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.So be it.Then he smashes against negation, amighty barrier of nothing that shatters him into a million fragments andhurls him back instantly away across frozen forever, a tiny blur ofimprobability smeared across the void Which coalesces, unthinkably, into light and feeling, into what hefinally recognizes as the old human body of Daniel Dann, lying propped up on a bare floor.Machinery is humming near him.He isolates an active hammer at hissternum, and his human mind vaguely identifies an emergency cardiacstimulator.Did he dream? No; it was all real, only elsewhere.He is, hesupposes, really dying now; he has received a mortal blow, though he isnot in pain.He has lost something vital, lost it forever.Memory of blackburning comes to him.But strangely it has no power.I tried, his failingmind thinks.Even if it was too late, I did try.Movement is visible through his eyelashes, his lids are in terminaltremor.While he waits to die he lets himself look, identifies a movingwhiteness as the legs of medics.Incredibly, he seems to be still in thedayroom at Deerfield, on the floor.No one is attending to him.At the endof his vision a figure suddenly rises away, revealing the side of thedayroom couch.A long dark arm is trailing from it.The hand rests limp on the floor.Her arm.She is here.His heart thuds against the mechanicalstimulation."Sorry, Major," says a voice.Dann recollects a white-haired blur: DoctorHarris."We're much too late," Harris goes on."She's gone."Dann can feel nothing more, he is only dully grateful for a glimpse of herpure young profile, as they lift her onto the stretcher.The blanket drops.Touch her carefully, damn you, treat her with reverence.He rememberswhat he knows and wishes fiercely that he could protect her body from theobscene curiosity to come."Hey, the doc's coming around," says a loud voice over his head.With horror Dann realizes that it is referring to him.Why isn't he dead?Is it possible that he has to live? To go on and face the emptiness, the griefand wretchedness of his days? No.He wills himself to let go.Cease, heart.But hands are moving him, medication is traitorous in his blood, hecannot slip away.And yet he can still feel the weird humming tension inthe air.Is it possible somehow to wrench loose, to flee out of his body as hehad before.Was that delirium, or his drugged cortex raving, a stroke?Whatever, he is too weak now, he cannot find the way.He is trapped here,to suffer the grey years.No way out.Involuntarily he groans aloud, and a miracle happens.The push that he had felt before presses into his mind an invisibleinvading presence that somehow takes away all fear.But this time it is farstronger, more resolute.A real yet friendly power is thrusting him out of himself as a knife scoops out an oyster.Perhaps it is death; he feels onlyinfinite relief as he lets himself be unbodied.And as he dissolves, avoiceless message seems to form in his mind: "Don't be afriad, a shorttime only.I am Giadoc."Madness! But so real and warm is the presence that with his last humanconsciousness he feels sympathy for the alien thing, wishes to warn it.Then his life slides out of the world. Into darkness, bodiless speed; he is whirling instantaneously througha void he seems to have known before.But this is velocity so great it issimple being, he is only a vector hurtling somewhere, sucked to adestination and then he is there, telescoping into some order of unrealreality.As he coalesces into what might be existence, his vanished humansenses form one last perception: he is falling into a world-wide inferno, litby jagged radiance, a blizzard of radiance from an exploding sun: For anoninstant he is aware of great gales howling, of a storm inhabited bymonster flying forms, great bats or squids that trail terrifying fires.He