It wasn't a very long walk from theBoat Houseto the Tower of Zeus, but it was long enough. By the time Forrester got to the Tower, he was feeling a lot worse than he'd felt when he left the bar. Being perfectly frank with himself, he admitted that he felt terrible.
The blow from the brass ashtray wasn't a sharp pain any longer. It had developed into a nice, dependable ache that had spread all over the side of his head. And his right eye was beginning to swell, probably from the same cause. He'd skinned the knuckles of his right hand, too, probably on Sam's face, and they set up their own smarting.
True, it wasn't a bad list of injuries to result from the odds he'd faced. But that wasn't the point.
You just didn't go up to the Tower of Zeus looking like a back-street brawler.
However, there was no help for it. He straightened his jacket and went in through the Fifth Avenue entrance of the Tower, heading for the first bank of elevators.
Zeus All-Father would know everything about his fight, and would know that it hadn't been his fault. (Hadn't it, though? Forrester asked himself. He rememberedthe joy he'd felt at the prospect of battle. How far would it count against him?) Zeus All-Father, through his priests, would make what allowances should be made.
Forrester hoped that the Godhead was feeling in a kind and merciful mood.
He reached the bank of elevators, and the burly Myrmidon who stood there, wearing the lightning-bolt shoulder patch of the All-Father. Ahead of him was a chattering crowd of five: mother, father, two daughters and a small son, all obviously out-of-towners. The Tower of Zeus was always a big tourist attraction. The Myrmidon directed them to the stairway that led to the second-floor Arcade, the main attraction for most visitors to the Tower. The Temple of Sacrifice was located up there, while the ground floor was filled with glass-fronted offices of the secretaries of various dignitaries.
Chattering gaily, and looking around them in a kind of happy awe, the family group moved off and Forrester stepped up to the Myrmidon, who said: "Stairway's right over there to your—"
"No," Forrester said. He reached into his jacket pocket, feeling his muscles ache as he did so. He drew out his wallet and managed to extract the simple card he'd been given in the Temple of Pallas Athena, the card which carried nothing but a lightning bolt.
He handed it to the Myrmidon, who looked down at it, frowned, and then looked up.
"What's this for?" he said.
"Well—" Forrester began, and then caught himself. He'd been told not to explain about the card to any mortal. And the Myrmidon was certainly just as mortal as Forrester himself, or any other hireling of the Gods. True, there was always the consideration that he might be Zeus All-Father himself, in disguise.
But that was a consideration that bore no weight at present. Even if the Myrmidon turned out to be a God in disguise, Forrester wouldn't be excused if he saidanything about the card. You had to go by appearances; that was the principle on which everything rested, and a very good principle too.
Not that there weren't a few unprincipled young men around who pretended to be Gods in disguise in order to seduce various local and ingenuous maidens. But Zeus always found out about them. And ...
Forrester recognized that his thoughts were beginning to veer once more. Without changing his expression, he said evenly: "You're supposed to know," and waited.
The Myrmidon studied him for what seemed about three days. At last he nodded, looked down at the card intently, raised his head and nodded again. "Okay," he said. "Take Car One."
Forrester moved off. Car One was not the first elevator car. As a matter of fact, it was in the middle bank, identified only by a small placard. It took him almost five minutes to find it, and by the time he stepped toward it clocks were ticking urgently in his head.
It would do him absolutely no good to be late.
But another Myrmidon was standing beside the closed doors of the elevator car. Forrester hissed in his breath with impatience—none of which showed on his face—and then caught himself. Certainly Zeus All-Father knew what he was doing, and if Zeus had thrown these delays in his path, it was not for him to complain.
The thought was soothing. Nevertheless, Forrester showed his card to the Myrmidon with an abrupt action very like impatience. This Myrmidon merely glanced at it in a bored fashion and pushed a button on the wall behind him. The elevator doors opened, Forrester stepped inside, and the doors closed.
Forrester was alone in a small bronzed cubicle which began at once to rise rapidly. Just how rapidly, he was unable to tell. There were no indicators at all on the elevator, and the opaque doors made it impossible to see floors flit by. But his ears rang with the speed, and whenthe car finally stopped, it did so with a slight jerk that threw Forrester, stiff and worried, off balance. He almost fell out of the car as the door opened, and clutched at something for support.
The something was the arm of a Myrmidon. Forrester gaped and looked around. He was in a plain hallway of polished marble. There was no way to tell how many stories above the street he was.
The Myrmidon seemed a more friendly sort than his compatriots downstairs, and wore in addition to the usual lightning-bolt patch the two silver ants of a Captain on the shoulders of his uniform. He nearly smiled at Forrester—but not quite.
"You're William Forrester?" he said.
Forrester nodded. He produced the ID card and handed it with the special card to the Myrmidon.
"Right," the Myrmidon said.
Forrester turned right.
The Myrmidon stared at him. "No," he said. "I mean it's all right. You're all right."
"Thank you," Forrester said.
"Oh—" The Myrmidon looked at him, then shrugged his shoulders. "You're expected," he said at last in a flat voice. "Come with me."
He started down the hallway. Forrester followed him around a corner to an ornate bronzed door, covered with bas-reliefs depicting the actions of the Gods among themselves, and among men. The Myrmidon seemed unimpressed by the magnificence of the thing; he pushed it open and bowed low to, as far as Forrester could see, nobody in particular.
Taking no chances, Forrester copied his bow. He was still bent when the Myrmidon announced: "Forrester is here, Your Concupiscence," in a reverent tone of voice, and backed off a step, narrowly missing Forrester himself in the process.
He waved a hand and Forrester went in.
The door shut halfway behind him.
The room was perfectly unbelievable. Its rich hangings were purple velvet, draping a large window that looked out on ...
Forrester gulped. It was impossible to be this high. New York was spread out below like a toy city.
He jerked his eyes away from the window and back to the rest of the room. It was furnished mainly with couches: big couches, little couches, puffy ones, spare ones, in felt, velvet, fur, and every other material Forrester could think of. The rooms were flocked in a pale pink, and on the floor was a deep-purple rug of a richer pile than Forrester had ever seen.
And on one of the couches, the largest and the softest, she reclined.
She was clad only in the diaphanous robes of her calling, and she was stacked. Beside her, little Maya Wilson would have looked about eight years old. Her hair was as red as the inside of a blast furnace, and had about the same effect on Forrester's pulse rate. Her face was a slightly rounded oval, her body a series of mathematically indescribable curves.
