In Life's name, and for Life's sake, I assert that I will employ the Art which is Its gift in Life's service alone. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way; nor will I change any creature unless its growth and. life, or that of the system of which it is part, are threatened. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will ever put aside fear for .;•:. courage, and death for life, when it is fit to do so—looking always , toward the Heart of Time, where all our sundered times are one, and all our myriad worlds lie whole, in That from Which they proceeded. . . .It was the Oath that Nita had told her about. Not caring that she didn't understand parts of it, Dairine drew a long breath and read it out loud, almost in triumph. And the terrible silence that drew itself down around her as she spoke, blocking out the sounds of day, didn't frighten her; it exhila-rated her. Something was going to happen, at last, at last. . . . She went to bed eagerly that night.Up and RunningNita and Kit and Dairine made their way among the shops of the lower level of Penn Station and caught the C train for the Upper West Side, coming up at Eighty-first and Central Park West. For a little bit they stood there just getting their bearings. It was warm, but not uncomfortable yet. The park glowed green and golden.Dairine was fidgeting. "Now where?" "Right here," Nita said, turning around. The four-block stretch behind them, between 77th and 81st streets, was commanded by the huge, graceful bulk of the American Museum of Natural History, with its marble steps and beast-carved pediment, and the great bronze equestrian statue of Teddy Roo-sevelt looking eastward across at the park. Tucked into a corner of the build-ing on 81st Street stood the art deco-looking brick cube of the Hayden Planetarium, topped with a greened-copper dome.
