“No. But who could have forecast the horrors of the Age of Confusion? Who would have thought that human beings could so quickly lose their grip on the civilization of thou- sands of years?”

“True, Initiator. Go on, Ruth. I'm sorry I interrupted.”

“I mentioned two dreams, Warden. In the second kind I get no clear pictures. They are distorted and scary, and I seem to be inside this person - Tomi.”

“Is she a person of your own age, do you know?”

“She's not a woman at all. A man, a bit older than mc, I think, but not as old as Luke.”

“To be totally at one in the mind of a person of the other sex is difficult. That is, perhaps, why the dreams are muddled and nightmarish. What is this Tomi like?”

“I don't think he's very tall. He wears rather grand robes, all decorated along the hem, rather like the pictures of ancient Romans, you know. But I've never seen him look in a mirror, so I don't know what he looks like, of course.”

“And what actually happens, when you're in his body?”

“I dream of falling. Of drowning. Of crawling across a narrow bridge in a storm - I can hear the wind and the thunder. Sometimes I see other people, through his eyes, I suppose. There are men in red and things strapped to their foreheads. And there's one man who seems to be special. But… “

“What is it?”

“Maybe I'm getting it wrong, but it seems that there's something wrong with all their backs.”

“Something wrong?”

“As if they were hunchbacked.” “How very odd.”

“Do you suppose ... some genetic weakness?”

“In only a hundred and forty years - it couldn't possibly become so widespread. I expect it's just a dream aberration. Nothing to worry about.”

“I hope you're right, Warden.” The Initiator frowned. Ruth shivered.

“What is it, my dear?”

“Suppose we get there and find they are like that, savage and deformed. Or suppose we go east all that way across the mountains, and when we arrive, there's nothing there at all. You're building so much on my dreams. Mine. It'll be my fault.”