His astounded gasp was audible in the silent alcove. For he saw a tall, disdainful Martian whose violet eyes looked coldly out a face he couldn't recognize as his own; a mane of ruddy, curling ringlets fell to the neck-line, while thin, cruel lips curving slightly expressed unutterable boredom. For the rest, his body was sheathed in palest silver-green, of a texture like human epidermis--satiny, rippling with his every movement, while a great belt of _Panagrans_ circled his narrow waist. The Ganymedean held up an expressive finger, then flew to a drawer hidden beneath the folds of the costumes. He extracted something and came swiftly back. Julian felt a sharp pain in his left ear-lobe, then the icy sensation of a cauterizer stanching the capillary flow, and something was fastened to his ear. When he gazed into the reflecting moon, he saw a huge, solitary _Starliman_ swirling green fire from his left ear-lobe. The picture of a ruthless, interplanetary fop was superbly complete. Only a Neuro-Graph machine could possibly have revealed his identity now. Julian went over to where his former garments lay on the floor, and fastened his Power-rapier to the jeweled belt, then extracted the vial he had taken from Fermin, taking care that the designer didn't see it, and secreted it on his person. When he straightened up again, the Ganymedean was holding a cloak of rich _ocelandian_ fur which Julian threw about his shoulders. The artist gazed at him for a brief instant, with something like a smile in its brilliant eyes--all that could be seen of his masked face. Then as silently as he had come, he literally walked into a section of the panelling which gave way before him and disappeared in the endless labyrinth that was the Paradisiac. The door of the circular room opened soundlessly. Julian's hand flew to the electro-beam under his arm-pit, but no one came. It was a mute invitation to depart. The long corridor led him to the balcony overhanging the Public Rooms. Below him was a hall so vast, built on a scale so great, that it imparted a feeling of limitless distances, yet he knew this was an illusion. To his right, a crysto-plast conveyor spiralled down in a swirl of imprisoned waters, foaming like a rushing stream, while at the bottom, freed by the deliberately lessened gravity, the worst and best from all the inhabited worlds sat at individual platforms or revolved lazily in the upper levels. The enchantment of fantastic harmonies wove a subtle spell of desire and nameless longings. But although he felt the magic of the extravagantly honeyed chords, Julian reminded himself that was not there to propitiate the eternal caprice of the flesh. IV _"Within my heart, all ecstasy, Within my eyes, all visions dwell. Life--Death, I turn to rhapsody-- I am the deathless Philomel."_ TERRA--20th Century.