"Ugh...." Carol sounded ready to throw up.

        "Jesus..." was all Johnstone could say.

        Jamieson was overcome by that same sickly violent feeling he had as a kid when he first saw that deformed chicken. Its eyeballs had somehow come round to the front of its face and grown so huge they had partly joined together; it looked like it was looking through a mask. He had run off screaming to get the shovel to mash the thing into the ground, but by the time he got back with it, his dad had drowned it in the backyard water trough.

        Then, in spite of its deformed, gnarled hand, the tiny monster raised its skinny arm to give the `fingers' sign, then blew a raspberry.

        "Aliens, one; Kiwis, nil," Estelle laughed gently.

        But its gesture didn't do much to make the thing look more human. To Jamieson it looked like a four-foot high cross between an Australian Aborigine and a goat standing on its hind legs. In fact its body looked something like one of those illustrations of The Devil in the religious books Jamieson had grown up with, except that it had no pointed tail. Its head though was, if anything, worse. Its skull was twice as long as normal, but a little narrower. Its eyes, nose and mouth were in the right places, but they were all the wrong shape. The eyes were on short stalks so that it looked like it had little built-in binoculars, its nose was more like a pig's, and its mouth, if you could call it that, was on the end of a short skinny trunk-like thing.

        In spite of Estelle's bemused reproof, Carol kept turning away, unable to look at the alien.

        "Sorry, Estelle, not off to a brilliant start, are we?" Errol said. He then turned towards the creature and said to it: "Sorry."

        "That's all right," the creature replied in perfectly clear, human speech which looked impossible from that mouth. "You guys all looked in the mirror lately?"

        The four humans looked at each other.

        The alien's tiny `village' had seemed quite Earthlike when Estelle first led them into it through the washhouse Gate. Its streets and buildings alike all appeared to be made of big odd-shaped stones carefully fitted together with very little mortar. In front of them was a rounded street corner made up of tiny shops that were open to the street. One appeared to be a drapery and clothing store, another a shoe shop, and a third a furniture shop that, so far as Jamieson could see, only sold shelves and cabinets. But these were not made of wood, but of what looked like pottery.

        It took him a while to figure out what was different, then he had it: the shops all seemed rather primitive, as did their goods. The clothes were of pallid-looking colors only, and they all appeared to be of the same basic design: winding strips of cloth that looked as if they had somehow been stripped off an Egyptian mummy.

        In front of the shops were four simple tables containing mostly small items, Jamieson thought they might be market fair stalls. The leftmost table bore what he took to be confectionery because of its bright colors, the next table featured jewelry - which didn't look too much different from the lollies, the third was set up to serve what looked like soup going by the tureen and bowls, and the fourth, to Jamieson's eye at least, was covered in unidentifiable trinkets and junk. The thought then crossed his mind they might be tools of some sort.

        The street running from the corner at an angle to their right was all houses on its left hand side, its right side bordered onto a well-kept park containing a very blue-looking lake, plus what looked like gravestones in the distance. Perhaps that's what they were. Directly right, a pair of two storey buildings stood one in front of the other in a paved yard.

        To the left was the sea, bordered by the beach. Wharves, warehouses, and what appeared to be factories were at the father end of this shore, while at the nearer end was a promenade which, when Jamieson turned to look behind him, just petered out into waste land. Directly behind him was a clear view across countryside that appeared to be farmed down to a river several miles away in the distance.

        "Heaven's, it's almost as if the Aztecs had won against the Spaniards, pinched all their horses and ships, and invaded Europe," Johnstone said on seeing all this. "Even some of those decorations carved into its cornices and things look that way, with a bit of Assyrian thrown in."

        "A few technological extras though," Carol added. "They obviously have glass, iron, possibly even steel, and certainly sailing ships of sorts - "

        " - Of all sorts," Errol pointed. "Look at that Arab Felucca-like one."

        "How much technology do they actually have, Estelle?" Carol sounded slightly disappointed. "Looks like something out of the fifteenth century or something."

        "That's about right, Carol," Estelle said. "though in some ways they are way behind, and in others nearer your eighteenth. For instance, most of those ships carry chronometers of sorts - though very different from Earth's - and they can cross oceans with some speed and reliability. Even though what you see is only a simulation, it is fair representation of a seaside village one might find anywhere in the dominant civilization on this world."

        " - Simulation..?" Carol asked.

        "Yes. We are not on the surface of Mifassassi yet, Carol. What you see before you is in fact a three dimensional image produced using methods involving holography, a technology which was only just beginning on Earth. You may like to look all that up in my encyclopedia when we get back if you like. You can walk around in the image though just as if it were real, in fact with most of it you can also walk through it as well, there is no substance in anything you see before you - "

        " - And no people, either," Johnstone quipped.

        " I haven't forgotten," Estelle said to him.

        And it was at that precise moment that that - thing - stepped out from behind a display in one of the shops and came forward between the tables for their inspection.

        "Hello, everybody, my name is Lirpritzi," the alien said when they had all pulled themselves together. "I am not a simulation like all this," He swept his skinny arm around. "I am in fact one of Estelle's helpers, although I have been fabricated by the ship to pass as one of the two intelligent species, in my case a Sihtak, currently dominant on the world of Mifassassi - "

        " - Heavens..!" Carol exclaimed, looking at Estelle. "You can - make - animals, - people, what you want?"

        "My ship can, just as it made me and everything you've seen inside it," she replied. "It takes from a few minutes to a few hours depending on complexity, though it does need a sample of replicatory material to work from. On your world as on this, that is DNA, as you probably know."

        "Something like in `A for Andromeda'?" Johnstone looked at her in astonishment. "Really enjoyed that."

        " - What do you mean, two intelligent races on the world of - Mafissisi?" Carol ignored him and asked Lirpritzi directly.

        The expression, if that's what it was, that crossed the little weird face was completely unreadable.

        "Mifassassi. Please allow me to introduce my `owner'," Lirpritzi said. "Her name is Saobte. She already knows all your names, as I do."

        From one of the houses a little way up the street to the right of where they stood, a young woman of their own age appeared. She certainly looked human, and reminded Jamieson of an Italian woman he'd seen somewhere - of course, Sophia Loren at the pictures, he realized now. But the woman who was walking towards them - or rather swept towards them, was somewhat more slightly built and appeared wrapped head to foot in a dress like the ones in the clothes shop except the fabric strips looked like white lace. Some dark flesh discretely showed through in a few places; she not only looked human, but like an attractive one as well.

        " - Heavens..!" Carol seemed almost as surprised at seeing her as she was at seeing Lipritz-something.

        What did she expect to see? Another alien?

        "Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to Mifassassi," she extended her hand graciously. "My name is Saobte, as my assistant Lirpritzi has told you. I am from the dominant species of Mifassassi, the Nrebu."

        Errol took he hand first and, in a florid gesture, knelt down and kissed it.

        "No need for that, Errol," she smiled at him warmly. "On our world our gestures of greeting are entirely different from what you are used to. We will demonstrate them shortly," she looked fondly down at Lirpritzi. He - was it actually a he? - looked back up at her with yet another unreadable expression.

        Carol stepped forward next, and just lightly shook her hand. "Love your dress," she greeted her awkwardly, obviously trying to say the right thing, "even if I know you don't call it that."

