Rolling over, he caught his breath before climbing to his feet and stumbling back toward the gap. Lights danced before his eyes and he couldn't hear a thing. Overhead, the beam had turned a deep purple that appeared solid as steel, but he wasn't interested in the beam anymore.
"Maggie!" He fell to his knees, cursing his recalcitrant legs, and forced himself erect again. "Maggie, talk to me!" Dazed and bleeding, he staggered into the chamber. "Where the hell are you? What happened?"
There was no reply.
Not far from the base of the primary mechanism, which appeared undamaged, he found her lying facedown on the floor. A glance revealed that the feeder slot had sealed itself shut. Sated, he decided, just like a carnivore after a big feed. As his hearing began to return, his ears rang as if he'd just finished a year as chief apprentice bell-ringer to Quasimodo himself. He turned her over. Her eyes were closed.
Too stunned to cry, he slipped his arms beneath her and carried her back to the gap in the wall. She'd been so tough, so enduring, that the lightness of her body surprised him. Laying her down gently just inside the opening, he cradled her head in his hand and raised it so that she could see. Her eyes fluttered open.
"Look, Maggie. Can you see? Can you see what we did? What you did?"
Across the intervening ocean the slowly rotating lens had accelerated tremendously on its luminous axis. So fast was it spinning that it resembled a globe instead of a lens.
Or an eye.
It was a deception of speed, of course. There was no rigid gray globe out there, hovering above the center of the main island at the nexus of the five beams. It was simply the original lens, spinning so fast that it gave the illusion of solidity. If it had rotated in his direction and blinked, he wouldn't have been surprised.
"Worked," she whispered. He had to strain to hear the single word.
"Yeah, it worked, all right." With his other hand he took her fingers in his and squeezed gently. "Kill or cure. You shouldn't have done it, Maggie."
A hand reached up to caress his lips with shaky fingers. "Please, Boston. Don't be angry." She smiled, and he could sense the effort it required.
"Don't worry. If you ... if you slip away, I'll use one of the life crystals to bring you back."
Her fingers dropped to coil tightly around his wrist. "There are no more, Boston. I put them all in the machine, and the machine took them." She struggled to see. "It's kind of pretty, isn't it? With all the lights?"
"Yeah. It's real pretty." His voice choked.
"But no return ticket. Our asteroid-ship hasn't moved." She smiled again. "Hell of a bang, wasn't it?" Her back arched slightly as every muscle in her body tensed. Her eyes squeezed shut.
"Maggie?"
She slumped back against him. "It's ... okay. I've been in this position before, you know."
"You mean, lying down?" He tried to smile back, without much success.
She could only laugh with her eyes. "You astronauts. Always kidding." She tried to punch him, but couldn't raise her arm high enough. Blood began to run from her nostrils. "I think I'm dying, Boston. I feel all broken inside."
The concussion had blown him clear through the gap in the wall. Much nearer the source, what had it done to her? He was afraid to feel along her ribs for fear of what he might find.
"You're not going to die, Maggie. You're not going to leave me here alone."
"What, another order?" She coughed, and what came up finally started his tears flowing. "Don't try to fool an experienced reporter." For an instant her eyes seemed to focus. "Listen to me, Boston Low. If you can get home, if you can find a way, you do it. Promise me."
"I promise." He wiped angrily at his eyes. "Brink still had some life crystals on him when he went over. I'll find a way down, come back with one—"
"No." Her strength was fast ebbing, but her voice remained strong. "No life crystals for this girl reporter, Boston. No resurrections."
"But it worked for Brink. It'll work for you."
"No. He wasn't the same ... after. You saw it. The crystals took him over, remade him as well as revived him. I don't want to be remade. Who knows what would have happened to him if he'd lived? He might have gone a little madder each day. Or maybe one day, without warning, the crystals just stop working and you fall over. No thanks. None of that for me. I'd rather die peacefully than live like that."
He found himself shaking his head in disagreement. "You're not going to die."
"Right. I'll just lie here and relax. Keep holding me, Boston. It feels right."
Silently they watched the convergent beams, which showed no sign of diminishing, and the spinning lens, which gave no indication of slowing. Was the reaction now self-sustaining? What was taking place deep within the complex interlinked instrumentation? Could he turn it off now even if he wanted to?
None of it mattered. Not even finding a way home was important anymore. All that mattered was the woman lying in his arms, her eyes half-closed as she continued to breathe shallowly.
"Hey," she blurted abruptly, "take it easy."
"I didn't do anything."
"You're beating up on yourself. You didn't do anything, Boston. No regrets, comprende? You wouldn't have liked living with a journalist anyway. We talk all the time, and I'm told that female journalists are the worst of the lot."
He dredged up a smile. "I'm surprised to hear stereotypes from you, Maggie."
"What the hell. When the muse fails, you fall back on clichés." She coughed again, harder this time, her body wracked by the spasm.
His touch light, he brushed hair from her forehead. "I think I could've gotten used to it. We would've managed. I could have done the heroic deeds and you could have reported on them."
"S'truth. Here I am sitting on the story of a lifetime and I can't get a word out. Probably doesn't matter. My regular audience wouldn't believe a word of it."