Forrester did the only thing he could do.
He bowed again, even lower than before.
"Come in, William Forrester," said the High Priestess of Venus/Aphrodite, the veritable Primate of Venus for New York herself, in a voice that managed to be all at once regal, pleasant and seductive.
Forrester, already in, could think of nothing to say. The gaze of Her Concupiscence fell on the half-open door. "You may retire, Captain," she said to the waiting Myrmidon. "And allow no one to enter here until I give notice."
"Very well, Your Concupiscence," the Myrmidon said.
The door shut.
Forrester snapped erect from his bow, and then realized that he could do nothing but stand there untilhe had more information. What was the High Priestess of Aphrodite doing in the Tower of Zeus All-Father anyway? And—always supposing she had the right to be there, as of course she must have had—what did she want with William Forrester?
He heaved a great sigh. This was turning into an extremely puzzling day. First there had been the message and the card admitting him to the Tower. Then there had been (the sigh changed in character) Maya Wilson. And then (the sigh changed again, into a faint echo of a groan) the fight in theBoat House.
Now he was having an audience with the Primate of Venus for New York.
Why?
The High Priestess's smile gave him no hint. She raised herself to a sitting position and patted the couch. "Sit over here," she said. "Next to me." Then she changed her mind. "No," she added. "First just walk over here, stand up and turn around. Slowly."
Forrester's brain was whirling like a top, but his face was, as usual, expressionless. He did as she had bid him, wondering frantically what was going on, and why?
After he had turned completely around and stood facing her again, the High Priestess simply sat and studied him for almost a full minute, looking him up and down with eyes that were totally unreadable. Forrester waited.
Finally she nodded her head slowly. "You'll do," she said, in a reflective tone, and nodded her head again. "Yes, you'll do."
Forrester couldn't restrain his questions any longer. "Do?" he burst out. "I mean," he continued, more quietly, "what will I do for, Your Concupiscence?"
"Oh, for whatever honor it is that our beloved Goddess has in mind for you," the High Priestess said offhandedly. "I can certainly see that you will do. A little pudgy around the middle, but that's a trifle and hardly matters.The important things are there. You're obviously strong and quick."
At that point Forrester caught up with the first sentence of her explanation. "The—the Goddess?" he said faintly.
"Certainly," the High Priestess said. "Else why would I give you audience? I am not promiscuous in my dealings with the lay world."
"I'm sure," Forrester said respectfully.
The High Priestess looked at him sardonically. "Of course you are," she said. "However, the important thing is that our beloved Aphrodite has selected you, William Forrester, for some high honor."
Forrester caught her word for the Goddess, and remembered, thanking his lucky stars he hadn't had a chance to slip, that here in the Tower it was protocol to refer to the Gods and Goddesses by their Greek names alone.
"I don't suppose," he said tentatively, "that you have any idea just what this—high honor is?"
"You, William Forrester," the High Priestess began, in some rage, "dare to question—" Her tone changed. "Oh, well, I suppose I shouldn't become angry with ... No." She shrugged, but her tone carried a little pique. "Frankly, I don't know what the honor is."
"Well, then," Forrester said, his bearing perfectly calm, even though he could feel his stomach sinking to ground level, "how do you know it's an honor?" The thought that had crossed his mind was almost too horrible to retain, but he had to say it. "Perhaps," he went on, "I've offended the Gods in some unusual way—some way very offensive to them."
"Perhaps you have."
"And perhaps," Forrester said, "they've decided on some exquisite method of punishing me. Something like the punishment they gave Tantalus when he—"
"I know the ways of the Gods quite well, thank you,"the High Priestess said coolly. "And I can tell you that your fears have no justification."
"But—"
"Please," the High Priestess said, raising a hand. "If the Gods were to punish you, they would simply have sent out a squad of Myrmidons to pick you up, and that would have been the end of it."
"Perhaps not," Forrester said, in a voice that didn't sound at all like his own to him. It sounded much too unconcerned. "Perhaps I have offended only the Goddess herself." The idea sounded more plausible the more he thought about it. "Certainly the All-Father would back up his favorite Daughter in punishing a mortal."
"Certainly he would. There is no doubt of that. And still the Myrmidons would have—"
"Not necessarily. You're well aware of the occasional arguments and quarrels between the Gods."
"I am," the High Priestess said, not without irony. "And it does not appear seemly that an ordinary mortal should mention—"
"I teach History," Forrester said. "I know of such quarrels. Especially between Athena and Aphrodite."
"And?"
"It's obvious. Since I'm an acolyte of Athena, it may be that Aphrodite wished to keep my arrest secret."
"I doubt it," the High Priestess said.
Forrester wished he could believe her. But his own theory looked uncomfortably plausible. "It certainly looks as if I'm right."
"Well—" For a second the High Priestess paled visibly, the freckles that went with her red hair standing out clearly on her face and giving her the disturbing appearance of an eleven-year-old. No eleven-year-old, however, Forrester reminded himself, had ever been built like the High Priestess.
Then she regained her color and laughed, all in an instant. "For a minute," she said in a light tone, "youalmost convinced me of your forebodings. But there's nothing in them. There couldn't be."
Forrester opened his mouth, andWhy not?was on his lips. But he never got a chance to say the words. The High Priestess blinked and peered more closely at his face, and before he had a chance to speak she asked him: "What happened to you?"
"A small accident," Forrester said quickly. It was a lie, but he thought a pardonable one. The truth was just too complicated to spin out; he had no real intent to deceive.
But the High Priestess shook her head. "No," she said. "Not an accident. A fight. Your hands are skinned and bruised."
"Very well," Forrester said. "It was a fight. But I was attacked, and entitled to defend myself."
"I'm sure," the High Priestess said. "Yet I have a question for you. Who won?"
"Won? I did. Naturally."
It sounded boastful, he reflected, but it wasn't. He had won, and it had been natural to him to do so. His build and strength, as well as his speed, had made any other outcome unlikely.
And the High Priestess didn't seem to take offense. She said only: "I thought so. Just a moment." Then she walked over to a telephone. It was a simple act but Forrester watched it fervently. First she stood up, and then she took a step, and then another step ... and her whole body moved. And moved.
It was marvelous. He watched her bend down to pick up the phone without any clear idea of the meaning of the motions. The motions themselves were enough. Every curve and jiggle and bounce was engraved forever on his mind.
The High Priestess dialed a number, waited and said: "Aphrodite's compliments to Hermes the Healer."
