"I don"t know. Sandy and I aren"t any good at languages."

"How can you say that," Alarid demanded, "when you have the gift of the original tongue?"

"Hey. I don"t know. Sandy and I are the squares of the family. Our older sister and our little brother are the special ones. We"re just the ordinary-"

Alarid interrupted him. "Because that is how you are, or because that is how you choose to be?"

Dennys looked at the seraph, his eyes widening. "What happened to the Old Language?"

"It was broken at Babel."

"Babel?"

"The tower of human pride and arrogance. It has not happened yet, in this time you are in now. You do not know the story?"

Dennys blinked. "I think I remember something. People built a big tower, and for some reason they all began to speak in different languages, and couldn"t understand each other anymore. It was in, oh, pre-history, and it"s a story to sort of, explain why there are so many different languages in the world."

"But underneath them all," Alarid said. "is the original language, the old tongue, still in communion with the ancient harmonies. It is a privilege to meet one who still has the under-hearing."

"Hey," Dennys said. "Listen. I guess because we got here so unexpectedly and everything was so strange, and we didn"t have time to think, and when we met j.a.pheth it just seemed natural to speak to him-"

"It is a special gift," Alarid told him.

"We"re not special, neither Sandy nor I. We"re just the sort of ordinary kid who gets along without making waves."

"Where in the future," Alarid asked him abruptly, "do you come from?"

"A long, long way," Dennys said. "We live at the end of the twentieth century."

Alarid closed his eyes. "A time of many wars."

"Yes."

"And the heart of the atom has been revealed."

"Yes."

"You have soiled your waters and your air."

"Yes."

"Because you speak the Old Language there must be some reason for you to be here. But for the future to touch the past can be dangerous. It could cause a paradox. How did you get here?"

"I"m not sure." Dennys frowned, then added, "Our father is a physicist who specializes in s.p.a.ce travel, in the tesseract."

"Ah, yes. But s.p.a.ce travel is supposed to deal with s.p.a.ce, not time."

Dennys said, "But you can"t separate s.p.a.ce and time. I mean, s.p.a.ce/time is a continuum, "and . . ."

Yalith and Noah came out of the tent, and Yalith put her hand lightly against Alarid"s. "Look, he is very pale. You are tiring him."

"Be careful of our young giant," Noah warned.

Aland regarded Dennys. "You are right. This is enough for tonight." The seraph"s eyes were compa.s.sionate, and their silver-green seemed to darken. "I am glad that you are better, and that you are coming back to yourself. Please, be very careful what you say, what you do. Be careful that you do not change anything."

"Listen," Dennys said. "All I want is to go home. To my own time. I"m just grateful to be on my own planet, and I"m not a bit interested in rewriting the Bible." Did Alarid know that there was going to be a Bible? That there was going to be a flood? He looked at the seraph, whose face, serene and severe at the same time, did not change expression. Dennys was willing to accept that Alarid and the pelican who brought the water were some-how one and the same, but he was not willing to accept that his presence in this time and place might have an effect on anyone except himself. And, of course. Sandy.

"Sleep well, Dennys," Alarid said. "Yalith and Oholibamah will continue to take good care of you."

Yalith, Dennys thought. For Yalith he might be willing to change history.

Sandy could not sleep. Not only was the tent hot, but Higgaion was snoring. Grandfather Lamech was not. Grandfather Lamech was tossing. Turning. Grunting.

Sighing.

At last. Sandy could not stand it any longer. He crawled over to Grandfather Lamech"s sleeping skins. "Grandfather, are you awake?"

"Urn."

"What"s the matter?"

The old man grunted.

Sandy spoke to him as he would have to Dennys. "Come on. I know something"s bothering you. What is it?"

"El spoke to me."

Sandy tried to peer at him through the dark. Did this mean that the old man was about to die? Right then? That night?

But the old man said, "Great troubles are coming after I die. Terrible things are going to happen."

"What kind of terrible things?"

Lamech moved restlessly. "El did not say. Only that men"s hearts are evil and hard, and it repents El that he has made human creatures."

"So what"s he going to do about it?"

