like oxen. Behind the attacking guard the priest cried out, and the temple personnel charged down the steps, crowding each other dangerously.

Ivo hefted his weapon. The sword was about two feet long, not counting the hilt, and tapered so that the widest part of the blade was six or eight inches from the tip. Both edges were sharp, though hardly knifelike; muscular power had to be applied to hack through opposing armor and the blade could not maintain a really good edge.

The weapon was clumsy and the handle was too small for a comfortable grip. He could hardly fight effectively with this, or, for that matter, protect himself with the shield. Not that he wanted to fight at all: violence of this sort was not in his nature. There had to be some reasonable means to—

The guard struck with his sword, and Ivo automatically blocked with the wooden disk.

It worked.

The blade collided with the notched rim and clung for an instant, held by the spongy wood. Ivo swept his own sword around in a clumsy quarter-circle, and the guard jerked back.

He had missed — but the swing had been oddly refreshing. The sword, so clumsy just to hold, became a nicely balanced instrument in motion. He saw now that its delicate taper contributed to its effectiveness, placing the greatest width and weight behind the intended point of contact.

He had already wasted too much time. During the few seconds of this action, the temple guards had continued advancing, and were now almost upon him. He could not hope to overcome them all. He would have to run, and risk the spears.

He turned — and discovered more troops coming up from the street. He was already surrounded.

Do the unexpected! he thought, remembering the advice from somewhere. The unexpected could prevail in almost any situation. They obviously expected him either to fight or to run, and neither course could save him long.

They had stopped within twenty feet, forming a closing ring of swords, the two original guards among them. The priest stood in the center of the line upon the wide steps, gesticulating. His feet, Ivo noticed, were bare.

Ivo charged at him, bounding up the low steps three at a time. At ten feet he hurled the shield at the priest’s head. It skimmed through the air like a sail, rotating.

The man jumped aside, agile enough, banging into the guard adjacent. Ivo threw his sword at the line of men on the other side. It whirled like a boomerang, flashing sunlight in all directions.

The three nearest shields came up reflexively to block it, as he had known they would, but the men were taken aback. Before they recovered, Ivo dived at the stumbling priest, catching him around the waist and shoving him back against the standing guards again. They all went down in a tangle.

A sword clattered almost by his ear, thrown up by one of the scrambling warriors. Ivo snatched at it, then caught the priest around the waist once more as he tried to stand up. The man, fortunately, was of birdlike physique, easy to manhandle. Ivo pinned the priest against him, in lieu of a shield, and backed up the steps. The guards started after them, but Ivo raised the great blade to his captive’s neck, and they hung back.

But he had to do something else soon, for the heavy sword was already weighing down his arm in this awkward pose. The threat would lose effect if the blade sagged wearily to the hostage’s chest…

“Listen, treacherous one!” Ivo hissed into the man’s ear as the two retreated. “Either we visit Melqart’s furnace together, or we escape together. It is for you to decide whether we part company in life or in death. Do you understand me?”

The man said nothing, but Ivo was sure he had the message. At the top of the stair between the columns Ivo released him, but held the sword at his back. The massed soldiers were following, ever more numerous, not closely; they were making a resounding clatter, but not risking the hostage. Ivo congratulated himself on an excellent choice.

He placed his back against the yellow pillar, mind racing to formulate a workable plan of escape. Audacity he had never suspected in himself had taken him this far, but there had to be a limit to his luck. The priest did not move, and the crowd below did not advance.

He prodded the priest. “Into the temple,” he whispered. “Make no turn or sudden motion without advising me. If I doubt your intention one moment, it will be your last.” Was it he, meek Ivo Archer, reading the lines of this melodrama? Why not complete the scene by informing the man that he had an itchy sword-finger?

Not funny. Sweat made the handle of the weapon treacherously slippery, and already he felt the sting of a developing blister.

The priest uncurled a talonlike finger and pointed. “Oho!” Ivo said. “There’s a private door?” The priest led him around the column to the side of the building. Sure enough, there was a small entrance there opening into a dark corridor running parallel to the outer wall. There was hardly room for his head to clear, though the smaller man had no trouble.

They entered. This did seem better than the main hall, since only one person at a time could follow, and the gloom would make pursuit harder. Light came in only from high narrow vents, embrasures in the outer wall.

Twenty feet along the priest tapped a stone of the inner wall. Then he put his fragile shoulder against it and pushed. Ivo watched this suspiciously, at the same time glancing back to make sure no one was following yet.

The stone swung back, leaving a blank opening from which a cool draft came. Cool, but corrupt; there was stagnant water somewhere. “Secret exit?”

The man nodded. Ivo could barely see him here, and kept one hand on the bony arm. The stone must have been very lightly balanced, to move at the urging of such a skeleton. And why did the hostage never speak?

“In case of rebellion, foreign conquest…?” Ivo inquired, poking his sword-hand into it dubiously. No response.

Ivo prodded him. “You first.” The priest drew back, alarmed. “Uh-huh. We meet our fate together. Hurry!” There was a commotion behind, and he knew the troops were clustered around their entrance, and probably had the temple proper surrounded for good measure. “I know you aren’t dumb,” Ivo said fiercely. “I heard you calling to the guards, before. So either get in there or tell me why not, or I’ll run you through right now!”

He was bluffing, but hoped it didn’t show.

“There is a better exit ahead,” the priest said quickly. His voice, after all that suspense, was ordinary.

Ivo smiled grimly. Victory — and another trap avoided. The violent approach did have its recommendations. “That one we shall both use — for better or worse.”

But there was no time. The sounds outside verified his recent conjecture: the guards surrounded the temple, and this time a higher priest was evidently in command. His human shield was almost useless. Now there were noises from the far end of the passage as well.

The priest suddenly tore free of Ivo’s loose grasp. Ivo lunged, grabbing with his left hand and sweeping with the sword. The blade crashed into the man’s side, but not hard enough to cut through the cloth. Trying to avoid it, the priest scuttled sidewise, his back against the tilted stone.

Ivo grabbed again — and only succeeded in shoving the little man into the hole. The stone yielded smoothly, closing on a descending scream and a faint splash — some fifty feet down, by the timing. Some escape!

Now Ivo was alone, pinned between armed bands without his hostage. Was there another exit, or had that been merely the rascally priest’s stall for time? There had to be one!

He moved along the wall, pushing at each great block, but none gave way. Minutes passed. His eyes adapted to the dim light, but all he saw was a veneer of dirt on wall and floor. His own scuff-marks were all that disturbed it.

Why weren’t they attacking? They must have overheard his struggle with the priest, and realized the man was dead. Or had they assumed that Ivo had fallen, so that the priest would emerge in a moment? Or was the delay part of some more subtle ploy — something less risky to them than a frontal attack in a confined space?

He rolled his eyes up, shrugging… and spied a dark hole in the ceiling, a few feet in front of him. The second exit!

He tossed his sword into it, and the metal clattered on stone and came to rest without falling out. He followed it immediately, reaching up to catch the edges with his fingers. He chinned himself on it — and could not get any higher, as his feet kicked without support. He had to drop down.

He studied the situation, then chinned himself into the hole again. An athlete, or perhaps some birdlike priest, might have entered it easily, since it was hardly above head-height — but Ivo was neither. Yet an effective escape hatch should have some convenient handhold…

Ivo braced his chin uncomfortably against the rim and got one elbow up. His questing hand struck the sword. He grunted, feeling the sting of the pitted blade grating against his palm, but did not drop back. Then he had it: a firm wooden bar.

There was caked dust upon it, but dryer and fluffier than that below. No one had been here for a long time, evidently. A good sign, or a bad omen?

