As Jamieson had surmised, the restaurant carried on at least some distance round the stadium. Finally they came to a large brass door with a small X-shaped insignia in its center set into the terrace-side wall. The Patrolman's shout caused it to be opened from within by another who greeted him in what Jamieson suspected was a knowing sort of way once he saw him.

        Both Patrolmen then pursed their lips towards the two citizens who had rendered their compulsory assistance, and sent them on their way with a brief grunt of thanks.

        The room behind the door contained huge amounts of paperwork. Most of it was untidily stacked on carved and polished wooden shelves that went right round the room, the rest spilled onto the two wide desks either side of the very heavy wooden door Jamieson could see opposite.

        The two Patrolmen then began to ask Jamieson some questions, but his limited command of the language quickly began to tell against him. As he tried to apologize, the bigger of the two men jumped up and pulled him towards the door between the desks, booted it open, and dragged him through it very roughly indeed.

        Jamieson could see a row of half a dozen cast-iron doors down a narrow dim passage. Tiny letterbox-like slots were molded into them, below these stains of various unpleasant looking kinds dribbled down. The Patrolman unbolted the second door, shoved him through, and bolted it again behind him.

        Jamieson had assumed they were toilets, but he soon dropped that idea as he all but fell into a huge mound of protesting flesh which suddenly struck out at him. But there wasn't any strength behind the blow, Jamieson was easily able to hold his attacker off.

        "Calm down!" he shouted in English before he realized he had used the wrong language.

        But the mound nevertheless did just that. Jamieson still couldn't see too well, but the way his voice echoed off the walls told him that the cell he was in wasn't much bigger than the toilet he had thought it was. And it looked like he would have to share it with someone who took up something like half its space. He hoped that wouldn't be for too long.

        But how would Estelle get him out of here with company he could hardly conceal himself from?

        He tried to talk to his cellmate now that he could see him more clearly. He was even bigger than Jamieson had thought - in fact he wondered if excessive size mightn't be a crime here on Mifassassi. He tried asking him his name, but the man apparently couldn't understand, he kept saying `Kaf', which Jamieson knew was `yes' in his language. He pointed to himself - at least that meant the same here - and gave his own name, which `Kaf' then repeated quite well. He then pointed to himself and confirmed that his name was indeed `Kaf'. Perhaps it was a nickname.

        Something tiny then flew into Jamieson's ear. He was just about to try and get rid of it when he heard it say in a surprisingly deep voice, "Jamieson, don't do that! I'm an earbug - I'll explain later. You won't feel a thing in a minute once I get settled in here - gosh, what a dirty little ear you have! Now, very shortly, a fly will inject your friend here with a drug that will put him to sleep for a little while, then a Gate will appear which you must step through as quickly as possible. Before you do though, will you please ensure that the man falls into as natural a position as possible. We don't want to harm him."

        "But - " Jamieson was about to protest before he remembered that only he could have heard what had been said - by Estelle?

        Just then the man mumbled something Jamieson couldn't understand at all, nor could he figure it out what it might have been from the expression on his face.

        "Your man asked you what you were in here for," the earbug said. "But by the time you work out your reply, he will have lost consciousness."

        Jamieson began to try anyway, but he could see the man beginning to sink to his knees. He wasn't quite sure what to do, but when the man started to lean forward he knew he could be pinned against the door, unable to step anywhere, let alone through a Gate.

        He was just in time. He wasn't too happy with the result as the poor wretch had crumpled untidily into a corner, but...

        "Behind you!" the earbug shouted. "Move..! - And don't even think of rescuing your new friend," it added as Jamieson bent towards the man again. "He's only here because he's drunk. They'll let him go soon. Taking him with us wouldn't help him one little bit."

        Jamieson turned to see that the Gate was superimposed on the cell's doorway. In the same instant he saw Lirpritzi, who immediately reached out and yanked him through. He felt the ear-bug detach itself uncomfortably from inside his ear and buzz away. He tried to see it, but the light here - wherever they were - wasn't much brighter than in the cell. He turned to look back into the cell, but it and the Gate were gone.

        "Glad to see you," the little Sihtak said as Jamieson himself breathed a sigh of relief. "You're actually inside a Sihtak home, vacant at the moment. You might remember looking down on their village when we climbed that jungle staircase."

        "Gosh..." Jamieson looked around him, but there wasn't much to see. They were indeed standing in one of those igloos, but much to his surprise the `stone' turned out to be semi-transparent bricks held together with a translucent mortar. Most of the blocks had a grayish tinge, though some irregularly-shaped areas were filled with thinner transparent ones. The dome could not have been more than twenty feet across. There was a circular covered vent-hole in the roof, but apart from the open door which lead to a short tunnel lower in height than Lirpritzi himself, there appeared to be no other ventilation. Already he was beginning to feel warm.

