The magnificent foyer gave the startling impression that just the moment before, crowds of theatre goers had been surging across it. Saxon could feel the hair lift on the back of his neck. "Where's Mercedes?" asked Ileth in a small voice. Saxon glanced around, realized that the anthropologist wasn't in the foyer. "She must have gone into the theatre." He lifted his voice, called, "Mercedes. Mercedes!" His voice echoed hollowly. There was no answer. Saxon and Ileth exchanged worried glances. "Our voices probably don't carry beyond the foyer," Saxon reassured the girl. "The ancients were clever with sound." They crossed the floor, their steps cushioned noiselessly in the thick mauve carpet. They went through the doors, past the automatic ticket taker and paused. A vast amphitheatre with curving rows of empty seats fell away below them like the terribly ancient Roman theatre at Pompeii. The walls by some trick of construction trapped the light, shedding it softly over the seats, concentrating it in a glowing pillar of illumination on the stage. Suddenly, Ileth brought her hand to her mouth, a look of horror springing into her features. "Oh, my Lord!" she whispered. "Look!" and pointed at the floor at their feet. Saxon glanced down, caught his breath. A puddle of clothes lay on the floor as if the middle-aged, gray-haired anthropologist had just stepped out of them. Saxon dropped to his knees beside the garments, turned them over. Sturdy leather walking shoes and heavy gray socks. Gray skirt and jacket. A stout brassiere and practical mannish shorts. They were so typically Mercedes, that Saxon felt a lump in his throat. The socks were still in the shoes, brassiere inside the jacket. He stood up, feeling his palms begin to sweat. It was as if Mercedes had been suddenly dissipated into thin air, her clothes falling in on themselves. He heard Ileth give a dry sob, realized suddenly that he felt no alien presence. He and the girl were alone in the theatre, alone as they'd been in the street that night in Adirondaka. Saxon clenched his fist. "Let's get out of here. Quick!" "But Mercedes?" "She's gone! We can't help Mercedes now. The others! Hurry!" They ran through the doorway back across the carpeted foyer, halting at the street. Four little mounds of clothes met their eyes. Saxon could feel his stomach knot inside himself. He felt the clothes. They were still warm from contact with the men's bodies. He stirred the brief red kilt that Clo-Javel had been wearing, saw with a macabre flash of humor that where Mercedes' underthings had been eminently practical, Clo-Javel didn't wear any at all. Ileth suppressed a scream. "The helicopter! Look! It's gone, too!" Saxon glanced up in consternation. The square was empty. The twin suns riding high in the sky beat down on bare plastic blocks where the helicopter had stood. "We're hiking back to the ship--_now_," Saxon said to the frightened girl. "But it's twenty-five kilometers."