An indistinguishable voice answered her from the receiver.
"Aphrodite thanks you," the High Priestess said, "and asks if Hermes might send one of his priests around for a few minor ministrations."
The receiver said something else.
"No," the High Priestess said. "Nothing like that. Don't you think we have other interests—such as they are?"
Again the receiver.
"Just a black eye and some skin lacerations," the High Priestess said. "Nothing serious."
And the receiver replied once more.
"Very well," the High Priestess said. "Aphrodite wishes you well." She hung up.
She came back to the couch, Forrester's eyes following her every inch of the way. She sat down, looked up and said: "What's the matter? Do I bore you?"
"Boreme?" Forrester all but cried.
"It's just—well, nothing, I suppose," the High Priestess said. "Your expression."
"Training," Forrester explained. "An acolyte does well not to express his emotions too clearly."
The High Priestess nodded casually and patted the couch at her side. "Sit down here, next to me."
Forrester did so, gingerly.
A moment of silence ensued.
Then Forrester, gathering courage, said: "Thank you for getting a Healer. But I'd like to ask you—"
"Yes?"
"How do you know I'm not under some sort of carefully concealed arrest? After all, you said before that you were sure—"
"And I am sure," the High Priestess said. "Aphrodite herself has ordered a sacrifice in her favor. A sacrifice from you. And Aphrodite does not accept—much lessorder—a sacrifice from those standing in her disfavor."
"You're—"
"I'm sure," the High Priestess said.
"Oh," Forrester said. "Good." The world was not quiteas black as it could have been. And still, it was not exactly shining white. A sacrifice? And outside the door, Forrester could hear a disturbance.
What did that mean?
Her Concupiscence didn't seem to hear it at first. "We will perform the rite together and—" The noise grew louder. "What's that?" she said.
It was the sound of argument. Forrester realized what had happened. "It's the priest from Hermes," he said. "The Healer. You forgot to tell the Captain of Myrmidons to let him in."
"My goodness!" the High Priestess said. "So I did! It slipped my mind entirely." She touched Forrester's cheek affectionately. "Of course, I imagine it's only natural to be a bit forgetful when—" She got up and went to the door.
The Captain and a small, fat priest in a golden-edged tunic were tangled confusedly outside. The High Priestess looked away from them in disdain and said regally: "You may permit the Healer to enter, Captain." The tangle came untied and the little priest scooted in. To him, as the door closed again, the High Priestess whispered: "Sorry. I didn't expect you quite so soon."
"No more did I!" The priest waved his caduceus furiously, so that it seemed as if the twin snakes twined round it were moving, the two wings above them beating, and the ball surmounting all, on top of the staff, traced uneasy designs in the air. "Myrmidons!" he said.
"I certainly regret—"
"If you boiled down their brains for the fat content, one alone would supply the Temple with candles for a year! Just beef and nothing more! Beef! Beef!"
Then, with a start, he seemed to see the High Priestess for the first time, and his tone changed. "Oh," he said. "Good evening, Your Concupiscence."
"Good evening," the High Priestess said in an indulgent tone.
"Well, well, well," the priest said. "What seems to be the trouble? My goodness. It must be important, sure enough—certainly important." His little round red eager face seemed to shine as he went on. "Hermes himself transported me here just as soon as you called!"
"Really?"
"Oh, my, yes," the priest said. "Just as soon as ever. Yes. Hm. And you can believe me when I tell you—believe me, Your Concupiscence—take my word when I tell you—"
"Yes?"
"Hermes," the priest said. "Hermes doesn't often take such an interest—I may say such apersonalinterest—in a mortal, I'll tell you. And you can believe me when I do tell you that. I do."
"I'm sure," the High Priestess said.
"Yes," the priest said, waving his caduceus gently. He blinked. "Where's the patient? The mortal?"
"He's over here," the High Priestess said, motioning to Forrester sitting awestruck on the couch. Priests of Hermes were common enough sights—but a priest like this was something new and strange in his experience.
"Ah," the priest said, twinkling at him. "So there you are, eh? Over there? Youaresitting overthere, aren't you?"
"That's right," Forrester said blankly.
"Now listen to me carefully," the High Priestess said. "You're not to ask his name, or mention anything about this visit to anyone—understand?"
The priest blinked. "Oh, certainly. Absolutely. Without doubt. I've already been told that, you might say. Already. Certainly. Wouldn't think of such a thing." He moved over and stood near Forrester, peering down at him. "My goodness," he said. "Let me see that eye, young man."
Forrester turned his head wordlessly.
"Oh, my, yes," the priest said. "Black indeed. Veryblack. A fight. My, yes. An altercation, disagreement, discussion, battle—"
"Yes," Forrester cut in.
"Certainly you have," the priest said. "And what'd the other fellow look like, eh? Beaten, I'll bet. You look a strong type."
Forrester relaxed. It was the only thing to do while the priest babbled on, touching his wounds gently as he did so with various parts of his caduceus. The pain vanished with a touch of the left wingtip, and the lacerations healed instantly as they were caressed with first one and then another of the various coils of the snakes.
But Forrester now was free to worry. Arrest was out of the question. As the High Priestess had said, on the evidence it was clear that Aphrodite intended to honor him in some way. And there was nothing at all, he thought, wrong with an honor from the Goddess of Love.
But another sacrifice? After the sacrifice to Aphrodite he'd made earlier, and the fight he'd gotten into, he just didn't quite feel up to it. It wouldn't do to refuse, but ...
"Well," the priest said, stepping back. "Well, well. You ought to be all right now, young fellow—right as rain."
Forrester said: "Thanks."
"Might feel a little soreness—tenderness, you might say—for a day or so. Only a day or so, tenderness," the priest said. "After that, right as rain. Right as you'll ever be.Allright, as a matter of fact: all right."
Forrester said: "Thanks."
The priest went to the door, turned, and said to the High Priestess: "Hermes' blessing on you both, as a matter of fact, as they say. Blessings from Hermes on you both."
The High Priestess nodded regally.
"And," the priest said, "merely by the way, as itmight be, without meaning harm, if you would ask a blessing for me—Aphrodite's blessing? Easy for you. Of course, it would be nice curing—curing, as they say—stupidity, plain dumbness, as they call such things—curing stupidity as easily as I can cure small ills. Nice."
"Indeed," the High Priestess said.