         "How many Sihtak would live in one of these?" Jamieson asked him.

        "Families never exceed three children, two is more common, Lirpritzi replied. "Any further children are either aborted or painlessly killed at birth."

        "But that's - dreadful," Jamieson was shocked.

        "Well, they have to," Lirpritzi said. "It's to do with the size of Nrebu families. Because their lives are so easy, they have lost much of their fertility, so three is the average size of their families, whether they like it or not. And they don't like to let the Sihtak outnumber them. Though they haven't discovered it yet, their fertility is heat related. A woman only becomes receptive if her body temperature is above a certain level for at least three days. And that can only happen during exceptionally warm summers, which happen on average once every four years. That's when ninety percent of their births occur."

        "Gosh..." was all Jamieson could say. Lirpritzi was speaking to him as if he was as brainy as Carol, and he hadn't the faintest idea what to say.

        "Does that mean their populations grow?" he struggled.

        "Stays roughly constant," Lirpritzi replied, "because the major killer here is disease, and Nrebu medicine is very primitive. People can die of stupid little things, flesh-wounds, minor illnesses turning into major ones, blood-poisoning from abscessed teeth and the like is not uncommon. The Nrebu are better off since they have the Sihtak to look after them as well as ensure good water supplies and proper sewerage disposal. Those two things alone preserve a lot of lives."

        " - Do they have any Wars?" Jamieson was seized by inspiration.

        "Only rarely. And when they do, most of the actual fighting is done for them by us Sihtak. Since we won't kill Nrebu, they usually survive. They just lose more of us than the winners and may have to learn how to work for themselves in order to survive. Disease might wipe them out though if they can't breed more of us quickly enough."

        Jamieson didn't know whether to be shocked or quite what. Estelle had told them all back in Class not to judge societies where there could be no standard of comparison. `Not even Christianity, I'm afraid', Estelle had said to him directly.

        "I see," was all he could say.

        "I have arranged transport into the Nrebu township, called Efrornd by the way. Nrebu seldom come here, so expect a little attention from the locals. And try not to be too surprised at how the children behave."

        The village had only had a few adults - Jamieson remembered then the rest would have been away working - but huge numbers of children. It only took one to see him before the rest quickly gathered around as soon as he crawled out of the igloo. He could understand neither their frantic liquid-sounding chatterings nor the expressions on those incredible faces, but somehow he felt he was being treated like an instant celebrity.

        And those children were a surprise. They snarled, fought, bit, shrieked, slapped and pulled at each other. They reminded him of those Tasmanian Devils he remembered seeing on Our World. Nasty little things.

        Lirpritzi laughed as he lead him through the throng which nevertheless parted for them. "Something the Nrebu ancestors obviously didn't quite get right. But they grow out of it, become model workers just like their parents. Won't harm you."

        There wasn't much to see as they walked. Nothing broke that monotonous honeycomb pattern the igloos were laid out in, no trees or even shrubs, no roads, no public buildings, nothing that one would expect even in the meanest work camp back in - New Zealand. Heavens! Already his old life was starting to become unreal.

        "Are all Sihtak villages like this?" Jamieson asked Lirpritzi. "I mean, apart from the houses, there's nothing here. Just nothing. What sort of lives do they lead?"

        "They live to work, and come here only to sleep," Lirpritzi replied. "They have to be fed of course, so cooking is what the adults here mostly do as well as mind the children. There is quite literally no concept of `communal life' since there's no free time, only the Nrebu have that.- ah, here's our transport. Now, look at it and see if you can tell me before it stops in front of us what the good citizens of Mifassassi have not invented yet."

        Jamieson couldn't quite see what the thing was at first. He saw a trio of what looked like - no, it couldn't be possible - huge dog-sized possums pulling a simple platform affair, with a Sihtak driver in front and three light-looking slatted benches behind. The whole thing could not have been more than six feet wide, only slightly narrower than the gaps between the domes.

        But it was nearly upon them when he realized that the `possums' weren't pulling the platform at all, they were underneath it. And there were in fact nine of them, in three rows of three, bearing the platform on pads that covered their powerful-looking front shoulders.

        Good God - it had no wheels! The wheel had not been invented on this world! But that was impossible.

        " - Wheels..?" asked Jamieson timidly, not believing he could be right.

        "Got it in one," Lirpritzi said, making the pout that for them the

equivalent of a broad grin. "They've been invented from time to time on this world, but like all inventions here, if they have no special advantages over what's already in use, they simply go out of fashion. And these typreld, as they're called, have a lot of advantages. They are much smoother over rough ground than a wheeled cart would be. They can also bear a great deal of weight, and are somewhat less prone to breakdown, since even four strett can manage one if they have to, over short distances anyway."

