"Aton." The voice was a low, warm alto.
     He came out of his reverie to discover the girl Selene, provocatively posed, not giggling. Her eyes had lingered on him whenever they met; but though aware of this, Aton had felt he should be wary of women until the other mysteries were solved. A woman was trouble anywhere.
     She came toward him, breasts outthrust. "I ain't no Laza, Aton," she said, intercepting his thought. "It ain't going to kill you to come near me."
     Aton was unmoved. "Tally's woman, aren't you?"
     "Tally knows where I am. Tally knows where everybody is, all the time." She came to stand against him, soft and lithe and feline. "How long since you had a woman, Aton?"
     She had scored. It had been too long a time. He had learned the way of things in space, and space was over, now, perhaps forever. Judging from the attitude he had seen so far, she was probably telling the truth about Tally. He might even have sent her, as a gesture of amity.
     Selene moved away, hiding behind her water-skin. Certain that she had his attention now, she began to dance, with a rhythmic hop and swing fully as alluring as intended. Aton set his book against the wall and went after her.
     She giggled and skipped away. Playing an intricate hide-and-seek with hands and body, she led him into a side passage. Aton checked, suddenly wary, but it was empty.
     She brushed against him. He caught her and pinned her against her water-skin along the wall. Their lips met abruptly in a kiss, broke, touched passionately; then she escaped and pirouetted into the center of the cell. Her eyes glowed.
     Aton stalked her, cutting off the exit and herding her into a niche; she dodged and wriggled with delight.
     Selene began to hum a tune when she saw that she was fairly trapped. It was the final artifice: an innocent, indifferent melody, as though she were not aware of company. It should have launched him into the terminal effort.
     Instead it drove him back, cooling his ardor instantly. It was the broken song.
     She saw something was wrong. "What's the matter, Aton?"
     He turned his back. "Get out of here, Silly. You aren't half the woman I crave."
     Shocked, then in flashing anger, she ran. Aton listened to the sound of her footsteps, a bare patter in the screaming wind. They merged to form the music of the broken song.
     "Malice," he thought. "Oh, Malice-will you never leave me?"
     It was a dream, of course, but only Aton knew it, and he, lured by the might-have-been it dangled before him, was foolish enough to forget that it was. In his conception he was not standing alone in the tunnel; the woman was not fleeing in anger. There had been a failure, yes, but not a total one.
     She took his arm as they walked down the dim tunnel. She wore a light blouse and dark skirt which did more to enhance her figure than any nudity could do.
     "Jill," he said, "I wanted to apologize for what happened. But you have to understand the impact the song has upon me. When that comes-"
     She jogged his arm. He could feel the gentle pressure of her fingers through the coat. "My name is Selene," she said.
     They tuned into a side passage. It slanted down, expanding. "Your interest caught me by surprise," he continued, aware of the awkwardness of his explanation. "Somehow I never thought of you as a woman, Jill."
     "Why do you keep calling me 'Jill'?" she demanded. "Look at me, Aton. I'm Selene. Silly Selene, cave girl."
     He looked. "I suppose you are," he said. "I didn't recognize you, clothed."
     "Thanks."
     He guided her to a seat and found a place beside her. "I never realized there was one of these in Chthon. We had a theater for the crew on board the Jocasta, but I never attended..."
     He faded out, alarmed. Her hand was in his lap, fumbling with the fastening of his trousers. Then her fingers were inside, reaching down to discover what lay there. He tried to protest, but immediately the people in the neighboring seats turned to stare, forcing him to silence lest his exposure be advertised.
     The feature flashed on the big front screen. Aton's attention leaped to embrace that still scene. A man, toiling up a steep path, a strong man in antique costume, a young man garbed in flowing robes of indeterminate color. One man, but filled with meaning. Behind him the trail tapered away to a rocky, mossy slope, strangely attractive as a landscape.
