But when the priests made their approach, it proved peaceable enough. One white-robed woman threaded her way through the crowded bazaar toward the two Terrans. She waited until Magda was done haggling with a magnate in a particularly repulsive purple cloak, then bowed politely. "The peace of the eternal goddess on you, strangers."

"And on you, mistress," Magda and Kawar replied together.

"May we interest you in some stones, mistress, for yourself or for the goddess's temple?" Magda continued.

The priestess blinked, as if that had not occurred to her. "Perhaps you may, at that. But I have seen precious stones before, and I have never seen any folk with your aspect." She smiled; it made her look much younger and gave her an individuality she had lacked before. "Therefore, I am more interested in you. Will you tell me where you come from?"

The Terrans looked at each other. Finding no harm in the question, Kawar answered with the story they had prepared. "From the far northwest. Not many of our people travel as far south as your lands."

"Yes, I can believe that," the priestess said. Magda wondered if the woman's tone really was as dry as it seemed. But when the priestess went on, her questions were of the sort any newcomers might get, on how they had reached Hotofras, what they thought of it, what their homeland was like. She listened gravely to their answers.

At last the priestess said, "I thank the both of you for your patience. We always search out new knowledge of strangers who come to Hotofras."

The use of the verb reminded Magda of the place's unusual name. "If I may ask a question in return," she said, "why is this town called 'Search'?"

"Because it was founded to search out knowledge of strangers, of course," the priestess replied, smiling ever so slightly. She bowed to the Terrans and made her way back to the temple. Pausing outside the entrance, she spoke with a priest in a blue robe. He looked toward Magda and Kawar, scratched his head, and followed the priestess into the shrine.

"I wonder what all that's in aid of," Kawar said. "If we were going to get such a thorough grilling, it should have been at the gate coming in so we wouldn't have the chance to lose ourselves if we were ne'er-do-wells."

Magda shrugged. "I think that was a purely religious interrogation, not a security check. Maybe they have some sort of obligation toward strangers. That would fit a mother-goddess cult: shelter the homeless because in a way they're orphans, and so on."

"Makes sense," Kawar said. "But then, it should, you being the anthropologist and all." Ignoring the face Magda made at him, he went back to extolling the virtues of their jewels.

By evening, they had sold several more stones, two to buyers who had heard of them from the candlemaker's wife. Both ended up paying more than their other customers. "What do you know?" Kawar said, bemused. "I wasn't even lying."

"That's no way to advertise," Magda said. "Enough for one day. Let's go back to the inn. My feet are getting numb from standing in one place so long."

After a dinner of broiled many-legged river creatures with spicy gravy, the two Terrans went up to their rooms to transmit the data they had gathered and to plan what to do next. The latter did not take long: visiting the temple was the obvious next step.

They were walking toward the central square the next morning when they met a delegation of priests heading toward their lodging. Before Magda and Kawar quite grasped what was happening, the priests were all around them. One gave a hand signal. Suddenly the Terrans were grasped and held.

With a curse, Magda kicked out backward. The blow should have caught a male captor where it would do the most good?but the priest was not there when her foot lashed out. Whatever other arcane secrets the clergy of the mother goddess owned, they knew hand-to-hand combat.

Irfan Kawar did not try to break away. Instead he protested angrily. "By what right do you do this to us? We are but harmless traders!"

"If that is so, you will have our apology and a handsome reward," said the priest who had signaled. He turned to his companions. "Search them."

Magda tried again to break free, to no avail; the priests gripping her were strong and alert. She snarled as the locals' hands explored her body, though the examiners took no more liberties than the task required. A priest extracted the pouch of jewels from her hip pocket. "Are you robbers, then, in holy robes?" she demanded. Tears of fear and fury ran unheeded down her cheeks.

The priest opened the pouch, let bright stones cascade into his palm, and peered into the leather sack. When satisfied it was empty, he returned the gems to it. "By no means," he said quietly. "These lovelies are yours, and we shall give them back to you."

"What is the meaning of this outrage, then?" Kawar asked. "Do you always greet foreigners so? If you do, I wonder that you have so many ships tied up at your docks."

The priest in charge of the rest smiled thinly. "Foreigners of a certain sort interest us more than the rest: those who say they come from lands we know nothing of, and whose appearance bears them out. They interest us even more if they carry devices we cannot fathom." He hefted Magda's stunner.

"I will show you the use of that one, if you like," she said eagerly.

"Thank you, no," he replied with cool amusement. "It may be a weapon."

"Irfan! Magda! What's going on? Are you all right?" Norma Anderssen's voice sounded in their transceivers. All Norma and the people back at the J?ng Ho could do was listen and worry.

"What will you do with us?" Magda asked, as much to pass on information as for her own sake.

"Why, send you to the goddess, of course," the priest said.

Magda could not remember a ritual phrase of that sort in the local language. She wondered if it was a euphemism for human sacrifice. "To the next world?" she asked tensely.

The priest stared at her with the same puzzlement the candlemaker's wife had shown. "No, no," he said. "Do you think us barbarians? I meant only that you will be taken?under guard, lest you try to flee, but otherwise in comfort?to the Holy City, where the goddess dwells."

III

The leather straps that supported the body of the coach gave it a rolling motion like that of a small boat on the open sea. After four months of such travel, it had long since stopped bothering Magda or Kawar. Indeed, the solid ground seemed unstable when they got out to relieve themselves or to stop for the evening.

The Margush valley knew only two seasons: hot and hotter. Magda wiped sweat from her face. "This weather makes me wish we'd told the gang from the J?ng Ho to rescue us, after all."

"And miss a slow guided tour across the continent? You must be mad. The comparative planetologists will be playing with our data for the next five hundred years." Kawar twisted his wrist so the video unit hidden in his bracelet scanned a tributary joining the main current of the Margush.

"I suppose so," Magda said. "Still, do you want to know the real reason I turned down any try at spiriting us away?"

"Probably because you didn't want the fair Atanasio coming after you with stunner blazing."

"You've come to know me entirely too well."

"No wonder." Kawar patted her hand, then looked around at their escorts and shrugged. Thrown together on the long journey, it was not surprising they had turned to each other. In spite of Kawar's usual orientation, the background they shared made Magda a more attractive partner for him than the local priests.

She smiled back at him. She had known better lovers?though she did not say so?but also worse. He was gentle and tried hard to please her, which counted for a good deal. She did her best to return the favor; some of the variations he liked were interesting.