He awoke to find himself in the Cathedral Grove. But he couldn't remember anything. He was somehow just there.

        He must have passed out.

        Out of the corner of his eye he saw a cheerful-looking figure walking up the track towards him through the trees. At first he thought it was his Minister back home, for the man was dressed the same way, almost as if he was about to lead the congregation in prayer. He was also about the same age. But the way he walked, his smile, his bright blue eyes framed in a round face, sparse bristly gray hair... His whole demeanor was as different from the more solemnly respectful man Jamieson had known as chalk from cheese.

        "Hullo, my friend," the man drew himself up in front of him. Jamieson struggled to get up.

        " - No, no, stay there," the Minister put out his hand as if to restrain him. "There's no hurry. - How's your memory?" he then inquired, cocking his head and broadening his grin.

        Jamieson found that his mind was still a blank. Yet the man himself now seemed oddly familiar. Where had he met him?

        "That's all right, things will come back to you," the Minister reassured him. " - Do you remember Estelle?"

        Jamieson felt his memory stir.

        The Minister smiled again. "I can see you're on the mend. - May I sit with you?"

        "Well, yes," Jamieson looked anxiously at the ground either side of him.

        "It's okay," the man said as he lowered himself onto the grass next to Jamieson. "It's a lovely spot. I can understand your father wanting to spend so much time here."

        Other memories stirred. Jamieson now began to feel confused.

        "Can you remember Errol, and Johnstone, and Carol? - And..."

        "Oression..! Oh my God, what's happened to Oression?" He looked around wildly.

        "She is all right," the Minister put his arm around his shoulder. "You will meet her and the others again very soon. I think the time has come when I should re-introduce myself. I am the Reverend Robert John Proudfoot, or should I say Very Reverend. I am in fact Bishop of the Waikato. But I do insist that you just call me Bob."

        Jamieson looked at him again. He somehow knew that, but he also knew he had met the Bishop of Waikato two years ago, and that person had also been a very different man. Once again confusion overcame him.

        "I'm sorry, I just cannot remember anything at all," Jamieson rubbed his hands through his hair.

        The Minister turned to look at him more directly. Jamieson somehow already knew `Bob' was not one of those Ministers who stood on ceremony. He was clearly the sort of bloke who would roll up his sleeves and get stuck in with the best of them, and buoy everybody along while he was at it. Jamieson knew he already respected this man very much indeed.

        "First some awkward news, I'm afraid. I have to tell you that, when you first arrived back here, you had a full blown epileptic seizure, what in the old days we used to call a Grand Mal. But there's nothing - "

        " - What..?" Jamieson felt faint again. His stomach felt as if a cold rock had somehow just been placed there.

        Bob gripped his arm. "It's all right, my boy. It's over, you have just had an operation to correct that little problem, along with another that was in fact far more serious. It has left your memory temporarily impaired, but you should be right as rain in half an hour or so. - That's why you're here, it will help you recover by starting again from scratch as it were."

        "I - I've been here before - recently I mean?" he looked around. Then he looked down at his clothes. He was wearing his familiar old blue jeans, woolen tartan shirt, and his old yard boots. Just as well, it was cooler than usual for this time of year.

        And there was something odd about that...

        "Yesterday, when we brought you through from Saioareapul."

        Memories of Saioareapul began to flood back, the Anwirz, the Iatoans, those incredible Witnols... and Idda.

        "Oh, gosh..." was all he could say.

        He looked at his clothes again and remembered that he had been wearing that sack-thing when he left. He must have been wearing it when he - first arrived.

        "Something's coming back?" Bob asked him.

        "Well, yes, I am beginning to remember our travels with..."

        Suddenly he knew Estelle was gone and that her ship had been destroyed. An immense sadness washed over him. He looked at Bob, tears welling up in his eyes.

        "Yes, I'm afraid so," Bob said to him simply.

        There was nothing he could say.

        "Do you feel steady enough to get back up on your feet?" Bob asked him after a few moments. "I think walking might do you some good right now."

        Jamieson looked at him doubtfully. But he took courage from the gleam in Bob's eye, and managed to stand up when Bob did and offered him his hand.

        "I'm sure that's better," Bob said to him as Jamieson struggled for a moment to keep his balance. "Now, if you need to, you can lean on me - and if you do collapse again," he grinned, "I will try to see that you reach the ground without breaking anything."

        They began to pick their way carefully down the track. It would wind a little further down into the valley before coming up again at the bottom of the south-end paddock.

        "Did she really have to die?" Jamieson asked him.

        "I am afraid so," Bob said. "I don't know if you can remember what I told you about the Torsyne, but they don't permit any form of artificial life other than that which they create themselves. It's not an absolute rule, but it certainly is with respect to nequisoma."

        Another whole flood of images surged through Jamieson's mind. He remembered sitting next to Bob on one of those ornate Victorian park benches on a tiny circular patch of grass - that was somehow floating by itself in a sea of stars. He had instantly recognized the Southern Cross and some of the other constellations, plus of course the Milky Way. It was the sky he often saw back on the farm on many a late night...

        "...You may recall," Bob said, "how Estelle suspected as soon as she arrived at Saioareapul that she may have inadvertently made contact with a civilization at least as powerful as the one that created her and her ship. That suspicion was well founded. To cut a very long story short, that world wasn't only created for the Diaeduee, but also to act as a trap to catch others of her kind."

        " - Others..?" Jamieson's throat tightened.

        With that Bob handed him what looked like a golf ball, except this was a browny-black color and covered in little hard lumpy bubbles instead of dimples. It looked just like a small stonefruit.

        "We call these things - or rather what they grow into - nequisoma." Just as Jamieson took it, a huge brightly-lit image of the object in three dimensions suddenly appeared to float in space ahead of them.

        "You are holding in your hand the seed for one of the most wonderful starships ever to have cruised the universe, my young friend," Bob smiled at him. "To me it seems more like God's handiwork rather than that of a race of beings who passed from His Kingdom so many billions of years ago."

        Jamieson kept turning the seed in his hand so he could get a better look at it in that dim light. He noticed that the image in front of him was also turning in the same way as if trying to help him.

        He didn't want to hand it back, but didn't see what else he could do.

        ...Billions of years...

         "No, keep it," Bob smiled at him. "It's sterilized, it cannot grow now. We don't know how many such nequisoma cruise Creation, must be in the millions."

        Jamieson put it in his jeans pocket. As he did so, he saw half the image in front of him fall away so that he could see the interior of the seed in cross-section. It was segmented just like an orange, except that instead of being filled with orangey flesh, each segment appeared to be packed with tiny little multicolored spheres.

        Suddenly the seed began to grow. Each of the spheres, which looked like little seeds in themselves, began to turn into things that looked queasily like human organs and bones. As the camera - or whatever it was - drew back, most of the `bones' moved towards the outside of the sphere to flatten it into a more egg-like shape. The remainder however moved to form some sort of disk running across the middle of what he now realized were the beginnings of a ship. Most of the `organs' had meanwhile moved below this disk, though they left several open spaces of various sizes and shapes between them, occasionally he saw small shapes move in these open spaces. Above the disk he could see a blue sky form with a sun and distant white clouds, while the organs that had remained there became trees, and bushes and grass. Then he watched, fascinated, as what had been the largest organ slowly became a house - their house.

        A little fair-headed girl then come out of its front door and look around as if seeing her new world for the very first time.

        "My God..." was all Jamieson could say. He felt faintly sick.

        "I'm afraid so," Bob said with a glint in his eye. "We believe your nequisoma seed was implanted close to where Errol's bach was by one of the Helpers from a previous ship - which contained friends just like you - during a visit they made a hundred years or so - "

        "A hundred years ago..?" Jamieson tried to think whether Europeans would have been around back then. The Coromandel had been famous for its gold, certainly, but...

        "Well, we have no way of knowing exactly," Bob said. "because they don't start growing immediately. That happens when the seed first detects television transmissions. I won't go into the technical details of how except to say that television can be transmitted in all sorts of ways other than radio waves, which is what we used when we began in 1960. It was apparently their designer's way of ensuring that nequisoma found friends from technologically advanced societies. Since they take seven or eight years to grow, Estelle's appearance was entirely coincidental with your Third World War - "

        "So she would have tried to get us to join her anyway?"

        "Through Errol, yes, they always begin with the one contact, and always somebody highly sociable like him. They use the sense of smell a lot, subliminal odors which help you to like the ship and their human - or whatever - representatives. They also use them to help you learn and remember things you are taught in Class."

        "Gosh, yes , I soon came to like her very much indeed," Jamieson said, wondering if he had somehow been used. "And yes, we did learn things quickly. I certainly did - and I believe I still can. I'll always be grateful for that," he had to say.

