This cunningly contrived pageant of light and sound still had power to move Rajasinghe, though he had seen it a dozen times and knew every trick of the programming. It was, of course, obligatory for every visitor to the Rock, though critics like Professor Sarath complained that it was merely instant history for tourists. Yet instant history was better than no history at all, and it would have to serve while Sarath and his colleagues still vociferously disagreed about the precise sequence of events here, two thousand years ago.

The little amphitheatre faced the western wall of Yakkagala, its two hundred seats all carefully orientated so that each spectator looked up into the laser projectors at the correct angle. The performance always began at exactly the same time throughout the year – 19.00 hours, as the last glow of the invariant equatorial sunset faded from the sky.

Already it was so dark that the Rock was invisible, revealing its presence only as a huge, black shadow eclipsing the early stars. Then, out of that darkness, there came the slow beating of a muffled drum; and presently a calm, dispassionate voice:

“This is the story of a king who murdered his father and was killed by his brother. In the blood-stained history of mankind, that is nothing new. But this king left an abiding monument; and a legend which has endured for centuries…”

Rajasinghe stole a glance at Vannevar Morgan, sitting there in the darkness on his right. Though he could see the engineer's features only in silhouette, he could tell that his visitor was already caught in the spell of the narration. On his left his other two guests – old friends from his diplomatic days – were equally entranced. As he had assured Morgan, they had not recognised “Dr. Smith”; or if they had indeed done so, they had politely accepted the fiction.