Well, Ivo had little choice now. He got his shoulders up, his chest, one foot, and finally the rest of him without losing too much skin. He licked the grime off his bleeding palm and picked up the sword. Infection was the least of his worries at the moment.

A belated thought: the soldiers could trace his trail in the dust. He had to cover up.

Probably the tunnel was riddled with exits. If he could conceal the one he had actually employed, they would be hours tracing him down.

As a planner, he was a misfit. Again he had thought of the obvious just too late for convenience.

Regretfully, he eased himself down into the tunnel again, his cut hand smarting as the dust ground in. Then he ran scuffling down the passage and back, slapping his hand against each inner panel. Let them analyze that trail! Then up again, into the hole. He swept up handfuls of the dust and sprinkled then near the entrance and on the bar, hoping that this would conceal the evidence of his passage. He couldn’t see the effect at all, perhaps fortunately.

And, at last, on.

He was in a cramped passage running skew to the one below, as nearly as he could tell by the aim of the walls, and absolutely dark. His sandals, never meant for such exertions, tended to catch on the rough-hewn flooring.

Finally there was light. He emerged on a dusty balcony overlooking an interior court at what he took to be the rear of the temple. In the center was a huge, grotesque metal statue shaped roughly like a man. Smoke spiraled up from a vent in its head, and a ramp led into a gate set in its bulging belly: Melqart, the carnivorous Baal of Tyre.

Ivo turned aside, not particularly curious. It seemed to him that he could smell the lingering aroma of roasted flesh. No wonder the Israelites had fought against this faith! And had the Nazi machine, so many centuries later, been a monstrous reincarnation of the spirit of Baal?

He spied crude stairs leading down, also layered with dust. He hesitated. There were still hours of daylight remaining, and once he left the temple he would be vulnerable again. Perhaps they were waiting beyond this exit, too. It would be better to wait until nightfall, when he might escape unnoticed. They would not expect him to linger within sight of the metal god. And perhaps the priests, who must surely know of this passage, would not reveal it to the soldiers. Better that one lamb go free for a while, than that the secrets of the temple be betrayed. Yes — his unexpected, and therefore sensible, course was to remain right here… sword ready.

He located a concealing niche and lay down. He tried to hold on to the sword, but his right hand had a blister and his left a cut, so he laid it beside him. Once more, oddly, he had no difficulty sleeping. Perhaps it was because he was sure any approach would alert him. He hoped.

It was dark when he woke. His hand still smarted and he was hungry. He had not enjoyed the rough staples of the galley slaves, and had not had any of Mattan’s delicacies. Even Melqart was beginning to smell appetizing.

Ivo decided it was time to get out of this region. He descended the steps cautiously, trying not to disturb the dust any more than necessary. He also heeded the sounds of temple activity. He wondered whether the troops were still patiently waiting in ambush for him, at the two ends of the original passage. A soldier might have peeked and found him gone, the fake escape hatch still open. No, it was closed now. Would they think he had taken that plunge? In that case they would not be alert for him.

A heavy door closed off the foot of the stair. It was barred, but the bar was inside. No doubt about it: this was the priesthood’s official emergency outlet. He lifted the plank, set it aside, and pushed. Nothing happened.

Was it barred outside too? That did not seem reasonable, for then it would have to be opened from both sides simultaneously: a dubious emergency exit. He kneeled down and put his eye to the crack. Lights from the city came through. He traced the crack up and down and found no blockage. The door was merely tight.

He put his shoulder against it and shoved hard. It held. Finally he braced both feet against the bottom stair, set his back against the door, and straightened his knees hard.

The portal crashed open. Ivo fell on his back, the sword clattering beside him. The noise was horrendous. There were immediate shouts, and torchbearing figures came running toward him from both sides of the building.

He was in trouble again. Naturally.

Ivo picked himself up, brandished the sword (finding the blister less painful), and ran. The torches swerved to intercept him. He slowed to navigate the stone terraces beside the temple, and the first group of men was upon him. He could see the glint of broad blades in the torchlight, the spark of staring eyes.

He swung his sword. It caught the leading man on the shield. Ivo swung again, this time striking flesh; the man screamed and fell back. Two more attacked at once, striking from either side. Ivo felt the searing contact of a blade meeting his left arm and fell back himself. Again his grip was slippery, whether from sweat or blood he could not determine. The light was too bad, and his own sensations too confused. He lunged desperately at the figure who had wounded him, aiming for the glint of the helmet — and in the dark he scored.

The fellow had been carrying the torch instead of his shield, and had tried instinctively to block — with the torch. Ivo’s blade, coming into the sphere of light, struck both hand and face, sickeningly. The torch flew out and rolled on the ground, providing him a passing glimpse of what he had wrought; then the spreading blood extinguished the fire messily.

The shallow steps were as nothing. He was down them and away, running into the city, without being aware of the motions. Behind him the torches milled and followed, like angry bees searching for their mission.

The streets were dark. He charged down the nearest, panting already, heedless of the direction or possible obstacles. He made a right-angle turn at the first intersection, angled again — and found himself as lost as the torches.

He was surrounded by three-story houses closely set, boxlike and gloomy. He could not see whether any had windows or doors without approaching closely, but was sure entry would gain him nothing but further outcry. Where could he go? He had no money — was not even certain they used it here — and no home. The night was not cold — yet — but he did not want to wander about indefinitely.

Suddenly the torches confronted him again. The temple troops had not given up the search; indeed, they were combing the city for him. He ran dismally before them, ashamed of the blood already on his sword. He had not meant to kill the man, only to drive him back, perhaps to wound him superficially. He had to believe that.

His own wound was sodden under the dragging loops of his tunic, still squeezing out plasma with every motion he made, he was sure. That was another reason he had to find sanctuary.

Where, where? He could not even flee to the countryside, for Tyre was an island — a walled island.

Torches were coming down two alleys of the next intersection. He could see by their massed brilliance that the houses were richer than he had thought. Though the ground-level exterior walls of most were of blank stucco, the upper stories were of wood with small square window openings, and some even had balustrades supported by miniature palm columns. Not slum housing, certainly.

The next intersection was torched on three sides, including the street behind him. Ivo ran in the one direction permitted him, thankful that they had not quite sealed him off entirely. Yet even if he eluded them, he saw no long-range salvation. He could not run much longer.

“Fugitive!”

It was a woman’s voice, pitched low but with excellent carrying quality. Ivo rotated to face it, hauling up the tainted blade defensively.

“Fugitive — here!” the voice repeated urgently. “Come quickly, before they see you.”

He had to trust her. He ran toward the caped figure standing upon a tiny terrace.

“The blood!” she exclaimed disapprovingly. “You have left a trail of blood!”

So that was how they had boxed him in so readily! He could not see it himself, but they obviously could, with the torches. Had he any chance at all?

“Perhaps I can still help you,” she said. “Come inside.”

He stumbled in the door she stood beside — in this case, a hole in the wall covered by a length of hide or canvas — and found himself within a small and dirty vestibule. The walls were covered by crumbling brown plaster. Not a domicile of wealth, obviously — yet he could hardly be choosy!

The woman closed the entrance and led him to a small interior court. She was young and tall — very tall for this locale — and quite fair of feature, and the cloak hardly concealed her voluptuousness of form. He wondered dully whether she could be a prostitute. If so, she would turn him out quickly enough when she discovered that he had no money or barter.

“We must stop the blood,” she said. “I know an empty house where they will not find us tonight. But we can’t let the blood betray us.” She peeled back the cloth that had become a soggy bandage and began sponging off the wound.

“Who are you?” he demanded. “Why do you help me?”

“I am Aia. I do not worship Melqart, nor do I like human sacrifice.”