        "Thank you," Saobte said, obviously delighted. "We in fact call it a lolble. Most attire on our world are variants of this design as you can perhaps see from that shrentnl," she indicated the clothing shop. "Now, the handsome gentleman on your right, Johnstone, isn't it?"

        "Perfectly correct madam," he stepped forward and kissed her hand even more elaborately than Errol had done. "And I thank you for your kind compliment."

        Saobte laughed a polite tinkling laugh. "And now this even more handsome gentleman, Jamieson. How do you do?"

        Jamieson glanced quickly at Estelle, but she just smiled her quiet smile.

        "Thank you, I am well," was all he could manage to say as he shook her delicate hand in the same way Carol had done.

        "And now let the lessons begin," Saobte smiled round at them all. "Our language, our customs, our knowledge of the world of Mifassassi as represented by the good folk of the village of Mrelblra..."

        As she spoke, ghostly figures of the `good folk of Mrelblra' appeared as if by magic and went about their ordinary-looking business about town speaking a language that was definitely not English.

        Jamieson was disappointed by that.

        Now that he could see more of the Nrebu, he wondered if they didn't look more Chinese than Italian, though with large European eyes instead of slanted ones (and that made him wonder a little about Sophia Loren...). The men were dressed in the same way as the women, except that the fabric strips making up their lolbles (?) were draped over them at the opposite angle from the women's. They were also of various pale colors rather than the white they wore, and none were lace.

        And each individual, or each family or other group, had at least one Sihtak trotting alongside it, usually carrying something for it like shopping, or extra clothing for children perhaps. There was a group of them on their own further up the road apparently repairing it. Jamieson could now see others working around the ships tied up to the wharf, and more doing work around the warehouses they served. It seemed the Sihtak - who were all naked, he now realized - were no more than slaves.

        He looked round behind him. The promenade was perhaps the most crowded part of the village as the Nrebu paraded in the sun, some with small transparent umbrellas of various colors that lent their owners an even more exotic look. A few Sihtak were setting up a temporary platform of some sort, Jamieson could not guess what for. The farms down by the river and beyond were being tended by Sihtak, he saw one driving a team of eight little draft animals of some sort, somewhere between bears and dogs, pulling a plow behind them.

        And, apart from a lone juggler who appeared to be performing the activity for his own amusement, not one Nrebu was lifting a finger anywhere.

        "Are these - Sihtak - your slaves?" Carol asked Saobte, clearly disgusted. "I heard you call yourself `the dominant species'. I didn't think you quite meant that."

        Jamieson thought it a little odd that Carol should be talking to her as if she actually was a Nrebu. Yet, what else could she do? He hoped Saobte understood.

        "Yes, but in such a different sense you may find it hard to comprehend," Saobte replied to her. "First, you may not believe it looking at them, but they were originally as human as the Nrebu, around one hundred thousand years ago, though from a slightly different race. You could think of the difference as being something like that between your Neanderthals and your Cro Magnon except that our `Neanderthals' were smaller than our `Cro Magnons', and they were slower thinkers with less language ability. Now, just as your Cro-Magnon learned to domesticate animals and develop agriculture, we Nrebu did the same with the Sihtak, changing them as we breed them to suit our purposes. But not just physically, but mentally and emotionally so that they like to work at whatever they are trained to do. Since we preserved their original albeit small intelligence, they need very little training, and they quite happily train succeeding generations of themselves to perform their various tasks for the Nrebu. In turn - "

        "I suppose that's a little better than what we did, kill our Neanderthals," Carol snapped at her.

        "That may not necessarily be what happened," Estelle said, `though there is no dispute they disappeared as a separate race."

        "So if ours had been smaller than us, we might have done the same?" Errol asked her.

        "Quite possibly," Estelle replied. "Your own history of slavery ended little more than one hundred years ago. Few people on your world realized what an extraordinary achievement that was. But on Mifassassi slavery developed to a far greater extent at a much earlier phase in its social evolution. And unlike your slaves, theirs could not revolt even if they wanted to. As you can see from the shape of their mouths, they are unable to eat solid foods. While they could in theory produce and prepare their own food solely for themselves, they could not maintain the agricultural and technological base that would be required for them to do that. They are as entirely dependent on the Nrebu as they are on them."

        "But that's obscene!" Carol shouted as she glanced at each of the two `inhabitants' of that world in turn. They merely gazed back passively. " - We mustn't visit their world!" she rounded on Estelle. "That would be wrong!"

        "Perhaps we could go and visit the Sihtak on their own," Johnstone suggested.

        Jamieson couldn't tell if he was joking or not.

        "Rubbish..!" Carol turned on him. "It's just like bloody South Africa. We can no more go to - Mifassassi - than we could have gone there."

        Jamieson wondered why brainy people always had to bring South Africa into everything, even something as nonsensical as all this. He wondered if Viet Nam would be next.

        He then realized Carol would almost certainly have been one of those damned Anti-Tour Protesters. He'd have to have a little chat with her about that.

        "I should remind you that South Africa was quite different, Carol," Estelle said to her. "The indigenous people there always had some chance of overcoming minority white rule and determining their own fate, even if it was very slight. The Sihtak have none at all. The situation has long moved from slavery to symbiosis. One species - as they now are, they cannot interbreed - supplies the brain power, the other the brawn. It would take hundreds of generations to reverse that, and neither species is likely to. Also, you cannot blame the present generation for any crimes you may ascribe to their ancestors. The time for reversing the process and making amends belonged to those times, not now."

        "You know," Jamieson had just had a bright idea, "it's really not very much different from our sheep dogs. They loved their work, and most were specially bred for it too. And all they got out of it was half a bucket of milk with some bran tossed in and bones from an old ewe or something if they were lucky."

        "And a bullet through the head when they were past it," Johnstone laughed. " - Whoops, sorry, Jim," he nodded at him. "I really am sorry."

        "That's all right," Jamieson said automatically. He really didn't know what else he could say.

        "And that raises the question of what happens to the Sihtak when they're to old to work," Carol rounded on Saobte. "Or do they get put into old folks homes where they're cared for by Nrebu till they die?"

        "Sihtak soup, anybody?" Johnstone looked round at them all with a grin.

        "That's not funny," Carol glared at him.

        For once Jamieson agreed with her.

        "That wasn't too far off the mark, as it happens," Estelle said. "The Sihtak kill themselves once they reach a certain age, by ingesting a poison similar to your hemlock. The corpses are then used as a stock feed."

        The silence that followed seemed to spread throughout the village. Jamieson wondered if its people might be responding in some odd way to their conversation, bustling around at one moment, slowing and cautious the next as if to overhear. It was as if they knew they were being talked about.

        "Look," said Errol, it was the first time he had said anything at all, "sooner or later we are going to have to make our minds up - do we stay, or do we go? We're bound to find something we don't like about any world Estelle might take us to. We can't change this one - and besides, do we have any right to? We weren't exactly born on Mifassassi, were we? Perhaps we should apply the Prime Directive from Star Trek: `Do Not Interfere with Alien Cultures.'"

        "This isn't Startrek, Errol," Carol snapped at him. "This is real."

        "Perhaps if we just visited the world and avoided its people as far as possible?" Jamieson offered. "We could do that."

