"I can't," Drake said. "But I can tell you how it happened." He did so briefly. "So you can see it wasn't my fault," he concluded. "I _couldn't_ put her down on Iago Iago. It would have meant jeopardizing my pilot's license, and piloting a ship is all I know how to do. It isn't fair to ask a men to put his livelihood on the block--it isn't fair at all. She should have contacted me before she stowed away. You simply _can't_ hold me responsible for what happened." "Nor do I, Mr. Drake." Saint Andrew wiped away a tear that had run halfway down his cheek. "She did what she did against my advice," he went on presently. "The information she had received concerning a resurrection on Iago Iago was of dubious origin to say the least, and I was dead set against her stowing away on board your ship in any event, but she was very set in her ways. None of which in the least alleviates the cruel fact of her death." "She left much to be desired as a saint then?" Drake asked. "On the contrary, she was one of the finest persons I have ever indoctrinated. One of the kindest and the gentlest. And in all my years of service in the Army of the Church of the Emancipation I have never seen a more dedicated and selfless soldier than she was. Her--her passing grieves me immeasurably, Mr. Drake." Drake looked at the floor. He felt suddenly tired. "May I sit down, Saint Andrew?" he said. "Please do." He sank down on the nearest bench. "Was she a native of Forget Me Not?" "No. She came from the vineyards of Azure--from a little province called _Campagne Piasible_." Saint Andrew sighed. "I remember vividly the first time I saw her. She was so pale and so thin. And her eyes--I have never seen torture in anyone's eyes that could compare to the torture I saw in hers. She walked in here one morning, much in the same way you yourself walked in, and she knelt down before the lectern and when I appeared, she said, 'I want to die.' I stepped down from the pulpit and raised her to her feet. 'No, child,' I said, 'you do not want to die, you want to serve--else you would not have come here,' and it was then that she lifted up her eyes and I saw the torture in them. In the two years that followed, much of the torture went away, but I knew somehow that all of it never would." Saint Andrew paused. Then, "There was a quality about her which I cannot quite describe, Mr. Drake. It was in the way she walked. In the way she talked. Most of all, it manifested itself when she stood up here behind the lectern and spread the Word. Would you like to hear one of her sermons? I taped them--every one." "Why--why yes," Drake said. Saint Andrew turned, parted the curtains behind the lectern, and disappeared into the room beyond. He reappeared a few moments later, bearing an archaic tape-recorder which he placed upon the lectern. "I selected a tape at random," he said, flicking the switch. "Listen." * * * * *