She bound his arm with a rough cloth. Ivo hesitated to inspect the compress closely, certain that it was not very clean. Something nagged him about her statement, but he could not, in his present fuddled state, pin it down. Perhaps it was that opposition to a particular policy or religion should not necessarily lead one to risk one’s own well-being in that connection? There ought to be a stronger, more primitive motive.

Still, there was the adage about gift-horses — if they had horses here.

“And,” she said, “I need help myself, to escape from this foul city. Alone, I would soon be pressed into slavery.”

Oh. Nothing like a male fugitive for such assistance! Someone whose imperative for rapid escape was guaranteed.

If that were her case — and there now seemed to be no reason to question it — their needs could very well coincide.

“Do you trust yourself to a stranger?” he asked her anyway. “A criminal, for all you know, a rapist, even a murderer?”

“Do you desire to murder me?”

“No.”

“Then there is no harm you can do me.”

Oh.

“Now we must hurry. The temple guards will find this house very soon.” She showed him to the back exit and peered at the street. Torches were passing.

“And who are you?” she inquired as they waited.

“Ivarch of Merica. I was taken in by a ship and brought before Mattan for interrogation.”

“Mattan,” she said darkly. “He is notorious. Soft spoken but never to be trusted. A dabbler in past events.”

An apt assessment. “What I don’t understand is why he sent me to be sacrificed. How could he get information that way?”

She shrugged. “Mattan is Mattan. Come — they are past.”

So they were, for the moment. Soon they would discover the termination of the bloodstain trail on the other side of the house and backtrack. Aia led him into the dark street, guiding him past irregularities and obstructions while he sheltered the sword under his tunic. She seemed to have an inherent sensitivity to danger, knowing where the temple patrols were likely to be and how to avoid them. In half an hour they were comfortably ensconced in the house she had spoken of: empty, yes, but very well stocked.

Ivo ripped off the remaining shreds of his tunic and cleaned up in the well-appointed bath. He had not expected any drainage facilities, but this had a wooden pipe leading down and out, and the floor was of pink cement set with little marble cubes. As elegant as anything of the twentieth century, except for the lack of heated or running water.

Then he had to beg Aia’s help to don a new tunic, hoping she would not be outraged by the request. She obliged without comment, fortunately.

The remainder of the house was simply executed: several rectangular rooms without architectural pretensions. The foundation was stone cleverly fitted together with a minimum of cement, giving way to bricks with occasional upright slabs of stone for strength, and finally to straight wood. The cedar paneling of the upper rooms was handsome but not ornate and there were no objects of art. The owner, apparently conforming to Phoenician taste, had no personal interest in elegance, with the exception of clothing. The house was stocked with an array of material fully as splendid as that of Mattan’s residence: multicolored cloaks, tunics and skirts, heavily embroidered. Some were of wool, others of fine linen. Purple was predominant, and he seemed to remember that Tyre had been famous for its purple dye. Even the pointed caps were richly hued.

Aia served him a tremendous and welcome meal: smoked goatmeat, olives, figs, date wine, honey and pastries made from unidentified grains, finishing off with whole pomegranates. It was almost too rich for him, after his day of hunger, but he disciplined his appetite and filled his stomach without reaction. “How did you know of this place?” he asked her as he pried out the juicy pomegranate morsels. “Won’t the owner object?”

“The owner is a rich merchant who is on the mainland this week negotiating a shipment of cedarwood,” she said. “And of course he is checking into the labors of his mainland slaves who make jewelry and statuettes of foreign gods.”

“Strange — I have seen nothing like that around here.”

“Oh, he has good craftsmen — but of course such baubles are for export only. Fine workmanship brings a better price, you see.”

“Even for religious artifacts? I should think—”

“Look,” she said. She got up gracefully and pulled aside a curtain. Behind was a voluptuous statuette of a female, with bulging stomach and ponderous breasts, flanked by two sphinxes. “Astarte,” she said. “I’ll show you how to milk her.”

She fetched a cup of goat milk and poured it carefully into a hole in the goddess’s head. Then she took a brand from the main fire and touched it to the mossy kindling beneath the statue. The flame caught, warming the entire metal figure.

Suddenly milk spouted from the nipples of the hanging breasts, to pour into a bowl held upon the goddess’s belly. Ivo stared, fascinated and a little repelled, though he realized there was nothing either magical or obscene about it.

“The heat melts the wax plugs,” Aia explained. “The worshipers don’t know that, though. Great moneymaker, I understand.”

“But to commercialize other people’s religion—”

“Oh, he patronizes his own religion too, never fear. He pays graft to the temple and buys small boys for his pleasures. When he tires of one, he donates that lad to Melqart. He is considered extremely devout.”

Ivo, his conscience eased, did not inquire into the matter further. This was as good a domicile to raid as any. “How long are we safe here?”

“No more than a day. Tomorrow night we must leave the city, for they will surely be watching and nowhere in Tyre is there permanent security from the temple.”

When the meal was done she took the lamp — a simple clay saucer, undecorated, with a single pinched beak for the wick — and showed him to the sleeping compartment, where soft pelts were piled upon straw. It looked delightful.

Ivo flung himself down in the bed gratefully… but soon discovered that he had company. “Even the best of ships come into port at night,” she murmured.

She had removed her cloak and other apparel and snuggled under the pelts beside him, close, and he learned that his original estimate of her physical properties had erred conservatively. She was scented with a heavy perfume he could not identify, apart from its effluence of sex appeal, and she was as lithe and sleek as a panther.

Ivo was tired, but he had had a good afternoon’s sleep in the temple and was recovering nicely from his more recent wounds and exertions. Aia had taken good care of him, and the flesh injury of his left arm only hurt when he banged it. He felt, all in all, adequate to the occasion — except for one detail.

“My ship docks elsewhere,” he said. Then, not wishing to hurt her feelings by too blunt a statement, he tried to explain: “I love another woman, and have no inclination to embrace any but her. I mean no offense to you.”

“Your wife?” she asked alertly.

“No.”

“Your concubine.”

“No.”

“It is hard to see what she offers, then, that I do not. You have a very handsome ship, and I have a comfortable port. If we are to travel together—”

“I love her. Don’t you understand?”

She gazed speculatively at him, the lamplight flickering against the wall behind her head and touching her hair with reddish highlights. “What is her name?”

What harm was there in the truth, here? “Afra,” he said, and felt a kind of relief in the confession. “Her name is Afra, and she doesn’t love me and I have no right to her, no right at all, but I love her.”

“I loved a man once,” Aia said, “but he died. Then I saw how foolish it was to depend on such a thing. Love protects nothing, it only restricts pleasure. Take pleasure in me; she will not suffer.” A pause. “Or is she near?”

“No. She is thousands of years away.”

“Thousands of years!” It had been a slip, but he saw that it bothered her only momentarily, since of course she did not understand the connection. “By foot or by ship?”

“By ship,” he said, no longer worrying about misunderstandings.

“Then you will never possess her again.” She looked at him a moment more. “But how did you get here, so long a journey? You are still young.”

“My gods are very powerful.”

“Oh.” She pondered a little longer. “If the gods of the Canaanite had been stronger, I might have had my lover back.”

“How so?” He was not particularly curious about her tragedy, but wanted to divert the conversation from both her immediately amorous intent and her queries about his travels.

“I tried to follow the way of the gods, as Anat brought back Aliyan,” she said. “But it didn’t work.”

“I am not familiar with those names.”

“You must come from very far away,” she murmured. “I will tell you: El was the supreme god of the Canaanite: El the Bull, the Sun. His wife was Asherat-of-the-sea, mother-goddess. Together they begat Baal, god of the mountains, and of the storm and the rain.”

“Very interesting,” Ivo remarked absently, wondering what he had let himself in for. “How does that relate to your—”

“I’m telling you, lover-to-be. Baal’s son was Aliyan. The two of them entered into a struggle with Mot of the summer heat, who resides deep in the womb of the earth. They did not return, so Anat went in after them. She was Aliyan’s sister and his wife, of course.”

