And as Ben knew that meeting his people at last was dependent on his agreeing to the tests, which had now come to seem to him quite a minor thing to be undergone before Alfredo could take him to the mountains, he agreed to go tomorrow with Alfredo and Teresa: Alfredo would come and fetch them.

He did not sleep, and Teresa lay on her bed, sometimes weeping, sometimes miserable, and thinking too of Alfredo whom she knew was a man for her. He liked her. If this business with Ben had not been there between them, that night she might have spent dreaming of Alfredo. But those tests — she was afraid. All she knew was, they would take blood. She did not like the sound of that, but knew it was done all the time. There would be injections, and she was afraid of those. Modern medicine had passed her by, except for when she had gone to the doctor to be checked for venereal diseases, and that had been an ordeal she never wanted to repeat. Yet Inez spoke of tests and injections as if it had never occurred to her that people might be afraid of them.

And she was thinking, too, of Ben lying awake, too full of joy to sleep.

Before Alfredo had gone off she had managed to whisper, while Ben was out of earshot, 'Did you really see people like Ben?'

'Pictures,' said Alfredo. 'I found them in the mountains when I was working in the mines. Pictures on the rocks — ancient people did them. You know, like the pictures on the rocks at home. Only much better than at home. Not all cracked and broken.'

She understood why Alfredo had not been able to tell Ben the truth. She ought to tell him herself — and could not. That happiness of his, it seemed to fill these rooms, she could feel it surrounding her. She could hear Ben's grunts and sighs and little roars when she got up to go to the kitchen to get herself some water. His joy was so great that it had to escape from him in sounds that made her smile, although she was so nervous about tomorrow.

Next morning. Ben was dressed and brushed and ready and sitting at the table looking at the door when Alfredo came. First, there would be a car journey, but he was ready for it.

They drove along the front, Ben averting his eyes from the dazzle off the waves, and then went away from the town and through lush fields where cows grazed up to their middle in grass, towards the hills ahead. Ben sat gripping the edge of the windows, which were down to give him air, but even so he felt sick, and Alfredo stopped the car so Ben could get out. Teresa did too. Ben was sick, and then stood at the edge of the road gazing at the hills: he was thinking of how to run away, but remembered that Alfredo had promised ... and he got back into the car which was soon going up a twisty hill road. He gripped Teresa's hand, he was feeling so bad, but she said, 'Look, look, Ben,' and he opened his eyes to let out a grunt of fear, because above them three men were floating down under big coloured things like square wings. Ben had never imagined anything like them, and he said, 'What is it, what are they doing?' And Alfredo said it was all right, they were only sky fliers — 'You know, Ben, they are like umbrellas and they carry them down slowly.' The three got out of the car and stood gazing up, up, up, while these sky men floated down past them, aiming for a landing place that was well out of sight down the curving road. Ben's mouth was open, as he stared. 'Could we do that?' he asked.

'Yes, we could,' said Alfredo, understanding very well how not only Ben, but Teresa too, must be feeling oppressed by the rich clever world where people could leap off into air under umbrellas and feel safe, because their lives had always been safe. 'We could if we had the money.'

'Money,' said Ben. 'Where is my money?'

'It's in the safe in the flat,' said Teresa. There wasn't all that much of it left, but Teresa was sure that whatever else Alex did, he would be careful to replace what she had spent.

'Would you like to do that?' asked Alfredo, really curious about how Ben saw these sky men, who were disappearing downhill as they watched.

Ben was silent, staring, and they did not know what he thought.

Back they got into the car, and up they went through hills. Beautiful they were and Teresa thought so, and was grateful to be seeing them, but Ben was sitting with his eyes shut. They had to stop again, so he could be sick.

When they reached what they had heard described as 'the institute', imagining a building, what they saw was something like a town: a lot of low buildings were scattered about, and among them taller imposing buildings, one of which announced itself in large black letters as a hospital. But everywhere over the world is flung a kind of grid or net of hospitals, chemists, laboratories, research institutes, observation stations, and their functions blur and blend. Ben and Teresa were still looking for 'the institute' when the car stopped outside a building in no way different from a dozen others. Alfredo opened the car doors for them. He was looking nervous, apprehensive. This was because he had been ordered on no account to go near a certain group of buildings, nor to tell Ben and Teresa anything about them. What went on in these buildings everyone who worked here was ashamed of, or, if not ashamed, then defensive, even though their work lay in very different areas. By now Alfredo was more than interested in Ben — everyone had to be that — he was sorry for him, and guilty, too, because when he had mentioned those rock pictures, telling Ben he had seen people like him, he had not been thinking, and what he had achieved was something so bad he had not begun to measure it. At some point Ben would have to be told the truth, and disappointment was not the word for what he would feel then. Meanwhile, a nearer worry: what were these people — and Alfredo did not much like his employers — planning for Ben? Their warning not to let

Ben know about the bad place — or 'The Cages' which is how most people described it — meant that some kind of harm was intended. Alfredo liked nothing about this situation, only Teresa, and when he told her these tests were not so bad, and gave her a smile he meant as reassurance, it said much more. Ben and Teresa were taken inside a large room that had all kinds of apparatus in it, and Alfredo parked the car; he had hoped to return to be near Teresa, but he was given other duties.

In the room were two young women wearing white overalls. One was Inez, who had had to borrow an overall: it had been decided her presence would reassure Ben. He was frightened, and so was Teresa, but she was determined not to show it.

The assistant had been carefully instructed. She asked Ben to 'help' Teresa by sitting close to her and holding her hand while she sat on the edge of a low table, and held out her arm to have a rubber tube put on, and then inflated, and her blood pressure taken. Then it was Ben's turn. He was grinning, which reassured the assistant, who didn't know what that meant, while his blood pressure was taken. He hated the rubber tube tightening around his arm. Then Teresa was told she would have blood removed from her arm. She shut her eyes and averted her face as the syringe filled with dark blood. And now Ben: would he agree?

'Come on, Ben,' said Teresa, 'now you must do it too, like me.'

Ben allowed the needle to go in, and watched as the barrel filled with blood. This scene was not new to him: he had had tests done, when he was a child. He was more used to them, in fact, than Teresa, whose childhood had certainly not included expensive medical care. So far, so good. And now, eye tests. Another woman came in from somewhere to do these. Ben had undergone tests recently with the oculists in Nice, so he did not mind these.

Ears . Inez asked Teresa to ask Ben if he had had ear tests, and Teresa said, 'Why not ask him yourself?' Her voice was low and bitter; she was finding herself unable to look at Inez, who was guilty and defiant.