"I asked," Ford said, "where the android is now."

She felt embarrassed saying it, as if the truth were an admission of her own failure. "He joined the Ah Tran movement. He's a disciple, I understand. He lives in their community in Southern California."

Ford's mouth dropped open. His face flushed with anger. He leaped to his feet and commanded: "Stay here!"

She jumped up with him, crying, "But, I didn't-"

"Stay!" he shouted.

Ford charged past her. To avoid being knocked down, she fell to the side. His anger-and fear-she was certain of that now too-sprang out, gripping her so powerfully she was frozen. And her head was on fire. She cried out. Her brain was exploding. Lying on the floor, she trembled as if caught in some massive tremor of the earth. Distantly, she heard a door slam. Then she was screaming. For she had glimpsed something else: a thing so monstrous, ugly, foul that there was no way of comprehending its reality beyond screaming and screaming and screaming.

She had seen the truth reflected in his mind: she knew who Karlton Ford was, and what.

An instant later, it was gone-forgotten. Lying on the floor, she shook her head dimly. The pain gone, she sat up and blinked furiously. What was she doing here? Then she recalled that Ford had left and asked her to stay and wait. But she felt strangely weak, as if she had just suffered through some tremendous ordeal.

She made herself stand up. Across the room, thin twisting streams of sunlight came pouring through the few high slanting windows, sweeping across the floor in yellow waves. But it seemed cold. She was actually shivering. Hugging herself, she paced the room. Waiting for her father to come back home.

Fifteen.

Whenever possible, Eathen liked to leave the monastery at dusk and step out on the lawn and sit down and watch the sun as it slowly fell into the sea. He had to be especially careful while doing this. He had been created with a powerful immunity to pain and there was always the chance he would become so involved watching the spectacle that he would not turn his eyes away in time and thus blind himself.

So today, watching the sun, he wore a pair of thick dark glasses and frequently glanced away from the big orange disk as it continued its inexorable descent into the richly painted waves. Behind him, the big white house-the monastery-climbed upwards toward the sky. Eathen turned and looked back there. He wondered why Ah Tran insisted the house be called the monastery. In all his life, Eathen had never seen a house half so magnificent as this one. They were renting it. During more glorious times, it might well have served as a palace for kings or popes or presidents. Eathen, unlike some disciples, did not object to their living amid such splendor. At least he did not object for Ah Tran's part. He felt it proper that a man as great as the new messiah should have a residence to match his personal grandeur. Eathen and the other disciples were the ones who were not fit; it wasn't Ah Tran.

But it was difficult for Eathen here. He was an android, not a man, and no matter how many emotions he learned to feel, there was no changing the way in which he had been born. In the monastery, when one of the rented servants approached and addressed him as sir, he had to resist the urge to laugh or weep or grow violently angry. He wasn't a sir-he was a thing. An object made of flesh and blood. Ah Tran liked to call him Arthur instead of Eathen. He said the original Arthur had been a great king born of royal blood but required to wait for the right moment to assume his throne. Arthur had undergone testing, education, maturation before finally revealing his true nature. Ah Tran showed Eathen a book in which there was a drawing of young King Arthur raising a sword from out of a stone. Ah Tran had remarked that Eathen might one day be expected to do something similar to prove his humanity. Eathen didn't know-he was afraid, when the moment of his test did come, that he would fail. He wasn't human-he was an android.

By the time Eathen remembered and looked back at the ocean, the sun was already gone. It seemed to happen this way quite often. Did California sunsets really happen faster than they did elsewhere? Or was this only another illusion? The most difficult part of learning how to be human, he was discovering, was knowing how to tell the difference between illusion and reality. For a long time he had suffered from the belief that anything seen, felt, or heard was real; he had accepted that the senses could not lie. Ah Tran, when Eathen expressed this belief, had laughed. Not only can they lie, the messiah had said, they very often do. Eathen was finding life composed of a complex set of complications.

He removed the dark glasses and cautiously rubbed his eyes. At the edge of the horizon, a pale purple streak could still be seen-a faint remnant of the sunset. So another day had come and gone and vanished. This tranquil life they were leading now-he and Ah Tran and the other disciples-was making him impatient. But wasn't that a good sign too? Impatience? Another human emotion? Didn't it signify that he was drawing ever closer to that central moment when his strength and wisdom would allow him to reach out and raise his own metaphorical Excalibur from the stone?

When he had first left Anna and joined Ah Tran, he had traveled around the world. He had stood beside the messiah in Moscow, Warsaw, Paris, London, New York, St. Louis, San Francisco-where he had seen Anna for the last time-Honolulu, Peking, Tokyo, Saigon, Sydney, Delhi. On several occasions-mostly near the end of the tour in Asia-he had been allowed to address the people himself. He had never alluded to his true nature-his androidism- and Ah Tran had told him that it wasn't necessary. All men were once boys, Ah Tran had said, but none consider it necessary to refer to their boyhood each time they perform a manly deed. "It must be the same with you, Arthur, and that is why you need not-and should not-refer to your condition."

"What did you call me?" he had asked. "Arthur?"

And that was when-in Tokyo, two months ago-Ah Tran had explained about his new name.

Now a servant approached from the house, a tiny black-skinned man dressed in gorgeous flowing linen robes.

"The messiah is prepared for you to receive him now," the servant said.

The careful phrasing of the sentence confused Eathen. "In his room, you mean?"

"No, sir. In yours."

"Ah Tran? In my room?" For a moment, he thought the servant was deliberately ridiculing him. "Are you certain?"

