Xintel had removed her brief skirt and was wearing only her silvery necklace. She was anointing herself with an oily salve that sent a pleasantly pungent odor through the water, giving special attention to her wrists and ankles where the cords of the norus had chafed them and to the livid bruises that were developing on other portions of her slender body. She paused and smiled at him, not at all embarrassed. Finally she came toward the pallet and without hesitation lay down beside him. She stretched and moved slightly until she found a comfortable position, and then her breathing took on the slow regularity of sleep while the light dimmed. For a while Barry remained awake. Half-formed questions spun madly through his mind but when he tried to think rationally his tired brain balked. * * * * * He woke and sat up, floated up from the pallet in the unaccustomed support of the black water, settled back slowly while he strove to winnow true memories from the remnants of nightmare. The girl woke and spoke questioningly. It required great concentration on Barry's part to understand and answer, for he had forgotten much of what he had learned from those Mexican laborers. "Yes, I feel better," he said hesitantly. "But--." In the blackness their bodies touched accidentally. Her skin was warm and smooth, soft but with the firmness of underlying muscle. After a long moment she drew away. Barry blinked as she spun the light into brilliance. Her dressing was a simple and brief process, and then she turned to him with an intent look on her face. "You come here from the Above." It was more statement than question. Barry nodded. "But from what yort? And how did your people change to live in the Above?" "I come from Earth." "Earth?" she repeated with a puzzled frown. "There is no yort beneath the seas called Earth." Trying to explain was like describing color to a man born blind. With the surface of Venus she seemed to have a slight familiarity, but she had never glimpsed planets or stars, never seen the sun. "You are from the World Beyond--and yet you are alive!" she said in awe. She smiled and seemed relieved when Barry hastily assured her there was nothing supernatural about his place of origin, but she understood only that he was not an undersea dweller by birth. She hurried on to other questions. "But why have only you of all your people come to the Here?" she asked. "And now--Oh, tell me how!--did you cause the Place Of Change to work again?" Barry frowned, trying to grasp her meaning. "An accident happened to me out in space that made me different." "You did not come through the Place Of Change?" She seemed bitterly disappointed. "Then how will you return?" "I will never see my own people again, I fear," he admitted. Xintel made a soft sound of sympathy.