        "I'm glad you feel that way," Bob said, "because if there's one thing I should emphasize, and that's that all nequisoma, well, most, are entirely benign. They have only rarely harmed their friends - and the friendships are genuine by the way. Indeed we think it is somehow the whole purpose of their creation, to try and show the Torsyne that artificial life need not be lonely. If they don't fall into one of our traps - and yours was I must say an early victim - their friends can live to a ripe old age, wandering the Universe, never knowing of our existence. The ships die when they do, they only acquire other friends under exceptional circumstances as Estelle did, and they will usually be of the same age group - "

        "Is she really dead?" he had to know for sure. " - And my God, who's we?"

        "I am afraid she is," he looked him squarely in the eye, "and the ship is destroyed too I am afraid."

        "W - Why?" was all he could get out. He was too stunned to weep - or do anything.

        "It is a mandatory requirement of the Iskurahi..." Bob had begun before he went on to explain that they were obliged to enforce the Torsyne Prohibitions. These banned robots or any kind of machine with `brains' of any sort, Gates - or Nessiks, he remembered that was the word the Witnols also used for them, and interstellar spacecraft not provided or sanctioned by the Iskurahi themselves.

        And Estelle's existence was of course contrary to all three of those Prohibitions..

        "The Iskurahi..." Jamieson now said absently as they walked, trying to think. He knew they weren't the enemy by any means, indeed far from it. But...

        "A few more memories winging their way home?" Bob looked at him

        "Yes..." he nodded.

        Just as they approached a particularly ferny bend in the track, a light misty rain began to fall. As they brushed past the ferns, Jamieson saw what at first looked like a large rubber dinghy sitting at an angle on a vine-strewn bank as if it has been carelessly dropped there. He was on the point of asking himself what the hell something like that was doing here so far from the sea when he remembered what it really was. It was a sintransa, or `flying platform' as it was more usually called, and could do much the same things as Estelle's car except that it could also be used as a boat if one wished, hence its shape. It's large thin tire-less wheels were retracted into its sides, only their bottom few inches could be seen.

        "...There are something like ten trillion worlds in the whole of Space occupied in one way or another by human being-like creatures." Jamieson now remembered Bob saying yesterday in that special studio. "There are 9327 other types of being, most living on just as many worlds as ours, though usually of a very different kind. The Lord's Domain does indeed have many Mansions..."

        Then other facts began to explode in his brain like Jumping Jacks going off:

        Tuesday, March the 13th, 2050.

        That was today's date - or rather yesterday's, since they had apparently arrived here then.

        And World War III had never happened on this version of Earth.

        He wasn't sure if he lost his footing or whether the memory of learning that made him unsteady, but Bob had to grab him else he would have fallen over.

        `Time' was one of the other reasons the Iskurahi destroyed all nequisoma once they were caught. When they moved between the stars, they also moved `slightly sideways' as Bob had put it, which put them in different versions of the Universe. It was how they kept escaping the Iskurahi net, along with their ability to detect the presence of Iskurahi technology. But it all came at a price: not only might they move forward or backward in time a little as they did so, there was no known way back to the same version of a world even after one such shift. The promise of `being able to return at any time' had therefore been only partly true.

        Also, any worlds they might visit had to be pre-Contact ones. There were a very few high-technology worlds the Torsyne had not apparently reached, but most would be Twentieth-century Equivalent or less, often a lot less. And this brought the risk of cultural contamination, as they had certainly seen with Urklak Elvos. That was certainly forbidden under the Iskurahi's own code of ethics.

        The `sideways time shift' also meant that, in this version of Earth, elderly versions of Johnstone and Carol still existed, as well as some of their younger brothers and sisters and relatives. Their `children' all existed too.

        Jamieson `himself' however had died young of a cranial embolism not long after marrying Pauline from the office and fathering a son. Both mother and son were still alive, his son was called Jamieson too.

        Errol had simply disappeared without trace sometime in December, 1968..

.

        "Hop in," Bob gestured grandly in a way that made Jamieson think of Errol now.

        Jamieson climbed into the front passenger seat behind the curved glass windscreen as Bob moved quickly round the back and climbed in behind the wheel.

        "Bob here," the man actually appeared to address the vehicle's dashboard.

        "Enjoy your flight," Jamieson heard the platform reply from somewhere underneath it.

        Suddenly he heard a light splatter come from all around them, he glanced round to see the drizzle being deflected off what was obviously a `force field' like the one that had surrounded that flying fountain back on...

        But that now seemed a long time ago already.

        Numbers and diagrams came up in what looked like ordinary white paint on the dark green vinyl-like dashboard, he remembered now that this worked like an instrument panel on a plane. The view through the windscreen was noticeably clearer than that around them, apparently it had some way of keeping the rain off.

        "Remember your new home?" Bob asked him. "That's where we're headed."

        Images of a large comfortable 50's-style rough-cast concrete house came back to Jamieson, but he had no idea where it was.

        There wasn't even a hum or a whine. The vehicle simply lifted off the grassy bank a foot or so, righted itself, then began to move along the trail. The controls, so far as Jamieson could see, worked just like those on Estelle's car.

        As the trail began to wind up the hill, the platform went up it at the same angle as a car would have instead of staying horizontal as he had somehow expected.

        As they came out of the Grove further up into the paddock than Jamieson remembered, he could see straight away that it had been let go back into useless scrub. He couldn't understand that at all. As Bob allowed the machine to rise higher above the paddock, it leveled out, then began to climb like a helicopter. They soon rose high enough for Jamieson to see across the whole paddock and across to the next even through that misty rain. The hedgerow dividing them had gone - no, two of the macrocarpas had been left and had grown into giants. As the platform rose yet higher he looked for the house - and could find no sign of it, nor the yards, nor of anything that had been there before. Even with the rain he should have seen them. The entire farm where he and his family had grown up had gone.

        "Heavens..." he looked wildly round him.

        Neither of the two neighbors houses he reckoned he should also have been able to see were there, nor was there any hint of hay barns, hedges or fences.

        "I had hoped you would have remembered from last night," Bob said. "I'm sorry you've had to confront your new `past' quite so directly as this..."

        But then they had all had so much to learn that first night of their return, all of it really needing to be learned `first' before anything else. They had only received very sketchy details of what had happened to `themselves' and their families in their absence. Jamieson had learned that Roy had not of course shot the entire family as he had in his `real' past (was it real now?). But he might as well have done. When Jamieson himself had `died', Roy had inherited the entire farm after their father had died in 1983. His fancy education had encouraged him to sell it to a company which, raising money on the sharemarket, bought up farms to put managers on them and run them as businesses. But instead of taking the cash, Roy had taken shares in the company - which crashed two years before the sharemarket crash of 1987 which would probably have killed it anyway. He had spent the rest of his life as a Farm Advisory Officer for the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries until Contact, when he had joined the Eonmern. He was now, at the age of 85, enjoying his retirement in a World designed as a gigantic retirement home `Out There', as the popular phrase put it when referring to God Knew Where in Paradise.

        Even though Johnstone had pointed out that `just showing up would probably frighten the pee out of the bugger', Jamieson thought it unlikely he would ever visit him. Bron had suggested that `in this world' most people would have no problem coping with the sudden discovery that they had `young, living duplicates or ancestors', many would even be eager to talk with them. However, if the five friends were to say anything about their origins or what had happened to them to anybody at all, they would spend the rest of their lives imprisoned by journalists, publicity seekers, cranks and the like from all over Paradise. Fame came at a far stiffer price that it had ever done when it was restricted to Earth, and had virtually none of the rewards. There was however a special section of the Teklanmeh which enabled other nequisoma friends to contact each other and share their experiences.

        Citatay would have none of these problems however. She had, to everyone's surprise, elected to return to Saioareapul in spite of what she had said about `whole new worlds in front of her'. The Iskurahi had accepted her claim that that was her right, being a native of its `progenitor world'. That meant it was also Oression's, but she had laughed outright at any notion of returning there.

        "You should really treat Earth as if you had arrived on a completely new world," Bron had said. "For that's exactly what it is, compared to what it was when you left it on Friday, December 13th, 1968."

        "What would have happened if we had returned seventy years into our past in, what, 1900," Errol observed. "How would we have coped with that world then? Or with our parents and relatives - and ourselves when we were finally born? Assuming of course we had lived long enough to meet them?"

        "...New Zealand has become one gigantic National Park you know," Jamieson heard Bob say as they rose further into that drizzly sky. "People don't have to earn a living anymore, any more than you did while you were with Estelle. They live more or less as and where they please. If a house or farm remains unoccupied for three months or so depending on various factors, it becomes part of the National Estate. All structures are removed and the land returned to the state it was in before its original occupation. Most farms have now gone. But then you know as well as I do it was only city dwellers who used to get all romantic and dewy-eyed about going farming..."

        Jamieson knew. That was why he had grabbed the chance to work with Uncle Bert

        - God, what had happened to him and his family?