        "That's perhaps a sensible idea under these circumstances," Estelle said to his delight. "We'll learn a little more about their way of life here in our language class so that we can understand what we are seeing, but that's as far as it need go. - Would that suit everybody?"

        "I suppose so," Carol nodded reluctantly.

        "It's a start," Errol said. "At least you won't have brought us here for nothing, Estelle."

        "Okay. - Beam me down, Scotty," Johnstone laughed.

        Jamieson nodded his assent, even though he didn't know what Johnstone meant. He wondered what would happen to the two `natives' here when their job had been done. But he didn't think it would be a good idea to ask Estelle about that just now.

         The seven of them, including Saobte and Lirpritzi, stepped out of the workshop Gate early the following morning directly onto a platform some way up a carefully crafted varnished wooden staircase. But it was not inside a building or anything. It had been cut into the side of a steep hill in some sort of jungle. The plants themselves, most with huge, broad leaves hanging limply in that heat, looked just like the tropical ones Jamieson had seen in films. They grew too densely to allow the party to see out over the downside slope.

        The sun was overhead, the air hot and moist. Jamieson was glad the lolble he was wearing was so airy, anything else would have been insufferable in that heat.

        "Whew..! Why didn't you warn us we were stepping into pith helmet country?" Errol said it for them all.

        "Which way?" Johnstone asked, turning to the downward side hopefully.

        But Estelle pointed to the upward part.

        "Thought somehow that would the way," Johnstone said ruefully.

        They had barely climbed a few steps when suddenly the noise of cheering crowds thousands strong came to them as if carried on the wind from some distant sports field.

        Jamieson turned to look around him. Errol and Johnstone did the same. Nothing could be seen anywhere except more jungle, nor anything overhead apart from the unusually deep blue sky through the tops of the trees. Ahead the staircase looked as if it would carry on forever.

        Once again Jamieson looked closely at it. Outside, in a hot, steamy place like this? A lot of work had gone into it, and he knew it hadn't been done by the Nrebu. How long was it supposed to last? Would the Nrebu just command a new one to be built when the old one had rotted away?

        As they climbed, they occasionally caught glimpses of the sea. At one point they were able to stop and stare down to the wide jungle-clad shelf of land at the base of the mountain they were climbing. A large honey comb-like cluster of what looked like stone igloos, hundreds of them, could be seen down there, alongside what appeared to be a large quarry and a smelly-looking open-air factory of some sort. Igloo-like furnaces with short chimney stacks belched huge amounts of smoke.

        "That's the Sihtak village," Lirpritzi explained. "Most of them work in the Nrebu township out of sight round the end of the headland, the rest work in the factory you see there. It is a glass-works, the output of which we will see shortly."

        "You know, those domes look just like a bacteria colony," Carol said with obvious distaste. "They shouldn't have to live like that."

        Jamieson hoped Carol wasn't going to spoil their visit with too many comments of that sort.

        He now just realized that so far they hadn't seen a single soul. But then of course they wouldn't have. Estelle's `flies' - though she had said she would use the local equivalent here - had doubtless made sure of that. "Nobody must see our arrival or departure," she had insisted. "non-interference, remember? We don't want our hosts to see anything they shouldn't."

        She had then added, ominously, that no matter how many flies she might have out there keeping an eye on things, she couldn't see everything, and people's actions could never be entirely predictable. She could not therefore absolutely guarantee anybody's safety.

        As if to reinforce that warning, they now felt a sharp jolt beneath their feet.

        "You can expect a few minor earth tremors to pass through this region from time to time," Estelle now said. "But don't worry, nothing major is likely to happen during our brief visit."

        Jamieson didn't find that assurance very reassuring somehow.

        They had spent the rest of yesterday afternoon learning the rudiments of the local language. They had actually followed some of Mrelblra's fake residents around and listened as they picked up and put down various objects, performing certain actions, and described what they did and sometimes why in the native tongue. Estelle had pointed out that they were not just visiting a world, but a tiny part of a world whose customs and traditions were bound to differ from those of other regions in quite significant ways, although the basics such as the use and treatment of the Sihtak would remain essentially the same. The language lessons had reminded him of Roy - poor, misguided Roy - learning French; he had sat on that damn dunny for hours late at night chanting out `Voici Jean? Voici Marie? Ou est Jean? Ou est Marie? Voyez-vous Marie? Marie est dans la salle de bain..."

        Their own `classes' hadn't turned out to be quite as hard as Jamieson had expected - in fact they were almost fun. Trying to speak the language though was like trying to read the phone book out loud with a big wad of chewing-gum in your mouth. Some of the Nrebu had been quite amusing, especially that troupe who had held that beauty contest for Nrebu and Sihtak alike, it enabled them to learn about parts of the body. The farmer who had come up to the village to introduce them all to the local version of agriculture had been almost as amusing as Uncle Bert, though not quite so rude.

        In fact Jamieson got the impression the Nrebu, where they worked at all, were as hardworking as the Sihtak themselves. That farmer may have used them to do the donkey-work round the place, but he was at least out and about on the fields and did many of the on-the-spot jobs himself. But the boundaries were still clear; the Sihtak worked on the roads and did what was needed round the stores and the warehouses, but it was always the Nrebu who owned those stores and warehouses. The Nrebu didn't boss the Sihtak around though, instead they were more like capable managers, always willing to step in and solve problems the Sihtak couldn't quite sort out. There was no hint of ill-treatment, most of the harsh words flew between Nrebu and Nrebu rather than between the species. It really did seem to be a partnership, with one set of skills complementing the other.

        In the end, Jamieson couldn't see what Carol had been complaining about.

        Wherever they were going, they were now clearly not far from it; flowers of all shades and shapes began to appear as the jungle thinned. Jamieson could smell their juicy fragrances, they were even headier than those by Estelle's front verandah, though those of course were all subtropical New Zealand varieties.

        Turning a corner to their right, they came up to a very steep but mercifully short flight of steps leading up to what was clearly an open space. The girls got up there first, and the increasing gasps of astonishment at what they were apparently looking at brought Jamieson and the other two men up those steps at a run.

        "Now wasn't that worth all that long climb?" Jamieson heard Estelle say in her `auntie' voice as they sprang up onto a long, wide plateau cut into the side of a steep grassy mountainside. The plateau was partly paved, in a strip running along its center, with the most ancient-looking yard-wide paving stones Jamieson had ever seen. Just as the girls had done, he and Johnstone quickly moved to the low fitted-stone protecting wall at the front of the platform - and they nearly fell over its edge with their astonishment.

        Spread out before them was far and away the most impressively beautiful sight Jamieson had ever seen. A good hundred yards below them was a large squarish plateau, at least twenty acres in size, that appeared to have been built from blocks made of a gold-tinted glass. On its outer edge stood two immense pyramids built from those same blocks, made even more golden by that beautiful golden dawn sun light flooding over them from what Jamieson took to be the East.

        Between these and the mountainside though was a stadium, it must have been where that roar of crowds had come from earlier. Huge and oval, it was cut into the plateau and did not rise above it at any point. It was surrounded by twelve immense black obelisks in gleaming polished stone with some kind of lettering down their sides. Between these, and with smaller versions ringing the floor of the stadium itself, white stone statues of what looked like dogs lay, though their faces looked more like those of Chinese dragons.