“Of course.” What was a little incest, between gods? “All in the family.”

“Yes. She found Aliyan’s body in the abode of the dead, and carried it to the height of Saphon and buried him there with many sacrifices. That’s what I did with my lover. I fixed him a very nice stone coffin—”

“I understand.”

She took the hint and returned to the mythological narrative. “Then Anat killed Mot, who had killed her husband. With a sickle she cut him, with a winnow she winnowed him; she scattered his flesh in the field, and he was dead.”

“I’m sure he was.”

“Then she brought Aliyan back to life and set him on Mot’s throne. And that was the way the seasons began again. When she killed Mot, that was the annual harvest, of course.”

Live and learn! So it was all a variant of the seasonal mythology he had heard in other guises. “But you couldn’t bring your lover back to life?”

“No. I tried, but the gods didn’t help. He just rotted. That’s one reason I don’t appreciate Melqart.”

“I sympathize. He really should have done more for you.”

“These things do pass,” she said philosophically. “I was denied my lover, and you are denied yours. Why don’t you pretend I am she, and I’ll pretend you are he whom I once loved. We shall have joy in one another, while both being true to our memories.”

The suggestion, phrased this way, caught him by surprise, and he started to make an angry refusal — but changed his mind. He was not sure what Aia’s true motives were, or how cynical might be her intent, but her body was decidedly conducive and the notion had its peculiar appeal. He had faith that somehow he would return to Afra, for this was not his world — but it was not time or distance that separated him from her. Afra would never be his — not so long as she loved a dead man. Not so long as their joint mission required that he give up his identity to the ruthlessly clever Schön.

Was he to torture himself by perpetual abstinence, knowing that his aspiration had no reasonable fulfillment? Why not settle for the unreasonable fulfillment, in that case? For what he could get?

Why not?

“All right,” he said.

Aia helped him to remove his tunic, touching him with exciting intimacy in the process, and they came together amidst the furry upholstery, shock of flesh against flesh. His left arm gave one twinge and anesthetized itself.

“Speak to me words of love,” she murmured, not yet quite acceding to the ultimate. “Tell me what you feel.”

Oh, no! “I can’t, I never spoke love before.”

“No wonder you never impressed her! Don’t you know that the whispered word moves a woman as no caress does? Hurry — I’m getting sleepy.”

He considered the request, distracted somewhat by her breathing. She was, by touch, as well-endowed as the goddess Astarte, but much younger. “The only words I know that would not be stupid are not my own. They’re from a poem, Evening Song, by—” But what would she know of Sidney Lanier, unborn these many centuries?

She was silent, so he went ahead with the poem. “Look off, dear love, across the sallow sands, / And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea. / How long they kiss in sight of all the lands. / Ah! longer, longer we.”

He recited the two remaining stanzas, frustrated because they had neither rhyme nor meter in Phoenician, and waited for her reaction. There was none.

She was asleep.

She was up before him in the morning, trying on finery from the domicile’s stock. “None of these will do,” she said sadly, shaking her head. “Too obvious.”

“Obvious?”

“If I go into the street in one of these, every person in sight will stare.”

She was not unduly pessimistic. She was, by daylight as by night, an extraordinarily lovely girl.

“Did you have suitable pleasure in me last night?” she asked next, with what irony he could not be certain.

“Well, I must admit I expected something else.”

“Oh?”

“You fell asleep.”

“Oh, yes. I always do. That’s why I like a man to hold me.”

Ivo tried to make something of this and failed. “While it certainly was stimulating holding you, I did find it a bit frustrating.”

“How could that be?”

“I had somehow thought we were going to make love.”

She turned to face him, resplendent in a purple skirt that stopped at the waist, and nothing else. Hold a bowl to her midriff… he thought. “Didn’t you?”

“I said you were asleep.”

“Of course.”

Ivo looked at her, disgruntled. “You mean you expected me to — to go ahead anyway?”

“Certainly. As many times as you desired.”

“Maybe next time,” he said, not clear whether he should feel angry or foolish.

They spent the day feasting and resting, since there was no predicting how much of either exercise they would get for some time to come. Aia acquainted him, in snatches, with her own history: Brought to one of the violent Aramean states from her home in the Kingdom of Urartu — Urartu being the most civilized nation of the world, by her definition — because she was the daughter of a traveling trader. Upon maturity, she had undertaken a marriage to a prince of Sidon. “He was the one I loved,” she confided. “If Baal will not succor a prince, what good is he?” But she had never seen Sidon; his merchant ship had been waylaid by a galley from Tyre and taken captive, her betrothed killed resisting. Thus, a year ago, she had found herself here, hostage, in daily peril of being added to the temple staff as a ritual prostitute. Only the suggestion of wealthy family connections had saved her from that; a hostage used by Melqart lost value. But the truth was that her family had suffered reverses and was not wealthy, and momentarily the temple accountant would verify this and dissipate her subterfuge. “So you see, I have been waiting for a chance to escape — and now, with you, I have it.”

Ivo perceived holes in her story, but did not challenge it. Undoubtedly her past was more mundane than she cared to admit. “How far is Urartu from here?”

“Very far. But I don’t want to go there. The politics will have changed, and my family could not afford me now. I will go with you.”

Ivo shrugged, appreciating her help but having no idea where to journey. First, however, they had to get off the island that was Tyre, hardly a mile in circumference; then he could make longer-range plans.

They packed as much as could be concealed under heavy cloaks: breads, dried fish, small crocks of wine. The host-merchant had been too canny to leave anything really valuable in his house during his absence; there was no gold or jewelry. Ivo inquired about coins, and learned by her reaction that they had not yet been invented. Trade was largely by barter, with weighed metals increasing as a medium of exchange, but no standardization had occurred.

At dusk Aia took him to the edge of the city, where the high wall balked their escape. Guards paced along the top of it, carrying dim lanterns. Ivo wondered how the open-dish lamps had been adapted for windy wet outdoor use, but they did not get close enough for him to observe. He would be satisfied just to know how they could get past the wall.

The girl knew what she was doing, however. “The factories go through,” she whispered. “And no one watches inside at night.”

Factories?

She led him into a dark building. He had to hold on to her hand to keep from getting lost, as he could not see at all inside. But that was not his major concern of the moment. His nose was.

The smell was appalling — a suffocating redolence of corruption unlike any he had encountered before. He tried to seal off his nostrils, but the thought of taking such putrefaction unfiltered into his lungs repelled him even more. “What — what?” he whispered.

She laughed. “They can’t hear us here. Speak up.”

“What died here? A flatulent whale?”

“Oh, you mean the murex. It is a little strong, but that’s the price of industry.”

So industry polluted the atmosphere in ancient days too! “What is it?”

“The murex. The shellfish. Don’t you know how they process it?”

“No.” He hoped they would soon be through the building and into clean air again.

“That’s right. I forgot it’s a trade secret. Well, they gather the murex, break the shells, extract the fish and dump it in big vats. They let it rot there for some time, until the yellow forms. For the darker shades they have to put it in the sun. Then they filter it down and market it. It’s a big industry here; no one outside of the Seven Cities knows the secret. Here, I’ll find a shell for you.”

She banged about in the dark, and in due course pressed an object into his hand. It was a shell resembling that of a spiny conch.

“Market what?” he demanded, perplexed about the point of all this.

“The dyes, of course. Yellow, rose, purple—”

“From decomposing shellfish?” But now he understood. The great mystery of the purple dye of the Phoenicians! He was thankful he hadn’t chosen to wear a purple outfit.