"But there," the priest went on. "Only the Gods can cure that. Only the Gods and no one else. Yes. Hm. And not often. They don't do anything like that in the—ah—regular course of things. As a matter of fact, you might say, I've never heard of—never heard of such a case. Never. Not one. Yet ..." He opened the door, spat: "Myrmidons!" and disappeared into the hallway.
The door banged shut.
Forrester sighed heavily. The High Priestess turned to him.
"Feel better?" she asked.
"Much," Forrester said, dreading the ordeal to come.
The High Priestess came over to the couch and sat down next to him. She put a hand on his shoulder. "Shall we prepare for the—sacrifice?"
Forrester sighed again. "Sure," he said. "Naturally."
When she was locked in his arms, it was as if time had started all over again. Forrester responded to the eagerness of the woman as he'd never dreamed he could respond; all his tiredness dropped away as if it had never been, and he was a new man. He touched her bare flesh and felt the heat of her through his fingers and hands; with his arms around her nakedness he rolled, locked to her, feeling the friction of skin against skin and the magnificence of her.
The sacrifice went on ... and on ... and on into endless time and endless space. Forrester thrust and gasped at the woman and her head went back, her mouth pulled open as she shivered and responded to him....
Forever....
Until finally they lay, panting, in the magnificent room. Forrester rose first, vaguely surprised at himself. He found a towel in a closet at the far end of the room and wiped his damp forehead slowly.
"Well," he said. "That was quite a sacrifice. What next?"
The High Priestess raised herself on one elbow and stared across the room at him. "There is no need for such familiarity, Forrester," she said. "Not from a lay acolyte."
Forrester tossed the towel onto a couch. "My apologies, Your Concupiscence. I'm a little—light-headed. But what happens next?"
The High Priestess reached into the diaphanous pile of her clothing and came up with a small diamond-encrusted watch she wore, usually, on her wrist. "Our timing was almost perfect," she said. "It is now twenty-hundred hours. The Goddess expects you at twenty-oh-one exactly."
A hurried half-minute passed. Then, fully dressed, Forrester went with the High Priestess to a golden door half-hidden in the hangings at the side of the room. She made a series of mystical signs: the circle, the serpent and others Forrester couldn't quite follow.
She opened the door, genuflecting as she did so, and Forrester dropped to one knee behind her, looking at the doorway.
It was filled with a pale blue haze that looked like the clear summer sky on a hot day. Except that it wasn't sky, but a curtain that wavered and shimmered before his eyes. Beyond it, he could see nothing.
The High Priestess rose from her genuflection and Forrester followed suit. There was a sole second of silence.
Then the High Priestess said: "You are to step through the Veil of Heaven, William Forrester."
Forrester said: "Me?Through theVeil of Heaven?"
"Don't be afraid," she said. "And don't try to touch the Veil. Just walk through as if nothing at all were there."
Forrester filled his lungs as though he were going to take a very high dive. He thought:Here goes nothing. That was all; there wasn't time for anything else.
He stepped into the blue haze, and had a sudden sensation of falling.
There was a tingle like a mild electric shock. Forrester opened his mouth and then closed it again as the tingle stopped, and the sense of falling simply died away. He had closed his eyes on the way into the curtain, and now he opened them again.
He closed them very quickly, counted to ten, and took a deep breath. Then he opened them to look at the room he was in.
It was unlike any room he had ever seen before. It didn't have the opulence of the High Priestess's rooms. I am a room, it seemed to say, and a room is what I was meant to be. I don't have to draw attention to myself like my poorer sisters. I am content merely to exist as the room of rooms, the very type and image of the Ideal Enclosure.
The floors and walk of the place seemed to blend into each other at odd angles. Forrester's eyes couldn't quite follow them or understand them, and judging the size of the room was out of the question. There was a golden wash of light filling the room, though it didn't seem to come from anywhere in particular. It was, in fact, as if the room itself were shining. Forresterblinked and rubbed his eyes. The light, or whatever it was, was changing color.
Gradually, he realized that it went on doing that. He wasn't sure that he liked it, but it was certainly different. The colors went from gold to pale rose to violet to blue, and so on, back to gold again, while little eddies and swirls of light sparkled into rainbows here and there.
Forrester began to feel dizzy again.
There were various objects standing around here and there in the room, but Forrester couldn't quite tell what they were. Even their sizes were difficult to judge, because of the shifting light and shape of the room itself. There was only one thing that seemed reasonably certain.
He was alone in the room.
Set in one wall was a square of light that didn't change color quite as much as everything else. Forrester judged it to be a window and headed for it. With his first step, he discovered something else about the place.
The carpeting was completely unique. Instead of fiber, the floor seemed to have been covered a foot deep with foam rubber. Forrester didn't exactly walk to the window; he bounced there. The sensation was almost enjoyable, he thought, when you got used to it. He wondered just how long it took to get used to it and settled on eighty years as a good first guess.
He stood in front of the window. He looked out.
He saw nothing but clouds and sky.
It took a long while for him to decide what to do next, and when he finally did come to a decision, it was the wrong one.
He looked down.
Below him there were tumbled rocks, ledges of ice and snow, clouds and—far, far below—the flat land of the Earth. He wanted to shut his eyes, but he couldn't. The whole vast stomach-churning panorama spread outbeneath him endlessly. The people below, if there were any, weren't even big enough to be ants. They were completely invisible. Forrester took a deep breath and gripped the side ledges of the window.
And a voice behind him said: "Welcome, Mortal."
Forrester almost went through the window. But he managed to regain his balance and turn around, saying angrily: "Don'tdothat!" As the last of the words left his lips, he became aware of the smiling figure facing him.
She was standing in a spotlight, Forrester thought at first. Then he saw that the light was coming from the woman herself—or from her clothing. The dress she wore was a satinlike sheath that glowed with an aura even brighter than the room. Her blonde hair picked up the radiance and glowed, too, illuminating a face that was at once regal, inviting and passionate. It was, Forrester thought, a hell of a disturbing combination.
The cloth of the dress clung to her figure as if it wanted to. Forrester didn't blame it a bit; the dress showed off a figure that was not only beyond his wildest dreams, but a long way beyond what he had hitherto regarded as the bounds of possibility. From shoulder to toe, she was perfection.
This was also true of the woman from shoulder to crown.
Forrester gulped and, automatically, went on one knee.
"Please," he murmured. "Pardon me. I didn't mean—"
"Quite all right," the Goddess murmured. "I understand perfectly."