        And it was filled to overflowing with thousands of people in their pale colored lolbles. They were watching some incomprehensible team game in its center, it looked like some sort of combination of softball and football.

        If he hadn't stepped forward to grip that stone wall and carefully lean over it though, he would have missed that most stomach-churning sight of all. For leading down from a mercifully narrow gap in the wall was the most immense flight of stone steps he could ever have imagined. Apart from another grassy shelf cut across the entire mountain about half-way down, those steps went down to the plateau, then after a short break, down the side of the stadium to its floor. Even then they did not stop. After a small break to allow access from the floor of the stadium itself, they continued on down to the dim depths somewhere below.

        The magic of that scene became complete when Jamieson looked up into that throbbing deep blue of the sky overhead. Only a few thin wisps of cloud trailed across it. He could actually see three moons of various sizes, one much bigger even than the Moon back home.

        He just couldn't believe his eyes. What he was seeing reminded him of all those wonderful Biblical movies he had seen, Quo Vadis, The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, Cleopatra...

        "God - that's - fantastic..!" Carol was beside herself with excitement. "It's like something out of all the ancient civilizations combined somehow, Egyptian, Sumerian, Aztec, Roman - "

        "With Cecil B deMille, D.W. Griffith, Darryl F Zanuck and good old Colonel Fawcet from Boy's Own Paper thrown in," Johnstone laughed.

        Jamieson had vaguely heard of all those ancient civilizations Carol had mentioned, but not Johnstone's. He agreed with him though about Captain Fawcet, he had loved reading the Boy's Own Paper when he was a teenager. And those stories of Captain Fawcet's exploits searching for El Dorado had been amongst his favorites.

        And now he felt as if they had just found it instead.

        His pleasure at that was only added to by the realization that Johnstone had obviously enjoyed the Boy's Own Paper too. Jamieson had had his doubts about him, he had seemed to lack moral fiber. But it was now clear that, deep down, he was really a sterling character after all.

        "We call it the "Drofriortan," Saobte explained in a respectful voice, "It is one of the most important places of worship on Mifassassi since it combines the worship of the Eternal Mystics through the pyramids, or Pimneer as they call them, and that of the Life Celebrants through the stadium, or Quongden."

        "Can we go down and have a look?" Carol asked Estelle excitedly.

        Just as she spoke, Jamieson heard a hush from the crowds below. He had noticed a few faces turn upward to look at them, but now the whole stadium's attention was rapidly being drawn from the game upwards to stare at them. A few scuffles broke out amongst the crowd. Even one or two of the players snatched upward glances as they played.

        "We're going right now," Estelle grinned at her. "As you can see, we shouldn't be here at all. I brought you here since it is the only place from which you can see the whole of Drofriortan. - And now my flies have just told me the guards have been alerted, though I hardly needed them to tell me that. This is a ceremonial reviewing stand called a colleo, and it's not supposed to be occupied until that game is over, when the winning team and its officials climb up all those steps," she pointed. "We've got minutes; they use big hunting birds something like vultures to protect this area, though theirs don't hang around waiting for their victims to die. Now, you remember what I said about Gating into a room that may contain people," she said as she pointed to a Gate barely three feet high that had just formed behind them at the back of the plateau. It contained nothing but blackness, Carol and Johnstone looked at each other uncertainly. As they did so, Lirpritzi scuttled through it with astonishing speed.

        "Now - you two!" Estelle pointed at Carol and Johnstone. "Remain crouched until your eyes adjust and listen carefully to Lirpritzi's instructions."

        After they squeezed through uncertainly, the Gate stopped flashing for a moment, then resumed. Estelle then pointed to Saobte, who sprang through on the instant.

        "Now you, Errol, and listen to Saobte."

        He went almost as quickly as she had.

        That left just Jamieson and Estelle herself - and he could hear the screech of something big and nasty sounding circling up from below. "Go - and follow Saobte's instructions!" she pointed at him.

        He looked at her uncertainly, but she just pointed even more urgently at the Gate.

        He went.

        He found himself in a dark room with just the faintest hint of a red glow all round him except directly in front. He also found himself pressed up against Saobte, who whispered to him to hold still. He looked wildly and uselessly round for Estelle. He could see a shadow crawling quickly and silently away from them, he guessed - hoped - it was Errol.

        "It's all right, Jamieson, she's Gated elsewhere - you'll see," Saobte whispered quickly into his ear. "Now, you remember what we did in our drill? We are in fact in a burial chamber in the center of the left-most of the two pyramids you saw earlier. We are crouching behind one of the forty-nine coffins this room contains. There are seven visitors in the room. Even though this is one of the most sacred sites on the planet, the people here have completely free access to it. Or nearly so, as we'll see."

        As his eyes adjusted to the light, he realized that the coffin they were crouching behind was made of metal - and that it wasn't solid, but an ornate grillwork. He pulled his fingers away quickly.

        "Quite right," Saobte laughed gently in his ear. "They have very good preservation techniques here. That corpse is over eight hundred years old, but still looks as fresh as the day its original inhabitant died."

        Jamieson began to shiver as a cold fear began to spread out from his insides. The sweat began to run down his face into his eyes. He wanted to get out of this room very quickly indeed.

        He nearly jumped a foot as what felt like a clawed hand touched his midriff and made its way round his stomach.

        Saobte then made a strange gurgling sound as if she was being strangled. He whipped round, nearly striking her in the face with his swinging arms.

        "Shush..!" she whispered. "Have you forgotten that sound I made just then was a Nrebu giggle?"

        "S - s - sorry," was all he could say.

        At last his eyes had adjusted as well as they were going to in that dim red light. And that light seemed to come from everywhere, floor, ceiling, the walls of that vast circular chamber. It was as if it came from the blocks of which it was made themselves.

        But of course, they were made of glass. They must be very deep inside the pyramid for the light to be that color.

        "Now, see if you can peep round over the top of the coffin," Saobte whispered in his ear. "If nobody's looking your way, you can try standing up. - Careful though! - See you in a moment or two."

        She then crawled carefully away to the next coffin, and began to follow her own instructions.

         It was a moment before he could summon up the courage to do the same. Fortunately none of the few people in the room were looking his way. He couldn't see any sign of the others just yet - no, there was Errol! He was just wandering round the room posing as a visitor, looking at the inscriptions on the round china plate-like plaques on the top of each coffin. Jamieson then saw Saobte walk slowly up to Errol and take his arm as if she had been with him all the time but had just gone off for a moment to look at something. She then looked around, and nodded to Jamieson to join them.

        He took his time, weaving between the coffins as if he just happened to be drifting in their direction.

        "Very good, Jamieson," she whispered as he finally joined him. "Now, let's head for the door. Male always leads. Choose."

        Jamieson looked at Errol.

        "Okay, I'll do it," Errol whispered as he turned towards the doorway. "Blind leading the blind, but we all are in here, aren't we? - Ah, where are the others, by the way? Just thought I'd ask. You know."

        "They're with Lirpritzi in the other pyramid," she replied. "We'll meet them outside," she pointed at the doorway.