"I am, sir. He is there now."

Eathen shook his head. Such an event, if true, was simply astonishing. Among followers of Ah Tran, matters of ceremony and decorum were rigidly observed. Caste was an essential aspect of life, and Ah Tran occupied the uppermost stratum quite alone. Forms of address, table etiquette, greeting and farewells-all such manners of polite intercourse were firmly structured. No one ever spoke to Ah Tran until he spoke first. One always bowed when the messiah entered or left a room. And-when Ah Tran wished to speak to a disciple-it was expected, unless the matter was extremely urgent, that the disciple would go to see him.

"Is something wrong?" Eathen asked, already hurrying toward the house. "Is it an urgent matter?"

The servant, struggling to keep pace, said, "He told me to say that you may receive him at your convenience."

Eathen burst through the high front doors and dashed up the winding staircase three steps at a time. What could it be? Why had Ah Tran chosen to adopt the role of the suppliant? Was it something he-Eathen-had done?

His room, along with those occupied by the other two dozen disciples, was located in a single wing of the house. Ah Tran's quarters took up the entire upper, third story. The bathroom Ah Tran used-and bathing was a daily rite with them-was twice the size of Eathen's entire room.

When he reached the door to his room, he paused, then knocked gently and carefully-twice. When there was no immediate reply, he stepped back, prepared to wait. He did-time passed-but still nothing happened. Irritated, he turned to go find the servant and discover the meaning of this charade, but just then the door opened and a brown, glowing face appeared. Eathen blinked, deeply confused. Who was this? The man bowed his head, showing Eathen the crown of a smooth bald skull. The man was young, handsome, apparently an American Negro. The face appeared again, grinning. Suddenly, Eathen recognized the man. It was Ah Tran-but Ah Tran totally transformed. No longer was the messiah an old and infinitely wise denizen of the mysterious East-Tibet or Nepal, most believed. This man in front of him could have been any thirty year old Negro on the streets of New York.

His voice was different too. The frail, mystical accent had gone: "I am here to serve you, Arthur."

Unable to speak, Eathen nodded and carefully entered the room. Ah Tran bowed, waited until Eathen had passed, then shut the door.

Eathen stood in the middle of the small, austere room, seeking to find words worth speaking.

Ah Tran pointed shyly to the one piece of furniture the room contained: a high, stiff, straight-backed chair.

"Do you want me to sit there?" Eathen asked.

"The choice is yours, sir," said Ah Tran.

Eathen went over and sat on the chair. In a sudden, swift motion, Ah Tran dropped to the bare floor, crouching at Eathen's feet. He turned his eyes downward and made no effort to speak.

Eathen waited, slowly understanding what was expected of him, though not why. He was to speak first. But he had never done that before-how could he? Eathen cleared his throat, coughed, looked away.

Still, Ah Tran crouched silently and motionlessly.

At last, in a rush, Eathen said, "But you wished to see me, sir."

Ah Tran glanced up, his eyes darting furiously, as if he lacked the strength to meet Eathen's gaze. His smile was diffident. "I have prayed that you might listen to me, Arthur."

"But of course I will. When have I-?"

Ah Tran shook his head miserably. "You are far too kind."

Eathen had to keep reminding himself that this weak, shaken young man was indeed the messiah.

"No-" Eathen began, but he interrupted himself, too confused to continue. This line of talk was solving nothing. "Please tell me whatever it is you want to say," he demanded, with a gruffness that shocked and frightened him.

But Ah Tran did not object. "I have been," he said, "an utter fool." Like any shame-faced penitent, he lowered his eyes. "My petty egotism has nearly shattered our best opportunity to achieve full success in our spiritual quest. Only a liar, idiot, shallow and foul beast could fail so miserably to uphold the faith of those who had placed their lives in his hands."

"But, messiah, surely you have not-" Again, Eathen interrupted himself.

"Ah, but I have. My name is Ah Tran-I cannot change that-but I am no messiah. A messiah is one who provides the opportunity of salvation for those who elect to follow his lead. In truth, I have failed to provide even for myself. I must speak of the activities of our circle. Even now, as shameful as the memory must be, I glimpse visions of our past. I see you-all of you-my most devoted disciples---gathered around. At the center of the circle, I sit alone. Your souls rush outward, fusing with mine, while I alone attempt the awesome burden of sending this gestalt spinning toward the heavens. Again and again, the sacred effort miserably fails. I stand, cursing, wagging my finger like a tongue of retribution. In doing that-" he slapped the side of his head with a fist "-I have been a fool. The finger should have been turned upon myself. I was the one who had failed. I had dared to occupy-for no reason but sheer egotism-a seat that was not rightly mine to hold. The position of spiritual conduit should not have been granted a fool. Instead, it should have gone-" and now he did point, holding his finger steady, straight ahead, at Eathen "-to you."

"To me?"

Ah Tran smiled. "Exactly. I expected you might have known, but obviously your deep sense of personal humility has prevented you from exposing my crass idiocy. You expend too much pity on an old man. In truth, I have lived too long. My soul is cluttered with corruption and waste. My spiritual self-no different from any system that has existed too long-rushes toward a state of final disorganization. But you, Arthur, are barely a child. Your first conscious, waking moment occurred but months past. With you-" he grew excited, hands flashing in emphasis "-with you at our center, acting as spiritual conduit, I am convinced we shall succeed. You shall send us spinning upward. We shall reach the heavens, complete the cycle, learn the...." His excitement faded as rapidly as it had come; he stopped, unable to continue.

"Yes?" said Eathen.