        "That's amazing," Jamieson found himself saying. He wondered idly if the strett enjoyed their work as much as the Sihtak did. " - How come we didn't see these in Class?" he then asked Lirpritzi. He had had the idea in the back of his mind then that something was missing, but couldn't put his finger on it.

        "We kept it as a special surprise," Lirpritzi laughed. " - Now, climb aboard, and we'll go and meet the others in town. The driver is perfectly discrete by the way, he'll just see our English as yet another funny foreign language."

        The ride was as smooth as Lirpritzi had promised, though the ground between the igloos was perfectly flat. All he could feel was a little vibration.

        "Don't they have anything resembling horses at all then?" Jamieson asked as the typreld maneuvered nearly all the way round an igloo to go back the way it had evidently come.

        "There is an animal they might have used if they had applied the same breeding techniques to it as they did to the Sihtaks and strett," Lirpritzi replied, "but the strett just happened to come first. These typreld are nowhere near as fast as a rider on a horse would be, nor can they leap over obstacles, but the Nrebu have been perfectly happy with them. With us Sihtaks around, there's no problem having roads put in anywhere they want to go, is there?"

        "No, I guess not," Jamieson laughed. " - What you don't know, you don't miss."

        That's right," Lirpritzi agreed. "Or if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Jamieson laughed at that, even if he couldn't be sure if it was something he'd heard before or Lirpritzi had just made up.

        The ride was now somewhat less smooth over the rougher dirt road they now embarked on. Occasionally they could hear a growl and a squawk of complaint from beneath their feet, but their driver never had to shout at his charges more than once.

        At one point the typreld swayed sideways for no apparent reason at all. "Another earthquake, I think," Lirpritzi said. "That's one limitation typrelds have, their lateral stability is not as good as wheeled vehicles. That's why even the crudest tracks never slope more than the minimum to either side."

        The road passed through several rows of trees separating rough-looking fields, sometimes Jamieson could see signs of a long sandy beach to their left. The trees were sometimes similar, sometimes quite different from anything he had seen on Earth. There were `pines' `oak' and `fir', but there were also a lot of tropical looking thick-trunked palm trees that had large red berries under their crowns. Other trees looked more like huge shrubs supported by half a dozen or so thin stems and bore tiny spiky white flowers, there was no way he could tell whether they were single plants or groups of them. He saw a few tiny bushes that looked like holly, but had red trumpet-like flowers sprouting from their tops.

        "Do they have anything like Christmas here?" Jamieson asked Lirpritzi. "Or any religious holidays at all?"

        "None," he replied. "As you saw in Class, the Life Celebrants celebrate life and living, and the Eternal Mystics are solely interested in finding the how and why of Existence. But they are not against each other as you might imagine. Each sees the other as complementary, and they work in complementary ways. The Life Celebrants believe they must find new ways of celebrating the feast of life for everybody every day, not just on some kind of Sunday. You'll see what I mean once we get to the Furtzt. The Eternal Mystics on the other hand spend most of their time in their town pursuing their `research', such as it is. Anybody can become a Celebrant, but to be a Mystic you must have special talents in certain areas, mathematics for example - little more than numerology here - before you can even be accepted for training."

        "Do the Eternal Mystery people make most of the discoveries and inventions then?" Jamieson asked.

        It crossed his mind just then that barely more than a week ago it would not have crossed his mind to ask questions like these. He was just living on a beach, taking a break from his work, doing a little fishing for those cats, and very little else. But now it was all so different, wasn't it?

        He wished the others were here, they should really be hearing all this too. He was sure Carol would ask Lirpritzi far more intelligent questions than he could.

        Once again he wondered what would happen to Lirpritzi - and Saobte - once their visit to this world was over and they moved onto the next. Would Estelle - or the ship - dispose of them as if they were a pair of Sihtak?

        He shivered.

        "Everything all right?" Lirpritzi looked at him with concern. "We'll have to return to the ship fairly soon, check to see if you haven't caught something we haven't fully protected you against."

        "No, I'm just fine," he looked at the little Sihtak. " - Is there anything they've invented that we haven't?" he asked as a diversion.

        Jamieson wasn't sure, but he suspected Lirpritzi was thinking long and hard.

        "Nothing I can think of," he said, "except that they have found very different ways of doing the same things you did on your world - like this typreld. But as another very good example, no ship can sail across any ocean anywhere without a chronometer to help tell them where they are. But the nearest thing the Nrebu have come to a wheel is a windlass, they certainly don't have anything remotely resembling the gear wheels your own chronometers used. Ours are based on an entirely different discovery, perhaps made by a child who just happened to have an observant parents. If you connect a lemon-like fruit using the stem of a certain vine to a particular tomato-like vegetable, the vine-stem begins to change color at the fruit end. Now the line of demarcation between the new color and the old - and it's quite sharp - will always travel a certain length of that vine over a certain time, no matter what the sizes of the various components might be. They don't know it, but the Nrebu have discovered a form of electrophoresis, something you have only relatively recently discovered on your world. Anyway, this simple `clock' is just accurate enough to allow ocean navigation. And that's why you saw all those ships in the harbor. In fact, if you look over those hills, you can see the tops of the masts of some of them now. We're nearly there."