        Jamieson was surprised to discover that the doorway lead into the side of a passage rather than into a room or something. It was not much wider than the doorway itself, and ran some way either side of it.

        A young couple who had caught sight of them coming through the door rushed up to them.

        "Is this it?" the young man asked Errol before he dragged his companion through the door without waiting for a reply. The short sharp hum that came back through it indicated they had indeed found what they had been looking for.

        "Is this some sort of maze?" Errol asked Saobte. "Hope you know your way out of it. - Isn't as convoluted as Cheops, is it? Boy, that was something else. - Whoops, you wouldn't know about that, would you?"

        "It is indeed a maze, Errol," she said, indicating that he should `lead' them to the left. "And I do know the way. Fortunately, unlike Cheops, it is only two dimensional. It is still complicated enough though for people to take on average half a day to find their way through it to the sarcophagus, though of course some - "

        Just then a young girl came careering round the corner they were just about to turn into and ran straight into Jamieson. He reached out to steady himself and caught her into his arms instead. She looked up at him, and their eyes locked.

        " - Jamieson! Break! - Now!" Saobte actually butted into him. She then moved quickly to remove the girl from Jamieson's clutches.

        "...What..?" he said dumbly.

        "What's the story?" Errol asked, obviously just as stunned as Jamieson was.

        "In this part of the world," Saobte explained, staring into the girl's eyes herself to subdue her, "they believe that if two people from the opposite sex make eye-contact with each other which neither can easily break, it means they must be right for each other. For marriage I mean."

        Jamieson began to feel a little faint.

        Just as Errol began to laugh, the girl's parents swept round the corner. They saw instantly what had happened, and Jamieson had no difficulty in recognizing from the prune-like expressions their faces adopted that they were deeply shocked. The father looked at Errol first, but then he quickly turned his attention to Jamieson. Jamieson suspected he was sizing him up, but whether as a future prospect for his daughter or as an opponent in some form of mortal combat he could not tell.

        Saobte immediately moved to place her arm around Jamieson and hug him to her. She then spoke rapidly to the girl's parents in their native tongue, Jamieson wondered if she was trying to convince them that he was already spoken for and that what had happened had been an accident.

        He allowed himself to look at the girl quickly before flicking his eyes away; she had for the moment been looking at her parents. But she caught him doing that, and immediately flung herself on Saobte. She went down in mid-sentence, and barely managed to break her fall with that girl's weight on her. But she clearly had much the superior strength else the girl would very probably have scratched her eyes out.

        The struggle was beginning to draw attention. Errol looked anxiously round. But the girl's parents clearly didn't want a fuss either. Her father just reached down and lifted his daughter bodily off Saobte, who looked a little dazed as she got up.

        "I'm sorry," Jamieson said to the parents as best he could, carefully not looking at the girl.

        Saobte once again came to the rescue with her rapid fire speech, and this time she appeared to succeed. She took out a card and a stylus from amongst the folds of her lolble and prepared to write on it. This visibly impressed the three Nrebu, they were now only too anxious to cooperate and looked at Errol and himself with new respect. After Saobte had written down what Jamieson suspected were bogus details about where they lived or how to contact them, they politely parted company at last and proceeded on their way.

        Jamieson didn't dare look back.

        "So much for `no contact'. Looking forward to your new married life on a whole new world, Jim?" Errol laughed when they finally rounded the corner what turned out to be a short passageway ending in a new T-junction.

        "Errol!" Saobte said so sharply to him Jamieson wondered if that wouldn't bring some new problem. And indeed, a party of three elderly folk they encountered as they turned right this time looked at them in a way Jamieson didn't need to interpret.

        "All I did was explain to them that you two were visiting foreigners who were not familiar with local customs yet," Saobte said quietly. "I then got them to agree to trust us to call on them at some future time at their home to discuss - these unfortunate matters," she looked at Jamieson. "As you saw, they preferred to run the risk of our not fulfilling our promise rather than risk being detained here - as we all might have been if a Patrolman had overheard us. And Patrolmen are not in the maze to guide people in and out of it."

         "And we will keep our appointment, won't we?" Errol laughed again. "Not necessarily," Saobte said to him. "Estelle will monitor the situation and see how it proceeds. It could well be that, if the parents manage to get their daughter to forget what happened, they won't want to see us again. Would only remind the girl of Jamieson and undo the process."

        Jamieson realized she had good reason to be annoyed. He had been clumsy and stupid and gotten them all into unnecessary difficulty. And Errol was treating it as a joke in his usual offhand way.

        He didn't think Estelle would be very pleased either.

        Jamieson realized he had no real idea of what the girl actually looked like, it was too dark and it had all happened so fast. He only saw that she had the most beautifully limpid eyes he had ever seen...

        As they turned into another passage with yet another T-junction at the end of it, Saobte uttered the single word: "Patrolman."

        He didn't look any different from an ordinary Nrebu except that he was young, male, and his lolble was blood red. Fortunately he did not enter the passage they had just left. Jamieson could hear Errol suppress a nervous laugh after the man had passed.

        They were now nearly at the entrance to the pyramid - in fact he was sure it was just up ahead at the end of a long passageway. Saobte had certainly known the way all right, they had been in the maze little more than fifteen minutes, and the light had changed from that deep blood red to the light pale yellow it now was with almost every turn.

        Nor had they progressed in complete silence. Errol had apologized for his flippancy, and explained that it derived from his own experiences while traveling. He had suspected that the whole notion of purdah in the Arab countries he had passed through derived from a desire to avoid male-female eye-contact, or any male visual contact at all. Wasn't that basically just a different way of dealing with `the same old problem'?

        He also mentioned an experience he had while traveling through India with Estelle in her car. A young Indian woman had introduced herself to them while they at a party thrown by some Western students they had met in Hydrabad. She was obviously well-educated, and their chat was at first about world political and environmental issues. But then she revealed that she was about to be given in an arranged marriage to a middle-aged businessman who had already had two wives, one of whom he had been suspected of murdering; it had been alleged he had set her on fire after failing to produce a son and heir. But nothing was proven. Her parents wanted the marriage because both families believed the alliance between the academia they represented and the business world of her husband-to-be would be of immense potential benefit to all. The girl clearly wanted help, and by that stage Errol had become very interested in her welfare. But he had to face the fact that, even without his relationship with Estelle and her ship, there was nothing he could really do. To take her out of that situation would have meant taking her out of the country, perhaps back to New Zealand where her future husband or his family (or hired assassins) was unlikely to be able to follow. That would have meant marriage to get her through immigration. She might have been able to adapt, considering her education, but in a different country with no family at all, even though Errol had his wide circle of friends from all over, she might have regretted not taking her chances with her husband.

        After he finished relating this story, Errol then asked if such a thing as a Pyramid For The Dead might have a public toilet for the Living in it.

        Jamieson wondered as they backtracked a little to find it - he thought about people having to find a public toilet in a maze - if Errol's story was meant to have a lesson in it somewhere. No matter how badly that poor Nebruan girl might want to be with him in the future - and he couldn't really believe that - if she were to come with them - assuming Estelle allowed it of course - she would lose everything, her family, her religion, her people, her entire world. And if Jamieson stayed, - well, he had already lost his family and his world, and he would lose Estelle and his new friends as well.