"But I—"
"Never mind all that now," Venus said, with just a hint of impatience. "Rise, William Forrester—or you who were William Forrester."
Forrester rose. Sweat was pouring down his face.He made no effort to wipe it away. "Were?" he asked, dazed. "But that's my name!"
"Itwas," Venus said, in the same calm tone. "Henceforth, your name is Dionysus."
Forrester took a while to remember to swallow. "Dionysus?" he said at last.
There was another silence.
Forrester, feeling that perhaps his first question could use some amplification, said: "Dionysus? Bacchus? You mean me?"
"Quite right," Venus said. "That will be your name, and you'd better begin getting used to it."
"Now wait a minute!" he said. "I don't mean to be disrespectful, but something occurs to me. I mean, it's the first thing I thought of, and I'm probably wrong, but just let me ask the questions, if you don't mind, and maybe some of this will make some sense. Because just a few hours ago I was doing very nicely on my own and I—"
"What are your questions?" Venus said.
Forrester swayed. "Dionysus/Bacchus himself," he said. "Won't he mind my—"
Venus laughed. "Mind your using his name? My goodness, no."
"But—"
"It's all because of the orgies," Venus said.
Everything, he told himself, was getting just a little too much for him. "Orgies?" he said.
Venus nodded. "You see, there are all those orgies held in his honor. You know about those, of course."
"Sure I do," Forrester said, watching everything narrowly. In just a few seconds, he told himself hopefully, the whole room would vanish and he would be in a nice, peaceful insane asylum.
"Well, it isn't impossible for a God to be at all the orgies held in his honor," Venus said. "Naturally not. But,at the same time, they are all rather boring—for a God, I mean. And that's why you're here," she finished.
Forrester said: "Oh." And then he said: "Oh?" The room hadn't disappeared yet, but he was willing to give it time.
"Dionysus," Venus said patiently, as if she were explaining the matter to a small and rather ugly child, "gets tired of appearing at the orgies. He wants someone to take his place."
The silence after that sentence was a very long one. Forrester could think of nothing to say but: "Me?"
"You will be raised to the status of Godling," Venus said. "You remember Hercules and Achilles, don't you?"
"Never met them," Forrester said vacantly.
"Naturally," Venus said. "They were, however, ancient heroes, raised to the status of Godling, just as you yourself will be. However, you will not be honored or worshipped under your own name."
Forrester nodded. "Naturally," he said, wondering what he was talking about. There was, he realized, the possibility that he was not insane after all, but he didn't want to think about that. It was much too painful.
"You will receive instructions in the use of certain powers," Venus said. "These will enable you to perform your new duties."
Duties.
The word carried a strange connotation. Dionysus/Bacchus was the God of wine, among other things, and women and song had been thrown in as an afterthought. The duties of a stand-in for a God like that sounded just a little bit overwhelming.
"These—duties," he said. "Will they be temporary or permanent?"
"Well," Venus said, "that depends." She smiled at him sweetly.
"Depends?"
"So far," Venus said, "our testing shows that you arecapable of handling certain of the duties to be entrusted to you. But, for the rest, everything depends on your own talents and devotion."
"Ah," Forrester said, and then: "Testing?"
"You don't suppose that we would pick a mortal for an important job like this without making certain that he was capable of doing the job, do you?"
"Frankly," Forrester said, "I haven't got around to supposing anything yet."
Venus smiled again. "We have tested you," she said, "and so far you appear perfectly capable of exercising your powers."
Forrester blinked. "Exercising?"
"Exactly. As a street brawler, for instance, you do exceptionally well."
"As a—"
"How does your face feel?" she asked.
"My what?" Forrester said. "Oh. Face. Fine. Street brawls, you said?"
"I did," Venus said. "My goodness, the way you bashed that one bruiser with your drink—that was really excellent. As a matter of fact, I feel it incumbent on me to tell you that I haven't enjoyed a fight so much in years."
Wondering whether he should be complimented or just a little ashamed of himself, Forrester said nothing at all. The idea that he had been under the personal supervision of Aphrodite herself bothered him more than he could say. The brawl was the first thing that came to mind. It didn't seem like the sort of thing a Goddess of Love ought to have been watching.
And then he thought of the High Priestess.
He felt a blush creeping up around his collar, and was thankful only that it was not visible under the tan of his skin. He remembered who had ordered the sacrificial rites, and thought bitterly and guiltily about spectator sports.
But his face remained perfectly calm.
"So far," Venus said, "I must say that you have come through with flying colors. You should be proud of yourself."
Forrester didn't feel exactly proud. He wanted to crawl into a hole and die there.
"Well," he said, "I—"
"But there is more," Aphrodite said.
"More?"
The idea didn't sound attractive. In spite of what one of the tests had involved, the notion of any more tests was just a little fatiguing. Besides, Forrester was not at all sure that he would be at his best, when he knew that dispassionate observers were chronicling his technique and his every movement.
How much more, he wondered, could he take?
And, he reflected, how much more ofwhat?
"We must be certain," Aphrodite said, "that you can prove yourself worthy of the dignity of a Godling."
"Ah," Forrester said cleverly. "So there are going to be more tests?"
"There are," Venus said. "After all, you will be expected to act as thealter personaof Dionysus. That involves responsibilities almost beyond the ken of a mortal."
Wine, Forrester thought wildly, women and song.
He wondered if he were going to be asked to sing something. He couldn't remember anything except theStar Spangled Bannerand an exceptionally silly rhyme from his childhood. Neither of them seemed just right for the occasion.
"You must learn to behave as a true God," Venus said. "And we must know whether you are fitted for the part."
Forrester nodded. The one thing keeping him sane, he reflected, was the hope of insanity. But the room was still there, and Venus was standing near him, talking quietly away.
"Thus," she said, "there must be further tests, so that we may be sure of your capacities."
Capacities? Just what wasthatsupposed to mean? "I see," he lied. "And suppose I fail?"
"Fail?"
"Suppose I don't live up to expectations," Forrester said.
"Well, then," Venus declared, "I'm afraid the Gods might be angry with you."
Forrester had no doubt whatever as to the meaning of the words. Either he lived up to expectations or he didn't live at all. The Gods' anger was not a small affair, and it seldom satisfied itself with small results. When a God got angry with you, you simply hoped the result would be quick. You didn't really dare hope it would also be temporary.
Forrester passed a hand over his forehead. If he had been doing his own picking, he thought a little sadly, the job of tryout stand-in for Dionysus was not the job he would have chosen. But then, the choice wasn't his, and it never had been. It was the Gods who had picked him.
