"The Old Man will come with us." "Eh?" _There is always The Project._ "Come with you?" "We look for old ones," said the young man. There was a new note in his voice, and the note was impatience. "We traveled many days, up across the sun-path. We want you to speak the Abraham-words for marriage. The Old Ones said we must not mate as the animals do without the words. We want--" "Marry, of course," said Brian feebly, rubbing his great, long-fingered hand across his face so that the words were blurred and dull. "Naturally. Beget. Replenish the Earth. I'm tired. I don't know any Abraham-words for marriage. Go on and marry. Try again. Try--" "But the Old Ones said--" "Wait!" Brian cried. "Wait! Let me think. Did he--he who told you to call him Jonas, did he teach you anything about the world as it was in the old days, before you were born?" "Before? The Old Man makes fun of us." "No, no." And since he now had to fight down physical fear as well as confusion, Brian spoke more harshly than he intended: "Answer my question! What do you know of the old days? I was a young man once, do you understand? As young as you. What do you know about the world I lived in?" * * * * * Jonason laughed. There was new-born doubt in him as well as anger, stiffening his shoulders, narrowing his innocent gray eyes. "There was always the world," he said, "ever since God made it a thousand years ago." "Was there? I was a musician. Do you know what a musician is?" The young man shook his head, watching Brian--too alertly, watching his hands, aware of him in a new way, no longer humble. Paula sensed the tension and did not like it. She said worriedly, politely: "We forget some of the things they taught us, sa. They were Old Ones. Most of the days, they were away from us in--places where we were not to go, praying. Old Ones are always praying." "I will hear this Old Man pray," said Jonason. The butt of the javelin rested against Jonason's foot, the blade swaying from side to side. A wrong word, any trifle, Brian knew, could make them decide in an instant that he was evil and not sacred. Their religion would certainly require a devil. He thought also: _Merely one of the many ways of dying. It would be swift, which is always a consideration._ "Certainly you may hear me pray," said Brian abruptly. "Come this way." In a fluctuating despair, he knew that he must not become angry, as a climber stumbling at the edge of a cliff might order himself not to be careless. "Come this way. My prayers--I'll show you. I'll show you what I did when I was a young man in a world you never knew." He stalked across the Hall of Music, not looking behind, but his back sensed every glint of light on that bread-knife javelin. "Come this way!" he shouted. "Come in here!" He flung open the door of the auditorium and strode up on the platform. "Sit down over there and be quiet!"