     The picture shifted, fading into another tableau. This time the foreground opened: a sheer drop with a horrifying hint of depth. The path had crested, as though running through a pass; indeed, one rounded hillock swelled in sight, while the surrounding land dipped away. Two men faced each other, having mounted on either side, meeting at the top. On the right was the strong young man of the previous picture; on the left, an older man, similarly dressed. They confronted, talking or debating. The old man's arm was raised in imperious gesture.
     The third frame was more forceful: the young man's body was twisted, caught in violent motion, arms out-flung, face contorted. The other person was poised in space beyond the precipice, arms raised as if to flail the air, birdlike, but falling nevertheless. They had had an argument, a falling-out, perhaps a contest of strength over the right-of-way. Who could say, since the images were fragmentary and silent? But the deed was done, irrevocably. Far below, out of sight, Aton knew that there was a narrow river bed-and wondered why he knew.
     One more picture, seemingly unrelated to the prior sequence: a huge animal shape with mighty folded wings and the sensual breasts of a mature woman. Its mouth was open in a kind of question, as if to pose a riddle. That was all.
     Unutterable horror seized Aton, a sick revulsion that churned his stomach and drove his senses back away from his naked face, recoiling from the monstrous import.
     Now there was sensation in another area. He looked down and saw the female hand, clamped like calipers, stretching cruelly. But it was a cord, a serpentine length of it, blood-red in the half-light, connecting his belly to hers. He saw her face, and it was not the face of Laza, who would kill him, but another face, more lovely and more evil than any he could imagine.
     He tried to wrench free, but could not move. The pain of his emotion was terrible as the stretching continued, a narrowing tautness wrenching the root loose from the flesh. Suddenly the melody steamed up from the horror and he knew fulfillment at last.
     He woke, sweating, shaking, to the approach of footsteps, knowing that he had to get out of Chthon.

     "Five." This time it was a man's voice. Selene had not taken long to spread the word. He turned to find Tally and two of his helpers.
     "I didn't touch her," Aton said.
     Tally was grim. "I know. That's why I'm here."
     Aton kept a wary eye on the two other men. He knew their business, and he recognized one of them. "Because Silly made a pass at me?"
     "Partly," Tally said with candor. "She shouldn't have had to do that. But then you turned her down."
     "I wasn't making any trouble."
     "No trouble!" Tally exploded. "You damned outsider! You made me the laughing stock of Chthon by proving my girl wasn't worth taking down. Teasing her so you could really make the point. You could have told her No at the beginning, if you didn't want it; but no, you had to-"
     "It wasn't that. I wanted her, but-"
     Tally's eyes were calculating. "'But-'? What were you afraid of? Nobody outside will ever see you again. You live our way now. There are no ceremonies, no two-faced rules. She wanted you, and I told her to have her fling. You can't spawn any bastards down here, not in this climate, if that's what got you. It just doesn't take."
     "I know that. I-"
     "You cost me face, Five. There's only one way I can get it back."
     "There's something else-" Aton began, but Tally had already signaled, and the two men were closing in. They were brawny; one was the member of the original greeting party who had struck him. They had taken off their skins.
     Aton saw that there was no reasonable escape. He licked his lips, not bothering to remove his own water-skin. Had he really wanted to explain?
     Timing. Coordination. Decision. Aton sprang. The first man had a naked foot buried in his solar plexus before he realized it. He was hurled back, collapsing bonelessly. Before he struck the ground, Aton was on his companion, wrapping a trained hand in the man's shaggy beard, jerking the original lunge into a headlong stumble. The calloused knuckles of Aton's free hand made a dull crunching sound on the other's temple.
     One semiconscious, retching helplessly. One dying with a fractured skull. It had taken perhaps four seconds.
     Tally stared down, amazed. "Spaceman," he said.
     "You wanted it the hard way." Aton knew he had won the man's respect. "I tried to explain."
