the trees. The crew and the Mohcans followed in sudden panic.

The weeks of no-gravity played havoc with them. They ran heavily, sobbing and falling, through the woods. Some of them lost their way. They struggled ever so slowly through the open forest and slowed down to a walk on the mountain side that rose abruptly before them. Jan found a huge boulder and crouched behind it. Sister Ellen came after him. She was gasping with fatigue and terror.

He reached out and seized her white robe. "Here," he cried. "Take cover here."

Her hand closed on his desperately. Then she let go in terror and fell to her knees beside him. She locked her hands across her breast and looked upward to the pale green-blue sky.

Suddenly it seemed as though the whole earth were on fire. The sky turned to absolute white and the tops of the trees glowed orange red. There was a rending crash beyond any possibility of sound; then the absolute darkness and deafness of too much.

Jan struggled back to consciousness with a sense of beatitude. He was locked with Sister Ellen in a complete embrace, mouth to mouth, breast to breast, hip to hip. He watched the sky flame orange and red and finally gray black through her hair. He knew in that moment that without a ship, almost without humanity, life was good on Aphrodite.

And then the woman was struggling with him. "Oh, Allah, oh Buddha, oh Lenin, oh Lord, I have sinned, I have sinned!" she cried, and fled aimlessly into the burning forest.

Hours later, attracted by shot after shot from the Prophet's blaster, they assembled on a mountaintop. The fire had spent itself in the damp forest. Below them was a blackened area down to the sea. There was a bay where the rocket ship had been.

It was a sad and tired little column that filed down to the sea. On the beach they knelt and sang a hymn of deliverance and a service for the dead. Jan and the 13 surviving spacemen stood uncertainly in a group apart from the others.

At last the Prophet, who had taken his posture on a large, sea-worn boulder, arose and held up his hands for silence.

"With us are certain godless ones. We will spare their lives but there is no need to associate with them. I order the spacemen to march immediately to the north end of the island. We will not communicate with them or have any dealings with them. I warn 

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