        Jamieson saw them, and felt relieved. He also thought he could hear the sounds of music of some sort, like bagpipes of all things, on the wind.

        "Now, if you care to look to the right, you will begin to see the home of the Eternal Mystics. Your friends have made their way on foot down through them, most of the way anyway. They are now riding a typreld just like this one into town."

        Jamieson peered round the huge tree that resembled an immense overgrown mangrove to his right.

        He wasn't sure he was seeing what he was supposed to at first. The huge jungle-covered cliff face he had caught the occasional glimpse of through the trees and scrub had now become a clean looking rock face. Too clean to be natural. As the typreld made its way along the road, Jamieson realized he was looking at three tiers of huge faces carved into that stone. He tried to think of that place in America where those president's faces had been carved into the side of a mountain - Mount Rushmore, he remembered now. He had no idea how big those were, but each of these faces must have been something like fifty feet high. He had no idea how many there were, he suspected they would not see them all until they got into town or way past it.

        But then he saw were more than just faces. They had many `patches' in them filled with what he suspected was the same transparent material that made up the `windows' of the Sihtak igloos. There were open gaps where one might expect to find them though, in the irises of the eyes, the nostrils, and the mouth, between the teeth in one case. A few had them in the clefts of their chins. He thought he could see people in some of these gaps, but they didn't appear to move. Perhaps they were statues.

        He realized then that the plateau with stadium and pyramids - what had Saobte called it? - would be directly above this tier of faces.

        The first house of the town appeared at last. Though it appeared well kept with its tidy yard, Jamieson wondered if it had any people in it, though he realized that there there was no way he could really tell. The house itself was a rambling collection of cubic boxes of various sizes stuck together, perhaps surrounding a central courtyard. But there was no concrete or brick or plaster anywhere, like that wonderful plateau the whole place was made solely of glass blocks about a foot square that seemed to be glued together rather than mortared and pointed, he could hardly see the joins. A few of the rooms had pitched roofs that appeared to be made of single sheets of glass glued along the ridge. A large circular white disk could be seen on one of the walls facing the road.

        "There you are," Lirpritzi said. "Your first typical Nrebu residence, except it's currently unoccupied, that blank disk would otherwise have an insignia on it and you'd see people in the yard. Such outer houses only have occupants when the population expands beyond its average, which hasn't happened for two or three decades."

        "Lot of rooms for a small family," Jamieson observed. "I guess they have lots of guests."

        "Indeed, and not just relatives," Lirpritzi agreed. "Any wandering troupe of Life Celebrants can expect a warm welcome for as long as they want to stay, because it's their job to liven up households as much as the community as a whole. They see it as the same thing."

        "But not Eternal Mystics?"

        "They are just as welcome though their stays are shorter on average," Lirpritzi said. "Most Nrebu have some interest in the Eternal Mysteries too, and there's always some new theory doing the rounds people haven't heard yet. Most of the Mystics in fact have very interesting personalities."

        "I'll bet," Jamieson laughed.

        "No, it's true. In a society where most of its members have little else to do than socialize; character, personality, or at least the ability to be interesting are vital. - It was no different really on your home world, was it not?"

        "Guess not," Jamieson laughed, thinking of all the characters he had met. But they had become characters because of the nature of their lives, their work. They didn't set out to become characters like he now realized some of the city folk he had met had tried to do. Heaven forbid!

        "Even so, I should point out that the social life here is by no means bliss. The Nrebu fight, they bicker, they get jealous, take sides, swap sides, swap back again on a far greater scale than you can imagine. Because there are no great big social or political issues to fight for, things can get pretty trivial."

        "Like a television soap opera?" Jamieson suggested before he realized his bright idea might be lost on Lirpritzi.

        "Let's just say they wouldn't need television," Lirpritzi replied, chuckling in an uncannily human way. "Not that anybody's likely to invent it here for many thousands of years, if ever."

        "No, I suppose not," Jamieson said.

        More houses now appeared of the same general style as the first, though some had courtyards open to the road, others apparently had them open to the rear. And all had colorful insignia - and were indeed occupied. Kids played, argued, fought in the gardens, though not in that peculiarly animal way the Sihtak kids did. They were all patiently watched over by their parents who as often as not, joined in. Adult Sihtak were always on hand to try and stop balls from going out of bounds, stop younger children from straying too far, repair any damage older kids might cause. It was too bad about the fighting and bickering, otherwise it would be paradisical, almost like a sunny summer weekend in Thames.

        But here he suspected there were no weekends at all. This was all day and every day.