     Tally got the men out and came back alone. "All right. I can't square things with you that way. Only one man I ever saw that could fight like that, and he's not... available."
     "Spaceman?" Aton asked with interest.
     "Krell farmer."
     Aton wondered. The members of the guild that farmed the deadly krell weed had developed the ancient art of karate-kara-ate, the unarmed striking-in a different direction than had their spacefaring cousins. Both struck to disable, maim, or kill; but there was murderous power behind the spaceman's blow, lethal science behind the farmer's. Which school was superior? The question had never, to his knowledge, been settled. "Where is he?"
     "Name's Bossman-down below. It isn't worth it."
     "Nothing's worth it."
     Tally changed the subject. "I'll take my loss and forget it. But I want to know one thing, and it isn't much of my business. I'll make a trade with you."
     Aton understood the significance of the offer, in this place where information was more valuable than property.
     "I want to know something, too," he said. "Honest answers?" He saw immediately that the question was a mistake. The person who cheated on information would not live long.
     "Let's match the questions," Tally said. The bargaining was on.
     "The real Chthon setup."
     "The reason you passed her up." Belatedly, Aton understood why Tally had cut off his explanation before. He could not accept free knowledge. Easier to settle the grudge first, untangle the threads later. Here was an honest man, Chthon-fashion.
     "You may not like the answer," Aton said.
     "I want it straight, all of it."
     They looked at each other and nodded. "Seemed too quiet for you here?" Tally asked rhetorically. "No wonder. This is only part of Chthon-the best part. We keep only the model prisoners: the harmless neurotics, the politicos, the predictable nuts. We have a pretty easy life because we're selected, we know each other, and we have the upper hand. But below-well, there is only one way to get down there, and no way back. Anybody we can't handle gets dropped down that hole and forgotten. That's where the mine is; we ship food down, they ship the garnets up."
     "A prison within a prison!"
     "That's right. Outside, they think we're all one big unhappy family, fighting and mining. Maybe that's the way it is, below. We don't know. But we like it quiet here, and we have the same hold on the pit as the outsiders have on us: no garnets, no supplies. We get first pick of the food, and we don't have to work much, except to keep things running smoothly. We can't get out-but we have a living, and not a bad one at all. Every so often a new man comes down, like you, and makes things interesting for a while, until we get him placed."
     "No way out," Aton said.
     "Our caverns are sealed off from below. That keeps us in, and the monsters out. Below-no one knows where those passages end, or what's in them."
     Unexplored caverns! There was the only hope for escape. It would mean facing a prison even the hardened inmates feared, mixing with men too vicious to accept any moral restraints. But it was a situation he could exploit.
     "About Silly," Aton said, taking his turn, knowing his course. "It wasn't her; it wasn't you. She's a good girl; I would have taken her if I could. But something stopped me, something I can't fight."
     "Stopped a spaceman at the point? You're a strange one. You and your damned book."
     Aton said the word that condemned him: "Minionette."
     Tally stared. "I've heard of that. Stories-you mean you met one? They really exist?"
     Aton didn't answer.
     Tally backed off. "I've heard about what they do. About the kind of man who-" His voice, friendly before, tuned cold. "You are trouble. And I sent Silly to you."
     Aton waited.
     Tally came to his decision. "I don't want to know any more. You aren't one of us, Five. You'll have to go below. I don't care how many men you kill; you aren't staying with us."
     It was the reaction Aton had come to expect. "No killing," he said. "I'll go now."

     The years were left behind. Tutoring began. Aton became versed in the history and traditions of his planet and the great Family of Five. He learned to read the difficult mother language and gradually, wonderfully, worked his way through the mighty text of LOE. He learned to count far beyond ten, and to do other things with numbers; he learned the K scale of temperature and the "Times New Roman" scale of time. He began the long hvee apprenticeship.
