"Why?"

"Because you are a lost soul and because our lives are in your hands."

Jan stared at her in amazement. "I've seen everything now," he thought. She was truly a beautiful woman, tall, strong, very fair. Her long golden hair floated in a cloud about her head.

"Aren't you the woman whose man was killed at the spaceport?"

"Yes. The others have selfish attachments. I have no one. That is why I am praying for you."

Jan had an impulse to order her back to the passengers quarters. The woman was so beautiful and the situation so unprecedented that he didn't do it. Instead, he said, "Thank you for your interest. You must never bother me or my crew with your devotions. No singing or praying aloud. You must stay out of our way while we are working."

"I will, sir."

Jan decided that she was mad. Her vigils were practically continuous. Whenever he came out of his stateroom he usually found her floating in a kneeling position in the passageway. She seemed to have little interest in him as a person, and on the few occasions in which he tried to talk to her, her answers were laconic but sensible enough. After a while he got so used to seeing her that he was able to ignore the situation.

Jan spent many hours trying to decide on a destination that would suit both him and his kidnappers. He had visited a couple of hundred worlds and read about many others. He was tempted to try for planetfall on a human world, but he realized that the chances against landing successfully without the entire crew being massacred were pretty slight.

He flipped through the microbooks for an idea. The word "Aphrodite" gave him the answer. Nine years before he had spent a brief liberty on that planet. During the next several off-watches he read everything available on that planet.

At last he felt he knew enough to risk an interview with the Prophet.

"I believe I have found the world you want," Jan told him. "It is a planet slightly smaller than Terra. Unlike Terra, it has no continents but numberless islands ranging in size from about that of New Guinea to atolls.

"It is closer to its sun than Terra is to Sol; consequently, the equator is uninhabitable. The sea actually boils in 

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