        "Do any of the people here work," he asked Lirpritzi, "like that farmer in Class?"

        "Only the heads of families or those whom they appoint. But believe it or not, jobs can be fiercely contested for, especially amongst men, because they confer social status. You might wonder why, with the Sihtak to do everything, but here it is management and business skills that count. Us Sihtak certainly can't do that for them."

        "Do the rest of the people get bored then - perhaps that's why they fight and argue so much. That really spoils things, doesn't it?"

        "No, not really. In fact you could say that the development of their two religions, especially the Life Celebrants, was as important in their social evolution as us Sihtak were. They both really do play an immensely vital role here."

        "Yes, I forgot..." he said, reflecting on the huge role Jesus had played in his own life and those of his family and, to some extent, the entire district he grew up in. Could these people come to find Jesus too? Of course, with the right leadership. That had always been so on Earth. No reason why it couldn't be so here.

        Another typreld similar to his own then appeared with a young family aboard, going the other way. Jamieson nearly waved, but remembered he didn't know how to do that in Nrebuan, let alone whether it was appropriate. He just copied their slight raising of an arm and a brief opening of the hand as they went by.

        He realized that that was the first typreld he had seen on the road since they left the Sihtak village. But then Nrebu visitors to the Sihtak village were rare, weren't they?

        They passed several more typrelds from then on. Most were like their own, the few that were larger usually carried goods. None were covered, perhaps their drivers had some way of putting covers over them when it rained.

        He noticed the houses didn't change too much in their design as they progressed through the town, all were made of those same glass blocks, though a few had more conventional brick-like walls. Nor did the houses get any smaller or closer together. It was only in their yards and gardens that they varied significantly, both in the way they were laid out and in the kinds of plants they contained. The only thing they had in common was that they were all extremely well-kept, and they always had people in them. Jamieson wondered if the Nrebu lived in these rather than in their houses, only retreating into those at night or in bad weather.

        At last the first signs of commerce appeared, no more than simple market stalls set up in the grounds of ordinary houses. They contained a similar variety of goods to the ones in Class so far as he could see, jewelry, foods, clothes of odd designs compared to what Nrebu usually wore. Perhaps they liked to wear fancy dress on special occasions too.

        But then the basic essentials would have been brought to them by the Sihtak, wouldn't they? These people really wanted for nothing, and their slaves were so happy to provide it you really couldn't call them slaves, could you? He wondered if that one great big wrong done to the Sihtak may have saved the Nrebu from doing a whole lot of little wrongs which could have added up to far worse.

        As it so clearly had back on Earth.

        They turned a corner and what was clearly the Furtzt lay before them. Apart from a few buildings along the waterfront and out on the wharves that resembled the ones in Class, it was just one great village green crowded with people doing all manner of playful-looking things under the shade of the many large shady trees dotted all over it. Flags and banners flew, little stalls and booths plied the crowds with all kinds of food and drink just as they did back home. They were manned by Nrebu, Jamieson saw, perhaps they did it as a hobby. Frantic horn, fiddle and wheeze music came from all sorts of bands playing instruments a skiffle group would have been happy with. He then realized he could hear singing too, though it was very high pitched and sounded Asian or Indian, he could only go by snatches he had heard on television. An even greater variety of animals than those at the stadium, perhaps because it could include many large varieties including what resembled trunkless elephants, followed their owners or just wandered around as they pleased.

        Lirpritzi seemed just as keen to quit the typreld as Jamieson was when it finally arrived at the Furtzte's edge. He hurriedly paid the driver and leapt off, nearly forgetting to hold out his hand to offer assistance as Jamieson had noticed other Sihtak always did. But Jamieson just nodded his thanks and leapt straight off the typreld onto the grass.

        As they walked into the crowd, they saw once again that the brightness and happiness of the people was marred by sporadic bursts of arguing and shouting. One of these wrangles escalated rapidly into an exchange of kicks and punches delivered in what Jamieson suspected was the Nrebu equivalent of no-holds-barred. He wondered this time if he would see someone get injured. A few people tried to intervene, but withdrew fairly quickly when they saw they could get involved. It took a couple of Patrolmen to break it up, one man was led away nursing what could have been a fractured arm.

        Jamieson was surprised to see Errol and Estelle standing on their own near a tiny little uncovered stand - where were the others? They appeared to be sampling what looked like pieces of confectionery, which to Jamieson that seemed an oddly risky thing to do after what they'd had to do back at that restaurant.

        Errol saw him first, and bounded towards him holding out what looked like a thin meat skewer with various bits and pieces of meat with little fruits and vegetables strung out along it.

        "Wow - good to see you!" Errol looked Jamieson up and down. "Have a good trip? And how did the local fuzz treat you?"

        "Fuzz?" Jamieson was puzzled.

        Errol remembered to laugh in the Nrebuan way. "Those nasty Patrol people."