     His free time, more valuable now, was spent largely at the farm of Eighty-One. The boys went on to other projects after giving up on the bomb. Jay and Jervis were not obligated to endure the extent of tutoring required of a son of Five, and had an easier time of it. Jill never relinquished her initial affection for Aton. The twins teased him constantly. "Kiss her and maybe she'll bring some more salt. Good salt." But he saw her as the sister he had somehow never been granted, and contended himself with yanking her braids just hard enough to make her behave, while time acted subtly on all of them.
     At home, the farming of the delicate green flowers was an intricate matter, comprised of science, art, and attitude. It was soon evident that Aton had the touch. The plants he worked with grew larger and finer than average, and his pilot plots flourished. His future as a farmer seemed assured.
     His future as a mechanic might have been otherwise. He learned to operate the Five aircar, pinpointing planetary coordinates on the machine's geographic vernier. The location grid was calibrated in standard units for easting and northing, with the superimposed vernier scale throwing everything out of focus except the correct reading. This was where Aton had endless difficulty. He seemed to lack mechanical aptitude, at least as a child. "Don't ever join the Navy," the tutor warned. "They'll be certain to make a machinist out of you. They have uncanny ability to select exactly the wrong man for the job." But once Aton mastered the technique he came to respect it well. There was something about the sudden sharp focus, after interminable struggle, that was exhilarating.
     Perhaps, he thought, the beauty of that focus could be appreciated only because it came after struggle.
     One thing continued to dull his appreciation of his destiny: the lingering image of the nymph of the wood. He could not be entirely complacent while that mystery remained. As he worked in the field, sweating in the hot sun to remove the encroaching wee-plants (he thought of them as krell, though they were hardly dangerous) from the valuable hvee, the broken song ran through his mind, insistent, tantalizing. Where had she come from? What had been her purpose? What could she have wanted with a small boy?
     Gradually, age dimmed the memory. Only the central core of dissatisfaction remained, keeping him ever so slightly off-balance, making him wonder whether the life he contemplated as a farmer of hvee was actually the very best
 available. Yet-what else could there be?
     He was a young man of fourteen, transplanting infant hvee near the edge of the property, when the distant melody came a second time. His hands shook. Had she-had she returned at last to the glade?
     He set his plants aside and followed the magic sound, now eager, now holding back. Excitement pounded in him as he circled the disused deep well within the forest. Was there really a nymph? Did she summon him?
     He arrived at the glade, which was almost unchanged from his memory of seven years. She was there! She was there, sitting and singing, her quick fingers rippling over the little instrument-an offworld, six-stringed lute-lovely beyond belief. The ancient image in his mind faded before the new reality. The forest, the glade, the very air about her was beautiful.
     He stood at the edge, absorbing her presence. It seemed only a moment since he had stood this way before; the intervening time a lonely dream-a moment and an eternity. She had not changed-he was the one who had aged seven years. And what he saw now was not what he had seen as the child of seven.
     She wore a light green dress, translucent in the spot of sunlight, laced up the front in a bodice unused on Hvee. Her face was pale and fair, framed by the luster of hair which flowed deep red and deep black in fascinating alliance. There was a gentle fullness in her figure, not voluptuous, not slim. Her aspect represented a juxtaposition of opposites that Aton had never consciously realized he was searching for. Fire and water, so often at war, here merged into exquisite focus like the crossing scales of the vernier.
     He stood entranced, forgetting time and self in the delight of that study.
     She spied him, as before, and put aside her song. "Aton, Aton, come to me."
     She knew him! He stood before the lovely woman, embarrassed, flushed by the first ungainly surges of manhood. She was man's desire, and in her presence he felt great and crude, conscious of the earth on his hands and the sweat on his shirt. He could not stay; he could not leave.
     "Fourteen," she said, putting her magic into that word. "Fourteen. Already you are taller than I." She stood, unfolding as a flower, to show that it was true.
     "And you are wearing my hvee," she said, reaching up to take it from his hair. It nested in her hand, its green blossom hardly darker than her dress. "Will you give it to me now, Aton?"
