"Lord Vantedour, my dear Commander, Lord Vantedour. Come, I want you to meet Theophilus."

The eight men entered the room.

On the island, the master astronomer was composing his nineteenth memoir: this one, about the constellation Aphrodite's Bed. The head gardener was bending over a new variety of speckled ocher rose. Saverius was reading The Platonic Doctrine of Truth . Peony was studying her new hairstyle. And in the kitchens they were working on an ibis, sculpted of ice, that would carry the ice cream for the evening's meal in its hollowed-out belly.

Lesvanoos had ejaculated all over the rough stones of the chamber. Weak and hurting, his eyes full of tears, his lips chapped and his throat burning, he lifted his right hand and pointed to the door. The executioner called out in a loud voice and the champion entered with an unfolded cloak, which he threw over Lesvanoos. He wrapped him up, lifted him in his arms, and carried him away.

The man in the green velvet suit was sleeping beneath the trees. Seven dogs were howling at the moons.

Carita Dulce had awakened and the matronas were cooing to him in high-pitched voices, imitating the babbling of children.

"I trust an explanation will make us better understand each other," said Lord Vantedour.

They were seated around the table in the Great Room. Logs burned in the fireplaces, jesters and minstrels waited in the corners. The servants brought wine and roasted meat for the eight men from Earth, Lord Vantedour, and Theophilus. Ladies had been excluded from the meeting. Bonifacio of Solomea climbed into Leo Sessler's lap and studied the man with his yellow eyes. Tuk-o-Tut was guarding the door to the Arms Room, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Imagine the Luz Dormida Tres falling toward the planet at a much faster speed than had been anticipated.

"We're going to crash.

"Moritz vomits and Leval looks like he's been turned to stone. Commander Tardon manages to slowLuz Dormida Tres a little, not enough to stop its suicide run, and it finally comes to a bone-jarring halt on strange, foreign soil. But the ground of Salari II is clay; dried up and weak, it gives way beneath one side of the ship, causing it to tip and fall.

"We were wounded and unconscious for a long time," said Lord Vantedour.

A white awakening: the sun enters through the open cracks in the stern.

"We got out any way we could. Kesterren was the worst off, we had to drag him out. The Luz Dormida Tres lay on its side on the plain.

"The world is a cold piece of copper beneath two suns. Kesterren moans. Leval stays with him, while I climb into the Luz Dormida Tres with Sildor to look for water and saline solution. My hands are burned, Sildor has facial injuries and is dragging one leg. Outside, the wind has begun to blow and it's become dangerous to think.

"For several days, I couldn't tell you how many, we live between the desert and the Luz Dormida Tres, keeping ourselves alive with negligible rations. All the instruments were destroyed and the water supply was about to run out. Kesterren finally came to, but it was impossible for us to move him. Sildor's leg swelled up and became stiff, and my hands were scraped raw. Moritz spent the days sitting with his head between his knees and his arms around his legs, at times sobbing shamelessly."

It occurred to Leo Sessler (on whose knees Bonifacio of Solomea was sleeping) that pride might very well wither away in a desert world without water, food, or antibiotics. A world with two suns and five moons, to which man first arrives on a quick precolonizing, reconnaissance mission and where he is forced to live out his last few days.

"I had decided to kill them, you understand," said Lord Vantedour. "To go into the Luz Dormida Tres, shoot them from there and then shoot myself afterward. We couldn't go out looking for water. And even if we'd found it," he paused, scorning intermittent, seasonal, improbable traces of water, "our chances of survival were so minuscule as to be almost nonexistent. Some day, some other expedition-you-would arrive, and you'd find the remains of the ship and five skeletons with bullet holes in their heads." He smiled. "I'm still a pretty good shot."

"Commander Tardon," said Savan.

"Lord Vantedour, please, or just Vantedour."

"But you're Commander Tardon."

"Not anymore."

The commander of the Nini Paume Uno shifted in his chair and said he agreed with Savan. Tardon couldn't stop being who he had been, who he really was. Savan's question was never put into words; Theophilus smoothly intervened.

"Explain to them how we discovered the violet, Vantedour."

"Explain to us where all this came from," said the commander. His gesture took in the Great Room, the minstrels, the stone fireplaces, the blue-clad servants, the dwarves, the Staircase of Honor, Tuk-o-Tut-standing at the door to the Arms Room, adorned with necklaces, scimitar at his waist, slippers on his feet-and the feminine faces crowned with tall, white caps peaking over the inner balconies.

"The stories are one and the same," said Lord Vantedour.

"Tell them that we're gods," suggested Theophilus.

"We're gods."

"Please!"

"I walk around the crippled ship to pass the time. Sildor comes limping over to join me, and the two of us walk around in slow circles. We avoid stepping on the two large stains of violet light, just as we've done since the beginning. They have imprecise borders and seem to fluctuate, to move. Maybe they're alive, or maybe they're deadly. We're not curious, because we already know one answer.