        "Not something I'd want to experience again, Errol," he replied. He couldn't understand why Errol was making light of such a thing. You were supposed to cooperate with the police no matter where you were or what had happened, and he had tried his best. It was always a very serious matter.

        "Guess we can swap stories once we get back to the ship," Errol had obviously caught his mood. "Estelle reckons we have to get back soon for a medical check. - Now you've gotta try one of these, even better than the shish kebabs back in Israel." Errol handed him his as a peace offering. "Estelle says they're okay. - And how are you, Lirpritzi? Thanks for looking after him for us."

        Jamieson took the food rather dazedly as Estelle turned and waved to him quickly before buying three more of the confections at the stand. She then brought them over and gave one to Errol and Lirpritzi.

        Jamieson slid the first morsel off as decently as he could, and tasted something like a roasted apricot and carrot, though it resembled a fig. Delicious, especially in combination with the next item, with the flavor and texture of chicken, though with a hint of salmon.

        "Yes, it is good," he was only too happy to agree. " - Where are the others?" he asked Errol, looking round. He was still a little shocked to find the group split up.

        "Carol and Johnstone have wandered off somewhere, and we think Saobte's found herself a boyfriend," he grinned at Estelle. "She got talking to some guy over a knickknack on one of the junk stalls and-"

        Just then they could hear Johnstone's unmistakable voice soaring over the trees.

        " - Good God," was all Errol could say as heads turned all round them and people started moving toward the sound of that magic voice.

        "Come on," Estelle urged. "If we're lucky we won't need to do more than just watch. There's no way I can predict how well that's going to go down here."

        Jamieson wasn't sure, but he thought he caught the hint of a smile on her face.

        "He's always been on safe ground with Aida though, hasn't he?" Errol laughed as they moved through the gathering crowd as quickly as they could.

        Johnstone had found himself a small hill to stand on and, clutching an obviously ruffled Carol to his side, was singing as usual of `eternal love'. Jamieson looked anxiously round at the crowd but could not read the expressions on their faces.

        "How's the audience wearing it, Estelle?" Errol asked her. "Bit hard to tell. People in crowds, you know..."

        "Nobody knows what to think," she said, "simply because they've never heard anything like it. It's very different from the way they sing.

        "Maybe it'll catch on," Errol laughed.

        "I don't think so," Estelle laughed as she pointed. "Look."

        One of the great lumbering trunkless elephants had started to push its way through the crowd. Suddenly it stood stock still and let out an anguished wailing that was such a perfect copy of Johnstone's voice that Jamieson couldn't help laughing himself.

        " - Johnstone..!" Carol shouted.

        She then hit him out of real fear as the beast started to amble forward again.

        Jamieson heard another beast call from behind the pair. This one started to move towards them even more vigorously than the first.

        The mood of the crowd was now all to easy to interpret. It had begun to laugh.

        "Those calls weren't what I think they were, were they?" Errol laughed.

        "Looking at those oncoferocins, I would say they were," Estelle laughed with him. "And Carol isn't helping. Her screaming out like that would have been perceived by the crowd as expressions of - well, unbridled passion."

        "Johnstone! Over here!" Estelle called in an unnaturally loud voice. "And duck down as you move - that way they'll lose sight of you! - The oncoferocins won't hurt them," Estelle then said in her normal voice, "well, not intentionally anyway."

        Errol laughed again at that. He started to move towards where Johnstone and Carol had been standing, but Estelle checked him.

        "Let them find us - they know where we are," she cautioned.

        Johnstone and Carol eventually reached them to the smiles and calls of the hastily parting crowd. Johnstone seemed none to worse for wear, he was just as amused at what had happened as they were.

        "A rousingly successful performance," he laughed.

        Carol however was red-faced with embarrassment. She couldn't see the funny side of what had happened at all.

        "What was that you said earlier about not being able to have children on this world?" Johnstone asked Estelle, laughing again.

        That made Carol so furious with him she very nearly hit him again. "And I was so sure you were both grown up enough to know what you're doing," Estelle smiled at them both with only the slightest hint of sarcasm. "Now, we will have to return to the ship as soon as we can so we can check for bugs, bacteria, that sort of thing. You'll need a rest by then, anyway. Our next visit, if you want to come back, can then be much longer."

        "That sort of raises the question, doesn't it?" Errol said. "We've spent barely more than a morning looking at one tiny part of this world, an extremely impressive part, I'm sure. But how much of Earth did we see in those six weeks or so we wandered round it, Estelle? How long would you say we need to spend here on - Mifassassi - before we can say we've seen a fair sample of it?"

        "And what happens to Saobte and Lirpritzi when we do leave?" Jamieson blurted out.

        "Jesus - I hadn't thought of that," Carol looked at him in a way which made him feel just a little proud in spite of himself.

