back to buy you from Eldoria," Blake Past said. He did not add that the memory of her saintly face as he had seen it when he stepped over her had lasted a whole year, or that his dreams of her had made a mockery of his sleep. "When I found out that Eldoria had died and that you had been sold again, I came directly here."

"You will not be sorry. I will make you an excellent slave."

"I didn't buy you for that reason. I bought you to give you your—"

"There is one request I would like to make, however," the girl interrupted. "I would like to take 'Eldoria' as my surname. She was very kind to me, and I would like to repay her in some way."

"Very well," Blake Past said. "'Deirdre Eldoria' it will be, then."

He picked her up and carried her into the grove. Blake Present watched them till they disappeared among the trees. He knew where Blake Past was taking her—had taken her. Back to the settlement, and from there to the spaceport, and thence to Ex-earth. Ex-earth and high school, then college—

She had never been his slave, though. He had been hers.

Sabrina's trail circled back into the grove and left the place-time by a different route. Immediately it became erratic again. It was evident to Blake that she was searching for a particular memory-image and that she was having trouble finding it. Perhaps she knew of some moment in his past where she would be safe even from him.

When he stepped into the little Dubhe 4 settlement he instinctively assumed that it was on the same chronological plane as the plantation place-time. However, the darkness that instantly enclosed him and the stars that sprang to life in the sky apprised him that such could not possibly be the case. This was the Dubhe 4 settlement of seven years ago. This was the night he had sat in the chocoletto cafe and watched Eldoria dance—the night he had kept a tryst with her in her hut; the night he had first seen Deirdre.

But why had Sabrina come here? Where in this wretched little memory-image did she expect to find sanctuary?

Suddenly he knew. Eldoria's hut. He would rather die than enter it again, and somehow Sabrina must have discovered his attitude. Probably even now she was within those four remembered walls, laughing at him.

Anger kindled in him. The effrontery of 

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