"Pictures, Maggie. Video."
She smiled up at him. "Special effects. Morphing. People believe what they want to believe." Her fingers tightened against him. "It hurts, Boston."
"I'm sorry." He didn't know what else to say. He knew there must be something else, but he couldn't think of it. It was ever so at such moments.
"The beams. Find out what they're for. Find out for me. It's pan of the story, you know. You can't leave out critical parts of the story. Bad journalism."
"I'll try. I'm just a little ol' jet jockey, but I'll try. You can help me find out. Right? Right, Maggie?" Her eyes had closed again. That's when he thought of the right words, but by then it was too late. It always was.
"I love you, Maggie."
She died there in his arms without saying another word. There was no eloquence to it, no beauty in it, as the poets postulated. She just went away.
He laid her down gently on the unyielding floor, her lifeless face illuminated by the final product of a science so advanced, it embodied concepts humankind could not contemplate even theoretically. While the chamber throbbed with electronic life, the only one that meant anything to him lay lost at his feet.
He thought about ignoring her request, considered racing back to the main island to retrieve one of the remaining life crystals from Brink's body. Her words refused to leave him, stuck in his mind, and he knew that she would curse him for bringing her back, for subjecting her to the potential tyranny of crystal addiction.
So he left her there, her beautiful silent face turned toward the alien sky. Left her the way she always wanted to be left from the time they'd first met: with the last word.
Rising, he turned to squint directly at the beam. Beyond lay the transport tunnel, its ever-efficient sphere waiting to carry him back to the central island. He started walking ... away from it.
Many of the machines boasted assorted indentations and projections. Once more he found himself wondering what would happen if he made actual contact with the beam. If it was deadly, death would come instantaneously. His eyes watered and he had to wipe at them continually as he scrutinized t
he projection. It was only light, of course, but even light could exert pressure. And he'd never seen a light like this.
What lay at the end of the light, at the terminus of the beam? It was no rainbow and the spinning lens no Valhalla. He'd promised Maggie that he would find out.
Using various projections and indentations, he climbed easily to the top of the primary mechanism. Looking down the length of the beam, he could see the distant cryptic illusion that was the lens, the Eye. What if he could reach it, what then? Probably it would knock him silly, send him flying off onto the rocks.
Seen from above, Maggie Robbins was more lovely than ever. She lay as he had left her, unawakened and still. It wasn't a bad dream.
Find out what the beams are for, she had implored him. It might only take a nanosecond to find out.
Closing his eyes, astonished at how calm he was feeling, he stepped forward off the edge of the machine. He did not die. His leg was not incinerated. Instead, he found himself standing on the light, his boots sinking into it an inch or two. Bouncing tentatively on the balls of his feet, he took an experimental step forward. It was like walking on deep foam rubber. He would have compared it to walking on air, except that he was virtually walking on air.
Well, now, that's interesting, he thought. He knew a couple of physicists who would have given a year off their lives just for the privilege of studying the phenomenon.
He resumed walking. The beam continued to support him, buoying him up by who knew what implausible stretch of applied photonics. His feet sank no farther into the light.
Increasing his pace, he left the spire behind and soon found himself striding along high above the alien ocean. There was no breeze. He was no tightrope walker, but the beam was plenty wide, and to say that he was accustomed to high places would have been an egregious understatement.
Besides, he didn't much care if he fell. The drop of a hundred feet on either side of the beam didn't concern him. Ignoring it, he maintained his steady pace, occasionally jamming his hands into his pocket and whistling softly as he walked. The spire receded behind him as the illusory gray globe of the Eye drew near. Gradually, a new revelation manifested itself.
The Eye sang.
Actually, it was more of a very high-pitched whine, an unsurprising by-product of the spinning lens. But he preferred to think of it as a song, albeit a one-note threnody. Close now, he could see that the lens was not revolving on a single axis but on many, like a gyroscope. Within the sphere of rotation, light was bent, making it impossible for him to see through it. In addition to the serene whine, it exuded a faint dampness.
He glanced back. The fifth islet looked small in the distance, its glistening spire a needle looking to pierce some low-lying cloud. Below he could see the broken terrain of the central island, the quiescent asteroid-ship, even the hold through which access could be gained to the vast underground chamber. It all seemed so mundane, so irrelevant. Like his life, he mused.
With a sigh he turned back to face the Eye. Maggie wasn't the only one who always wanted to see what lay on the other side of the mountain. As nonchalantly as if he was crossing Market Street, he stepped forward into the vaporous maelstrom.
The sphere vanished. So did the island, and the sea, and the sky. So, too, did any sense of up or down, left or right. Looking in the direction he believed to be down, he wasn't really surprised to see that he wasn't there anymore. If he'd been able to access a mirror, he would have discovered that he no longer possessed eyes with which to see. Instead of seeing, he perceived.
Looking (or rather, perceiving) around, he settled on something that had neither mass nor shape but that was there nonetheless. It was there by virtue of its selfness, adrift in the same waxen pale as himself. The cosmos had become solid cloud flecked with presence.