        "To answer Errol's question, it is all entirely up to you," Estelle looked round at them all. "As for Jamieson's, Saobte and Lirpritzi have the choice of remaining here when they leave, of coming with us and being modified to play similar roles with respect to a new world as they have here, or they can elect to die painlessly and pleasantly."

        "Yeah, well, I guess that's something more than we can do," Errol said grimly after the silence.

        "No, we all have exactly the same choices," Estelle said in that neutral voice of hers with an absolutely unreadable expression on her face. "I cannot imagine any of you choosing the last option though for any reason."

        No-one could say a word after that. They all just allowed Estelle to lead them through the crowds, though occasionally they stopped to peer at the often incomprehensible items on display in the shops, or to watch one of the music or acting troupes. In spite of what she'd said, she seemed to be in no hurry.

        "I guess these entertainers all belong to that Life Celebrants religion, don't they?" Errol said. "I guess I had imagined something more organized, a band or procession marching through the crowds somehow."

         "Like the Hare Krisna?" Johnstone laughed. "So, to be honest, did I."

         "They do all get together and perform various things at impromptu moments, "Estelle said. "If you hear a sound something like a huge gong sounding all over the Furtzt, you will see some of the people in the crowd as well as some of the entertainers slip away. They'll dress up for one of their ongotiurs that will weave its way round the Furtzt. And nobody can guess what they'll do, each one has to be different from the last. But we can't wait, we're running out of time. Lirpritzi's just found us a vacant house not too far away we can Gate through to the ship in. Houses nearer the Furtzt don't stay empty for very long."

        Jamieson only realized then that Lirpritzi hadn't been with them since they left the shish kebab stand.

        "This way," Estelle indicated a track between two trees that lead toward the perimeter of the Furtzt.

        They soon found themselves on a curved street paved with what appeared to be wooden blocks. Jamieson saw various families getting on or off their typrelds at various places along it.

        He then looked up and saw the top of that immense pyramid overshadowing all, even the Town of the Philosophers and its multitude of faces. That incredibly beautiful observatory building on its hazily distant top sparkled and glowed magnetically in the sun.

        They then crossed the street and, following round it to their left, soon came to the house they were apparently going to leave for the ship through.

        "Good, lots of people here looking it over," Estelle said. "We'll just do the same for the time being."

        Looking at vacant houses was apparently one of the things Nrebu did a lot of. Jamieson remembered Lirpritzi's telling him that people on the edge of town always liked to move closer to the center. Having seen the Furtzt he could understand why.

        The interior of the house was something Jamieson couldn't have imagined from the outside. Although the glass blocks from which it was made looked transparent from the outside, from the inside the same walls looked just like stained glass windows portraying all manner of scenes. The theme of each, Jamieson noticed, differed from room to room. The larger rooms had vistas drawn from the country which made him think of the farm he saw in Class, others were drawn from those pyramids and what appeared to be other wonders of the world, one room may have portrayed another religious center because of the floor-to-ceiling shelves of vertically-arrayed scrolls. The smallest rooms contained the brightest scenes that appeared to have been drawn from the Furtzt and other nearby places, one looked like it came from the wharves at the bottom of town.

        But it wasn't just the exterior walls that had these brilliantly lit scenes. The Nrebu had some way of funneling light down into the interior walls so that they glowed almost as brightly. Even their ceilings portrayed fantastic sky-scapes with huge piles of cloud and sunbeams streaming down between them. These reminded Jamieson of old paintings he had seen.

        Only the floors looked relatively plain, being tiled in what looked like little coarse square cushions stuffed with horses hair, or whatever they used here.

        Yet it was all extraordinarily impressive. It was as if the walls were their pictures, they had no need of anything else, even of windows. Each room had at least one doorway to the outside and another to the courtyard, each suitably `fitted' into the scene it would otherwise have interrupted.

        "Indoors, they live in much the same very simple way your Japanese did," Estelle said in response to Errol's question about what sort of furniture the Nrebu used. "A few ceramic cabinets - bins, really - to store their few possessions in, like those you saw in Class, and that's about it. They spend as much of their time as possible outside, but when they come in, their social life is all the `furniture' they need. They sleep on the floor, and use cloaks for blankets on cold nights, of which there are naturally very few at this latitude. The smallest rooms are occupied by their personal Sihtak when they are not needed."

        Jamieson noticed that two of the smaller rooms contained amenities that would not have looked out of place back home (apparently they followed the `fixtures and fittings' rule here too, anything fixed to the house stayed, anything moveable moved). One room had wooden tubs, what appeared to be a copper-like arrangement for boiling water, and various implements, including something like a large whisk, all obviously meant for washing clothes. Another room, not unlike the laundry in that it too had smaller tubs, tiled workbenches, and an enclosed version of the `copper' for boiling water, was apparently the kitchen.