        As he looked out into the cloud they were now rising through, he felt sad. Really, really sad.

        Suddenly they broke free into bright sunshine. Jamieson looked round to see that they had been on the outer fringe of that rain, the cloud layer now stretched behind them south down along the Kaimais. The view north where they were headed was crystal clear - yet confusing. He struggled to find Te Aroha and Paeroa. It took him a full minute to realize that, apart from their hot pools and one or two of their original buildings, they had simply disappeared. Even the major road passing through them - and all the minor ones in the entire district, he now realized, had gone.

        He then remembered that, since he had never actually flown at all on Earth, he had never seen the district from the air before anyway.

        Something flew across the sky in the distance at about the same height as they were. He couldn't see what it was, but it didn't look like another platform. He struggled to remember...

        Bob laughed. "You'll be flying round in one of those `Pasovirs' yourself soon, once you've had some basic training. Then you can fly like a bird if you want to without needing to use one of these old-fashioned things."

        "Ohhhh..." a disappointed voice sounded from under the dashboard.

        "Sorry, only joking," Bob laughed down at it. "You know how vital you can be when your special talents are called upon."

        "True.., true," the machine agreed.

        Jamieson noticed they didn't seem to be rising any higher, Bob was apparently satisfied with this altitude. They were also heading out over towards the long sandy strip of sand that separated the Hauraki Plains from the Firth of Thames. This was fringed with houses Jamieson knew had not been there in 1968. The plains themselves, though a few houses remained, were going back to nature, more cabbage trees than he had ever seen before were in the process of taking them over. The tiny townships of Miranda and Kaiaua had remained virtually intact so far as he could see, even the road connecting them and up along the coast where there were also many more houses than before. But then they had always been holiday-bach towns, and the road through them a scenic one. He wondered if it was only large towns and cities that had changed.

        "What's Auckland like now?" he asked Bob. " - Is that where we're going?"

        "We're actually headed for Waiheke Island," Bob looked at him. "Orapiu - also the name of the house - remember? - You'll visit Auckland soon enough I should imagine. Then you'll see what's left of it for yourself," he chuckled.

        Their new home now appeared in his mind's eye as the hills of the island in the far distance registered on his vision. It was a big comfortable place in rough-cast concrete, arched windows all round, big shady flagstoned verandah out front facing north, four bedrooms, lounge and kitchen something like - something like... but then it had been deliberately built so as to resemble Estelle's house in some ways, but be very different in others. The site it had been placed on had been carefully chosen too in its semi-isolation. They had neighbors, but they were distant. Quite a few people on the island lived lifestyles not too different from what Errol, Carol, and Johnstone at least had known in the 1960's, but there were many other kinds of people too. No-one should have problems finding friends once they had settled in.

        Bronwyn - or Bron as she quickly became known, was their volunteer guide from the Ghelfina, the Iskurahi's educational division. She normally helped entire worlds to adjust to their new reality after Contact, which the Iskurahi always made when a world was on the point of transgressing at least one of their three Prohibitions. But she hadn't been able to resist the opportunity to help just five people who had last seen Earth thirty years before its Contact. She would however only be with them until they all felt they now longer needed her help. She would then resume her `normal' work.

        She stayed in her own little cottage about a hundred yards - or meters, Jamieson didn't see how he was remotely going to get used to metric measurements - to the east. She emphasized from the start that she did not intend to act as a substitute for Estelle `as you will soon see'. She was considerably older, having just turned sixty. Her naturally white hair was tied back in a bun as if to emphasize her tanned face and sharp blue eyes. She played plenty of sport, especially basket ball, so was physically fit. She was also clearly well educated, describing herself as `being of the old school, that of excellence'. She was in fact an `old girl of the Diocesan School for Girls, which is still going even in this totally Godless universe'.

        Bob had let the platform slowly sink so that, by the time they arrived at Orapiu, they just skimmed over the cliff top and along the ground towards the house. As he settled it down onto the front lawn, Errol, Johnstone and Carol came down from the front verandah from where they had been waiting, all dressed up in brightly colored clothes and party hats, grinning widely. Yet for some odd reason he felt they were a little subdued in some way.

        "It's okay," Johnstone laughed. "It really is us. Your brain surgery has been successful."

        "Ho, Ho, Ho - and a Merry Christmas to all!" Jamieson heard Bron's deep almost mannish voice call from the verandah, and out she stepped in full Father Christmas regalia complete with white beard. "And a special Merry Christmas to you, Jamieson. So glad to see you back."

        "Merry Christmas, Jamieson! And I'm so pleased to see you again." Carol stepped forward and hugged him as soon as he stepped out of the car. Jamieson was surprised - and pleased. She showed no trace of that high-strung remoteness he had found so off-putting the entire time he had known her. And yet she too seemed to be holding back. And it didn't seem to be anything to do with the intense grief she no doubt still felt for the loss of Estelle and her ship.

        Then Errol and Johnstone staged a mock fight to hug and kiss him as well.

        They certainly seemed all right.

        "All right everybody, come in, come in." Bron called. "Luncheon is about to be served."

        Jamieson had completely forgotten about Christmas. He struggled to count the days, but couldn't. Besides...

        He looked at Bob, who grinned back at him. "Today would actually have been Christmas Day if you had remained in 1968. Your friends knew how you felt about Christmas, so here we are."

        "Come inside, everybody," Bron's voice had more of a command in it. "Now we're all here."

        " - Where's Oression?" Jamieson asked, looking anxiously past Bron. He then looked at Bob, who clearly did not know himself.

        "I'm sorry," Errol said. "I am afraid she's - not well," he looked at the others. "I'm afraid it looks as if - it's all just been too much for her. She is now in the care of the Lalleldil." He looked at Bron. "I am afraid we can't tell you any more than that. But from what we've since learned about the Lalleldil, she has a good chance of making a complete recovery very soon."

        "She went only half an hour ago," Carol said. "She was giggling rather a lot, and we thought nothing of it, that she was just enjoying herself as we were getting ready for our `Christmas'. It took Bron to realize that something was wrong, that giggling for the Noingi might mean something very different from what it does for us - well, it can mean the same thing. I'm very sorry, Jamieson," she looked round at the others. "You were due back any time, we thought it best to sort of carry on, give you the best welcome we could after your..." her voice trailed off.

        "I am very sorry, Jamieson. I know how much she means to you," Bob said to him.

        Jamieson just couldn't say anything. He knew - they had all known - that coping with the loss of Estelle and the new life of 2050 would be far harder for her than the rest of them. For she had lost more than her past, she had lost her entire world as well. Just as World War III had not happened in this version of Reality (the Iskurahi had checked the Rolodont for December 13th, 1968, and could find no event recorded there that might have triggered that new branching of Earth history), the Diaeduee had not been killed off by that horrendous disease on their world. Their Rolodont showed only a mild version to have broken out at that time. They had in fact Contacted not long after that, flourished in Paradise for barely a hundred years (during which Saioareapul had been built, it had already outlasted its parent civilization by thousands of years, but then trap worlds were designed to last eons), then been Closed Out as they decayed into barbarism. The Noingi had never been more than a tiny all-but-subsumed culture in that world's equivalent of the tropical Pacific, and had gone with it. Not only had Oression's friends, family, never been born, nor had the entire Noingi civilization itself. Estelle's files, which the Diursuel had recovered intact, and Oression herself, were all that existed of it in this Universe.

        Nobody had even remotely considered the possibility that Oression would have to go into Lalleldil care however. Bron had been careful to describe it as not being the Iskurahi's equivalent of Western Mental Hospitals when she outlined its eight Divisions to them. Its ways of treating `distress' were just too different - and usually a good deal more successful. But the thought of Oression's having to be treated at all was something Jamieson found paralyzing. Once again that image of Carol's brother came unbidden to his mind.

        He realized that Bob had speedily rushed round the back of the platform and was gripping his arm.

        "It's okay, thanks," he looked at Bob. "I'm okay now. It's - it's just hard to know quite what to do. Is there no way I can help?"

        "No, there isn't," Bron said to him, "Not yet. I'm afraid all we can do is wait now - and eat. We must be ready for her return, which may even be later today. Relief for distress is so much faster and surer these days than it ever was when we were on our own."

        She turned to walk back into the house, looking expectantly round at them to follow.

        Jamieson felt as if all his memories were now finally returned to him as he walked up the hall, glancing quickly as he passed into the one bedroom who's door was open, Carol's. The wallpaper was a uniform gray flock throughout the house, the wall-to-wall carpet a comfortable walnut swirl design that might have been popular in the 1950's, indeed the entire house and its mostly oak furnishings appeared to come from that era. Wood trim, skirting boards and moldings, were all cream rather than varnish, the ceilings were plaster with wide scalloped moldings. The framed landscapes were not photographic New Zealand ones like Estelle's, but were paintings made by New Zealand artists. One particularly large one was, Bron said proudly, `an original by Colin McCahon', whoever he was. The house was indeed clearly meant to have some similarities with Estelle's, but some major differences.

