"Sleep no more," Yah said.

"I've had a hard day." He was frightened.

Yah said, "I command you to take care of the ailing girl. She is all alone. If you do not hasten to her side I will burn down your dome and all the equipment in it, as well as all you own besides. I will scorch you with flame until you wake up. You are not awake, Herbert, not yet, but I will cause you to be awake; I will make you rise up from your bunk and go and help her. Later I will tell her and you why, but now you are not to know."

"I don't think you have the right person," Asher said. "I think you should be talking to M.E.D. It's their responsibility."

At that moment an acrid stench reached his nose. And, as he watched in dismay, his control board burned down to the floor, into a little pile of slag.

Shit, he thought.

"Were you to lie again to her about your portable air," Yah said, "I would afflict you terribly, beyond repair, just as this equipment is now beyond repair. Now I shall destroy your Linda Fox tapes." Immediately the cabinet in which Herb Asher kept his video and audio tapes began to burn.

"Please," he said.

The flames disappeared. The tapes were undamaged. Herb Asher got up from his bunk and went over to the cabinet; reaching out his hand he touched the cabinet-and instantly yanked his hand away; the cabinet was searingly hot.

"Touch it again," Yah said.

"I will not," Asher said.

"You will trust the Lord your God."

He reached out again and this time found the cabinet cold. So he ran his fingers over the plastic boxes containing the tapes. They, too, were cold. "Well, goodness," he said, at a loss.

"Play one of the tapes," Yah said.

"Which one?"

"Any one."

He selected a tape at random and placed it into the deck. He turned his audio system on.