At length they emerged, and he took in refreshing lungfuls of partially oxygenated air. They were outside the wall, walking along a narrow starlit beach strewn with crushed shell, hunching in the fortification’s shadow in order to avoid the gaze of the patrolling guards.

They arrived circuitously at a docking area where the lesser ships were tied. This was a shallow harbor facing toward the mainland, evidently limited to local shuttling. There were also several coracles: doughnut-shaped little boats or rafts (depending on viewpoint) with calked boards across the inside where the hole might have been. Ivo remembered the macroscope station, and wondered whether the stations of the future — his future — would be as far beyond the torus as atomic liners were beyond the coracle.

The tiny boats did not look seaworthy, but Aia assured him that they were the best to be had for a crew of two on the sneak. She climbed into one about six feet in diameter, and he followed her and experimented with the paddles. There were V-notched sticks braced at either side, fulcrums for the long oars; he had to take up one while she managed the other.

He stood within the precarious structure and looked across the water at the mainland. Suddenly it seemed very far away, and the calm, shallow water intervening seemed ominously deep and rough. “Somebody should build a causeway,” he muttered.

“We must pull together,” she said, “or the craft will simply spin about. Not too hard — I am not as strong as you.” Privately, he wondered. She was careful to flatter him regularly, but she was a well-conditioned female. She was uncommonly knowledgeable about nonfeminine affairs, from temple politics to coracle paddling.

After some initial unsteadiness, much of it stemming from his early flinching as he tried to put too much weight on his left arm, they managed to stroke the clumsy craft out of the harbor. The water was gentle, yet even little swells rolled the party about alarmingly, and progress was hard work. It was the coracle’s natural ambition to rotate, and only continuous and well-synchronized paddling kept it on course.

In that period of silence and painful effort — why did sword-swinging superheroes never feel their wounds the following day? — Ivo reviewed his recent experience mentally. How had it all come about? It was obviously impossible for him to be where he seemed to be. Could he in some fashion have traversed three thousand or more light-years without benefit of galactic machinery, he still could not have landed in Earth’s past. The future, yes; the present, possibly; the past, never. The past was forever gone, and anything like time travel brought calamitous paradox. He could not physically participate in past events without altering history, which in turn meant that it was not the past; that was the fact that made it unapproachable.

Yet he certainly was somewhere. The adventures were too real, the pains too persistent, the series too cohesive, for any idle nightmare. It was becoming evident that he was not going to get out of this by himself. He knew too little, and had such slender resources that he had to depend on a mysterious woman.

Was it time to confess his own inadequacy and summon Schön? He had been shying away from this notion, but he knew that Schön would place the historical perspective instantly, and pinpoint not only the year but the exact degree by which this reality differed from Earth’s true history. Schön would know how to reverse whatever circumstances had brought him here, and thus how to bring back Afra and Groton and Beatryx and the Neptune base.

But Schön might very well have his personality destroyed by the ambushing destroyer in Ivo’s memory, before any of the rest of it came to pass. Then he would be gone, not merely buried, and with him that fragment, that waking dream that was Ivo.

Better not to chance it. The pawn was still pinned. This was a problem he had to handle by himself.

As though that decision were catalytic, another notion came to him. He realized what had bothered him about Aia, the first time they had spoken together. “Who are you?” he had demanded, and she had replied immediately, “I am Aia. I don’t worship Melqart or like human sacrifice.” Something like that.

How had she known that he was fleeing the temple, or why?

Certainly it could have been a guess — but she had not been asking him. She had known. She had said the one thing calculated to assuage his suspicions, and had followed it up with enough blandishment and personal motivation to keep them lulled. She had said that she wanted to escape, but it seemed that her real intention was to stick with him, wherever he might go.

He thought back to his interview with Mattan. The man obviously had not been satisfied, yet he had not pursued the matter of Ivo’s origins. Instead he had forwarded his guest to the temple for further interrogation — and the guards had conveniently staged a giveaway dialogue.

Mattan was clever; there could be no questioning that. Suppose he had had firm suspicions that Ivo was a spy who refused to talk, spinning any fantasy to avoid the truth? Would torture be effective? Perhaps — but there was also the risk of reprisals, especially in the event the visitor turned out to be innocent after all, or of powerful connection. Perhaps, even, he had been infiltrated to provoke an embarrassing incident. Why not, then, prompt the spy to bolt for home, and follow him there? What surer method to fathom the truth?

A skilled spy would know many dialects, naturally. A spy would comprehend the dialogue of the mercenaries, and react accordingly. Ivo remembered how handy that sword had been — virtually proffered to his hand, as the guard turned to him at the foot of the temple steps. How slow those men had been to react, though they were obviously long-time professionals, so that even his clumsy efforts had availed.

Of course, the priest had tried to trick him — but perhaps the man hadn’t had the word yet, or was merely cowardly. Then the chase through the city — with all avenues of escape closed off but one, and attractive Aia waiting at the end of that one.

She had been so eager to ingratiate herself with him — but not personally involved enough to stay awake for the romantic denouement. Well, this released him of any obligation he might have felt for her assistance.

What would have happened, had he meekly accompanied the two guards into the temple? Probably nothing. He would have demonstrated thereby his ignorance of the mercenary dialect, his innocence of spylike suspicions, his general naïveté about temple politics. He might then have been treated with the courtesy due a genuine traveler from a distant land. His gift of tongues had betrayed him.

Gift of tongues?

He stopped rowing, and the coracle jerked about as Aia’s stroke met no counteraction. “Careful, lover,” she said.

“It occurs to me that I have nowhere to go,” he told her, watching her as carefully as he could in the dark.

“Nowhere? But—”

“America is much too far away, and I would be no better off at any other local city than I am at Tyre. We might as well go back.”

“But Mattan—”

“What of Mattan? I’m sure I can explain about the mistake to him, and everything will be all right.”

“All right! After he sent you as sacrifice to Melqart?”

“I was only going to the temple to talk with the priests there. Mattan told me so. I suppose the one that met me assumed I was to be sacrificed, but they should have all that straightened out by now. These little errors happen. I should have realized then that it was a common misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding! How blind can you—” She paused. “Well, what about me? Aren’t you going to help me escape?”

“From what?”

“From the temple. I told you how they meant to make me serve as—”

“You told me that there was no harm a man could do you. You could have a good life at the temple, and a nice comfortable sleep every night with a new ship in your port, just the way you like it.”

For a moment he thought she was going to hit him with the paddle; but her words, when they came, were low. “Do you know what Mattan does with an unsuccessful spy?”

“One he catches, you mean? I do have some inkling.”

“One he assigns.”

Now he caught her meaning. “The sacrifice?”

“Bride of Melqart — and our Baal has a fiery member.”

“Suppose we land you on the mainland, then, and I can paddle back by myself. I want to see Mattan and clear this thing up as soon as possible.”

“You couldn’t handle this craft by yourself.”

“Maybe I can find a canoe or something. I’ll make do. You can travel back to Urartu.”

“I didn’t really come from Urartu.”

“Strange. I do really come from America.”

“Stay with me,” she pleaded, setting down the paddle and reaching for him. “I can guide you past the soldiers that are watching us now, and when we are free I promise you I will stay awake until you are exhausted. Until the very hull of your ship is blistered. I will steal valuables for you. I will—”

“Steady,” he said, worried about the equilibrium of the craft as Aia sought to approach and embrace him. She did have a fine body, but her mind appealed to him less and less. “Unfortunately your promises lack conviction. Or are they threats?”

She let go. “What do you want?”

“I want, believe it or not, to go home. It is not a journey you can share. I travel to the stars.”

“I can take you to the finest astrologer!” she said eagerly.

He began to laugh, harshly. Then, as he had done a night ago, he reconsidered. He just might be able to use a good astrologer. Hadn’t Groton told him that they had traditionally been the most educated of men? “Where?”