        So however it was arranged, whatever pain the poor girl might have to endure at their parting, that was still better that than any possible alternative he could see.

        But what was the point in thinking about that just now? After all, it might never happen. Might it?

        It was a huge relief to be able to step outside at last, even if it was only into the narrow space between those extraordinary, wonderful golden-glass pyramids. While the gap was a good fifty feet or so across, their immense size still made it feel almost as cramped as the passages within them had been. There were also a good many more people wandering about, though few seemed to be heading for the burial chamber entrances which faced opposite each other halfway along the side of each pyramid. But them most people would have been before at least once in their lifetime, and would not be moved to negotiate that maze too often no matter how devout they might be.

        Saobte led them towards the outer edge of the plateau; perhaps the others would be there. Suddenly Jamieson felt another tremor through his feet and heard a faint rumbling. Once again his blood ran cold and he felt a little sick. He looked quickly round at Errol and Saobte, and they didn't look too much better, but they forced grins onto their faces in their respective ways. They then all glanced round at the people around them, but they seemed more excited than concerned by what had happened.

        "Wonderful what religion can do," Errol grinned. "This whole bloody place could part company with the rest of the planet one day," he looked around at it, "and they believe the strength of their belief in their God will be enough to prevent it. And when it does happen, they'll just say their belief can't have been strong enough. - Those who survive it will, anyway."

        " - There's Estelle," Saobte said, pointing towards the seaward boundary of that amazing plateau. She made no attempt to disguise her own relief. "The others don't appear to be with her yet."

        " - Right behind you," they heard Johnstone's voice. They all turned to see he and Carol and Lirpritzi quickly coming up behind them. "Didn't see a young boy come racing out of our pyramid with his arms outstretched and buzzing round like a Tiger Moth did you?"

        "No," Errol said to him, puzzled. "We've only just come out ourselves. - Chances are he's still in there somewhere trying to pilot his way out anyway. What happened?"

        "We're not sure," he said, "but Lirpritzi thinks he was playing hide and seek or something behind one of those damned coffin things. Apparently the fly that was supposed to make sure it was safe for us to come out through the Gate behind one didn't see him. Anyway, the boy apparently saw us come through, and when I realized he had seen us, I went `wooo-ooh' then `boo!' It very nearly worked, the two old people who were there thought it was part of the game. But when the kid ran off screaming in that way they do, well..."

        "Lirpritzi had to do some fast talking," Carol took up the story. "He told them that we were two foreigners he was looking after for the boy's father, and that the boy was being a little naughty playing games in such a solemn place, so Johnstone was only trying to teach him a lesson. That worked fine, they accepted that. But sooner or later that little boy..."

        "Time we weren't here" Errol laughed. "And here's Estelle. - Have your flies been keeping you up to date with things, all the little excitements we've had?" he glanced round at them all.

        "I know the whole story," she glanced meaningfully at Jamieson, "and yes, Carol is right," she agreed, urging them to follow her. "In fact the boy has already met a Patrolman in the maze and told him he believed he saw someone rise from the dead from one of the coffins."

        Johnstone barked his laughter, but stopped suddenly as he saw heads turn. He then bared his teeth in a grimace and made the whining sound in his throat that passed for laughter here. The people seemed satisfied with this display, and continued to go about their sightseeing.

        "That was lucky," Estelle smiled sweetly at him. "They thought you were imitating one of their large ostrich-like birds."

        "Thank you Estelle," Johnstone said mock-graciously. "Perhaps you could show me some more of their animals and things when we get back. Maybe I can try to imitate a few of those too. Could be useful if you get sick of us and we all have to come back and live here."

        "All right," she laughed. "Now I'll keep monitoring the Patrolman. He might laugh it off, or he might report it to his colleagues. But be prepared to Gate out of here if necessary at short notice."

        The rest of that morning was spent pleasantly enough, even if there was another disturbing tremor. They all walked over to the low glass-block wall that was the only thing that prevented people falling down that cliff face, and looked down to the seaport-town. Apart from the crowded village green-like Furtzt that served as the town center and the wharves that extended out to sea, much of it was concealed by well-kept trees and shrubs of various tropical-looking species. Jamieson noticed the ships were of an even greater variety than those they had seen in Class. One in particular had masts that bore their booms fore and aft rather than across square-rig-style. But he knew little about sailing ships, he couldn't guess how its sails would actually be rigged.

        "Two questions nobody's bothered to ask me yet, and I can't imagine why," Estelle said archly as they made their way towards the stadium. "First, how is it that the people on this planet look so human, or did once like the Sihtak, and second, why should they have built structures like these that would not have looked too out of place on Earth?"

        "I guess you're expecting us to give you the answers," Johnstone laughed. "But seriously folks, those are good questions. Why indeed are the people here basically human, and why pyramids and squares and ovals and all that?"

        "Could the answer to that last question be that, where a culture wants to build something big and imposing at all, a pyramid will always offer the biggest bang for the buck no matter where you are in the universe?" Errol suggested. "Look at it. You get a far higher pile of blocks for fewer blocks than you would if you built something in the shape of a cube, wouldn't you? It also looks different, since most of your buildings will be in the shape of cubes or boxes of some sort, so why build a bigger one? The same goes for rounded buildings as cubic ones. And you can do it using much simpler technology, you don't need complex buttress to stop the walls falling down. All you need is a hell of a lot of willing slaves - like Lirpritzi here."

        He actually bent down and patted him on the head. The little being smiled up at Errol in that tubular pout of his.

        "That's not bad Errol," Estelle smiled at him. "Your Aztecs built them as well as your Egyptians. But they don't actually have to be built, they can be carved out of mountains. If you care to look up at the colleo, where we were standing before we were chased off by those birds..."

        They had now walked right round the right-most pyramid towards the stadium, and they gazed up at a truly immense stepped pyramid not unlike those the Aztecs had built, except here two of its sides had apparently fallen into the sea either side of the headland. On top of it was an extraordinarily beautiful sparkling white building that seemed to be all ramps, curves and platforms.

        " - Heavens..!" Carol exclaimed. "Who built that! Surely not these..." she looked round at the crowd. Jamieson noticed a few heads turn.

        "Their predecessors, about two thousand years ago, though that observatory on top is recent," Estelle replied. "They weren't so lucky with their earthquakes. Most of the land surrounding this headland is in fact made up from the detritus that fell from that pyramid."

        "Along with the bones of the believers whose faith was too weak, I suppose," Errol said.

        "No doubt, Estelle replied. "But it wasn't just their beliefs that made them so human now, was it?" she smiled back at him.

        "You know there's no way we can answer that, Estelle," Carol protested. "Not even put up a plausible theory. - Unless Errol can. That last one was a goodie, Errol."

        So far as Jamieson could see, she wasn't being sarcastic. But then he couldn't really tell with a brainy girl like her.

        "There's an old Diaspora theory a lot of our science fiction writers used," Errol suggested. "Another was parallel evolution. But few of them really believed beings on other worlds would look even remotely human. Yet here we are," he spread his hands wide, looking round at the people and the line of sphinxes or whatever they were they were now passing through. "So how come, Estelle?"

