"It's alive!" Jupiter burst out. "What in Heaven's name is that thing?"
The girl wrinkled her forehead. "Of course, it's alive. It's a boj. Have you never seen one?"
She lifted the creature away from her skin, held it out to him through the bars.
Jupiter took it gingerly. It was light and flat with the warm limp feel of a fresh pelt. The under side of the boj was hairless, the skin like foam rubber. He could find neither eyes nor mouth.
The girl sensed what he was looking for, laughed infectiously.
"It hasn't any," she said; "it breathes and feeds through its skin. Put it on."
Jupiter let it touch his body. At once the boj wrapped itself around him. It was electrically alive, vibrant. He could feel a pleasant tingle in his nerve ends and glanced at the Caligan girl in surprise.
She wore an amused expression and nothing else. There was an utter lack of self consciousness about her. Jupiter found himself comparing her soft, delicately rounded figure with Lete's lithe brown boyishness.
The Caligan girl suddenly held out her hand for the boj. He peeled it off reluctantly, asking:
"Tabak," she replied. "Did you come to Yogol in a fiery chariot from beyond the stars?"
Tabak's blue eyes widened. She drew close to the cage as if pulled by a magnet, peered intently into his eyes.
Jupiter's hard, bewhiskered face stiffened in surprise.
"Telepathy! Is that what you mean? Can you do that?"
"A little--if you help. We Caligans are closer to the Anolyn than the other races. But we haven't much time before they come to examine you. Won't you let your barriers down? The whole city is alive with rumors...."
Jupiter had recoiled instinctively from having his innermost privacy violated. He scowled in suspicion, asked: "Who sent you? What're you after?"
"No one." She bit her lip. "There's a legend, a--a myth if you like, about the 'Wanderer-from-Beyond', who is to drive the Anolyn back into the sea."
He scratched his beard which had grown back since his captivity.
"I'm a favorite of one of the Anolyn. I've the run of the temple. Please, please let me inside. I must know. You'll understand much more about Yogol than I could ever tell you."
Her last words decided him. He needed information desperately if he were ever to escape.