Unfortunately, if he failed, the mistake wouldn't be laid at the door of the Gods. It would be laid at the door of William Forrester, together with a nice, big, black funeral wreath.
But it didn't sound too bad at that, he told himself hopefully. After all, it wasn't every day that a man was offered the job of stand-in for a God, not every day that a man was offered the chance of passing a lot of strenuous and embarrassing tests, and dying if he failed.
He told himself sternly to look on the positive side, but all he could think of was the succession of tests still to come. What would they be like? How could he ever pass them all? What would be thought necessary to establish a man as a first-rate double for Dionysus?
Looks, he thought, were obviously the first thing, and he certainly had those. For a second he almost wished he could see Ed Symes and apologize for getting mad when Ed had told him he looked like Bacchus.
But then, he reflected, he didn't want to go too far. The idea of apologizing to Ed Symes, no matter who his sister was, made Forrester's gorge rise about five and a half feet.
"However," Aphrodite went on, as if she had just thought of something too unimportant to bother mentioning, "don't worry about it. My father's thunderbolt needn't concern you. I have every confidence that you will prove yourself."
She smiled radiantly at him.
The idea occurred to Forrester that she just didn't think that a mortal's mortality was important. But the idea didn't stay long. Being reassured by a Goddess, he told himself confusedly, was very reassuring.
Venus was looking him up and down speculatively, and Forrester suddenly thought a new test was coming. A little gentle sweat began to break out on his forehead again, but his face stayed calm. He took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on gathering strength. The High Priestess had been something special but, Forrester thought, she had not really called out hisall. Venus was clearly another matter.
But Venus said only: "Those clothes," in a considering sort of tone.
"Clothes?" Forrester said, trying to readjust in a hurry.
"You certainly can't go in those clothes. Hera would object quite violently, I'm afraid. She's awfully stuffy about such things."
The intimate details about the Gods intrigued Forrester. "Stuffy? Hera?"
"Confidentially," Venus said, "at times, the All-Mother can be an absolute bitch."
She went over to one of the light-swirled walls, and a part of the light seemed to fade as she did so. Of course, she did nothing so crude as opening a door. When she started for the wall there was no closet apparent there, but when she arrived it was there, solid, and open.
It was just that simple.
She took out a white robe and started back. Forrester took his eyes from her with an effort and watched the closet disappear again. By the time she had reached him, it was only a part of the swirling wall again.
And the hospital attendants were nowhere in sight.
She handed Forrester the robe. He took it warily, but it seemed real enough. At any rate, it was as real as anything else that was happening to him, he thought.
It was a simple tunic, cut in the style of the ancient Greekchiton, and open at one side instead of the front. Forrester turned it in his hands. At the waist and shoulder there was a golden clasp to hold it in place. The clasp wasn't figured in any special way. The material itself was odd: it was an almost fluorescent white and, though it was perfectly opaque, it was thinner than any paper Forrester had ever seen in public. It almost didn't seem to be there when he rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger.
"Well, don't just stand there," Venus said. "Get started."
"Started?" Forrester said.
"Get dressed. The others are waiting for you."
"Others?"
But she didn't answer. Forrester looked frantically around the room for anything that looked even remotely like a dressing room. As a last resort, he was willing to settle for a screen. No room, no screen. He was willing to settle for a chair he could crouch behind. There was none.
He looked hopefully at the Goddess. Perhaps, he thought, she would leave while he dressed. She showed no sign of doing so. He cleared his throat and jerked at his collar nervously.
"Now, now," Venus said sternly. "Don't tell me the presence of your Goddess embarrasses you." She raised her head imperiously. "Hurry it up."
Very slowly, he began taking off his clothes. There was,after all, nothing to be ashamed of, he told himself. As a matter of fact, Venus ought to be getting used to the sight of him undressing by this time.
Somehow, he finally managed to get thechitonon straight. Venus looked him over and nodded her approval.
"Come along now," she said. "They're waiting for us. And one thing: don't get nervous, for Hera's sake. You're all right."
"Oh," Forrester said. "Sure. Perfectly all right. Right as rain."
"Well, you are. As a matter of fact, I think you'll make a fine Dionysus."
She led him toward a wall opposite where the closet had been. As they approached it, a section of it became bluer and bluer. With a sinking feeling, Forrester told himself that he knew what was coming.
He did. The wall dissolved into the shimmering blue haze of a Veil of Heaven, just like the one that had transported him from New York to his present position. Where that was, he wasn't entirely sure, but remembering his one look out the window, he suspected it was Mount Olympus.
But there wasn't any time for thinking. Venus took his hand coolly as they reached the blue haze. Then both of them stepped through.
The room into which they stepped seemed even larger than the one they had left. The distances were just as hard to measure, and why Forrester had the feeling, he couldn't have said, but it did feel larger. The sense of enormous space hung over it.
The wall colors were just the same, however, dripping and changing in a continuous flow of patterns, with the little sunbursts and rainbows appearing here and there without any visible reason.
But the room itself was comparatively unimportant, Forrester knew. It was what went on in the room that sent shivers up his spine, and instructed one knee to start knocking against other one. He had heard of the Court of the Gods, though as far as he knew no mortal had ever seen it. There were certainly no photographs of it, even in the most exhaustive travel books.
Forrester knew without question that he was standing in that Courtroom. The knowledge did not make him calm. And the beings sitting and reclining on couches along the shimmering walls made him feel even worse. He recognized every one of them, and every one sent anew shock of awe running through his nerves. His stomach felt like a hard rubber handball.
There was Zeus All-Father, with his great, silvery, ringleted beard. His hands were combing through it and he was frowning majestically into the distance. Next to him was the imperious Hera, Mother of the Gods. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, as if she were waiting for the end of the world to be announced. There was Mars, tough and hairy-chested, scratching his side with one hand and scowling horribly. His fierce, bearded face looked somehow out of place without the battle helmet that usually topped it. The horned and goat-legged Pan was there, and Vulcan, crippled and ugly with his squat body and giant arms, reclining like an ape on a couch all alone, and motherly looking Ceres using one hand to pat her hair as if she, not Forrester, were the nervous one.
Athena was there, too, lovely and gray-eyed. She seemed to be smiling at him with special favor, and Forrester felt grateful.
He needed all the help he could get.
But the other Gods were absent. Where were they? Pluto and Phoebus Apollo were missing, and so were Mercury, Neptune, Dionysus and Diana.