iscollapsing or condensing into hell.Next moment the vision is gone, he is in, is a corporeal somethingunder peaceful daylight.But is is all too much, entirely too much, he isworn out.Something vital has gone, he does not recall what, only knows hecan bear no more.All but dead with grief and terror, the being that had been Daniel Dannabandons consciousness.His forty-meter vanes fan out in disarray, his jetsare lifeless.He tumbles limply while the currents take hold and carry himhelpless toward the lethal downfall of the eternal winds of Tyree.Chapter 13COLDLY IT RIDES THE STARWAYS, PREOCCUPIED BY NOVELSENSATIONS FROM WITHIN ITS VAST AND INSUBSTANTIAL SELF.SINCE THE ADVENT OF ITS SMALL PASSENGER, EXISTENCE HASDEFINITELY BECOME MORE INTERESTING, DESPITE THEIRREMEDIABLE SADNESS OF ITS GUILT.THE PROJECT OF LEARNING TO COMMUNICATE WITH THELITTLE ENTITY SEEMS LIKELYTO REQUIRE INFINITE TIME; BUT INFINITE TIME IS AVAILABLE.REFERENTS FOR THE SYMBOLSSTILL ELUDE IT.HOWEVER, THE GREAT HOST COMES TOUNDERSTAND IN A GENERAL WAY THE SMALL THING'S ZEST FORACCESS, AS THOUGH THE MERE EXPERIENCE OF EMBODIMENTWERE A SOURCE OF JOY.STRANGE, UNFATHOMABLE! WHENACCESS TO ALL SENSOR-SYSTEMS IS ALLOWED, THE TINY BEINGRESPONDS EXCITEDLY, SEEKING, PEERING, LISTENING,MAGNIFYING NOW THIS, NOW THAT PHENOMENON OF THE VOID.AND ALWAYS WITH AN INFECTIOUS VIVACITY THAT MAKES THEHUGE ONE'S BLEAK EXISTENCE BRIEFLY MORE BEARABLE.AGAIN, THERE IS THE RECURRENT PROBLEM OF KEEPING ITSPASSENGER AWAY FROM TOO-CLOSE APPROACH TO ITS PRIVATENEXUS OF GRIEF AND WRONG.THE LITTLE PRESENCE SEEMS TOWANT TO MEDDLE IN THE WHOLE CENTRAL NUCLEUS, ASTHOUGH TO INITIATE SOME ACTION, OR DEMAND MORE OFSOMETHING UNKNOWN.WHAT COULD THIS BE?EXPERIMENTALLY, A MORE INTIMATE CONTACT IS ONCEALLOWED.BUT NOTHING HAPPENS EXCEPT A REPETITION OFMEANINGLESS SYMBOLS: // ACTIVATE ***//.THIS CORRELATESWITH NOTHING, AND PRESENTLY THE SMALL PASSENGER CEASESAND REGATHERS ITSELF ELSEWHERE.IT HAS BEEN ACTIVE IN THE VAST PERIPHERY, TOO.AT LEASTONCE IT HAS VENTURED TO THE OUTER LAYERS AND MADECONTACT WITH AN ENCYSTMENT.SUBSEQUENTLY IT ACHIEVES ANEW KIND OF MOVEMENT, AS THOUGH IT HAS SEPARATED ORDOUBLED ITSELF: THE INTERNAL SENSORS OUT THERE ARE NOTSO PRECISE.TOLERANTLY, THE HUGE HOST REFRAINS FROMDAMPING THIS TINY COMMOTION, MERELY CONTENTING ITSELFWITH WARNING SWEEPS.AND SHORTLY IT FINDS ITSELF REWARDED FOR INDULGENCE:THIS SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN THE PRELUDE TO SOMETHING NEW.THERE IS A SENSE OF STRAIN ON THE NUCLEUS, AND THEN THEREERUPTS FROM WITHIN IT A WONDROUS, NAMELESS SENSATIONSO UNHEARD-OF IT CANNOT BE IDENTIFIED AT ALL, EXCEPT AS ASTARTLING SENSE OF COMING ALIVE IN A NEW UNAUTHORIZEDWAY: THIS HAS TO DO WITH CERTAIN SCANNERS, IT PERCEIVES.ITDEPLOYS THEM MORE FULLY, AND THE SENSATION AMPLIFIES.MARVELMENT, DELIGHT!NOTHING IN ITS IMMENSE COLD BEING HAS PREPARED IT FORBEING DAZZLED BY BEAUTY.THE NEUTRAL, UNREGARDED STARFIELDS TAKE ON INTEREST.GLORIES, LARGE AND SMALL,FOR WHICH IT HAS NO CONCEPTS CREATE A BRILLIANT STIR.TOITS AMAZEMENT, THIS ASPECT OF ITS GREY EXISTENCE BECOMESFOR A TIME INTENSELY SATISFYING.IT FLOATS ON CONSIDERING THESE EVENTS, HALF-PLEASED,HALF-HORRIFIED.IT SPECULATES: PERHAPS IT WAS TO THE GOODOF THE TASK, THE RACE, THAT I DEFAULTED BEFORE I BECAME SOACUTELY DERANGED?SO DISTRACTED, THE VAST BEING FAILS TO NOTICE THAT IT ISMOVING CLOSER TO THE PECULIAR NEG-ENTROPIC STRANDWHICH IT HAD SET COURSE AUTOMATICALLY TO FOLLOW.IT ISSUDDENLY ALERTED WHEN A BURST OF MINUTE ENERGIESIMPINGE UPON ITS OUTER SKIN.IT SEEMS TO HAVE INTERSECTED,OR DISRUPTED, THE STREAM.APPARENTLY IT IS QUITE CLOSE TOTHE EMISSION END, BECAUSE OTHER PARTICULATE ENERGIESCONTINUE TO ARRIVE, QUITE STRONG FOR SUCH TINY SENDS.INDEED, ONE OR TWO MAY HAVE PENETRATED THE DEEPERLAYERS BEFORE BEING SEALED OUT
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