Naia of Aphur heard, and smiled. Seating herself beside the child, she let the soul of her womanhood steal forth. "Jason, Jason," she cried, the flame of life within her swiftly glowing with the meaning of his presence, "you come to me with the dawn, from whence, my dear one?" And Jason Croft answered her simply, "From earth." "And?" She stood before him--searching his soul for some hint of those things he had brought within it. "Jason--" Croft replied to that appeal in almost cryptic fashion, yet knowing she would understand. "True, woman who prays to Ga for courage, it is a new dawn for us indeed." "Praise Zitu." She wavered toward him. For a moment it was as though their two beings blended, lost each itself in the other, became one. And then Naia lifted a face exalted by a new hope. "Yet not so much for myself do I praise him, beloved, as for the little one. Knowledge waited you then when you arrived?" "Knowledge," said Croft, still holding her to him. "Aye, knowledge enough to make Zollaria a waste of scorching bones, a burned-out world, if so by I may hold not only thy spirit but thy body again in my arms." Naia's astral being quivered; she lifted her eyes to the fading spot of sunlight. "Then," said she in a whisper of understanding, "this dawn on which I lifted my woman's cry to Ga is a new dawn for us indeed--and once more courage fills my being. Go, beloved--hasten that other day which shall bring me again to thee. The past sun Kalamita departed for, as she hopes, a meeting with you. She and the giant who attends her, Gor by name, came, ere she left, to this chamber, asking what message I would send to the Mouthpiece of Zitu." "And Naia of Aphur told her what?" Croft questioned, looking into the eyes beneath his. "To tell you when she met you that Naia loved both Tamarizia and thee." "And what said Zollaria's magnet to such a message?" Jason asked. Naia of Aphur smiled as she answered. "Nay--she seemed not overly well pleased with it. She bade Gor strip my signet ring from my finger. Be warned against any message wherein it may be used as a seeming proof of word from me." "Aye," said Jason, scowling at this fresh proof of duplicity in Zollaria's dealing; "such trickery shall gain them nothing." Naia nodded. "Yet I think I puzzled her somewhat, since I myself took the ring from my hand ere Gor could touch me, and gave it to him, knowing full well I could explain when next we spoke together, and liking not the thought of his hands upon me--or the touch of any man save only Lakkon and thee." Croft bent his lips to those below them, thinking even in that instant that Kalamita had gained small satisfaction thus far in her meetings with Naia of Aphur, and asking himself what use the Zollarian siren might mean to make of the ring--a bit of purple stone into which was cut the ideographic symbol of Naia's name.