As Hiro crests the pass on his motorcycle at five in the morning, the town of Port Sherman, Oregon, is suddenly laid out before him: a flash of yellow loglo wrapped into a vast U-shaped valley that was ground out of the rock, a long time ago, by a big tongue of ice in an epochal period of geological cunnilingus. There is just a light dusting of gold around the edges where it fades into the rain forest, thickening and intensifying as it approaches the harbor -- a long narrow fjordlike notch cut into the straight coastline of Oregon, a deep cold trench of black water heading straight out to Japan.

Hiro's back on the Rim again. Feels good after that night ride through the sticks. Too many rednecks, too many mounties.

Even from ten miles away and a mile above, it's not a pretty sight. Farther away from the central harbor district, Hiro can make out a few speckles of red, which is a little better than the yellow. He wishes he could see something in green or blue or purple, but there don't seem to be any neighborhoods done up in those gourmet colors.

But then this isn't exactly a gourmet job.

He rides half a mile off the road, sits down on a flat rock in an open space -- ambush-proof, more or less -- and goggles into the Metaverse.

"Librarian?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Inanna."

"A figure from Sumerian mythology. Later cultures knew her as Ishtar, or Esther."

"Good goddess or bad goddess?"

"Good. A beloved goddess."

"Did she have any dealings with Enki or Asherah?"

"Mostly with Enki. She and Enki were on good and bad terms at different times. Inanna was known as the queen of all the great me."

"I thought the me belonged to Enki."

"They did. But Inanna went to the Abzu -- the watery fortress in the city of Eridu where Enki stored up the me -- and got Enki to give her all the me. This is how the me were released into civilization."

"Watery fortress, huh?"

"Yes, sir."

"How did Enki feel about this?"

"He gave them to her willingly, apparently because he was drunk, and besotted with Inanna's physical charms. When he sobered up, he tried to chase her do............