        The last room they visited however he found completely puzzling. It contained a long wooden bench at about seat height with five circular holes about six inches across cut into it, and a rail a few feet above it on the back wall. Along the opposite wall was an ornately formed copper trough about a foot deep, a tiled shelf above it with metal outlets of some sort dangling beneath it, and a strip above of highly polished brass that he could almost see his face in.

        "Bathroom and toilet," Estelle had seen his and the other's puzzlement. "Unlike your version of humanity, the people of this world relieve themselves communally, in fact for them it is just as much a family occasion as mealtime. - Didn't you see a similar arrangement when you went to the public facility at the pyramid?"

        Jamieson was both shocked and amused. Something bizarre for some reason then jumped into his mind: `The family that fits together shits together,' he knew his Uncle Dirty Berty would have said. (Gosh - was he on his way to becoming another Dirty Berty, the thought now crossed his mind.)

        "No we didn't," he quickly suppressed his laughter in a way Estelle found amusing. "We just saw this long closed-off portion, I didn't look in. - So you don't need to be a family to go in public - more or less?"

        "That's right, you only need to be the same sex. But a mixed group can choose privacy, which is why we are just about to leave for the ship from here. If anyone notices we're gone, they'll just assume it was through the other exit," she pointed.

        "I suppose the house will sell to the ones with the most money," Errol said as the Gate took its now familiar shape. "Just like everywhere back home."

        "That's right," Estelle said. "Certain rules of economics are universal."

        " - Look, there's one place I'd really love to see if we've got the time," Carol asked Estelle. "That observatory thing on the top of that ancient pyramid. Can we go up and have a quick look see? That would be absolutely fascinating."

        " - Well..." Estelle said.

        "Oh, please..!" Carol begged her.

        "It looks a bit like the temple observatory at Jaipur in India," Errol said.

        "Five minutes," Estelle relented, as the Gate winked out. After just a few moments a smaller one barely three feet high appeared in the same place. All Jamieson could see through it was a floor made of square white marble-like tiles.

        "Sorry, best I can do at short notice. You will find yourselves inside a small shelter on the observatory's outer perimeter. Once you climb through, stay crouched until I get there."

        The tiny pill box-like shelter, built like its floor from ivory-like white blocks except they were intricately carved, turned out to be mostly below ground level. It was entirely enclosed except for a steep ramp down to it and a foot high gap between its front wall and its flat slab roof.

        Estelle explained when she arrived that it served as a shelter the observers could run to in the event of bad weather. The Sihtak could then bring them food and drink if need be.

        She then suggested they now peer over the rim very carefully indeed. Jamieson found himself gazing helplessly upon far and away the loveliest thing he had ever seen; even more so than the pyramids he had looked down on from the colleo. The whole site, including the perfectly flat and, so far as he could see, circular area the observatory itself stood on, appeared to have built from the same irridescently crystalline marble as the shelter. But that observatory! It was a graceful interplay of huge numbers of slender curved surfaces, of ramps, of summits, intersections, abutments, pillars, soaring buttress. There was also a multitude of tiny platforms from which observers dressed either in gold or red took sightings or made calculations using various instrument resembling sextants and abacuses. And seeing it against that background of deep throbbing blue sky with at least four moons he could see above, the effect was deeply mystical indeed.

        "Gosh..." Carol breathed.

        "Yes, it does rather take the breath away," Johnstone said.

        "Jaipur was great, but it would look tatty next to this," Errol grinned. "This isn't just bigger and more complicated, it is well looked after. But then I guess it sees a lot of use."

        "It's one of the most sacred sites on the planet," Estelle said, "and one of the few places the highest priests from both religions meet and work together. The Eternal Mystics use it for their astronomical purposes, the Life Celebrants their astrological ones. I can show you how it all works when we get back to the ship. But right now I have to tell you that if we are found up here, we run the risk of a painful and prolonged execution. Now, would anybody care to return to the ship with me?"

        " - Where's Saobte? And Lirpritzi?" Carol asked, looking frantically around.

        "Saobte is still at the Furtzt," Estelle replied. "She is going to remain on this world for the time being at least. Lirpritzi has already returned to the ship."

        Jamieson knew what that probably meant, but he wasn't going to say anything to the others.

        The Gate reappeared just as the ground started shaking. Since he was standing right next to it, Jamieson hurriedly pushed himself through, then reached back down to help the others get out of there as quickly as possible.

        At last they were all through and obviously just as relieved as he was to find themselves standing up in the ship's workshop again. He felt dog tired. The thought crossed his mind he may have caught a minor illness from somewhere. He hoped the workshop decontamination would sort that out.

        And he couldn't have cared less if the world they had left had just fallen to bits.

        It was several minutes before Estelle opened the door into the yard. It was hard to believe they had been gone only a few hours.

        Jamieson knew it was crazy, but it really did feel good to be home again.