"Argo on the ship apparently doesn't know about Argo on Aptor," said Iimmi. "That's what Jordde meant when he reported to the priestesses that she was bewildered. She probably thinks just like we did, that he's Hama's spy. And this one here," he gestured to Snake, "I don't know. I just don't know." In the distance was a red glow in which they could make out the faint lines of the volcano's cone. Snake made lights with the jewels, and once more they began to pick their way over the terrain, barer and barer of vegetation. The earth became cindery and the air bore the acrid smell of old ashes. Soon the rim of the crater hung close above them. Iimmi gazed up at the red haze above them. "I wonder what it's like to look into that thing in the middle of the night?" Twenty feet later Snake's light struck a lava cliff that sheered up into the darkness. Going on beside it, they found a ledge that made an eighteen-inch footpath diagonally up the face. "We're not going to climb that in the dark, are we?" asked Geo. "Better than in the light," said Urson. "This way you can't see how far you have to fall." Thirty feet on, instead of petering out and forcing them to go back, the lip of rock broadened into a level stretch of ground and again they could go straight forward toward the red light above them. "This is changeable country," Urson muttered. "Men change into animals," said Geo, "jungles turn to mountains." He reached around and felt the stub of his arm in the dark. "I've changed too, I guess." Iimmi recited: "_Change is neither merciful nor just. They say Leonard of Vinci put his trust in faulty paints: Christ's Supper turned to dust._" "What's that from?" Geo asked. "That's one of my bits of original research," Iimmi explained. "It comes from a poem dating back before the Great Fire." "Who was Leonard of Vinci?" Geo asked. "An artist, another poet or painter, I suppose," said Iimmi. "But I'm not really sure." "Who's Christ?" Urson asked. "Another god." * * * * * There were more rocks now, and Geo had to brace his stub against the walls of fissures and hoist himself up with his good hand. The igneous structures were sharp in his palm. Through the night the glowing rim dropped toward them. With it came a breeze that pushed sulfa powder through their hair and made the edges of their nostrils sting. The earth became scaley and rotten under their feet. Fatigue tied tiny knots high in their guts so that their stomachs hung like stones. "I didn't realize how big the crater was," Iimmi said. The red glow cut off at the bottom and took up a quarter of the sky. "Maybe it'll erupt on us," Urson muttered. He added, "I'm thirsty."