“It is said that the very best reside in Babylonia, particularly the city of Harran. We can join a trading caravan—

“How long would such a trip take?”

“It is across the great deserts where the nomads raid.”

“How long?”

“Not long. Thirty days, maybe only twenty-five.”

“Scratch Babylon. Who is there in Tyre?”

She considered disconsolately. “There is Gorolot — but he is very old. However, in other cities—”

“Should be very wise, then. Is he an honest scholar or a faker?”

“Honest. That is why he is so poor. But elsewhere there are—”

“Gorolot will do. We’ll see him tonight.”

“Tonight! He is already asleep.”

“We’ll have to wake him.”

“We have no money for his fee.”

“Do you want to help or don’t you?”

“Will you leave Tyre after you see him?”

“Sleeping Beauty, I may leave this world after I see him!”

She twisted the paddle until the craft was in position for the return voyage.

“What I have in mind for payment,” Ivo said, “is service. If Gorolot is old and poor and honest, he has no servants, right? A strong young woman could do marvels for his household, and perhaps encourage business too. And—”

“I am no household slave!” she exclaimed.

“And Mattan would never suspect that the household slave of an aged astrologer could be an unsuccessful counterspy or potential bride of Melqart.”

She paddled silently.

Gorolot, once roused by strenuous clamor, had the aspect of a sleepy old fraud. His eyes were sunken, his beard straggly and white, his clothing unkempt. He agreed to consider Ivo’s case once the terms had been clarified.

“I wish I had a better offer to make,” Ivo said regretfully. “But I may not be in these parts long. Aia — you’ll have to change her name — isn’t too reliable and will need a lot of supervision—”

“I will not!” she exclaimed angrily. “I can do the job as well as any girl in the city.”

“And you dare not entrust the daily marketing for staples to her, because she can’t bargain well—”

“I bargain very well! I’ll show you!”

“And she’ll probably run away within a week or two, but at least—”

“I will not!”

“But she may be all right, if she doesn’t fall asleep on the job.”

“I—” She shot him a dirty look and twitched her hip, conscious at last of the needling.

The two men sat down at Gorolot’s official table. Ivo saw that there were no flashy pictures of stars, planets or other symbols in evidence, and the man had donned no special robe. Probably the soiled tunic on his back was all he owned. The effect was unimpressive, even though such things had no inherent validity.

“What is your date of birth?” Gorolot inquired.

Ivo hesitated, but found after reflection that he was able to express it in local chronology, except for the year. That he solved by taking his age and figuring back to the year he would have been born, had he been born into this world and age. It came to the fifteenth year of the reign of Hiram the Great.

Gorolot brought out a scroll of stripped camel hide together with several clay tablets. “Do not expect too much,” he warned. “The meanings of the motions of the planets are not yet well known to us, and many times have I made mistakes. Often the Babylonian interpretations differ from the Egyptian, and I do not know the truth of it. I offer only the portents; I do not vouch for their authenticity.”

Ivo nodded. An honest man, yes, and a humble one. How many potentially well-paying customers did he alienate by his candor?

For almost an hour the astrologer pored over his records and assessed the imperatives of the seven planets — Uranus, Neptune and Pluto being unknown to Phoenician astronomy — questioning Ivo occasionally, while Aia showed her mounting impatience. “Others give instant readings,” she whispered.

“Others are charlatans,” Ivo replied. Gorolot labored on, unheeding.

At last he looked up. “Is there some event in your life that—”

Ivo gave him the same event he had given Groton, modified slightly in detail.

Still the astrologer was not satisfied. He mumbled and shook his head and rechecked his texts and runes fretfully. “I cannot help you,” he said abruptly.

Aia started to object, but Ivo gestured her to silence. “You have already helped me considerably,” he said. “I know you see something. What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“You have spent all this time contemplating nothing?” Aia demanded.

“The signs are contradictory, as I warned you they might be,” Gorolot said to Ivo. “But more than that, and it disturbs me deeply, some aspects are sure, yet they are the least credible of all. Either you have never been born, or you come from so far away that you are not truly under any of the signs I know.” He shrugged. “You must have been born, for I see you here, and I do not credit genii. Yet the signs are all-inclusive. So there is error — but not one it is in me to fathom. I am old and tired, and perhaps my brain is weakening. Take your servant-girl and go.”

“You admit you are a charlatan!” Aia exclaimed.

“No,” Ivo said firmly. “He is right. I have never been born — but I will be born thousands of years hence. And in my time the constellations have moved, and there are newly discovered planets; some of their meanings have — er, developed with the march of time.”

Gorolot peered at him over the flickering pewter lamp. “My charts suggest that this is so, but still it is a thing beyond my experience. I deem myself a sensible man, and all my life I have denied the supposed impact of the supernatural on the affairs of men. Yet here you are, real but inexplicable. Surely you mock me?”

Aia was silent now, looking at Ivo intently. The red in her hair was stronger, her features almost familiar in a non-Phoenician sense. She was extremely lovely.

“Do you speak other languages?” Ivo asked the astrologer. The man nodded. “I will show you that I am not of this world. I have the gift of tongues.”

“Are you familiar with this one?” Gorolot said in a foreign language, smiling.

“Egyptian, southern dialect,” Ivo said in the same language.

“And this?”

“Phrygian — as a Lydian tribesman would speak it.”

“No one in Tyre knows this one but me, and I know it only from my texts,” Gorolot said carefully.

“No wonder. It is parent-stock Etruscan. If I may — here is a correction on your phrasing.” He gave it.

Gorolot stared at him. “You are right. I remember now. You speak it far better than I.” He had lapsed into Phoenician. “You do have the gift of tongues, and you are far too young to have mastered it here. You are—”

“I don’t believe it,” Aia said, half believing it.

“So you come from Ugarit — peasant stock,” Ivo told her. She looked dismayed, and he turned back to Gorolot.

The man’s features changed. The white beard faded, leaving him clean-shaven. His face filled out. Behind him the mud-plaster wall metamorphosed into metal.

Groton was opposite him, a look of incredulous hope on his face. To the side stood Afra, weeping silently.

“I’m back,” Ivo said.

“It was Schön’s doing,” Ivo explained. Afra obviously had caught on to his secret, so no further pretense was in order. “It took me a long time to catch on to that, possibly because he tried to hide the evidence from me, more likely because I didn’t really want to believe it. But even a genius can’t convince an ordinary person that white is purple. Not always. Not when the purple stinks.” But he hadn’t told them about the dye yet. “And that gift of tongues was the unmistakable key. Schön has it, and he had to make it available to me in order to have me participate properly in that world; otherwise I would have popped out again quickly. When I realized that, I was on the way to victory, because I knew he was behind it all.”

“Why?” Groton wanted to know.

“Why did he do it? Easy. Because he wants to take over, and he can’t do it unless I abdicate. He tried to drive me into a situation that only he could save me from, hoping that I would capitulate. Maybe he forgot how stubborn I was.”

“But the destroyer—”

“Either he doesn’t know about that, or he isn’t afraid of it.”

“Why didn’t he give you just one language — Phoenician?”

“It doesn’t work that way. He can’t give me part of a talent. Only so many speech centers in the brain, as I make it.”

“But that would mean that English takes up one,” Afra said, “and all the other languages of the world, the other. That isn’t reasonable.”

“Schön isn’t reasonable, by our definition. Maybe he has some other setup. Anyway, it’s everything, or it’s nothing.”

“Do you have it now?” Afra asked, mopping her face. She looked so much like Aia that it set him back. Obviously one girl had been modeled from the other, just as one astrologer had emulated the other.

“No.”

“He took it away when you broke out?” Groton asked.

“No. I left it there. I didn’t want it.”