        This extended to its floor plan. The lounge and the dining room were swapped over and the kitchen and laundry, such as they were, were little bigger than wardrobes off the dining room. Everything here was done using doanadars. Looking like large bread-boxes with frosted-glass front doors, all meals were delivered through them, all dishes returned, clothes returned washed and ironed, indeed all ordered items of any kind, provided they weren't too big, came through them. Even one's toast and crumpets. But doanadars were also intelligent, you could talk to them, and not only would they come to know your tastes as individuals very well, but so would any doanadar anywhere in - Paradise, which had been Errol's and Johnstone's simultaneously found name for the new Universe. They had soon discovered however that it was hardly original, and that it was usually used in a sardonic way.

        Jamieson now remembered Bob saying to him before they Nessiked through to the Diursuel that he had considered taking him directly there for his operation as soon as he had his seizure after coming back to Earth. But he had decided that his re-adjustment to his new World would be easier if he was allowed to build up a few memories of it before he went, and the risks were minimal. For this he was grateful to him. It wouldn't be easy, but he knew now that it wouldn't be impossible.

        He just hoped he would be strong enough to help Oression when she returned. He and their other friends were now all she had.

        Jamieson naturally assumed the Christmas dinner had come out of the doanadar, and in a way it had. But as Bron explained, it had been prepared by the Eonmern from genuine New Zealand Lamb, South Island Red potatoes, Hawkes Bay peas and Ohakune carrots. The mint sauce came from a small farmlet which specialized in producing such items, indeed the rest of that dinner came from the `kitchen industries' people kept going `because they enjoyed it' or to barter for other unique items, antique furniture, artwork, that could not be obtained in any other way. Indeed, in a world where almost anything could be had for the asking, the only way to obtain unique items, a house on an island, a vintage car perhaps, was by offering something else that was also unique, and that could be a skill or service just as much as an object.

        The dinner made him cast his mind back to the full roast beef dinner of the previous night. The mood had been somber then since it was not long after their arrival and their `orientation', as Bron had put it. Their grief had been relentlessly buried under her tutelage as to the nature of the Torsyne and the Iskurahi, and their subsequent exploration of the Teklanmeh that Bron guided them through. That went on to consume nearly all that first night. Carol had been in her element here, for although Estelle's library had seemed infinite, the Teklanmeh contained all the history and knowledge of the Torsyne Universe spanning its entire ten billion years, and of those strange Hysadder worlds before that. And the things that that exploration revealed, the fact that the Torsyne, a shadowy bunch of machines, had taken over the Universe all that time ago and were running it something like an automated zoo, made everybody forget Estelle for whole moments at a time. Even Johnstone couldn't think of anything funny to say, especially when Bron introduced everybody to the Cahoctor, the Iskurahi's judicial division.

        "Jesus - have we jumped forward to 2050, or leapt backwards to 1984..!" he had shouted.

        Bron then showed them some brief excerpts from both World and New Zealand history since 1968, both filmed at the time and those captured for the Rolodont, that incredible record of the whole history of Earth made by the Iskurahi since its birth four and a half billion years ago. The breakup of the Soviet Union was the most incredible thing they could have imagined, considering what had happened in their old world. Closer to home though was its revelation of how the drugs Errol and Johnstone and possibly Carol had experimented with in their innocent way had gone into widespread use, burdening their users with expenses that could only be paid through crime or turning yet more people into users. This, combined with the fast pace of technological change, caused much mental distress for those people unable to accommodate to all the social changes it produced (as Bron put it). And that in turn meant that in the 1980's and 90's New Zealand actually did approach a 1984-type situation, except that it was the `mad, bad and sad' who threatened to keep society in a straight-jacket, not the government (at this point Bron showed a massive riot of young people in Queen Street that had actually occurred in 1984). Most newly-technologicaly advanced worlds had this problem to an even worse degree, and the Cahoctor's `walls have eyes as well as ears' surveillance was to ensure that no single group of any kind could abuse the exceptionally powerful technologies that came with a world's first Contact with the Iskurahi.

        Bron then went on to explain that Contact - and the story of how that happened was so incredible in its ingenuousness they couldn't quite believe it - did not mean that the Iskurahi just walked in and took over everything. Parliament continued just as it had before, as did the Civil Service, the Police, St John's Ambulance, Fire Service, even the Armed Forces. The Iskurahi's various Divisions only acted as consultants and advisers, bringing the experience and technology developed over the billenia of their existence. They also helped prune away those functions of government, civil service, and the private sector that were simply no longer necessary, especially in financial areas since the `economy' was now completely redundant.

        As the years passed however, the Iskurahi's names for all these services came to be used more and more commonly. Police, fire and the military became the Adjoahsno, medicine and scientific research became the province of the Diursuel, emotional disorders the Lalleldil, education the Ghelfina, all manufactured goods including food came more and more to be produced by the Eonmern, and the Touziel handled planetary rescue - that would have helped the war-ravaged Earth the four friends had left, not the healthy version they were on now. That was the province of the Iskurahi itself

        The Iskurahi were therefore something like the United Nations, except they extended right down to local government as well as connecting all the Known Worlds to each other in Paradise. They also Contacted new Worlds as they became sufficiently advanced to run into the Torsyne Prohibitions, as Earth had done by the year 2011.

        As they sat themselves round the dinner table now, those incredible `tin men' as Johnstone called the Tinsla, brought the food in. Jamieson knew that, although the androids looked and acted like human servants with a `correctness' that was amazing, they were really nothing of the kind. They could outperform humans in virtually any respect, even fly with their inbuilt pasovirs if they needed to. They could probably live underwater, or even Antarctica, for all he knew.

        Unlike last night's equally huge dinner, nobody said a word beyond `nice lamb' or `pass the mint sauce, please'. The only sound that could be heard beyond the occasional clatter of knife or fork against plate were the Christmas Carols playing softly in the background. All their thoughts were elsewhere.

        "Well, everybody," Bron said as Bob pulled an ancient sixpence out of his Christmas pudding with subdued glee, "I had planned just a quiet afternoon of rest and recuperation before you resumed your explorations of your new lives in your new New Zealand. But I now seriously think we had better do something to help take your minds off poor Oression until there's something more we can do for her apart from merely wait. I know Carol and Errol said last night that they wanted to see what had happened to Auckland City after what I had told you of the fate of most cities since Contact. So perhaps now would be a better time than later."

        The four friends looked at each other. "Well..." said Errol.

        "Perhaps we'd better go," Carol said. "Sounds like it could be depressing enough for us, let alone what it might have been for Oression. - What about you, Jamieson? You feel up to it after your..."

        He nodded. He didn't really want to go, but he knew he didn't want to stay either.

        "Like me to come along?" said Bob." I don't have to get back to the Diocese for a little while yet."

        Jamieson thought for a moment. "No, I'm sure I'll be all right now," he said. "But thank you so much for helping me. Perhaps one day soon I can come and visit you. - and attend Church, which I must do soon anyway."

        He realized he had completely forgotten about Church.

        "I'll be going along in any case," Bron reassured Bob. "Some of the post-Contact changes were hard enough for us to take. But on top of that, they have to cope with those that happened in the forty-odd years before Contact."

        "I just don't believe it..." Carol gazed down in amazement.

        "You would have found it a lot harder to believe if you had seen it at the turn of the century," Bron laughed. "It was a sea of tacky little houses all the way to the horizon even from this altitude."

        Apart from Bron, they were all hanging over the sides of the flying platform gazing down at what was left of Auckland. Even Jamieson, who had never had more than a glancing contact with what had been New Zealand's biggest city, was amazed. He couldn't remember the names of the streets beyond Queen Street or Karangahape Road, but most of the city beyond them had gone anyway, returned to the kind of countryside that had probably existed prior to Maori let alone European settlement. Grafton Bridge was still there, but it now led into open fields. The motorway system in and out of the city - and he could not have imagined that back in 1968 - had been cut off in the same way, carriageways just petered out into bush or grass. Only the railway line remained, he now noticed. All the buildings and roads west of Albert Street - or was it Hobson Street? - had disappeared, though a little of Ponsonby township remained. The Harbor Bridge was still there to the north, but now led only to a short narrow road beyond. Apart from the occasional houses sprinkled over the countryside, all else on the North Shore had been returned to open field, bush and forest.

        And, so far as Jamieson could see, he could not see a living soul anywhere.

        "See those circles with crosses in them on some of those low flat-roofed buildings?" Bron said. "Not so long ago those were the designated landing sites for anybody flying in, whether they were using these or pasovirs. But so few people come now I don't think anybody's going to mind," she looked at Errol, who was piloting, "if we just put down in QEII square at the bottom of town."