"I don"t know," Lamech said. "But I fear for my son and his family. El plans to spare no one. I fear for Yalith. I fear for you. Sand, so far from your home."

"Oh, I can take care of myself," Sandy said automatically. But his words sounded hollow.

Yalith and Oholibamah came to Dennys in the deep dark just before dawn.

"You need to get out of the tent into some air," Oholibamah told him. "You need to exercise. You will not recover until you walk about under the sky."

"Starlight is healing." Yalith"s voice was as gentle, he thought, as a small brook. But there were no brooks in this arid land.

He followed them out of the tent. Each took one of his hands, and their hands were small as children"s. They walked past the grove which served as outhouse, which was as far from the tents as he had ventured. Beyond them, the large tent was a dark shadow, with the smaller tents cl.u.s.tered about it.

His bare feet were still tender, and he walked gingerly. The girls guided him to the smoothest ways, until the sharp dry gra.s.ses and pebbles gave way to sand, and they were in the desert. The sand felt cool to the burning soles of his feet.

They paused at a low slab of white rock, which cast a silvery shadow on the sand. "j.a.pheth and I agreed that this is as far as you should go," Oholibamah said. "Let"s sit here and rest for a while. We"ll take you back to the tent before dawn."

He sat between them on the rock, leaning back on his elbows so that he could look up at the sky. "I"ve never seen so many stars."

"You don"t have stars where you come from?" Yalith asked.

"Oh, yes, we have stars. But our atmosphere is not as clear as yours, and not nearly as many stars are visible."

Yalith clasped Dennys"s arm tightly. "It is frightening when the stars are hidden by the swirling sand. Their song is distorted, and I can"t hear what they say."

"What the stars say?" Dennys asked.

"Listen," Yalith suggested. "Alarid says you are able to understand."

At first, Dennys heard only the desert silence. Then, in the distance, he heard the roar of a lion. Behind them, on the oasis, the birds chirred sleepily, not yet ready for their dawn concert. A few baboons called back and forth. He listened, listened, focusing on one bright pattern of stars. Closed his eyes. Listened. Seemed to hear a delicate, crystal chiming. Words. Hush. Heal. Rest. Make peace. Fear not. He laughed in excitement. Opened his eyes to twinkling diamonds.

Yalith laughed, too. "What did they say?"

"They told me-I think-to get well, and-and to make peace. And not to be afraid. At least, I think I heard them, and I don"t think it was just my imagination." Suddenly he was glad that Sandy was not there. Sandy was pragmatic. Sandy would likely think Dennys was hallucinating from sunstroke. At school, if Dennys got lost in a daydream, Sandy always managed to cover for him.

"Yes, that is what the stars told you." Yalith turned toward him with a delighted smile, very visible in the starlight. "You see!" she said to Oholibamah. "It is not everybody who can listen to the night. If the stars told you to make peace. Den, perhaps you will be the one to make peace between my father and my grandfather."

"A big perhaps," Oholibamah said.

"But maybe, maybe he can." She turned back to Dennys.

"What else do you hear?"

Dennys listened again. Heard the wind rattling the palm leaves like sheafs of paper. There seemed to be words in the wind, but he could not make any sense out of them. "I can"t understand anything clearly-"

Yalith withdrew her fingers and clasped her hands together. Shook her head. Opened her eyes. "The wind seems to be talking of a time when she will blow very hard, over the water. That"s strange. The nearest water is many days away from here. I cannot understand what she is trying to say."

"The wind blows where she wills," Oholibamah said. "Sometimes she is gentle and cooling. Sometimes she is fierce and blows in our eyes and stings our skin like insects and we have to hide in the tents until she is at peace again. It is good, dear Den, that you have not come at a time when the wind blows hot against the sand. You will heal better now, at the time when she is more gentle, and the grapes and gardens grow."

They were silent then, listening to the dawn noises becoming louder, as birds and baboons began to get ready to greet the day. Tentatively. Dennys reached for Yalith"s hand. She gave his fingers a little squeeze, then freed herself and jumped up. "It is time we took you back to the tent. This is more than enough for a first excursion. How do you feel?"

