Geo woke up, and almost everything was white.
CHAPTER VIII
The pale woman with the tiny eyes rose from over him. Her hair dropped like white silk threads over her shoulders. "You are awake?" she asked. "Do you understand me?"
"Am I at—at Hama's temple?" he asked, the remnants of the dream still blowing in at the edges of his mind, like shredding cloth. "My friends, where are they?"
The woman laughed. "Your friends are all right. You came out the worst." Another laugh. "You ask if this is Hama's temple? But you can see, can you not? You have eyes. Don't you recognize the color of the White Goddess Argo?"
Geo looked around the room. It was white marble, and there was no direct source of light. The walls simply glowed.
"My friends...." Geo said again.
"They are fine. We were able to completely restore their flesh to health. They must have exposed their hands to the direct beam of the radiation for only a few seconds. But the whole first half of your arm had apparently lain in the deadly rays for some minutes. You were not as lucky as they."
Another thought rushed Geo's mind now. "The jewels ..." he started to say, but instead of sounding the words, he reached to his throat with both hands. One fell on his naked chest. And there was something very wrong with the other. He sat up in the bed quickly, and looked down. "My arm," he said.