of awe running through his nerves. His stomach felt like a hard rubber
handball.

There was Zeus All-Father, with his great, silvery, ringleted beard. His
hands were combing through it and he was frowning majestically into the
distance. Next to him was the imperious Hera, Mother of the Gods. She
sat with her hands folded in her lap, as if she were waiting for the end
of the world to be announced. There was Mars, tough and hairy-chested,
scratching his side with one hand and scowling horribly. His fierce,
bearded face looked somehow out of place without the battle helmet that
usually topped it. The horned and goat-legged Pan was there, and Vulcan,
crippled and ugly with his squat body and giant arms, reclining like an
ape on a couch all alone, and motherly looking Ceres using one hand to
pat her hair as if she, not Forrester, were the nervous one.

Athena was there, too, lovely and gray-eyed. She seemed to be smiling at
him with special favor, and Forrester felt grateful.

He needed all the help he could get.

But the other Gods were absent. Where were they? Pluto and Phoebus
Apollo were missing, and so were Mercury, Neptune, Dionysus and Diana.

And ...

"Ah," the great voice of Zeus boomed, as Forrester and Venus stepped
through the Veil. Forrester heard the voice and shuddered. "The mortal
is here," Zeus went on in his awe-inspiring roar. "Welcome, Mortal!"

Forrester opened his mouth, but Hera got in ahead of him.

She leaned over to her divine husband and hissed, in a tone audible to
everyone in the room: "Don't belabor the obvious, dear. Enough's
enough."

"It is?" Zeus said. The roar was exactly the same. "I'm not at all sure.
No! Of course not. Naturally not, my dear. Naturally not." He looked
around slowly, nodding his great head. "Now, now. Let's see. Do we have
a quorum? I don't see Morpheus. Where's Morpheus?"

"Asleep, as usual," Mars growled. He finished scratching his side and
began on his beard. "Where else would the old fool be? He's nothing but
a bore anyway and I say to Hades with him. Let's get on."

"Now, Ares," Pallas Athena said mildly. "Don't be crude."

"Crude?" Mars bellowed. "All I said was that the old bore's not here.
It's true, isn't it? What in Hades is so crude about it?"

"Hah!" Vulcan growled, in a bass voice that seemed to come from the
bottom of a large barrel. "Look who mentions being a bore."

"Why, you--" Mars started.

"Children!" Hera snapped at once.

There w