        "I don't know myself, believe it or not," she replied simply. "There is absolutely nothing in my vast files of knowledge that even hints at an answer. Parallel evolution does seem the most likely though. Whether there is an answer, but it is somehow missing from my knowledge, I also don't know. I am very sorry."

        "Perhaps we could ask the people here," Johnstone said flippantly. "They might know the answer - bet they would think they do. Most religions claim to have all the answers, don't they?" he laughed in the Nebruan way. He was getting quite good at that.

        Jamieson couldn't understand what the problem was all about at all. He had heard of that evolution nonsense, that men were descended from the apes and all that. Man had been created by God in His Image, and He had domain over the entire Universe. So any kind of life - that with a soul anyway - was going to look like Man anywhere in it too, wasn't it? That just followed naturally. Why couldn't Estelle see that?

        He looked forward to choosing a quiet moment and sitting her down to explain it all to her one day.

        They were now approaching the stadium itself. The game, whatever it was, appeared to be over, and the winning team was now leaving the victory colleo. But they were not coming back down that horrendous stairway to the stadium, they were obviously leaving by the back steps Jamieson and the others had used. Jamieson didn't think this too surprising, it would be far easier - and a good deal less dangerous - to go up that stairway than come down it again. And although the testing of faith was apparently expected of the people as a whole, individuals were obviously not expected to bet their lives on it.

        It made Jamieson think back to his old school-friend `Smitty'. He had crawled out on a pohutukawa overhanging a deep fast-flowing stream saying `God will protect me, God will protect me' until the branches got thinner and thinner. Finally, when one began to give way, he couldn't scuttle back quickly enough. Perhaps God did protect him - by preventing that branch from breaking just long enough for Smitty to scuttle back to safety. He certainly never challenged God again - well, except that when he grew up he took up motorbike racing.

        There was no barrier at the top of the stadium preventing entry or exit, indeed there was nothing separating its terraces from the plateau at all. Hence a good many of that colorful and very noisy crowd were now leaving it by simply spilling over its rim, though most still left by the easier stairways scattered at regular intervals round the terraces. Only a few left via the staircase descending from the floor itself. Apart from their lolbles, it reminded Jamieson of what he had seen at Eden Park up in Auckland during the test match Uncle Bert had taken him to see. Some of them looked and behaved just as loutishly (or was he misinterpreting their strange and different emotions?), and more than a few of the children seemed out of control.

        And as for the pets they had with them! He couldn't believe the numbers of them, or the multitude of different varieties. If Man was carved in God's image, these were like nothing on earth. It was hard to know what they were even like, wombats, tiny giraffe-like creatures, penguins, huge bats, skinks, something that looked like a big daddy long-legs with immense eyes, and all sorts of birds, some like flightless hawks, others, big and small alike chained to their owners' wrists. One even looked like an oversized budgie.

        And they were no more immobile or polite with each other than their owners were. Jamieson heard all manner of squawks, screeches, whistles as pet attacked or defended pet, and their owners did the same. Yet it was all good spirited in some odd way, at least amongst the owners anyway. And the pets seldom did any damage to each other, though he did see something fast moving make fast work of that daddy long-legs thing. Money then appeared to change hands just as quickly.

        Jamieson and his companions couldn't help giggling to themselves, Johnstone didn't repress it too well at all.

        Suddenly they heard a very human sounding sobbing, just like a baby. A monkey-like pet had apparently watched that daddy long-legs get eaten, and had obviously been upset by it. The way it was crying, putting its hands up to its eyes, was also astonishingly human.

        Yet people were beginning to move away from it as quickly as they could. An ever-growing circle of empty space was now surrounding the monkey's owner, a young woman in a mauve lolble who was clearly just as distressed as her pet.

        "Come on everybody, we'd better do the same if you want to hear anything again," Saobte urged as she moved into an empty space in the retreating wall of people. "Come on..!"

        Even as they ran, the sobs grew louder - and louder, and louder still. Stragglers now ran for their lives.

        By the time the racket had begun to subside, they had all moved a good quarter way round the stadium. Jamieson couldn't see how anything that small could make so much noise. He pitied its poor owner who was frantically cuddling her pet which, to the amused relief of thousands of people, finally buried its head in her shoulder. Perhaps she was deaf to begin with.

        "Thank God that's over," Carol said in a voice which suggested she hated kids. " - How come we didn't see anybody with pets around the pyramids?" she asked Saobte.

        "As I said earlier," she replied, "the Quongden is the province of the Life Celebrants, so people can bring what they like and do what they like - including their pets. The Pimneer are on the other hand the province of the Eternal Mystics, people must behave with decorum, and since pets aren't expected to, no pets. If you want to visit a Pimneer, you leave your pet at home."

        "I guess that would explain why there weren't so many people around them," Errol said. "When you have to choose between solemnity and fun, well, I guess most people would go for the fun and hang onto their pets."

        Jamieson noticed the sun was now nearly overhead in the sky, perhaps it was near lunch-time. Jamieson knew days were longer here by nearly two hours, but he had no idea just what `time' it was (though his stomach now began to tell him in no uncertain terms).

        Estelle pointed towards the stadium floor stairway. "Down there," she said. "Takes us down through the town where the Eternal Mystics live. You might like to see that. Let's find a stairway..."

        "Is there something we can eat before we go down there?" Jamieson asked Estelle. He wasn't looking forward to that very much, not with all these earthquakes.

        "Some of these folk might be able to suggest a place," Johnstone said, as they found a staircase and started to make their way down against the flow of the crowd. "Don't do decent hamburgers, I 'spose," he added as a fight broke out between what looked like a miniature griffin and an equally tiny bull.

        They all looked round as other people did for another monkey, but couldn't see any.

        "Not even a good old mince pie, I'm afraid," Saobte said. "Though I'm sure we'll find something to your liking. There's a place we can go that's on our way."

        However impressive the Drofriortan may have looked from above, and especially from the colleo, it certainly seemed less so as they descended the stairs leading down from the stadium floor. They entered a long thin room that curved gently round in a way that made Jamieson suspect the `restaurant' went all the way round under the floor's perimeter. Certainly it was exquisitely formed and carved where you could see its walls and ceilings, and the carpet-like tapestries that hung all round were highly-detailed and colored. But the crude way it appeared to have been built was still very noticeable. There were so many posts supporting so many beams supporting such tiny slabs, no more than six feet across, that you wondered how the Nrebu built anything on a large scale at all, even with their kind of labor force they had. In fact Jamieson wondered if all the fine detail merely disguised a basic clumsiness. Brawn and beauty were all very well, but even he could see brains were needed too.

        And even worse, there were no chairs and tables, or any furniture at all so far as Jamieson could see. You simply sat or squatted as best you could within the set of four - in their case eight - posts that became your eating area and used the large mat you all sat on as a sort of menu. Not that they even attempted selecting from that, they relied solely on Saobte to order for them.

        Estelle took the opportunity while they waited to explain that there were quite a few differences between human and Nrebu internal anatomy. The fact that Nrebu knees were more like hip-joints so that they could bend them sideways rather more than we could meant they could sit cross-legged for hours at a time in perfect comfort. Tables and chairs simply hadn't been invented on this world.

        "I think I know how that might have come about," Johnstone said. "Once they bred their Sihtak, they then evolved the ability to just sit around and watch them work."