     Speechless, he gawked at her, unable to comprehend the offer. "Ah, it is too soon," she said. "I will not take it from you now, Aton. Not yet." She noted his curling, empty hand. "Where is your book, Aton?"
     "I was in the field-"
     "Yes, oh, yes," she said, twirling the hvee. "You are twice seven and you are a farmer now. But do you remember-"
     "William Wordsworth's 'Intimations of Immortality?" he blurted, immediately shocked by his own loudness.
     She caught his hand in hers, squeezing it. "Never forget, Aton, what a wonderful thing it is to be a child. There is that immortal bit of light in you, a ray of that sun for which you are named. You must cherish that ember, and never let it die, no matter how you grow."
     "Yes," he said, unable to say more.
     She held the hvee to her cheek. "Tell me, tell me again, Aton-am I not beautiful?"
     He gazed into the black and green depths of her eyes and was lost. "Yes," he said. "The forest fire, and the still water. You drown me in fire-"
     Her laugh was the echo of candlelight and thicket streams. "Am I then so devastating?"
     You compelling creature, he thought. You play with me, and I am helpless.
     She reached her arms around him, standing close to replace the hvee in his hair. The light perfume of her body intoxicated his senses. She was timeless; she was perfection. "You have found no woman to compare to me," she said.
     Protest was useless; even her vanity was rapture. No mortal woman could rival the splendor of her person.
     "You must not forget me," she said. "I shall kiss you again."
     Aton stood, hands rigid at his sides, feet rooted, half afraid that if he moved a muscle he would topple. The woman of the forest placed those cool fingers on his elbows, the gentle pressure evoking a responsive tingle from tight shoulders to clenched fists. She raised her sweet lips to his, holding him in ecstasy. The kiss: and desire and chagrin suffused his mind.
     Gossamers pinioned his body. Only his voice found volition: "But tomorrow you will be gone," he heard it say.
     She dismissed him. "Go, go now. When you
 find me again, you will be ready."
     She waved him away, and his clumsy feet turned him around and marched him from the glade.
                     ...
     What had occupied Aton's idling imagination up to this point now became more urgent. His attitude changed. Interested in the distaff sex only in a speculative way, until awakened by the forest nymph, he now contemplated a program of self-education that went somewhat beyond that provided by his tutor. He planted hvee in a pre-occupied manner-the plants flourishing even so-and pondered ways and means.
     He waited impatiently for dusk, then pounded along the old trail leading to the farm of Eighty-One. The wild plants had grown up thickly, obscuring the way and reminding him of the infrequency of his visits to this place, now. How long had it been since he'd laughed and fought with the dissimilar twins, Jay and Jervis? Since he'd let young Jill tag along, recipient of masculine unfairness? The childish games had fallen off and the barriers of status had grown, though he told himself that such things made no difference to him. And wasn't he coming, at this time of problem and dissatisfaction, to talk it out and make plans with his friends? The twins were more worldly than he. Man-talk would get it out of his system, make the strangeness go, set his confusions to rest. The old companionship would dissipate the nameless unrest he felt.
     The house of Eighty-One rose out of the darkness; thin squares of light edged the closed shutters. Aton skirted the steaming hog pen, his passage eliciting the usual incurious porcine grunts. The warm animal smell brought a sympathetic wrinkle of the nostrils, though he had long since ceased to find it objectionable. He came up to the rear of the house and tapped the twins' window with the measured signal of old.
     There was no response. He poked a finger behind the loose shutter and pried it open, peering in as far as his angle of vision permitted. The room was empty.
     He banged the wall in futile anger. Where were they? How could they be gone when he wanted to talk? Knowing himself to be unreasonable and a trifle snobbish, he grew angrier yet. He knew that there were other things in the boys' lives beside himself, particularly since it had been months since his last visit, but the proof of it was irritating. What was he to do?
