"Greetings, girl," Betsy's brain whispered to her. "You're out late. Just let me finish this thing and we'll have a chat."
The music soared, uninterrupted, to a climax sparkling with grace notes and glittering with chromatic trills.
"Now," fluted the creature, turning and fixing her with golden, freewheeling eyes, "what brings a tourist" (the word was a curse) "here at this hour?"
"L-love," she gulped, hardly knowing what she said. "I-I mean, I wanted to find out if anything real was left. And, well, I ran away from the hotel. They'll be coming after me, I suppose."
"Don't fret. Martians can play tricks with time. I'll return you to your room well before they get here."
"You—you're not just another, fancier, robot?"
"I'm alive enough." He bowed with a sweep that seemed to invest him with wings. "Pitaret Mura, at your service. A princeling of sorts. An iconoclast. And an atavist like you."
"There are others here?" Her eyes grew round.
"Most of the others have finished with this outgrown eyrie and are away on larger affairs. Only I return with a few friends once each year to sing of past glories and weep over present desecrations."