And ...
"Ah," the great voice of Zeus boomed, as Forrester and Venus stepped through the Veil. Forrester heard the voice and shuddered. "The mortal is here," Zeus went on in his awe-inspiring roar. "Welcome, Mortal!"
Forrester opened his mouth, but Hera got in ahead of him.
She leaned over to her divine husband and hissed, in a tone audible to everyone in the room: "Don't belabor the obvious, dear. Enough's enough."
"It is?" Zeus said. The roar was exactly the same. "I'm not at all sure. No! Of course not. Naturally not, my dear. Naturally not." He looked around slowly, noddinghis great head. "Now, now. Let's see. Do we have a quorum? I don't see Morpheus. Where's Morpheus?"
"Asleep, as usual," Mars growled. He finished scratching his side and began on his beard. "Where else would the old fool be? He's nothing but a bore anyway and I say to Hades with him. Let's get on."
"Now, Ares," Pallas Athena said mildly. "Don't be crude."
"Crude?" Mars bellowed. "All I said was that the old bore's not here. It's true, isn't it? What in Hades is so crude about it?"
"Hah!" Vulcan growled, in a bass voice that seemed to come from the bottom of a large barrel. "Look who mentions being a bore."
"Why, you—" Mars started.
"Children!" Hera snapped at once.
There was quiet, and Forrester had time to get dizzy. Maybe, he thought, he had been traveling too much. After all, he had started in New York, and then he had found himself on what he suspected was Mount Olympus, in Greece. And now he was somewhere else.
He wasn't entirely sure where. The Court of the Gods existed; he knew that. But he had never heard just where it existed, and it was entirely possible that no mortal knew. In which case, Forrester thought confusedly, I don't even know where I am.
For the first time, he began to think seriously that, perhaps, he was sane after all. Maybe everything he was seeing and hearing was true. It was certainly beginning to look that way. And, in that case, maybe the dizziness he felt was just airsickness, or spacesickness, or whatever kind of sickness came from traveling through those blue Veils.
At least, he told himself, thinking of the old man he had met on the way downtown, at least it beat the subway.
He looked behind him. He and Venus were standingin the center of the room. There was no blue veil behind them. It had, apparently, done its duty and gone away.
The subway, Forrester told himself solemnly, didn't do that.
Zeus cleared his throat ponderously. "I count eight of us," he said. "Eight, all told. Of course, that's eight without the mortal." He paused, and then added: "If you count the mortal in, there are nine."
Pan stirred. "That's a quorum," he announced in a hoarse voice that had a heavy vibrato in it. It reminded Forrester, oddly, of the bleating of a goat. Pan crossed his legs and his hooves clashed, striking sparks. "Pluto and Poseidon said they'd accept our judgment."
"Why the absence?" Vulcan said shortly.
"A storm, I think," Pan said. "Out in the North Atlantic, if memory serves—and it does. As far as I recall, there are four ships sunk so far. Quite an affair."
Vulcan said: "Ah," and reclined again.
Hera leaned forward. "Where's Apollo? He said he might come."
"Sure he did," Mars said heavily. "Old Sunshine Boy never misses a bit of excitement. Only he probably found something even more exciting. He's in California, all dressed up as a mortal."
"California?" Ceres said. "My goodness, what would that boy be doing in California?"
Mars guffawed. "Probably showing off—how Sunshine Boy loves to show off! Displaying that gorgeous body to the girls on Muscle Beach, I'll bet."
"Eight to five," Pan said at once.
Mars turned to him and nodded shortly. "Done."
"Now, if I were a betting man," Vulcan began in a thoughtful bass, "I'd—"
"We all know what you'd do, Gimpy," Mars roared. "But you won't do it, so shut up about it."
"Please," Hera said. "Order." Her voice was like chilled steel. The others settled back. "I think we're ready. Shallwe begin, dear?" She looked at Zeus, who got ready to start. But before he could get a word out, there was a flicker of blue energy in the room, a couple of yards away from Forrester and Venus. The flicker expanded to a Veil, and a man stepped out of it.
He was a short, fat individual wearing achitonas if he had slept in it for three or four weeks. His face was puffy and his golden hair was ruffled. His eyelids seemed to have acquired a permanent half-mast, and beneath them the eyes were bleary and disinterested.
Forrester needed no introductions to Morpheus, the God of Sleep.
The God looked around at the assembled company with a kindly little smile on his tired face. Then, slowly and luxuriously, he yawned. When his mouth closed again, after a view of caverns measureless to man, he rubbed at his eyes with his knuckles, and then heaved a great sigh and, apparently, resigned himself to the terrible effort of speech.
"I'm late," he said. "But it's really not my fault."
"Oh?" Hera said in a nasty tone of voice.
Morpheus shook his head slowly from side to side. "It really isn't." His voice was terribly calm. It was obvious, Forrester thought, that he did not give a damn. "The alarm just didn't seem to go off again. Or else I didn't hear it."
"Now, Morpheus," Hera said. "I should think you'd get some kind of alarm that really worked, after all this time."
"Why bother?" Morpheus said, and shrugged ponderously. "Anyhow, I'm here." He yawned again. "The thing's tiresome, but I did say I'd be here, and here I am. Now, does that satisfy everybody? Because if it doesn't, I do have some sleep to catch up on."
"It satisfies us all," Hera said with some asperity. "Go sit down."
Morpheus shambled quietly over to a couch near Mars.He lowered himself onto it, and slowly slipped from a sitting position to a reclining one.
"Well," Hera said to Zeus, "we're ready, dear."
"Oh," Zeus said. "Oh. Certainly. I declare this meeting—I declare this meeting fully met." He cleared his throat with a rumble that shook the air. "We're here, as I suppose you all know, to consider the problem of William Forrester. But first, I am reminded of a little story I picked up on Earth, and in the hopes that some of you here might not have heard it, I—"
"We've heard it," Hera said, "and, anyhow, this is neither the time nor the place."
Zeus turned to look at her. He shrugged. "Very well," he said equably. "Let us return to William Forrester, as a possible substitute for Dionysus. The first consideration ought to be the psychological records, wouldn't you say?"
"I would," Hera said through her teeth.
"I believe Athena is in charge of that department, and if she is ready to report—"
"Of course she's ready," Hera said, "dear."
Zeus nodded. "Well, then, what are we waiting for?"