     The shutters parted on a window farther along the dark wall and light flared out to strike the bushes and beam into the night sky. Aton stepped up to it, then hesitated. It could be one of the parents. They, perhaps more conscious of the difference in Family status, and not wanting trouble with the forceful Aurelius, discouraged the association of the children. Aton waited, holding his breath, as a head poked out: ebony outlines, features indistinguishable. Then a long braid flopped over the sill and dangled its ribbons below.
     "Jill!"
     She spun her head toward him, trying to penetrate the gloom. "That you, Aton?"
     He ducked below the spilling light and caught the swinging hair, giving it a sharp tug.
     "Ouch!" she yelped, exaggerating her pain. She caught at his hand and disengaged his fingers. "That's Aton, all right. I'd know that jerk anywhere!"
     He got up to face her squarely. "Jerk, am I?"
     Her face was very close to his. Her even eyes, pupils black in the shadow, looked back with unexpected depth. "When you jerk my hair-"
     He had missed the pun. Embarrassed, and unwilling to admit it, he leaned forward and touched his lips to hers.
     The contact was light, but that unpremeditated action surprised him as much as it did her. Jill had always been the tagalong, the drag, the interference in male affairs, the baby sister. Her unconcealed interest in Aton had always bothered him, his irritation accentuated because he was never able to admit his displeasure. He had responded with cruelty, angry at himself for that, but able to think of no alternative.
     This was no forest nymph. These lips, while not wholly unresponsive, were untrained. They lacked finesse. There was no magic-except that he was kissing Jill and finding her unrepulsive. He wondered whether he should stop.
     She was the one to terminate it. Finally, lifting away her head and taking a breath. "Too late for that salt, now," she said. "You already banged the bomb."
     "I was looking for the twins." He was unable for the moment to rise to the repartee. Had he, in reality, been looking for this girl? The thought upset him.
     She nodded, one braid brushing his face. "I figured it. They're playing checkers with Dad, up front. Want me to fetch one of them for you?"
     "Checkers? Both of them?" Aton asked, trying to keep the conversation going while he settled an obscure but powerful internal conflict.
     "Both together. They keep losing, too. Jerv is getting mad."
     Aton had no comment. The silence lengthened between them, awkward, uncomfortable. Neither moved.
     Finally he put out a hand, holding it there, letting her interpret his meaning, and not certain that thee was any meaning there.
     "Well," she said, and this seemed to make the decision. She took his hand, leaning on it as she brought her foot up to the sill. Her firm legs and thighs showed through the material of skirt and slip in silhouette, stirring a guilty excitement in him.
     "Wait a minute," she said, withdrawing. Had she changed her mind already? He seethed with disappointment and relief. But in a moment the light went out and she was back. "They'll think I'm in bed."
     Aton helped her down, placing both hands on her waist just above the swelling hips and lifted her away from the high sill. She was heavier than he had thought, and they stumbled together and almost fell as her feet touched the ground. She was nearly as tall as he.
     They walked together past the pigpen, this time drawing no remarks, and went on down the remembered trail, selecting this direction by silent consent. Aton's mind was whirling. It seemed impossible-yet she was a girl, with a body budding into womanhood. She had always liked him, and now she had chosen to express that liking more directly.
     They found themselves beside the ancient hideout. The bushes had overrun the entrance, but the main space seemed to be intact. Aton squeezed through first, feeling carefully in the pressing dark, in case there were lizards. He brushed away a few loose burs.
     She joined him silently. They would talk now, and she would try to get close, as she always had, and he would push her away automatically, and she would toss her head and giggle....
     She found his head, turned it, and placed her mouth against his. His hands came up to push at her chest, touched, and jumped away. Without interrupting the kiss, she caught hold of his shirt and pulled herself closer.
     They broke, and she lay back, her form just visible as his eyes acclimatized. "I thought you were just teasing, before," she said. "But you aren't, now, are you? I mean-"
     "No," Aton said, uncertain whether he was being mocked.