        "QEII Square?" Carol asked.

        "Oh, sorry, of course that wasn't there in 1968," Bron looked at her. "See where the bottom of Queen Street has been turned into an open area?" she pointed.

        Errol had already guessed where it was, they were now already descending to it.

        He parked the platform just a few yards away from that `yucky' fountain as Carol described it. Jamieson thought it looked very modern, if somehow flimsy with its curtains of thin steel pipes hanging over a shallow rectangular pool. Errol and Johnstone quite liked it too; Johnstone in fact thought it was quite clever, "in keeping with where sculpture had obviously been going in the 1960's".

        Their opinions about the `new' buildings they could see up Queen Street from where they were standing were similarly divided. Jamieson found them exciting, they made him think of that wonderful `cities of the future' picturebook that one of the country's grocery chains - Self Help? - had given away when he was a kid. It was just too bad all those old buildings had been kept, he couldn't understand why the whole city hadn't been completely modernized. Errol and Johnstone liked some of the new buildings, though not the ones with `those weird steel-tube verandahs'. They also didn't like the way the old buildings clashed with them either.

        Carol however was unequivocal. "If that was progress," she said, looking at all the new buildings with distaste, "I'm certainly glad I wasn't around to see it."

        "You have to remember tastes change over the decades, Carol," Bron said. "The sixties only lasted until about the mid seventies. After that, a lot of what you see was built when much of the welfare state was supplanted by free-market capitalism in the 1980s. We even had a stock market boom - and crash - in that decade."

        "The welfare state supplanted by free-market capitalism?" Johnstone laughed. "I don't believe that. Not in dear old New Zealand, surely."

        "Had to happen unfortunately," Bron replied. "The country nearly went broke in the early years of that decade for a number of reasons, of which a real slide in wool and diary prices was just one. There just wasn't enough money generated in town or country to support the welfare system you people took for granted. Took nearly thirty years years to work our way through that. Good for us, probably, though of course opinions - "

        " - Good grief, I don't believe that," Errol said, pointing at the notice which proclaimed the Chief Post Office to be an underground rail station. "Couldn't people afford to post letters anymore after that crash?" he asked Bron.

        She laughed. "That's a long story too, all of which you can find in the Teklanmeh when we get back. It really only became a rail station about six years before Contact, and only then provided access to the existing line, it didn't go up Queen Street or anything like that. It still operates, but only for joyriders doing the day trip to Wellington or up to Opua."

        "Not Robbie's Rapid Rail then? That's too bad," Johnstone said. "And the Noingi could certainly have shown them a thing or two."

        Bron looked at him completely mystified.

        "Have all the world's cities really finished up like this?" Errol asked before Johnstone could explain what that was. "Where's everybody gone?"

        "Maybe we could ask her," Johnstone pointed at the first person they had seen since they landed. A young Indian woman with long stylishly swishing hair and wearing a shocking blue blouse and miniskirt with intricately patterned gold borders had just appeared from Customs street. She saw the group, and waved frantically at them in an odd-looking way. They waved back as she disappeared into a doorway.

        "Her family are from the World of Malaba," Bron explained, "and for some reason all that World's families like living on their own in abandoned cities on other Worlds. You're lucky to see her, they're really the only residents Auckland has left now. As I said last night, most cities round the world are empty since there's simply no reason for people to stay in them. Most New Zealanders have moved to coastal areas; lakes, rivers, oceans. Actually Auckland's only been like this for the last ten, fifteen years. Force of habit kept people living in apartments here, the upper `penthouse' stories of most of the buildings you see here were converted into them. The shops continued as shops, but their goods were free. Most of them were run by people who who had traveled to all sorts of places in Paradise and brought their goods back with them. They liked the social life they helped to create, a good many also had Nessiks that allowed their customers to travel directly to those worlds if they wanted. In fact for about twenty years after Contact the city center was livelier than it had ever been in its history. But as one generation was displaced by the next, and our Emergence came with that, people tended to go to those worlds directly from their homes and bring back anything they wanted. The city quickly started looking like a huge ghost town after that. People realized Nessiks meant the whole county - the entire world really - had become one giant city. It only took about five years for Auckland's people to disappear altogether."

        Jamieson noticed she had sounded quite sad as she told them this. He wondered if Bron herself had spent much of her younger life during those exciting times here.

        "You were certainly right when you said we should see Earth as just another World we visited on our travels," Errol said. "This really is like a city on another world, yet with old familiar bits somehow grafted on."

        "So how is it that these buildings are still standing if nobody uses them?" Carol asked as they made their way further up Queen Street. "If houses - and farms - can be removed after not being wanted for three months," she looked at Jamieson, "why not, well, cities?"

        " - Nice to see Queen's Arcade still here, though it's rather empty-looking." Johnstone peered up into it. "Hullo - I see Woollies has gone," he then gazed at what was still obviously the same store, but whose name had been changed to `Deka' for some unguessable reason.

        "Most of the shops' displays have been restored to those they had in 2011," Bron said to him, "just so they don't look entirely dead. - To come back to your question, Carol, it's Iskurahi policy, basically. City centers are always left intact, and fully maintained until a world's societies descend back into primitivity and it is Closed Out. Sometimes they become fashionable again, but mostly they are just left to rot after that, which modern cities can do after as little as a thousand years. That's done deliberately so that any succeeding culture might come across them and be inspired to seek `those who went before them' - "

        " - Just as the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians inspired so much of ours," Errol said.

        "That's right," Bron agreed, pointing to the classical features of the Guardian Trust building with its twin gray marble columns, each with ornately figured tops and fluted bottoms. "Oddly enough, ancient cities - public buildings anyway - last longer than high-tech ones because to some extent they are already piles of stone."

        "I don't see how those horrible buildings with mirrors-for-windows could inspire anybody much," Carol gazed up along the street.

        "No accounting for taste," Errol reminded her. "As Bron said earlier."

        "Just as well," Johnstone said. " - Why don't modern buildings last longer, Bron? They're supposed to be more earthquake resistant, aren't they? Colleague of mine wrote an article about that. - S'pose newspapers are all gone now."

        "There's a single national daily put together by old timers," Bron replied. "The Teklanmeh provides all the news people want, plus the few independent radio and TV stations also run by elderly enthusiasts. But you're wrong about modern buildings, Johnstone. A big earthquake will cause most of these earlier buildings you see to just fall down straight away. Modern ones will usually survive the quake just as they're designed to, but window glass and building seals might then fail. If there are technically trained people to repair such minor damage then good. But otherwise water comes in, seeps into structural steelwork and, over a greater period of time, concrete reinforcing. This is accelerated by wet carpets, which lets fungus and other organisms flourish - "

        " - I see," said Carol, "so by the time the next quake comes, most will be too weak to survive it."

        "Or just a strong wind if they are sufficiently corroded near their bases."

        "And if one goes, it might push over the next, which pushes over the next - and bang! Domino city!" Johnstone laughed.

        "That can certainly happen," Bron grinned at him to his surprise. "So, after a millennium or two, all you have left is piles of overgrown rubble. Only underground structures are likely to stay intact for much longer. Contrary to popular belief they can survive earthquake shock quite well, and are naturally better designed to resist corrosion."

        "So how about this then? Which do you think would fall over first?" Errol pointed at what Jamieson first thought was the Bank of New Zealand. But it was clearly just a facade, the original building itself had been replaced by a tall bronze-glazed octagonal tower. They wandered over to step up into it, only to discover that the `bank' was now just another shopping center with rows of big plate glass windows and bland lit-up displays behind.

        "I don't know the story behind that," Bron admitted, "I think it was done sometime in the 1980's. It may well have been that the original building was such an earthquake risk it had to come down. So preserving the facade in this way may have been the only sensible thing to do. You'll need to look that up in the Teklanmeh when we get home."

        "Ah - there's a sight for sore eyes," Johnstone said, peering up Vulcan Lane. "The old Queen's Ferry and Occidental are still there. - They still open for business?" he asked mock-eagerly.

        Jamieson now recalled he had never seen Johnstone drink any alcohol at all during their entire time with Estelle. Had `Dr Finlay' somehow surreptitiously cured him of that problem one night?

        "Sorry, no, just not enough custom," Bron replied. "People don't drink in city pubs anymore, only in bars close by where they live. Those two became family pubs in the nineties anyway. - They only had their disreputable images back when you knew them," she smiled.

        "Touche..." Johnstone said wryly.

        When they arrived at the site of the old His Majesty's Theater however, real shock and disbelief set in.

        "They didn't, did they? They couldn't have," Johnstone said as he stepped back into the middle of Queen Street and gazed up at the multistory office block now occupying the site. "Or did they just tear down the arcade in front of it to raise the money make the theater earthquake-proof or something?"

