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arrangement to monitor the Auricle scientists, who in turn were
monitoring the star, preparing to watch stardeath in process.
The courier s passengers would never arrive at their destination. But Ganz
would arrive in their place.
Grissondon City and Kantano s World were well lost astern by the
time Ruskin gave his ship s computer the go-ahead to make the
crossover jump to K-space. He did not do so casually. First he d
checked the entire system from top to bottom, and all of the
navigational instructions; and all of his work was double-checked by
Ali Maksam. It wasn t merely his distrust of an untried cogitative
system that troubled him, or their inability to identify the
additional software that Farsil had spoken of. It was also the message carried
in the wafer that
Farsil had handed him the message from his home office, from Judith. 
You may be followed by someone masquerading as an Auricle loyalist, someone
who may try to remove you &
 But the system and the nav-calcs checked out, and he couldn t not go
just because of a warning of something he already knew anyway.
 Do it, he said to the console.
 Very good, sir, it answered.
And he and Tamika and Max rested back in their couches arrayed
before the curved viewscreen of the ship s tiny bridge, while the system
counted down &
Gravity flicked off.
The viewscreen in front of his eyes stretched like an elastic sheet as the
ship turned inside out and back again & and so did his stomach and his mind
&
It was as though his head simply opened up, and out of it came
floating thoughts and feelings and memories, like balloons rising into the
ether; he reached out and tried to capture them, but only a few came
within his reach &
two creatures scampering after him, reeling drunkenly through the trees &
a fortress floating in orange clouds & a tall figure, looming &
Feelings of wary speculation floated by, feelings of fear and
distrust, feelings of self-consciousness, of astonishment; feelings that
were not at all his own &
Time seemed to flow like syrup, clear and thick, stretching slowly into
endless strands &
Time and space melted, shimmering, and recrystallized with a very strange ping
&
When his eyes refocused, he searched the viewscreen instinctively for
stars, for a familiar frame of reference. He found none. A galaxy full of
stars had been transformed into a frieze of slow-moving splinters of color.
Like daggers, the bits of color revolved through a kind of
translucent ice, faceted and fractured; a glint of color disappeared at one
fracture line here
, and reappeared at another, there
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. This was the look of K-space; this was all the viewscreen could
show them of space until they made the crossover back out, at their
destination.
Ruskin sat forward abruptly, shaking his head. He turned to his companions.
 We all still here?
Tamika was still gazing at the screen. She seemed not to have heard him.
 Console: screen off, Ruskin ordered.
The viewscreen darkened. Tamika started. She sighed and met his gaze.
 Hypnotic, she murmured.
Ruskin nodded and called to Ali Maksam. The Logothian was motionless.
 Max! he repeated sharply.  Ali Maksam are you okay?
The Logothian s head was tilted at an odd angle. Ruskin released
himself from his couch and approached his friend. The Logothian s breath
hissed sharply in and out; at the edge of his mind, Ruskin felt Max s fiery
discomfort. The Logothian was radiating empathically; he was in distress.
Ruskin hesitated.  Ali Maksam! He reached out to touch his friend s arm.

I am here
! Max said with a sudden gasp, jerking himself upright. He turned his
visored head from side to side.  Off lights, please! Ruskin quickly complied,
plunging the bridge into darkness. There was near-silence for a moment, just
Ali Maksam hissing in pain. Gradually his breathing slowed, and he whispered,
 Thank you. I 
 What it, Max?
is
The Logothian s voice rasped in the dark.  I have never done that in
the presence of
Humans before. His breath whistled in and out.  Your minds open
up so startlingly in that moment. He was struggling to control his voice.
 I stood in the way of a torrent & [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]