and quartered him neatly, whereupon they swarmed up the ladder to the ship's lock in search of the creature whom they believed to be his mate. Isolde was in the galley, fixing breakfast, and it was no trick at all for the foremost Idwandanan to creep up behind her and plunge his knife between her shoulder blades. It was a long knife, and a sharp one—the best that the beche-demer trader who supplied the area, had in stock—and it went all the way through and came out between her synthetic breasts. The Idwandanan felt pretty proud of himself, till she turned around and confronted him, whereupon he ran screaming from the room.

He returned presently with several of his fellows, among them Skonsdoggugil, the chief. There was a prolonged palaver, after which Isolde's would-be executioner approached her and withdrew the knife. It had done no damage whatsoever, even missing the small bellows that kept her chest rising and falling in a rhythmic and realistic imitation of human breathing. As for the holes it had made, her skin-plastic was of the self-sealing type, and grew together forthwith. The bodice of the gingham dress Newell had outfitted her with, concealed this additional miracle from the eyes of the Idwandanans, but Skonsdoggugil had seen enough: here was Bruggil's Bride, sent down from the fire mountain by ways incomprehensible to man, to test the mettle of his children.

They built a temple for her deep in the forest, laboriously quarrying the stone and dragging it through underbrush and vine to the chosen site. Isolde watched, or seemed to be watching, and every now and then she gave forth with recitative or aria. The Idwandanans interpreted these outbursts as admonitions to hurry, and because of them, the temple was completed much sooner than it otherwise would have been. After a lengthy ceremony, officiated by Skonsdoggugil, Isolde was escorted inside and seated upon a crude throne, after which a guard of honor was installed without. By now, her goddesshood was unquestioned by even the most cynical. Was she not above such worldly necessities as eating and drinking? Had anyone ever seen her sleep? Oh, she was Bruggil's Bride all right, and woe to the Idwandanan male who failed to make his obeisance at her feet each time he slaughtered a pweitl, and woe to the Idwandanan female who failed to attend the fertility fete which was held each night in the courtyard!

Isolde reigned in the temple for five Earth-years, and she probably would have gone right on reigning there till her batteries gave out and her tapes went dead and the little in-built motor of her heart ceased to whir if a certain native labor 

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