" 'I don't want to eat.'

" 'Shut up, Sildor. There are still provisions left.'

" 'That's a lie.'

"I swear I'm going to hit him, but he laughs. I take a few steps toward him and he backs up withoutwatching where he's putting his feet.

" 'I didn't mean to insult you,' he says. 'I was going to explain that I don't want to eat, but I'd give anything for a cigarette.'

" 'Where did you get those cigarettes?' I yell.

"Sildor looks at me, scared, and then resumes his shipboard face.

" 'Listen to me, Commander Tardon, I don't have any cigarettes. I only said I wanted a cigarette.'

"I lunge toward him as if I were going to fight him. I grab his wrist, lift up his hand and shove it in front of his eyes. He has two cigarettes in his hand.

"The only possible explanation was that we were crazy," continued Lord Vantedour.

"And the universe collapses above me, soft and sticky. Lying in Aphrodite's Bed, held down by the lid of my coffin, I hear the distant voices of Sildor and Leval. They're calling me, they have a megaphone.

I know we've left reality behind. My ears are ringing and I dream of water. They slap my face and help me sit up. Kesterren asks what's going on. I want to know if the cigarettes exist. We touch them and smell them. Finally, we smoke one between the three of us and it's truly a cigarette. We decided to suppose for a moment that we're not crazy and conduct a test.

" 'I want a cigarette,' Leval announces and looks at his empty hands, which remain empty.

"He says it again without looking at his hands. We imitate the words, the gestures, and the expressions we had when the first cigarette materialized. Sildor stands in front of me and says: 'I didn't mean to insult you. I was going to explain that I don't want to eat, but I'd give anything for a cigarette.'

"Nothing else happens. I laugh for the first time since the Luz Dormida Tres began to gain too much speed after entering the atmosphere.

" 'I want a refrigerator with food for ten days,' I say. 'A summer house on the edge of a lake. An overcoat with a leather collar. A Rolls-Royce. A Siamese cat. Five trumpets.'

"Leval and Sildor are also laughing, but there's that cigarette.

"We sleep poorly. It's colder than it has been on previous nights and in contrast to Moritz, who practically doesn't speak or move, Kesterren won't stop complaining.

"The next morning, before the breakfast hour, if you can call what we'd been eating breakfast, I got up before the others awoke. Though I was intrigued by what had happened the night before, I went to the Luz Dormida Tres to look for the rifles. When I looked down at the tent and at the infinite, dark world that the two suns were beginning to illuminate, at the violet stains that looked like water, or living waters, I thought that, all things considered, it was a shame. I wasn't afraid; dying didn't scare me because I wasn't thinking about death. After the first fit of terror during my childhood, I had guessed that things like death have to be accepted or they will defeat us. But then I remembered the cigarette and went outside again. I smoked it there, freezing in the cold morning wind. The smoke was a violet-blue color, almost like the stains on the ground of Salari II. Seeing as I was going to die that day, I walked over to one of them, stood over it, and verified that I didn't feel anything. I said I wanted an electric razor, really strongly desiring it. I didn't feel as if I were shaving, but as if I myself were an electric razor.

The cigarette burned my fingers, and the pain of the hot ashes on my already burned flesh made me scream. In my hand was an electric razor."

The dwarves were playing dice games next to the fire-place, urged on by the jugglers and minstrels.

A contortionist was hanging in an arc above the players, the flames from the fire illuminating his face.

Tricks, secrets: the servants were looking and laughing.

"Like death," said Lord Vantedour, "this was something we had to accept. And even if we were crazy, we could smoke our craziness, we could shave ourselves and fill our stomachs with our craziness.

It wasn't just convenient to accept it, it was necessary. I woke Sildor up, and each of us stood on one of the violet stains. We wished for a river of fresh, clear water, with fish and a sandy bed thirty feet from where we were, and we got it. We wished for trees, a house, food, a Rolls-Royce, and five trumpets."

The eight men spent the entire day and night in Lord Vantedour's castle. Theophilus returned to the island. Bonifacio of Solomea and Tuk-o-Tut disappeared with Lord Vantedour.

That night, young Reidt had nightmares. Three male nurses in bloodstained scrubs were pushing him uphill in a wheelchair. When they reached the top they let go of the chair, leaving him alone, and wentrunning back the way they'd come, while blowing up balloons that swelled and lifted them off the ground.

He remained in his chair, at the edge of a bottomless precipice. Steps had been carved into the steep slope. He got out of his chair and began to descend, grabbing onto the edges of every step. He screamed because he knew that when he put his foot down, it wouldn't find the next step. He was going to wind up letting go, he would feel around with his foot for the next cranny and would lose his grip and fall, and he screamed.

That night, the first radio operator noted in the log a message signed by the commander, which stated that they had found a good spot and would camp there for the night.

