Maybe the man was crazy. Maybe he was just some poor soul who wasn't responsible for his own actions. It would be merciful, Forrester thought, to find out first, and blast the intruder afterward. He looked around. Twenty yards away, the encircling Myrmidons still stood, their backs to the scene, as if nothing at all were going on. Forrester blinked. "How'd you get in here, anyway?" The man barked a laugh. "None of your business." He turned to Kathy, who had devoted the previous few seconds to getting her _chiton_ on again. Hurriedly, Forrester wished back his own costume. Kathy got up, staring straight back at the intruder. Fear was gone from her face, and a kind of calmness that Forrester had never seen before possessed her now. "So!" the intruder bellowed. "The minute my back is turned, off you go! By the Stars and Galaxy, I--I don't know what to call you! You're worse than your predecessor! Can't turn anything down! You--" "Now wait!" Forrester bellowed in his most Godlike voice. "Just hold still there! Do you know who you're talking to? How dare you--" And Kathy interrupted him. Forrester stood mute as she stripped the stranger with a voice like scalding acid. "Listen, you," she said, pointing a finger at the man. "Who do you think you are--my husband?" "By the Stars--" the stranger began. "Don't bother trying to scare me with your big mouth," Kathy went on imperturbably. "You don't mean a thing to me and you can't order me around. What's more, you know it. You're not my husband, you big thug--and you're never going to be. I'll sleep with whomever I please, and whenever I please, and wherever I please, and that's the way things are going to be. After all, lard-head, it's my job, isn't it? Got any questions?" Her _job_? Forrester began to wonder just what he had managed to walk into now. But that was a detail. The important thing was that his Godhood had been grossly, unbelievably insulted--and at a damned inconvenient time, too! He stepped between Kathy and the intruder, his eyes flashing fire. "Do you know who I am? Do you know that--" "Of course he knows," Kathy put in abruptly. "And if you don't want to get hurt, I'd advise you to stay out of this little quarrel." Forrester turned and stared at her. What the everlasting bloody hell was going _on_? But there wasn't any time to think. The intruder put his face up near Forrester's and glared at him. "Sure I know who you are, buster," he said. "You're a wise guy. You're a Johnny-come-lately. And I know what I ought to do with you, too--take you apart, limb by limb!" That did it. Forrester, seeing several shades of red, decided that no God could possibly object if this ugly blasphemer were blasted off the face of the Earth. He raised a hand. And Kathy grabbed it. "_Don't!_" she said in a frightened tone.