The High Priestess came over to the couch and sat down next to him. She put a hand on his shoulder. "Shall we prepare for the--sacrifice?" Forrester sighed again. "Sure," he said. "Naturally." * * * * * When she was locked in his arms, it was as if time had started all over again. Forrester responded to the eagerness of the woman as he'd never dreamed he could respond; all his tiredness dropped away as if it had never been, and he was a new man. He touched her bare flesh and felt the heat of her through his fingers and hands; with his arms around her nakedness he rolled, locked to her, feeling the friction of skin against skin and the magnificence of her. The sacrifice went on ... and on ... and on into endless time and endless space. Forrester thrust and gasped at the woman and her head went back, her mouth pulled open as she shivered and responded to him.... Forever.... Until finally they lay, panting, in the magnificent room. Forrester rose first, vaguely surprised at himself. He found a towel in a closet at the far end of the room and wiped his damp forehead slowly. "Well," he said. "That was quite a sacrifice. What next?" The High Priestess raised herself on one elbow and stared across the room at him. "There is no need for such familiarity, Forrester," she said. "Not from a lay acolyte." Forrester tossed the towel onto a couch. "My apologies, Your Concupiscence. I'm a little--light-headed. But what happens next?" The High Priestess reached into the diaphanous pile of her clothing and came up with a small diamond-encrusted watch she wore, usually, on her wrist. "Our timing was almost perfect," she said. "It is now twenty-hundred hours. The Goddess expects you at twenty-oh-one exactly." A hurried half-minute passed. Then, fully dressed, Forrester went with the High Priestess to a golden door half-hidden in the hangings at the side of the room. She made a series of mystical signs: the circle, the serpent and others Forrester couldn't quite follow. She opened the door, genuflecting as she did so, and Forrester dropped to one knee behind her, looking at the doorway. It was filled with a pale blue haze that looked like the clear summer sky on a hot day. Except that it wasn't sky, but a curtain that wavered and shimmered before his eyes. Beyond it, he could see nothing. The High Priestess rose from her genuflection and Forrester followed suit. There was a sole second of silence. Then the High Priestess said: "You are to step through the Veil of Heaven, William Forrester." Forrester said: "_Me?_ Through the _Veil of Heaven_?" "Don't be afraid," she said. "And don't try to touch the Veil. Just walk through as if nothing at all were there." Forrester filled his lungs as though he were going to take a very high dive. He thought: _Here goes nothing_. That was all; there wasn't time for anything else. He stepped into the blue haze, and had a sudden sensation of falling. CHAPTER FIVE