That night, Les-Van-Oos killed three water snakes, armed with nothing but a spear, and the crowd went wild. Carita Dulce, in his uterus-crib, closed his eyes and felt between his legs with his hand. The matronas discreetly withdrew. Beneath the fading light of the stars, the man in the green velvet suit's heart was racing, struggling in its cage.

That night, Leo Sessler got out of bed and, accompanied by the sound of the rapids and the light of the torches, traversed corridors and climbed stairs until he arrived at the doorway where Tuk-o-Tut was sleeping.

"I want to see your master," said Leo Sessler, poking him with his foot.

The black man stood up and showed his teeth while grasping the handle of his scimitar.

If this animal strikes me with that, I'm done for.

"I want to see Lord Vantedour."

The black man shook his head no.

"Tardon!" yelled Leo Sessler. "Commander Tardon! Come out! I want to talk to you!"

Just as the dark-skinned man unsheathed his scimitar, the door opened inward.

"No, Tuk-o-Tut," said Lord Vantedour, "Dr. Sessler can come as often as he pleases."

The black man smiled.

"Come in, doctor."

"I must apologize for this untimely visit."

"Not at all. I'll have him bring us coffee."

Leo Sessler laughed. "I like these contradictions: a medieval castle without electric lights, but where you can drink coffee."

"Why not? Electric lights irritate me, but I like coffee." He went to the door, spoke to Tuk-o-Tut, returned, and sat down in front of Sessler. "I also have running water, as you will have noticed, but no telephone."

"And the others? Do they have telephones?"

"Theophilus has one so that he can keep in touch with Leval, when Leval is in any condition to talk.

Kesterren almost never is, and Moritz definitely never is."

The two men were sitting in the middle of an enormous room. The bed, on a carved wooden platform, occupied the north wall. There was no west wall. Instead, three arches supported by columns gave way to a gallery with balconies above the patio, from which could be seen the countryside and the woods. It was all rather excessive: the ceilings were too high, there were skins on the floor, and tapestries adorned the walls. The only sound that could be heard was the powerful voice of the distant waterfalls Sessler still hadn't seen, but which he guessed were gigantic.

"What are we going to do, Vantedour?"

"That's the second time today I've been asked that question. And I'll confess I don't see why I have to be the one to decide. Theophilus asked me the same thing when we discovered you had arrived, he by much more perfect and, shall we say, modern methods than I. Back then, the question was what were we going to do about you. Now, it seems the question is what are we going to do about us."

"I was referring to everybody, to you all and us," said Leo Sessler. "But I'll admit I'm suspicious about myself and my motives. I suspect that this, as important as it may be, is nothing more than an indirect attempt to get some explanations out of you."

Lord Vantedour smiled. "You're not satisfied with everything I told you during dinner?"

Tuk-o-Tut entered without knocking. Behind him was a servant with the coffee. "Sugar? A little cream?"

"No, thank you. I take it black and without sugar."

"As for me, I have a sweet tooth. I've gained weight. I exercise, ride horseback, and organize hunting parties, but the pleasures of the table still do their worst." He brought the cup to his lips. "Not that it matters much," he said, and took a sip of the sweet coffee.

Tuk-o-Tut and the servant left. Bonifacio of Solomea watched them from his perch on the bed, his tail tucked around him.

"I don't want anecdotes, Vantedour. What interests me is your opinion of this phenomenon of-I'm not sure what to call it, and that bothers me. I'm used to everything having a name, a designation; even the maniacal search for the correct name has a name. And despite that, I'm the man who abhors words."

"I understand that you need names for things. Aren't you what's called a man of science?"

"Yes. Excellent coffee."

"From our plantations. You must visit them."

"Certainly. Let's accept that I'm a man of science, with his contradictions, of course. I mean I could have been 'the acupuncturist and the salt-miner, the toll-collector and the blacksmith.' "

"Today you spoke of horses running toward the boneyard."

"How did you know that?"

"Theophilus thought up an apparatus, rather complicated I'm sure, and has devoted himself to listening to you all with it ever since you left the ship."

"That brings us to my first question: what do you think of this phenomenon of getting things from nothing?"

"I no longer think. But I have an infinite number of answers for that," said Lord Vantedour. "I could say again that we're gods, or that we have been made gods. I could also say it's extremely useful, and if it existed on all worlds we could eliminate many superfluous things: religions, philosophical doctrines, superstitions, and all of that. Do you realize? There would be no questions about mankind. Give an all-powerful instrument to an individual and you'll have all the answers, believe me. Or don't believe me, you have no reason to believe me. Wait and see what the violet has done with Kesterren, Moritz, and Leval, or rather what they've done to themselves with the violet." He left the cup on the table.

"Theophilus and I are the less serious cases, for at least we continue to be men."

"And you two couldn't have done something for them?"

"There's absolutely no reason we should have to do anything for them. The worst thing of all is that they-and we as well, but that's another story-the worst thing is that they're finally happy. Do you know what that means, Sessler?"