The Terran woke in a painful daze. It took him several minutes to get his eyes to focus. He gradually realized he was lying in a very uncomfortable position in a dark corner between two large circular tanks in the aft tube-alleys near the rear of the central driver pod. He shook his head, eliciting a small river of very unpleasant pains in his back and skull. What had happened? His maroon tunic was torn, his hands and face smudged with dust and the back ofhis head felt several sizes larger than the rest of him. He scrambled in memory, trying to recover some notion of how he had come here. The last thing he could remember was open the recalcitrant portal into the lower garden deck.

He remembered wanting to find the Mandolan girl for some compelling purpose -- not that! -- but he could not remember what it was he had felt ha had to say to her. And there was a vague recollection of a flash of bright light just as he had stepped throught he garden deck portal. He sagged back against the tank, dazed, wondering what had occurred.