Reaching out with what would have been his arms had he still been in possession of such limbs, he found he could move closer to the presence. Contact was made. He felt a coolness in his mind instead of on his skin, which extraneous envelope he had discarded along with the rest of his physicality. Pulling back, he sensed and felt nothing. There was nothing to sense in this place: no heat, no light, no smell. One could only perceive.
Effortlessly, he moved away from the intermittent gray flicker he perceived to be the Eye. Looking down, he found that he could perceive the central island, the ocean and the creatures that dwelt within. He saw everything all the way to the heart of the planet and, looking out, all proximate space as far as the Cocytan sun. Everything was incredibly obvious, though viewed through the veil of newfound perception.
He sensed other thoughts moving close and prepared to receive them. When they chose to manifest themselves, they were as clear and sharp in his mind as any speech.
"We have been observing you for some time, by your standards," declared one. Without head or ears, he understood it perfectly, and turned to confront it.
It was a Cocytan, though not one boasting beaked skull and vestigial wings. Rather, it was the essence of a Cocytan, perceived whole and complete. A presence against which he could measure his own existence. He was unexpectedly glad to have it confirmed.
Others crowded near, though there was no sense of crowding. Some were cool, others decidedly warmer. He perceived each of them individually, just as they perceived him. Behind the first there were others. Dozens, hundreds, millions and more. Astonishingly, he found he could perceive each and every one of them, both separately and as a group. He did not try to comprehend how he was able to do this. For the moment, it was more than enough simply to accept.
"Where am I?"
"In our place." The one he perceived as nearest to him replied. There hung about it an aura of great satisfaction. "In the other dimension. Resign yourself to it. It is remarkable that you have succeeded in coming among us, but now you will never go back. We have been searching for the way back for a thousand years."
"So this is the fourth dimension." Low turned, or perceived that he was turning. It didn't matter which way he looked: Everything looked the same unless he focused on the physical universe. The dimension of which he was now a part encompassed the entire cosmos yet was not restricted by it.
Brink should be here, he found himself thinking. Not me.
"You have come through the Eye." Was that a dozen of the thought-forms addressing him, he wondered, or a million? "Reactivation was always believed possible, but not likely. The movements of the Creator, when revived, were circumscribed by the exigencies of the tomb. Others have come and gone on the physical plane, and all failed. Until now. Until you."
"Thanks." He knew he ought to feel flattered by this homage from an ancient race, but he did not. He didn't feel much of anything. "Were there many who tried before me?"
"Not so very many. Some. All perished without activating the Eye, much less achieving this dimensionality. Their skeletons, and exoskeletons, and other hard body parts lay scattered among the islands."
"Quite a place," Low murmured. "I feel like I can go anywhere, do anything."
"Our range is limited, but within that span perception is boundless," he was told. "Great knowledge is to be had. Existence is endless, and pain banished. Thoughts have consequence. Physical force is irrelevant."
They showed him, and despite his melancholy he was awed. The whole world, the entire system with its sun, planets, comets, asteroids and related bodies—all were within easy reach. He could penetrate and examine anything at will, be it living or dead. From the cells of a strange swimming invertebrate to the molten heart of the planet, from the eye of a flying creature to the center of the yellow-white star, he could cast himself with ease.
All this was open to his perceptions. But he could not feel, taste or smell so much as an errant weed.
"Enough," he thought suddenly. "I've got to go back."
"But you are back," they informed him. "Within this dimension, all points are tangent." And he saw that it was so.
"No. Back to the real world. Back to the physical di
mension. Don't you miss it yourselves?"
"Breathing," declared one or a billion. "The sting of dust molecules against retinas. The heaviness of air. Moistness, dryness. The common sensations. These are what we miss most."
"Then why don't you go back? Doesn't the Eye work both ways? Can't you simply step back through it now that it's been reactivated?" Shifting his perception, he noted that the requisite instrumentalities continued to function efficiently, that the beams still shone and the lens still rotated.
"Would that we were able." This time he knew that it was only one addressing him. The first. "Unfortunately, the way has been forever lost. In this dimension of insubstantiality and indirection, there are no landmarks, no signposts. We can perceive the workings of the Eye down to the tiniest component, we can observe the beams and note their confluence, but for all that we cannot locate the Eye itself. It is the one actuality that is closed to us."
"We have searched for a thousand years," the distraught thought-forms echoed, "without finding. The Eye cannot be perceived from this side, cannot be found."
"One would think that the laws of probability...," began a thousand others.
Orienting himself, Low perceived amid the whiteness and the veiled physicalities a grayish splotch. "But I don't understand. It's right there."
"Of course it is," exclaimed the weary millions. "It has always been 'right there.' It is simply that we cannot locate, cannot perceive."
"Well, I can." Low was adamant. He moved himself.
"Impossible!" ten thousand thought-forms chorused.
"Can it be?" The first moved close, to examine the new arrival from the inside out. "His neurology differs. He is similar, close, yet different. Not Cocytan."
"A blind spot?" theorized the nearest others. "Active and transparent, fixed yet motionless?"
"I'm telling you," Low asserted, "it's right here!" The grayish patch was tenuous and indistinct, but real.
"We perceive nothing," the first insisted. "Were that it were otherwise."
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