aculty stared after them.
"Anyhow," he added as an afterthought, "not at the _beginning_ of the
semester."

"Oh," Maya said. She was advancing on him slowly. "You mean, I ought to
see if I can pass the course on my own first, and _then_--"

"Not at all," Forrester cut in.

Maya sniffed sadly. "Oh, you just don't understand," she said. "You're
an Athenian, aren't you?"

"Athenan," Forrester said automatically. It was a correction he found
himself called upon to make ten or twelve times a week. "An Athenian is
a resident of Athens, while an Athenan is a worshipper of the Goddess
Athena. We--"

"I understand," Maya said. "I suppose it's like us. We don't like to be
called Aphrodisiacs, you know. We prefer Venerans."

She was leaning across the desk. Forrester, though he supposed some
people might be fussy about it, could see no objection whatever to the
term Aphrodisiacs. A wild thought dealing with Spheres of Influence
strayed into his mind, and he suppressed it firmly.

The girl was a Veneran. A worshipper of Venus, Goddess of Love.

Her choice of religion, he thought, was unusually appropriate.

And as for his....

CHAPTER TWO

It was hard to believe that, only an hour or so before, he had been
peaceful and calm, entirely occupied with his duties in the great Temple
of Pallas Athena. His mind gave a sudden, panic-stricken leap and he was
back there again, standing at the rear of the vast room and focusing all
of his strained attention on it.

The glowing embers in the golden incense tripods were dying now, but the
heavy clouds of frankincense, still tingled with the sweet aroma of
balsam and clove, hung heavily in the quiet air over the main altar. In
the flickering illumination of the gas sconces around the walls, the
figures on the great tapestries seemed to move with a subtle life of
their own.

Even though the great brazen gong had sounded for the last time twenty
minutes before, marking the end of the service, there were still a few
worshippers in the pews, seated with heads bowed in prayer to the
Goddess. Forrester considered them carefully: average-looking people, a
sprinkling of youngsters, and in the far corner a girl who looked just a
little like ...

Forrester peered more closely. It wasn't just a slight resemblance; the
girl really seemed to be Gerda Symes. Her long blonde hair shone in the
dimness. Forrester couldn't see her very clearly, but his imagination
was working overtime.