The two looked at him.

“It’s hard to explain. This arrangement between us — it isn’t absolutely set. He can give me things, like the intuitive computations, and I can accept them. But I can’t take anything he doesn’t make available and he can’t force anything on me that I refuse to accept. This episode was a special case; I was off-balance and tired, and I accepted more than I should have. Then I had to fight my way out by his rules, the hard way. But I stopped it there; I didn’t take the gift with me.”

“But why?” Afra cried. “The gift of tongues! Every language anyone ever spoke!”

“Because each trait I accept from him brings me that much closer to him. I started with two, and that’s the way I like it. I don’t need tongues.”

“But if you can have all that and remain yourself—”

This was like arguing with Aia. “I can’t. As I stand, I have two parts out of, say, twenty that make up Schön. Tongues would be a third part, and then I might be tempted to gamble on artistic ability or eidetic recollection. And after that I might get a craving for physical dexterity — you know, be a champion at sports, be able to do sleight-of-hand, control the roll of dice — and at some point Schön would achieve controlling interest. It’s more subtle than the destroyer, but the effect is the same, for me.” And suddenly another reason he had been able to avoid the destroyer popped up: he had had a lifetime of practice protecting his individuality from oblivion.

“That’s how you — turn into Schön?”

“That’s one way. There are others.” He decided to change the subject. “Of course, I’ll never know whether I really had tongues. It could all have been American English, with the suggestion of translation. Just enough for verisimilitude in the dream.”

“Dream?” Afra said.

“The Phoenician episode I summarized for you. It seemed like several days, and it was real for me, but—”

“Maybe we’d better play off one of the tapes,” Groton said.

“Tapes?” It was Ivo’s turn to be perplexed.

Afra was already busy. “Listen.” She switched on the playback.

A stream of gibberish poured out of the speaker. “This was yesterday,” Afra said. “That is, about twenty-seven hours ago. Your voice.”

“I was speaking?”

“Ancient Phoenician. Fluently. I was able to pick out words only here and there, so we set up a program and ran the tape through the computer and patched up a translation. Do you want to hear it?”

“I’d better.”

She lifted the printout. “Are you trusting yourself to a stranger? A brigand, perhaps a rapist or murderer? No. Ifarsh of America. I was captured by a ship and brought to Mattan for questioning. What I don’t comprehend is the reason he sent me for sacrifice. How could—”

“That’s enough,” Ivo said, embarrassed. “Did you translate — everything I said?”

“Yes. We had to.”

“We rigged up a real-time continuous translation,” Groton said, “and monitored it. In case there was any way we could help. Just now you messed it by switching to non-programmed languages.”

Ivo tried to remember all the things he had said, particularly to Aia. He felt his cheeks growing hot.

“How did you finally fight your way out of it?” Groton asked him. “We knew something special was happening, but we couldn’t tell what. You were telling someone there about your presence here, but—”

“I was telling you, Harold.” And with that statement he had another realization: that this man had become Harold instead of Groton in thought as well as speech. That was significant. “Or at least your ancestor-in-spirit. An astrologer, and an honest and knowledgeable man. I remembered that they were the best-educated men in those days, because they were the true astronomers and scientists before those fields were recognized as such, always questing for the secrets of things. It seemed to me that if I could convince one intelligent person in that world that I didn’t belong there — literally — then the framework would be rent, or at least punctured. And I guess I convinced him, because it happened.” He thought about the implications. “I hope Gorolot wasn’t too upset when I disappeared.”

“Aia will console him,” Afra said with gentle irony. It had not taken her long to revert to her normal cynicism. Had she been crying for him, that moment he first returned?

“Similar to punching through by gravitational collapse,” Harold said. “This would have been credibility collapse, though. You do believe that world was real?” He was asking for an opinion rather than a defense.

“I would hate to believe that it wasn’t. If I was really speaking Phoenician—”

“I think I understand.” Harold looked about. “We’d better take a break, now that it’s over. This has been rough on all of us, and my wife doesn’t even—”

Beatryx appeared, carrying a tray. Incongruously, that reminded Ivo that now they were in a gravity defocuser, rather than the intensifier of Triton days, since they were buried in massive Neptune. How much stranger this situation was than the one he had visited!

Beatryx saw him. “Ivo!” she cried immediately. “You’re back!”

That seemed to make it complete.

Though less than three days had passed, it was a novelty to sleep in a modern bed again, and to be free of the pain of a flesh wound on the arm and a cut on the hand. He had been too much a part of the world of Tyre, had experienced too much there. He had sought only to leave it — yet now he was sorry, perversely, that it was gone. Was it that he craved the adventure it had offered?

There he had been a man — a man in constant danger and discomfort, but a man. Here he was no more than a surrogate, a mild-mannered reporter waiting for Superman to take over. He wondered whether, if the offer of such adventure were made again, he would accept it. Give Schön what he wanted, in exchange for that satisfaction. For Schön could do that, if he chose; and the covenant would bind him. He could relegate Ivo to a fantasy fragment, his personality turned inward instead of outward, and let him live out his life there untrammeled by the inadequacies of the present. Perhaps it would be a short life, but—

There was a motion nearby that made him jump. “Hello, Ivo.”

Afra.

She sat down beside him: fresh, white, perfumed, elegantly packaged. “I think I know what you’re thinking, Ivo. You’re nostalgic for that world.”

“I guess I am, now that it’s over.”

“And you’re afraid you might go back to it the next time you use the macroscope, or something like it.”

He nodded. She was so beautiful in the half-light that he felt her presence as heat radiating against the side of his body toward her. The effect might be subjective, but it was powerful.

“This Aia — was she me?”

“No. She was a spy, a courtesan.”

“She still could have been me, Ivo. That name is close. And I was used to — to keep you at the station, so that Schön would be available. I’m not very proud of that.”

“You didn’t know.”

“I should have known. I don’t like being stupid, particularly about a thing like that. Brad told me to be nice to you. I — I’m trying to say I’m sorry. About that and a lot of things. But that isn’t why I came here.”

He felt it safest not to comment. Why did a lovely woman come to the bed of an admirer? To reminisce?

“I suppose it’s like the — the handling. I’ll just have to say it. And do it. I heard what you said to her. About me.”

Oh-oh. “I was afraid of that. I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t you apologize to me! I’m the one at fault. All I can say is that I was dense, or blind, or both. I didn’t know, I really didn’t know — until I read it on the printout. I didn’t know you loved me.”

“I didn’t want you to know. I’d rather you forgot it.”

She did not move, but it was as though she leaned over him where he lay. “That isn’t the past tense, is it, Ivo. You love me now — and I won’t forget it. I — well, you know my situation. I can’t say I love you or ever will.”

“I understand.”

“That Aia — she offered herself to you, and you wanted her. But you told her—”

Ivo felt his face burning again. “Can’t we just let that pass?”

“No we can’t, Ivo. You held her in your arms and she made you recite poetry — but then you didn’t make love to her. And you could have.”

“How do you know? It was my vision.”

“Not entirely, Ivo. I do know. Did you think you were having an innocent wet dream? I was with you.”

He had thought he was already embarrassed, but once again she had made him realize that he had been naïvely skirting the edge of the chasm. Again he had fallen in.

“I know this hurts you, but I have to say it. The girl you held was me. Naked, ready—”

What possible comment? “But if I’d—”

“I said you could have. I won’t say I’m sorry you didn’t.”

“But why?”

“I had this crazy idea that if I could somehow bridge the gap between us — between your world and mine — it would bring you back. I felt responsible… maybe guilty is the word. It wasn’t premeditated. There was something nagging at my mind — something Brad once told me about Schön — but it wouldn’t come clear. I did realize where Schön was, of course, though it took me entirely too long to put two and two together. And I think if Schön had won, I could have — I don’t know. I just had to do something. I was monitoring the tape, the others were asleep, and… the time seemed right. And — we do need you, Ivo. Objectively. We can’t locate ourselves in the galaxy without you. Not close enough.”