        "I am afraid the theater was stolen in the night," Bron replied sadly. "The 80's produced some very wealthy people who believed that when they owned something, it was wholly theirs to do as they pleased with. It's a long story with a weird ending - some would say that the person behind it got his just spiritual deserts. There was a plan to demolish this building and rebuild the old theater after Contact, but then fights broke out about which other old buildings should be `put back' and which of the new ones should be kept - "

        "So none were," Carol said.

        "More of a compromise really," Bron replied. "The city was frozen as it was on the day of Contact, though projects being built at that time were completed if they were well advanced. The rest mostly became open space."

        "Where's Milne and Choice?" Jamieson asked, looking back anxiously. He couldn't see how he could have missed it.

        "Gone, I'm afraid, back in the early eighties I think. Like the Farmers, the Hobson Street Store at least. - I guess I haven't fully educated myself about how much things have changed here in the forty-odd years since, well, 1968. - Do you want to see anymore? The Aotea Center is a sight to behold, it took over the role of the Town Hall for rock concerts, opera and so forth. Much bigger and better equipped, though the Town Hall was fully restored 1n 1998, if I remember."

        "Where is it?" Errol asked.

        "I'll show it to you," Bron turned back down the street and uttered the code-word that would bring the platform to them.

        Johnstone put his fingers between his teeth and whistled. "Here Rover - good boy..." he laughed, patting his leg as the platform duly appeared only a moment later. It set itself down beside them onto its wheels with a polite "Thank you for calling me."

        Jamieson didn't see how he was ever going to get used to that.

        "Not much else to see anyway," Bron said as it lifted off with them with her at the controls. "Whitcoulls - Whitcombe and Tombs to you I guess - moved to the old John Courts corner - and they went in the seventies, I think. MacDonald, Kentucky Fried, Pizza Hut, most of the American fast food conglomerates, all moved in while you were, well, away." Bron rattled off the changes as they cruised up the street on the platform's wheels; Jamieson guessed its smooth suspension were provided by its lifting fields. "Up Wellesley Street the old library was taken over by the art gallery, a new library built just across the road there. Those picture theaters apart from the St. James became a `multiplex' containing six screens - "

        "A what?" Carol asked.

        "I'll show you once we get back," Bron said hurriedly, " - now here is the Aotea Center, one time pride of Auckland."

        Parking the platform on the footpath, she then led them on foot through a huge rough-hewn wooden Maori archway to see a big wide building at the far end of an open concrete paved courtyard. Jamieson was disappointed. To him it looked like a layer cake made out of concrete. He couldn't see what Bron was so enthusiastic about, there was just nothing that stood out about it at all. It could have housed an indoor bowling alley for all he knew.

        "Yuk. Hope it didn't cost too much to build," Carol said.

        "Certainly doesn't look as if it cost too much to build," said Errol.

        "Looks like a great place to hold a wrist-slashing contest." Johnstone laughed.

        They all laughed at that. Jamieson now began to wonder if Bron's comments about the place hadn't actually been sarcastic.

        "Would you like to go inside?" she suggested. "It really is quite impressive."

        The friends looked at each other, and shook their heads. "No, I think we've seen enough," said Errol. " - Perhaps while we are up this way we could have a quick look round the North Shore. Then if Carol wants to come back and look around on her own, catch up on things, well, she'll have a head start..."

        They were walking through the beautiful parkland behind Takapuna Beach when the call came through on Bron's otinda, a sort of small kiddies slate-like affair which served as phone, T.V, radio and pretty much everything else electronic. Bron told him that he should go through the nearest Nessik, in the changing sheds down by the beach itself., to the Lalleldil where Oression was being looked after. He would find himself in the tukrenhro Oression was in as part of her treatment, her home city back on Urklak Elvos
 
 

        It felt really strange to be standing in that central park in Esthmer again. Even though Jamieson knew it was just a simulation, it was so real. It was far more detailed than Estelle's Class, and certainly more so than that wandering city back on Saioareapul. The people seemed more real too. Perhaps that was because, unlike those who had populated Estelle's Class, they were clearly `there' to relax and enjoy themselves rather than help him learn their language.

        The spot on which he was standing probably wasn't too far from where they had all caught that funny little underground railway car, indeed he could see the mass of ferns that marked the station behind him to his right when he turned to look.

        Just then one of their marvelous bat-like planes, each of its engines purring throatily like the one on a Mustang, flew over in a low steep bank ready for landing.

        Bron had told him that he might not see Oression immediately; he was to look for her so as to give her `a wonderful surprise'.

        He looked and looked, but even after ten minutes he could not find her at all.

        " - Jamieson..!" he heard her voice behind him. "Is that you?"

        He turned to see her running out from a stand of miniature pine-like trees which he thought he had searched. "Oh, it's so good to see you..!"

        She hugged and kissed him in that oddly awkward way that was a cross between they way the Noingi did it and how it was done back home.

        "How have you been getting on - here?" he asked her as they began to walk. He had no idea if she had been here all the time or what. At least conversation was so much easier now with the hilashels they had been fitted with, small devices that fitted inside one's ear that automatically translated different languages somehow.

        "Oh, fine. "I've met everybody here, my family, my friends, the people I used to work with. Everyone's been so nice to me."

        Jamieson felt a cold chill go through him. This simulation was incredibly realistic, certainly, but what she had said was impossible. She must have been imagining it.

        He didn't know what to say.

        "Oh, Jamieson, I know how that sounds to you," she looked him in the eye. "I know it's all make believe, but it's - it's exactly the same as if it was real. I guess they used the files from Estelle's ship. You know, I went down to a Hjintaez station and tried to take a melonhis, just to see if I could. And it worked! This simulation is so complete. So I ordered the melonhis to take me to my friend Morna's place, and though she wasn't home, her parents greeted me as if nothing had happened!"

        "As if we hadn't visited your world?" he asked her.

        "That's right. It still took me a little while to pluck up the courage to go on and visit my parents and all my other friends. But it really was as if I had never been away."

        "Gosh..." he replied. He knew he was out of his depth. How could a dead world be brought back to life so well as to convince a person who had spent all her life in it?

        "Where would you like to go now?" he asked her then. "I mean, I'm perfectly happy to be back here with you, we can just wander round if you like. It really is beautiful here."

        Suddenly, behind them, he heard the sound of a wave breaking on a beach he knew could not possibly be there. Oression suddenly gripped his arm.

        He looked at her, and gingerly turned his head towards the source of that impossible sound, wondering if he'd in fact just heard one of those planes crash. But no. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the beach. When he recognized which beach, he let her go and turned fully round.

        "Gosh..." he breathed.

        Oression turned round herself now and just stared. She then looked up at him. He couldn't be sure from the expression on her face how she was feeling, but he was sure she wasn't scared. Perhaps only confused, as he was.

        "Come on," he drew her close, "It's all right, I know where we are. - And it is only make-belief after all, isn't it? Well, sort of..." He looked back round to where the park was, but it had gone too, replaced by the mile-wide triangle of sandy mud and mangrove trees between the beach and its enclosing hills. He looked down to see what they were standing on, and it was indeed the sand he would have expected at the real spot. He reached down to scoop some up, it ran through his fingers.

        "I see what you mean," he looked at her in wonder. "It is pretty real."

        For the first time since he had seen her, she smiled at him. "Well, now that we're here, lets go exploring," she said brightly, completely taking him by surprise. She didn't seem crazy or upset at all. "This is the beach where you and Errol were living when you first met Estelle, isn't it? I'd love to see your house," she took his hand.

        "We could go back and see the real thing if you like, he offered. "That's if we can - "

        But then he realized that going back to the real world might not be possible just yet. In any case, the old house might no longer be there. And the real beach may have changed out of all recognition by now. In 2050.

        "I'm not sure we can leave just yet, not until the Lalleldil feels you're ready," he said, looking round. "Nothing was explained to me before I came in here, so I guess we are just going to have to figure it all out as best we can somehow."

         "It was the same for me," Oression said. "When I first woke up back in the park, I was told by a voice through my hilashel that nothing I saw was real, only a simulation, but that I should treat it as real. They also told me I had fallen ill, and that my visit here was necessary for my recuperation."

        "I see," was all Jamieson could say.

        "All right - fellow dreamer..!" she laughed, grabbing his hand and leading down onto the beach. "Now, which way?"

        But Jamieson didn't lead her either way. He took her straight down the beach and into the sea, clothes and all.

        To his great joy the water was warm. He splashed her when a small wave broke where they stood, and ran for it. She followed, laughing and shouting, then tackled him around the waist. They both went down in those warm shallows and just lay there, laughing, as the waves washed over them.

        It was even better than back on Hot Water Beach...

