"She was found by one of our patrol sleds ... lost in the desert and near dead. They picked her up and brought her here. Since then she has remained ... voluntarily." Telis gave a short, hard laugh. "You can do better than that, Gorla!" The Priest shrugged. "Then why ask me if you don't intend to believe the truth?" "I'll hear it from her. We are leaving, friend, and she goes with us!" Gorla shrugged again. "As you wish, Telis. There seems to be nothing I can do to stop you." "Then lead me to her quarters, and not a sound out of you, do you understand?" Telis prodded the Priest gently with the short-sword. "But command me, lord," muttered Gorla sarcastically. He picked himself up off the floor. Telis snatched the cloak from his cassock and wrapped it around the gleaming blade of the short-sword, still keeping the point at the base of the Priest's spine. "Don't force me to use this, Gorla," he hissed in the other's ear. Gorla shook his head silently and led the way off down the corridor. The early hour was well chosen, for the whole towering edifice seemed to be deserted. Somehow, Telis felt, _too_ deserted. The whole magnificent megalopolis that was Dorliss seemed to sleep serenely under its mantle of invisibility. In a tight silence, Gorla led Telis until they stood before a closed door near the ground level. "Open it," commanded Telis. "I have no key," Gorla protested. Cursing under his breath, Telis tried the doorlatch. To his surprise, it gave easily and the door swung open. Telis lifted his sword, half-expecting a trap, but no attack came from the darkness beyond the portal. He shoved Gorla through and closed the door, the dark closing in around them. "A light," whispered Telis. Gorla touched a switch on the wall and light flooded the room. On the great bed near the far wall, the girl sat, bedclothes held to her breast, staring at them curiously. It was strange, thought Telis, that she showed no fear. And stranger still was the fact that her face was encased now in a bag-like contraption made of the same unusual material as the jumper he remembered seeing her wear. It was stretched tight by internal pressure that apparently came from a small cylinder at her bedside and connected to the mask by a flexible metal tube. Some new and strange addiction, wondered Telis? It was not unknown upon Laurr for some to succumb to the lure of narcotics, what with the incessant warfare jangling the nerves and the ever-present spectre of doom hanging over the whole planet. Telis himself had tasted gas from a similar contraption on one of his hedonistic revels.... Whatever the drug was, he had seen her without the bag-like helmet in the Central Temple. Addiction might account for her seeming illness that he so well remembered from the previous day. There was no sign of illness about her now! He stared at her, his breath catching in his throat. Exotic woman! * * * * *