She had been talking rapidly, throwing justifications at him as quickly as she thought of them. As though she had to apologize for ever having offered her body to him in any guise. And, he thought bitterly, if she felt ashamed of the impulse, then her apology was in order. She had said once that she did not like acting like a whore.

She took his silence as an objection. “We had to have you back. It was that simple. It isn’t as though there are any physical secrets between us, after the handling and the melting. If you were falling and I could offer a hand to pull you back — the principle is the same. You did it for me, on Triton, with your trial. So this time it was my turn to — to contribute.”

The irony was that it might have worked. Could he possibly have made physical love to Afra and not been drawn back to her world? He doubted it.

“I thank you for the gesture,” he said, feeling quixotic.

“Now that we understand each other,” she said, relieved, “the rest is easy. I want you to know that this world needs you more than that one does. So — this world offers you more. It is, as I said, that simple.”

“It’s still too complicated for me. What are you getting at now?”

“You love me. I need you. That’s not the same thing, I know, but it’s honest. If my embrace will hold you here, I give it to you. Anything Aia had for you — I will match. Anything any woman has for you. You don’t have to travel to any other world — you mustn’t travel—”

“I suppose you are pretty much like Aia.”

There was no flickering lamplight, but the classic lines of her forehead, nose and chin wavered in his gaze. “That’s no compliment, but it’s the truth,” she said. “We sell what we have for what we need. Men their brains, women their bodies. Better that than hypocrisy.”

There was a silence of several minutes. Ivo thought of all the things he might say, but knew she knew them already. She had said one thing and meant another, earlier; now the truth was coming into view as the base warred with the sublime. She was offering paid love — the last thing he wanted from her, but all she had, realistically, to give.

Again the question he had asked himself in Tyre: why not settle for the best he could get? He had been willing to embrace Aia’s body in lieu of Afra; why not accept Afra’s body — in lieu of Afra? Both women had come to terms with their necessities, knowing they could not bring their lovers back to life; why not he?

Yet if he had learned any lesson in Tyre, it was this: there was no salvation in a surrogate.

“Maybe next time,” he said.

She did not move or look at him. “Look off, dear Love, across the sallow sands…”

She was still sitting there when he fell asleep.

It was night in the marshes of Glynn. He had either to wait a few hours and try again, or travel to the daylight side of the globe.

He felt Afra’s hand take his left. “If you go, I will don the goggles and follow you,” she said. It was a threat, for she would encounter not Tyre but the destroyer.

“I’m on guard now, and rested,” he replied. “It’s safe.” But he felt better for the touch of her fingers, their almost-affectionate pressure. Last night he had turned her down; today, oddly, she was warmer toward him.

Tyre appeared unchanged, superficially. Warships still docked at the ports of the island city and the buildings remained tall and crowded. He recognized the temple complex and the area where he had met Aia, that night.

“We don’t seem to have moved,” he said, perplexed. He wondered how he could have seen the city so accurately before, since they had probably removed him from the macroscope as soon as he fell into the Mediterranean. He must have been there!

“More likely it’s a fifty-year jump,” Afra said. “Backward or forward or sidewise. Can you find a landmark?” She still had not relinquished his hand, except for the brief periods he needed it for coordinated adjustments.

He centered on Gorolot’s house, quite curious and a little nervous. Strangers occupied it, and the configurations of the structure had changed, as though the house had been rebuilt. Ivo lingered, disappointed, though he remained apprehensive about the effect the sight of Gorolot — or Aia — might have on him.

“You can go back,” a masculine voice said in his ear, in Phoenician.

Ivo clenched Afra’s hand. “Pull me out!” he said urgently. “It’s Schön!”

He felt her fingers returning his pressure, as from a distance, and the tug of the goggles coming off — but the scene did not shift.

“Why do you fight me?” Schön asked in Ivo’s voice.

“Because you may be destroyed the moment you take over, for one thing. Don’t you know that?”

“When I take over,” Schön said as though never doubting the eventuality, “I will have the whole of your experience to draw on, should I require it. At present I have almost none of it. It is exceedingly difficult for me even to contact you, since you don’t let go until your mind is distracted. So I don’t know what your problem is — but I do know there is something intriguing afoot.”

Someone was still tugging at a distant extremity. “Hold up a minute, Afra,” Ivo called. “He only wants to talk.”

“I don’t trust him,” she said from the far reaches.

“Give us two minutes.”

“Little puritan Ivo has a girlfriend now?” Schön inquired. Obviously he knew — but how much?

“No. Now look, I have to explain why I can’t let you have the body. We’re in touch with a nonhuman signal that—”

“I can give you romantic prowess. No woman can withstand that. A warty toad could seduce a princess.”

“I know, but no. Now this galactic civilization has broadcast what we call the destroyer signal that—”

“How about turning me loose for a specified interval? Just long enough to lick this problem of yours.”

“No! You don’t understand what I’m—”

“Junior, are you trying to lecture me on—”

A cold shock hit him, reminding him of the original plunge into the Mediterranean. Ivo looked up to find Afra standing before him, the bucket in her hands. “Yeah, that did it,” he said, shaking himself. She had doused him with icewater: three gallons over his head.

“Are you going to be trapped every time you use the scope?” she demanded. “You were talking in Phoenician again, but I got the bit about two minutes, not that I waited that long. What did he want?”

“He wants out,” Ivo said, shivering. He began to strip off his clothing. “But he can’t get out until I let him.”

“What about the destroyer?”

“He doesn’t seem to know about that, or want to hear it. I couldn’t make him listen.”

“He must know about it. What about that message — ‘My pawn is pinned’? He knew then.”

Ivo, bouncing up and down to warm up, halted. The wet floor was slippery under his bare toes. “I didn’t think of that. He must be lying.”

“That doesn’t make sense either. If he knew the destroyer would get him, why should he expose himself to it? And if he knows it won’t, why not say so? This isn’t a game of twenty questions.”

“Now that I think of it,” Ivo admitted, “he didn’t sound much like a genius to me, I’ve never actually talked directly with him before, but — it was more like a kid bargaining.”

“A child.” She brought a towel and started patting him dry, and he realized that for the first time he had undressed unselfconsciously before her. They had all seen each others’ bodies during the meltings, but this was not such an occasion. Barriers were still coming down unobtrusively. “How old was he when — ?”

“I’m not sure. It took some time to — to set me up. I remember some events back to age five, but there are blank spots up until eight or nine. That doesn’t necessarily mean he took over then—”

“So Schön never lived as an adult.”

“I guess not, physically.”

“Or emotionally. You matured, not he. Is it surprising, then, that he appears childish to us? His intelligence and talent don’t change the fact that he is immature. He likes to play games, to send out mysterious messages, create worlds of imagination. For him, right and wrong are merely concepts; he has no devotion to adult truth. No developed conscience. And if the notion of the destroyer frightens him — why, he puts it out of his mind. He no longer admits its danger. He thinks that he can conquer anything just by tackling it with gusto.”

Ivo nodded thoughtfully, looking about for some dry shorts. “But he’s still got more knowledge and ability than any adult.”

She brought the shorts. “A sixteen-year-old boy has better reflexes than most mature men, and more knowledge about automotive engineering — turbo or electric or hydraulic — but he’s still the world’s worst driver. It takes more than knowledge and ability; it takes control and restraint. Obviously Schön doesn’t have that.”

“If he began driving — what a crash he could make!”

“Let’s just defuse the destroyer first,” she said, smiling grimly. “You were right all along: we’re better off without Schön.”