        They made their way up through the low bushes into the sandy yard, steam still coming off their now nearly dry clothing. The cats lifted their heads off that hot, sleepy verandah and about thirty little eyes swiveled in their direction. But they didn't jump up quickly and come running as they usually did. They arched and stretched themselves languidly as they rose to their feet in ones and twos, then trotted down the steps with friendly meows if if they wanted to greet the couple for themselves and not for what they might have brought with them.

        Oression laughed. "You lied," she said. "You told me that all they wanted was fish. Just fish. And more fish. And nothing else but fish."

        She poked him gently in the ribs as one of the cats rubbed itself against her legs. "This can't be real," she laughed as she bent down to stroke it.

        Jamieson tried to do the same with the two or three cats that twined themselves round his legs, but he nearly lost his balance instead.

        "Like a nice cup of tea?" he laughed, gesturing towards the house. "Let's see just how far this illusion goes."

        "Tea..!" she said, eyebrows raised and with a wry twist of her lips that Jamieson knew meant a grimace. "Let's see what else you - or they - might have stocked your kitchen with."

        The front door opened with a graunch as it always had. Inside, the house appeared exactly as it had been since he had left it that incredible night. They walked into all the rooms as they wandered through, he to see if they were still as he had left them, she to see what they were like. The same old framed photos from the beginning of the century hung on the walls - last century now, the old gum-diggers gathered round the huge kauri stump with its mass of tangled roots sticking out of it, the HMS Hood, another showing the house itself on the barge being towed out of Freeman's Bay. The wickerwork chairs, dust and all, were still in their places.

        When they arrived at the kitchen and he sat her down at the little narrow green-painted table with its scraped-bare wooden top, he opened the tea-cupboard to see what was left. The same ancient old cups, saucers and plates, the old tin of tea with `Bushells' written all over it, another larger tin covered in faded roses containing a few water-crackers, half a bottle of now-crusty milk, a saucer with the tail-end of a pound of butter on it, and three packets of Maggi Beef Soup, one half used. He remembered having folded it over with that clothespeg to try and keep it reasonably fresh.

        He thought of looking at the back of the knife-box, but couldn't bring himself to.

        "Not a lot," he said. "Couple of plates of venison with baked potatoes, kumara, diced carrots in white sauce, beans, and kohl rabi, I think. -And oh yes," he said, tapping the smelly milk-bottle with his fingernail, "the French Champagne."

        She laughed. "Sounds as good as it smells. But I've no idea what all those things are. - Perhaps you could show me," she started to get up.

        "No, no, no need," he laughed. "Guess I was hoping these items would change into all those lovely things I mentioned. But it seems we have no control over this simulation at all. None whatsoever. Sorry,"

        "Well, I was warned it would be just like the real thing," she laughed as he brought down the tea things and the biscuits. They would have to skip the milk, he also remembered having forgotten to pick up the milk powder on his last trip into town.

        "Might take a little while though," he said, wishing the stove would somehow get itself going. "I've got to get some firewood for the stove."

        "No need," Oression said brightly as he turned towards the washhouse to get some kindling. "Your prayers have been answered."

        He smelt it before he saw it. The little table was now covered in a red and white check table cloth, and all the things he had jokingly conjured up in his mind were now there, on plates he knew he did not have accompanied by cutlery he knew he would never have been able to afford. Even the champagne was there too in those funny wide glasses like those Auntie Clarissa had in her sideboard and, like so much else in there, he had only seen used when they had had that dreadful music teacher to dinner.

        "Come on Jamieson, sit down before it gets cold," she laughed up at him. "That water was wonderful, I'm sure this will be too. - Fascinating watching it appear. Seemed to grow right out of the tabletop itself, tablecloth and all."

        It made Jamieson think of the story of Jesus and the loaves and fishes. He wondered if he had just now seen how that might have been done.

        He also remembered then that he had still not looked up The Story of Jesus in the Rolodont. Or of Moses, and the parting of the Red Sea...

        They said nothing at first as they ate, the food was so delicious. but there was so much of it, and the champagne had the same effect on Noingi as it had on Earth folk. But then she started to talk of how her world's own space scientists had just become aware that the `reality' her world lived in might just be the surface of something deeper, and if they could find that something deeper and work out how to manipulate it, they might be able to explore space. She wondered if the technology the Iskurahi used to create artificial worlds like this one was the same, only developed to a much higher degree.

        When she started to giggle as she told him this, a chill went through every fibber of his being. He hoped to God it was only the champagne. If not, she might never be able to leave this artificial world at all. And that would mean, in 18 months time, her time would be up. If the Lalleldil could find no cure for her, she would be euthanased, painlessly and pleasantly, right here in Paradise.

        He wondered what on earth more he could do to help her. It was like being stuck in some kind of maze designed by city-folk, and he knew he simply wasn't brainy enough to find a way out for her. Any more than he would have been able to help Carol's younger brother.

        "So what do you think we should do after we - leave here?" he decided he'd better just carry on anyway and hope he could just somehow get her out. What else could he do? "Would you like us to keep on staying in the house with the others? Go away somewhere by ourselves - to other worlds maybe? Or just find a place to settle down somewhere. Marry, if you wish, find some way to have children. Perhaps adopt."

        He knew he meant it when he said it, even though he knew full well about the physiological differences between Noingi women and Earth women. Bron had explained to him early that morning before he had left for the Diursuel that the Noingi vaginal passage was above the anal passage, not in front as with Earth women. It was also much shorter and wider. One or other of them was going to have to have an operation, and since Oression was unique in this universe, he knew it would have to be him. Even then, she would only have a slim chance of conceiving, and there was about the same chance that the child would not be handicapped in some way, meaning abortion or euthanasia. If they wanted children, adoption was their only real hope.

        "I'd love to, Jamieson," she looked at him. " - Just imagine if we could just stay here," she laughed as she looked round at the little kitchen, the house, the beach beyond the window. "Just the two of us."

        Jamieson didn't like the sound of that.

        "You know we can't stay here," he said.

        "I know that," she insisted. "Perhaps we could find somewhere like this, perhaps even build an exact copy of this house on a beach just like this one."

        He didn't much like the sound of that either.

        "You don't think it's too primitive compared to what you were used to back home?" he asked her. "Besides, you'd be lonely; you'd soon get bored with me mooning round all day."

        "I know I can always go back and visit my people," she said simply. "I'm sure I'll be allowed to do that. I know they aren't real, but they are so much like them I often forget they aren't. Just long enough to feel - I really am home."

        "Perhaps that's possible," he relented. "Perhaps the rest of us could visit our people from time to time too - our original people, like yours. But I for one don't think so, though I don't really know why. You see, I was comfortable in my little world too, both on the farm and - selling land with my uncle, then staying here. When we first went with Estelle - and I didn't know what was happening properly until we were well away - I was terrified. Of the ship, of the people I was with - certainly I knew them, but not well, they weren't really my friends then. And I knew nothing about the Universe at all, not even compared to anyone else on my world at the time. But once we got going, and Estelle was simply wonderful towards us - "

        " - She was wonderful, wasn't she?" Oression agreed. "She was a miracle. I know, if she hadn't visited our world I would have continued on in my contented, blissful state too. But it wasn't to be, and, well, I'm not sorry either. Specially now, now that I've met you. Just because I took a chance on that plane - I'd never done anything like that before. But..."

        Her eyes said the rest of it for her.

        "You don't even regret the Anwirz grabbing you like that? - And that dreadful - "

        " - And that dreadful Citatay," she laughed. "She was so awful she was almost funny. Do you know she told me she did what she did to save you all from the sword? To make you look so unworthy of anything so noble as death at their hands? They weren't so bad; rough, hard, mean, certainly, but Citatay was able to keep them in line with that act of hers, protected me - and kept on reminding me of it as she made me do my `part' and be her slave. God, I wish I had half her talent for sheer - "

        Jamieson's hilashel was unable to translate the word. She saw his expression and laughed at him.

        "Change please..!" she shouted at the ceiling as she reached across to take Jamieson's hand. " - And I don't care what!"

        Nothing appeared to happen at first; Jamieson thought she was just trying it on. The serene expression on her face nearly changed to one of disappointment. But then what sounded like a million kazoos came through the walls and windows, and launched into a high-paced march that sounded like something straight out of that nasty Goon Show.

        "Oh heavens - now I've gone and done it," she looked round in alarm. "Come on, Oression," he took her hand. "You know it's all only make believe. Let's have a bit of fun while we're here."

        He crossed his mind just then that fun might just be the key to all this...

        She rose with him uncertainly from the table and looked round at the kitchen again. It was all still manifestly there.

        "Look out the window," he laughed, pointing.

        "Where are we?" she looked back at him wildly.

        "No idea. You picked it. Well, sort of. - Come on," he stood up. "Might as well go out the back way. Probably lead somewhere different now."

        As they opened the back door, it tripped a loud bell to ring above them.

