earnest, low-pitched whispers.

Thorn's inward excitement reached a peak. It was as if his mind had become a thin, taut membrane, against which, from the farthest reaches of infinity, beat unknown pulses. He seemed to sense the presence of stars beyond the stars, time-streams beyond time.

The symchromy closed. There began a long moment of complete blackness. Then—

Thorn sensed what could only be described as something from a region beyond the stars beyond the stars, from an existence beyond the time-streams beyond time. A blind but purposeful fumbling that for a moment closed on him and made him its agent.

No longer his to control, his hand stole sideways, touched some soft fabric, brushed along it with infinite delicacy, slipped beneath a layer of similar fabric, closed lightly on a round, hard, smooth something about as big as a hen's egg. Then his hand came swiftly back and thrust the something into his pocket.

Gentle groundlight flooded the hillside, though hardly touching the black false-sky above. The audience burst into applause. Cloaks were waved, making the hillside a crazy sea of color. Thorn blinked stupidly. Like a flimsy but brightly-painted screen switched abruptly into place, the scene around him cut off his vision of many-layered infinities. And the groping power that a moment before had commanded his movements, now vanished as suddenly as it had come, leaving him with the realization that he had just committed an utterly unmotivated, irrational theft.

He looked around. The old man in black was already striding toward the amphitheater's rim, threading his way between applauding groups. Thorn half-withdrew from his pocket the object he had stolen. It was about two inches in diameter and of a bafflingly gray texture, neither a gem, nor a metal, nor a stone, nor an egg, though faintly suggestive of all four.

It would be easy to run after the man, to say, "You dropped this." But he didn't.

The applause became patchy, erratic, surged up again as members of the orchestra began to emerge from the pit. There was a lot of confused activity in that direction. Shouts and laughter.

A familiar sardonic voice remarked, "Quite a gaudy show they put on. Though perhaps a bit too close for comfort to our business of the evening."

Thorn became aware that Clawly was studying him 

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