"Miss," said Bishop, "for a hundred bucks a day, I'd - "
She cut him short. "You will take the job?"
"Most gladly," Bishop said.
"Permit me - "
The universe came unstuck, then slapped back together.
He was standing in an alcove and in front of him was a woodland glen with a waterfall, and from where he stood he could smell the cool, mossy freshness of the tumbling water. There were ferns and trees, huge trees like the gnarled oaks the illustrators like to draw to illustrate King Arthur and Robin Hood and other tales of very early Britain - the kind of oaks from which the Druids had cut the mistletoe.
A path ran along the stream and up the incline down which the waterfall came tumbling, and there was a blowing wind that carried music and perfume.
A girl came down the path and she was Kimonian, but she didn't seem as tall as the others he had seen and there was something a little less goddesslike about her.
He caught his breath and watched her, and for a moment he forgot that she was Kimonian and thought of her only as a pretty girl who walked a woodland path. She was beautiful, he told himself - she was lovely.
She saw him, and clapped her hands.