Athena got up and faced the company. "In general," she began at once, "I think we can pass the candidate completely on the psychological records. The Index of Subordination is low, but we don't want one too high for this post. Too, the Beta curve shows a good deal of variation, a Dionysian characteristic. There is, perhaps, a stronger sense of responsibility than is recorded in the Dionysian index, but this may not be a handicap."
"By no means," Hera said. "Responsibility is something we could all do with more of, around here." She shot a poisonous glance at Morpheus, whose eyes were now completely closed.
Forrester, busily wondering what his Beta curve was, and why it varied, and what he would do if he lost it and had to get another one, missed the next few wordsof Athena's report. The word that did impinge on his consciousness did so with a shock.
"Sex," Athena said. "But, after all, that is not quite in my department." She looked as if she were very glad of the fact. "In general, as I say, the psychological tests present no insuperable barriers."
"Fine," Hera said. She dug Zeus in the ribs again.
"Oh," Zeus said. "Yes. Fine."
"Next," Hera said.
"Yes," Zeus said. "By all means. Next."
Mars got up. He was now scratching the hair on his chest. He looked around at the others with a definitely unfriendly expression.
"The physical department is mine," he said. "The candidate can handle himself, all right. There isn't much doubt of it." He burped, wiped his mouth with the back of one hand, and went on: "Of course, he's let himself run to fat a little here and there, but it isn't really serious. Mainly a matter of glandular balance or something like that, as far as I understand Hermes' report."
Forrester began to feel like a prize chicken.
"And physical training," Mars said. "Well, there hasn'tbeenany training, that's all. And that's bad."
"He is not being considered for your position," Vulcan said. "One muscular brainless imbecile is enough."
Mars took a deep breath.
"Please," Hera said. "Continue the report."
The breath came out in an explosion. "All right," Mars said. "Discounting the training end of things, and assuming that Hermes can fix up the glandular mess, I think he can pass the physical."
Forrester wasn't sure that he liked being referred to as a glandular mess. On the other hand, he asked himself, what could he do about it? He stood quietly, wondering what was coming next.
His worst fears were fulfilled.
Venus stepped forward and gave her report. Basically,it was a codicil, of a rather specialized nature, to the physical report. While it was going on, Forrester glanced at Athena. She looked every bit as embarrassed as he felt, and her face wore a look of sheer pain. Once he thought she was going to leave the room, but she remained grimly seated until it was all over.
Forrester couldn't figure out, when he thought about it, how the Gods had managed to give him all these tests without his knowing anything about it. But, then, they were supernatural, weren't they? And they had their own methods. A mortal didn't have to understand them.
Forrester wasn't sure he was happy with that idea, but he clung to it. It was the only one he had.
When Venus finished her report, there was a little silence.
"Any other comments?" Hera whispered to her husband.
"Ah, yes," Zeus said. "Other comments. If anyone has any other comments to make, please make them now. Now is the time to make them."
He sat back. Morpheus stirred slightly and spoke without opening his eyes or sitting up. "Sleep," he said.
Hera said: "Sleep?"
"Very important," Morpheus said slowly, "the candidate sleeps pretty well—soundly, as a matter of fact. The only trouble is that he doesn't get enough sleep. But then, no one on this entire crazy world ever does." He yawned and added: "Not even me."
Forrester passed a hand over his forehead. He realized, very suddenly, that he had come to a conclusion somewhere during the meeting. He was, he told himself, definitely sane.
That left another conclusion. He was not dreaming anything that was happening. It was all perfectly real.
And he was about to become a demi-God.
That in itself didn't sound so bad. But he began to wonder, in a quiet sort of way, just what was going tohappen to William Forrester, acolyte and history professor, when Forrester/Bacchus had became a reality. With a blunt shock he knew that there was only one answer.
William Forrester was going to die.
It didn't matter what the verdict of the Gods was. There were more tests coming, he knew, and if he failed them the Gods would kill him quite literally and quite completely.
But, he went on, suppose he passed the tests.
In that case he was going to become Forrester/Bacchus, a substitute God. Plain old Bill Forrester would cease to exist entirely.
Oh, a few traces might remain—his Beta curve, for instance, whatever that was. But Bill Forrester would be gone. Somehow, the idea of a revenant Beta curve didn't make up for the basic loss.
On the other hand, he reminded himself again, what choice did he have?
None.
He forced himself to listen to what the Gods were saying.
Zeus cleared his throat. "Well, I think that closes the subject. Am I right, dear?"
"You are," Hera said.
"Very well," Zeus said. "Then the subject is closed, isn't it?"
Hera nodded wearily.
"In that case, we can proceed with the investiture. Hephaestus, will you please take charge of the candidate?"
Hephaestus/Vulcan sighed softly. "I suppose I must." He swung off the couch and stood half-crouched for a second. Forrester looked at him blankly. "Well," Vulcan said, "come on." He jerked his head toward Forrester. "Over here."
With one last backward glance at Venus, Forrester walked across the room. Vulcan turned and hobbledahead of him toward the wall. Forrester followed until, almost at the wall, a Veil of Heaven appeared. Feeling almost used to the thing by now, Forrester followed Vulcan through, and he didn't even look behind him to see if the Veil had vanished after they'd come through. He knew perfectly well it had. It always did.
The room they had entered was similar to the others he had seen, but there was no change of colors. The walls glowed evenly and with a subdued light that filled the room evenly. And, for the first time, the walls weren't simply blanks that became things only when approached. The strangest-looking objects Forrester had ever seen filled benches, tables, chairs and the floor, and some were even tacked to the glowing walls. He stared at them for a long time.
No two were alike. They seemed to be all sizes, shapes and materials. The only thing they really had in common was that they were unrecognizable. They looked, Forrester thought, as if a truckload of non-objective twentieth-century sculpture had collided with another truck full of old television-set innards. Then, in some way, the two trucks had fallen in love and had children.
The scrambled horrors scattered throughout the room were, Forrester told himself bleakly, the children.
Vulcan sat down on the only empty chair with a sigh. "This is my workshop," he announced gravely. "It is not arranged for visitors, nor for the curious. I must advise you to touch nothing, if you wish to save your hands, your sanity, and very possibly your life."
Forrester nodded dumbly. Vulcan's tone hadn't been unfriendly; he had merely been warning a stranger, in the shortest and clearest manner possible, against the dangers of feeling the merchandise. Not, Forrester thought, that the warning was necessary. He would as soon have thought of trying to fly as he would of touching one of the mixed-up looking things.