        The food when it did arrive, brought to them by young highly-perfumed very young girls, was quite different from what they had seen in Class. All the dinners, served on square wooden plates with small bowls hollowed out in their centers, contained what looked like curried beans, very long-grained pink rice, an orange-yellow broccoli, and what he took to be meat that resembled turkey in appearance except that it was more of a mauve color.

        Each though had slightly different trimmings, at least that's what they looked like since they seemed to belong more to a desert than a meal. His own had a wide ring of what looked like gray cream set in the center of it, perhaps it was some kind of sauce. Others varied between what looked like fluted blobs of cake icing to quite complex shapes. Errol's looked like a bird, perhaps the one the meat had come from.

        The meals looked reasonably edible, but didn't quite smell that way. Jamieson struggled for a comparison, and it took him a while to remember that whiff he had caught from a seagull he had seen washed up on the beach a week or so after he had moved in. How was he supposed to eat something with a pong like that?

        "Now, everybody," Estelle addressed them, "as Saobte explained back in Class, most of the proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals the Nrebu use are the same as those we use. But `most' isn't enough. Some we don't need since our bodies make them themselves, others are poisonous, one or two quite lethal. A few are just plain smelly and taste even worse, as I suspect you've noticed by now. That is why you cannot live here for any length of time, even with a good supply of this."

        With that she pulled out what look like a salt shaker from a fold in her lolble and suggested they sprinkle the powder it contained as liberally as they liked over their food. Though no condiments were used here, it would not be seen as untoward for `obvious' foreigners such as themselves to do minor things differently.

        When Jamieson finally received the shaker (he realized somebody had to be last), he was relieved to find the smell disappeared once the powder had turned into a liquid on contact with the food and soaked into it.

        He wasn't surprised to find the others still hesitant to try their food, so he was at least able to beat them to that.

        Flavors and textures were also quite different from what their appearances suggested. The `beans' were like chewy bread tasting something like a mild cheese, the rice crisp and crackly not unlike Rice Bubbles with pepper on them, the broccoli was like cake-icing though its very spicy taste couldn't really be compared to anything except perhaps nutmeg. Only the `meat' tasted like what it resembled and with the same texture. The `sauce', if that's what it was did not seem to taste of anything at all, he wondered if its sole purpose was simply to make everything else easier to eat, like butter on bread. When he did put some on its own on the end of his tongue, it had a very faint peanut butter-like flavor.

        It wasn't a great dinner, but he suspected it would be a filling one, and he knew it could have been a lot worse. Some of the dinners he had had when visiting some of his relatives hadn't been much better.

        No drinks were served until, he noticed, a little time after they had all started eating. Perhaps that was the local custom. These too had to be sprinkled, which seemed a little odd to do. They looked rather like a pale orange juice, but when he tasted his, it was like a pungent mixture of all the fruits he had ever tasted, with a lot of cinnamon thrown in. He liked the drink a lot.

        "A few things we need to discuss," Estelle said. "Right now, for obvious reasons, love and procreation between two similar but still quite different species."

        "You mean - surely not, not..." Johnstone grinned at Jamieson. Errol had described what had happened to the others with some glee.

        "This could be interesting," Errol laughed in the Nrebuan way, he too was learning fast.

        "It isn't just a matter of learning all their facial expressions off by heart," Estelle said. "In order to have a close relationship with anybody from another world, you would have to be able to mimic those and their body language to a degree that we all know is impossible. The notion of `communication without words' was only partly true for you back on Earth, you really had to have the words too. But here or anywhere else you really only have the words, and not too many of them. Then of course there are all the physical details. I would hope I don't have to spell these out."

        "You mean, it wouldn't be possible for any of us to have children here," Johnstone winked at Jamieson in a way he didn't like very much.

        "But I thought you said we were going to see how things worked out with the girl and, if necessary - " Carol was puzzled.

        "Saobte could hardly say anything else under the circumstances," Estelle said. "The point I am making is that I am afraid that any close relationships with Nrebu - let alone the Sihtak - would really be impossible for you. Here we are all aliens. So I'm afraid you'll have to put that poor girl out of your mind, Jamieson. You won't really feel too disappointed will you?"

        "I was too stunned to think anything much at all," he replied, which was true enough. "Besides, in that light... - Ah, have you heard anything? Is the girl still being - persistent?"

        Johnstone forgot himself and laughed in the human way this time. Heads turned in the restaurant in a way Jamieson did not like.

        "I'm glad you asked that, Jamieson, because I do in fact have some news. Firstly, the boy who ran screaming from the tombs. The patrolman took the trouble to ask some of the other visitors to the sarcophagus room if they could confirm the story. They all did. But even if they saw nothing they wouldn't say so, since they would then appear to be refuting a revelation from the past that some immense event is about to occur. We'll have to wait and see how far they take it.

        "As for the girl, who's name is Oknitaon by the way, I am afraid that in spite of Saobte's best efforts her parents have laid a charge of assault against you, Jamieson. That can happen when parents think a suitor may have been forced on them. Patrolmen don't take such charges too seriously, but they still have to investigate. It doesn't necessarily end in arrest and incarceration, if the parents are impressed with the suitor's defense and with him and his family as a result, the charge can be dropped very quickly indeed. Now, without going into the details, it would be as well if we could avoid Jamieson's capture, since they don't treat their `remand' prisoners very well. But I think we still have time to finish our meal before we must make a move."

        When Jamieson and the others had cleaned up their plates, he assumed the meal was complete, but soon after they were served with smaller plates of what looked like a mash made up from the ingredients of the meal they had just enjoyed. It crossed his mind that it might be left over from the previous day's servings, but thought it best not to ask.

        Then a third dish, about half the size of that, was served. This looked like a pink custard flecked with various colored granules. It was a very sweet concoction, almost too sweet, and turned out to be more like a very light frothy junket with little bits of candy. He discovered after finishing that that he no longer wanted the drink so much.

        He got the impression from the others that they had found the meal at least as passable as he had in the end. He wondered what other sorts of food they might experience on their travels.

        But how long would they be here? Jamieson realized Estelle had given them no real indication of that, or where else they might travel to on this world.

        "Okay, time to move on," Estelle started to get up. "Just follow me, everybody, and behave as normally as you can."

        Jamieson realized something had happened from the tone in her voice. He was sure everybody did.

        But it was already too late. They hadn't even all got up before they discovered they had been surreptitiously surrounded by a large number of citizens, men and women alike. Jamieson recognized some of their dining neighbors amongst them.

        Jamieson looked for and saw a Patrolman.

        And he was staring right back at him.

        "I'm sorry, everybody," Estelle said in a soft voice. "I did not allow for the fact that Patrolmen here can call on citizens to act as deputies, often with a few simple hand signals as appears to have happened here. Few refuse because of the severe penalties for doing so."

        "I guess I'm the one they really want," Jamieson said as his stomach froze and his bowels began to churn. He remembered the Nrebuan equivalent of a nod, then made his way slowly toward the Patrolman.

        "I'll get you out of this soon as I can," Estelle called after him. Jamieson thought it best not to look back. The Patrolman signaled two of the men to came forward. They did so, and pinioned Jamieson's arms between their own in a painfully uncomfortable fashion.

        Without a word, they began to march him away.