     "All my life, it seems, I've been waiting for you to do that. And now it's done." Had she meant the kiss?
     Aton studied her as well as he was able. She was wearing a summer blouse, gently mounded, and a darker skirt that blended with the ground. She had kicked off her slippers and her white feet stood out, the toes wiggling. "I might do more," he said, half afraid she would be angry, though he had never paid any attention to her anger before.
     "Aton," she murmured, "You do anything you want. You-" Her voice cut off, as though she were afraid she had said too much.
     "Jill, I won't make fun of you any more-ever," he told her, trying to stave off an excitement he did to understand or wholly trust. He was sure, now: this had been her original intent. But did she truly know what it involved?
     "You never made fun, Aton. Not really. Not so I minded."
     He placed his hand on her blouse, deliberately now, pressing on the softness beneath. She did not object. He stroked, interested but not satisfied, and afraid, despite his bravado, to do more. Then, carefully, he tugged the material loose from her waistband. "Do you mind if I-?"
     "Anything you want, Aton. You don't have to ask me. Here." She sat up. He lifted the blouse over her head, seeing her small breasts rise as her arms went up. She wore no bra.
     Aton cupped one breast in his hand, feeling its delicate texture, running his thumb over the nipple. Holding her that way, he brought her sitting torso to his and kissed her again. This time there was fire. His tongue reached out to taste the sweetness of hers.
     She sank back slowly, and he followed her, kissing her cheek, her throat, her breast. She brushed her fingers through his hair. "Salt-who needs it?" she inquired softly.
     He forgot caution and put one hand on her knee, just below the spreading skirt. Her legs parted a little, and he slid his hand up over the kneecap and against the inside of her thigh. The flesh was smooth and very warm.
     Throbbing anxiety took him. She had let him go this far; had he reached the limit? If he should expose himself, if he dared, would she take flight and bear a story to her parents that he could hardly deny?
     His hand moved on, sliding past boundaries he had hardly dared imagine before. Abruptly it met the junction of her thighs. The soft down told him that she wore no underclothing here, either. Shivering with tension and excitement, he explored farther-and found a thick moisture.
     Blood! he thought, shocked. I have trespassed and I have hurt her and now she is bleeding!
     He snatched his hand away and lay beside her with the drumbeat of his heart filling the hideout. What have I done! he thought.
     Visions of consequence obsessed his mind. The outrage of Eighty-One, the shame of Five. "Why did you do it, you lecherous juvenile!" they would say. "Don't you know you must never touch a girl there?" Would they have to take her to a hospital? How would he ever get her back to her room?
     The passion in him died, blasted away by his crime. His eyes stared into the faint cross-lace of branching shrubbery above, limned against the starry sky-a sky not one whit colder than the clutching terror in his heart. What have I-what-she's only thirteen!
     Jill's hand touched his arm. "Aton?"
     He jumped. "Believe me, I never meant to-"
     "What's the matter with you, all of a sudden?" she demanded, rolling over to peer into his face.
     Didn't she know? "The blood. There's blood."
     She stared. "Blood? What are you talking about?"
     "Down-between-I felt it. I never-"
     "You're crazy. It's not the time of the -" Suddenly she giggled. "Blood? You mean you thought that was-? Haven't you ever done this before?"
     He lifted his head, finding her hot breasts close under his chin. "Before?"
     "You don't know!" she exclaimed, the thoughtless child in her ascendant over the dawning woman. "You really don't! And here all the time I was looking up to you, waiting for you. I thought you were the big boy."
     Aton cowered behind his raging shame, unable to reply.
     Abruptly she was the woman again. "I'm sorry, Aton. I guess you don't get out much. Here-I'll show you how-"
     But he was on his hands and knees, scrambling away from her, barging out, finding the open night and running, sick with shock and embarrassment.