"Wonderful." Then, acknowledging: "A little tired." It would be good to lie down on the soft linen spread over the skins. To sleep a little. To have something cool to drink. He stifled a yawn.

"Come." Oholibamah held out her strong hands. To his surprise, he needed her help in getting up.

When Yalith and Oholibamah needed ointments and unguents for Dennys"s burned skin, Anah, or Mahlah, if she happened to be home, would take them across the oasis to the close cl.u.s.ter of houses and shops to meet Tiglah, Anah"s sister.

"I don"t like it," j.a.pheth said to his wife. "I don"t like your going to such places."

She bent toward him to kiss him. "We don"t go in. I wouldn"t take Yalith into such a place even if Mahlah-"

j.a.pheth gave a shout of anger and anguish. "What has happened to Mahlah!"

Oholibamah said, softly, "We all have choices to make, dear one, and we do not all choose the same way."

"Why can"t I get what you need for you?"

"Oh, love, it is a house for women. You would not be welcome."

"I have seen men coming out. And nephilim."

"j.a.pheth. My own. Please don"t argue. We"ll be all right. Anah is tough."

"And Mahlah?"

Oholibamah put her arms around her husband, pressed her cheek against his. Did not answer.

Mahlah went with Oholibamah and Yalith less and less frequently, because she was less and less often in the home tent. And when she was there, she came in late, after everybody else was asleep, then slept late herself, and managed to avoid confrontation with Matred.

Matred. herself, allowed Mahlah to avoid her. She was waiting for her daughter to come to her and her husband with Ugiel, according to custom, but Ugiel did not come, and Mahlah did not speak, and Matred said nothing to Noah of Mahlah"s betrothal to a nephil. Until the betrothal was made formal, and recognized by Mahlah"s family, there would be no talk of marriage.

Marriages were often casual affairs, no more than an agreement between the two sets of parents, with the bride"s mother and father bringing her to the tent of the groom. Matred liked to have things done properly, not overdone, but well done. Yalith and Mahlah"s two older sisters, Seerah and Hoglah, had been taken to their husbands" tents after Matred and Noah had prepared a feast, with plenty of Noah"s good wine.

Elisheba, Shem"s wife, had come quietly to Noah"s compound and Shem"s tent, accompanied by her widowed father, and bearing several gold rings, and her teraphim. the small figures of her household G.o.ds. Anah, Matred said, had had a vulgar wedding, with crowds of people, many uninvited. There were musicians, dancers, and far too much wine, inferior, at that-who would dare compete with Noah"s wine?-for far too many days. Such excesses were not only unnecessary, they were unseemly.

Cleaning out the big tent with Yalith"s help, Matred said, "I do not understand Mahlah."

Yalith shook out a sleeping skin. "Neither do I. I wish she would come speak to you and Father, instead of avoiding you."

Matred fiercely beat the dust out of one of the floor skins. "If your father knew what she"s up to, he"d be furious. There"s something on his mind, something he"s not telling me about, or he"d have noticed her strange behavior. You think that this Ugh-"

"Ugiel."

"That nephil-you think he means to marry her?"

"I don"t know." Yalith scrubbed out one of the stone lamps with sand. "Mahlah thinks so."

"Speak to her," Matred begged, "Try to make her see reason. All she needs is to come to us with her nephil and tell us that they are betrothed, and we will make all the arrangements for a wedding feast."

"I"ll try," Yalith said, "but I"m not sure she"ll listen." Mahlah had always been closer to and more like the older sisters than Yalith, the youngest, the different one. "I"ll try," she rea.s.sured her mother.

The next day she went with Oholibamah and Anah to get a fresh supply of the ointment that softened Dennys"s scabs. Perhaps Mahlah would be with the redheaded Tiglah, and Yalith could talk with her then.

Anah walked slowly, with her usual undulating of hips.

Yalith and Oholibamah walked on ahead.

"Tiglah frightens me," Yalith whispered to Oholibamah. "I know she"s Anah"s sister, and she is probably the most beautiful woman on the oasis, but-"

"Her beauty is for sale," Oholibamah stated flatly. "But there is no reason to be afraid of her."