        They caught a glimpse of crowds of what looked like extra-dark Negroes moving down a lane in front of them. They were certainly a strange looking lot, their hair stood out on end, and most wore shiny black and white striped overalls with wide belts that looked as if they had been knitted. But in response to the bell they all immediately turned and pointed at the couple, and began to hoot loudly, their faces dominated by the large red ovals of their mouths. The same hooting could suddenly be heard behind them. Jamieson turned to find his house had turned into what looked like a scruffy woolshed full of scratchy old mirrors under light bulbs that flickered in unison. He couldn't read the sign next to the door, it looked like a mass of jumbled letters buried in long curly strokes.

        "Fool's exit," he heard Oression laugh as she `read' it herself. "At least that's what I think it says."

        "That's probably about right, Oression," he laughed with her, taking her hand as the hooting now began to sound more like booing as the people passed on. "I suppose that's what can happen when you travel, do anything new, take a few chances. Win some, lose some. We certainly found that. You get used to it. Even get used to - liking it," he mock-sobbed.

        "With the greatest of respect, Jamieson, you know that that's just rubbish," she laughed at him. "But all right, I know what you mean. We have to take a few risks. Even when we're supposed to be having fun. - All right," she led the way onto the muddy track amongst the throngs who had apparently jeered at them so, "let's just get on with it."

        As they walked down the lane, the carnival began to look more like something out of the Winter Show. Most of the rides even looked as if they had been made out of scrapped agricultural machinery cobbled together. One that looked like several conveyor-belts joined end to end in a circle, passing their passengers bumpily between them, might once have been a dozen hay-balers. A tedder whose tines had been replaced by long stiff bristles had become a tickling machine for tiny kiddies who baaaed like little billie goats as they rolled around in the deep piles of hay underneath.

        The music had now become even worse, it sounded like old 78's played backwards at all sorts of speeds. Nor were the gaudily incomprehensible signs and banners above the ticket boxes and booths much better, their thick dripping colors looked as if they might run in the next shower of rain.

        And now new crowds began to press round Jamieson and Oression, going a wide-eyed "yeeohhh...!" as if the two of them had just escaped from a freak show.

        "Shall we go or shall we stay?" Jamieson offered.

        "I'd quite like to see what happens," she said. "At this rate, with all these people gathering round, we might even be able to find ourselves a job here. Wouldn't you like a chance to work for a living in Paradise?"

        "Change..!" Jamieson shouted his reply up into the ghostily lit-up overcast sky.

        Once again there was a slight delay. Perhaps it took even the Lalleldil a little while to change reality. Or was it just a chance for their `loonies' to change their minds?

        "Brhhhh...! - Change..!" Jamieson only just heard Oression shout even though she was standing right next to him. They had found themselves in the middle of a raging blizzard in some place he couldn't even see. All he managed to establish was that they were standing on a hillside when -

         - a pub? That's what it looked like at first glance when they found themselves in it. The throngs of people looked vaguely Chinese, although they wore the few pitiful strands of hair they had in the form of ponytails springing up from the backs of their heads with the aid of tiny little greenstone bands. They were standing in their yellowy sea-grass-like tunics and kilts round tall narrow tables made from what looked like miniature totem poles with flat circular tops attached to them. The cups they drank from were, like their hair-rings, also made of greenstone, though a much lighter more transparent kind.

        The building itself - and Jamieson was increasingly unsure that it was a pub now - looked like the inside of a Nissen hut except that its half-barrel shaped walls and roof appeared to be built from a material that seemed woven in some way to resemble bricks in a wall. Tapestries and carved panels hung all round depicting action scenes so highly stylized that they were even more incomprehensible than the Japanese drawings he had seen photos of. They could have been of battles, religious conflicts, or even orgies for all he knew.

        "I think this might be some sort of place to celebrate sporting victories," Oression said, still holding his hand. "Least they don't seem too perturbed by our presence. - Can you see a door anywhere?"

        Jamieson looked and looked, but he couldn't. The end walls were as uniform-looking behind their tapestries and panels as the curved ones.

        Suddenly something hit the wall behind them with an explosive thud. Nobody seemed to notice however, they just carried on with their drinking. Jamieson wasn't sure, but he thought he saw a few beads of sweat appear on some of those faces.

        "...Can I help you?" Jamieson heard from behind him.

        They both turned to find a shorter younger version of one of the drinkers standing there. It took Jamieson a moment to realize that he had heard - he, she or it - through his hilashel.

        "We are very grateful to have been invited here," Oression glanced quickly towards Jamieson, "but we now feel the time has come for us to leave. I would be very glad if you could show us the way out."

        "Who brought you here?" the young person - an assistant? - wanted to know. "I can see that you are guests in our world, so you may not be aware that the person who brought you here has the correct key for our Nessik. Perhaps you would care to point that person out to me."

        "I am sorry, I did not know that," Jamieson said, glancing at Oression.

        But she just grinned back at him. "That person is really his friend," she told the assistant, pointing at Jamieson. " - He'll know where she is," she actually managed to sound catty through the hilashel.

        " - I have to tell you that I have somehow lost sight of her," Jamieson struggled to think quickly. "Is it possible she may have left with someone else?"

        The quick facial expressions and noises from both Oression and the assistant were unreadable in their different ways. But he certainly knew it had been a dumb thing to say.

        " - She might just be in the toilet" Jamieson was seized by inspiration. "Could you show my friend here the way so she can go and check?"

        Oression looked at him with what he suspected was a pained expression, but asked the assistant to show her the way anyway. Jamieson managed to watch over the heads of the crowd as they walked over to a large tapestry at the end of the hall that nearly reached the floor. He watched as the assistant peeled one side of it up to allow Oression to step over the low section of wall beneath and pass behind.

        One of the hall's guests then seemed to notice Jamieson almost as if he recognized him, and began to turn from the table at which he was drinking...

        ...But suddenly he and the entire scene around him began to dissolve. The floor of the hall wriggled somehow and changed texture and color to became a nearly flat riverbank, the walls became the stream curving round to his right backed by bush and trees piled high. In front of him the drinkers and their tables had turned into a grove of trees... which he recognized.

        He had been here before.

        Then he recognized it. Hot Water Beach. Aboard Estelle's ship, where they had spent so many happy hours together. Estelle's now dead ship.

        Jamieson's heart fell.

        He looked round for Oression. She soon appeared though from the grove in front of him, perhaps from roughly the same spot she was in when she called the Change.

        "It's all right, Jamieson," she called as she approached him, she had obviously seen the expression on his face. "I only did it to see if we could do it. There was no one in the toilet and I had to admit defeat, so I called the Change. Then I had the bright idea of seeing if they would let us come back here. I - I wanted to see how far they would let us go," she looked back in the direction they both new the house would lie in. "Fools exit again I guess. - In more ways than one."

        "You know we can't stay here - or ever come back. Estelle's gone, Oression."

        "I know that," she told him. "but it's nice to think... perhaps if one or two of the others ever needed to ... well, you know."

        "Yes, perhaps," he agreed, thinking of Carol.

        "Should we try to go back now?" she looked at him. "Go back to our new home I mean? I think we can work things out from there now, with the others, with our friends. They have the same problems too, don't they? Then perhaps we, sometime in the future, could continue to explore. For real, I mean. Perhaps we could begin by visiting some of those places round New Zealand in Estelle's paintings - and perhaps even the real Hot Water Beach. You know I'd love to see that..."

        She laughed when she came up to him and they hugged each other.

        "How do we do it?" she then asked anxiously. "I mean, if I just shout out Home, how will I know we'll actually go home, and not just to a simulation of it? With a phony Errol, and Carol? And Johnstone? That would be horrible."

        "There's your answer, though no guarantees," he said into her ear softly. He had just seen the Nessik materialize on the bank about twenty feet in front of him - and could see into what looked like Oression's bedroom through the thin rectangular metallic frame that outlined it.

        She turned and looked, then looked back at him with joy. "It's funny," she laughed, "but I think Estelle's Gates looked far more advanced than Iskurahi ones do, though I don't know why."

        "The main thing for us is that they seem to work just as well," he smiled as he took her hand and led her towards it.

        They stepped out through Oression's bedroom door to smiles and laughing faces, even Bron's.

        "You must be hungry after all that," she said. "We've got a big meal ready, you must be starving."

        "Well..." the two of them looked at each other.

        "Don't think these two will need anything as basic as food ever again," Johnstone laughed.

        "You can come into the dining room anyway and watch us eat if you like," Errol said. "Since we didn't know when you were coming out, we got started without you."

        Oression and Jamieson laughed with the others as they followed them towards the dining room. As they passed under the doorway and saw that a huge dinner was in fact ready for them, Errol stopped them right there.

        "Mistletoe," he grinned at them, pointing up above the doorway.