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Reaching out, the four chitinous digits of a delicate truhand came to rest perceptively on her shoulder. “I'm sure Flinx will tell us when he emerges.”

The observation being optimistic without being in any way conclusive, she chose to take it with a grain of salt.

Several more days passed. To the watchful Clarity's increasing dismay Flinx did not move again. As to what was happening outside the minuscule fraction of the great ship they had explored, they had no way of knowing. The capabilities of the shuttlecraft's limited internal instrumentation had long since been exceeded. They had been able to deduce only that the immense weapons platform was moving and that it had passed beyond range of shuttle-to-Teacher contact. Unless the city-sized portal that closed the airlock off from outside showed signs of irising open, they could not even use the shuttlecraft to explore the exterior of the alien vessel in their vicinity.

There was very little they could do, in fact, except husband their supplies, speculate on what was happening outside and around them, try to get some sleep amid all the sound and fury being discharged by the contact platform where Flinx lay, console one another—and wait.

The intergalactic void. The space between galaxies. Stars becoming few and far between even when measured by interstellar distances, until at last only a few scattered and isolated rogues and wanderers remain. A place seen but not experienced, vastness on such a scale that attempting to measure or quantify it becomes meaningless, just as the numbers one attempts to assign to it become meaningless. A region observed and studied for centuries by humans and thranx alike but never actually visited or touched upon.

Until now.

With his eyes closed Flinx saw by other means. The ship showed him, entering the perceptive information directly into his brain.

Behind: an immense disk of stars and nebulae, pulsars and novae, neutron stars and X-ray stars, and the entire panoply of other highly evolved stellar phenomena. Energy and life and consciousness all thrown together in a spectacular swirling spiral of existence and experience.

Ahead and far distant: much more of the same.

Except in one region. Except in one still far-off section of the cosmos closed to view by the Great Emptiness. Behind that and on the verge of emerging, a void so utter and complete that not even the glow of a match could be discerned within a square parsec of its lightless, menacing self.

WE GO NO FARTHER. EVEN IF I COULD CROSS THE GULF, WHAT CONFRONTS US IS NOT A MATTER OF DISTANCE BUT OF TIME.

Flinx did not venture a thoughtful response. He was too awed by the vision offered up by the weapons platform. He and his friends were the first of their kind to step outside the realm of the Milky Way. The first to be able to view the home galaxy from outside and not via artificial constructs or artfully imagined images. It was big, it was beautiful, it pulsed with the fever of stars dying and being born. It was life itself. It could not be allowed to be extinguished, like a candle casually snuffed.

He was only one man, and biotechnically not even that. What could he do? Lying on the slant, he twitched slightly. He could do what human beings had always done.

He could try.

“Are my companions seeing any of this?” As always, he framed the thought carefully before allowing it to drift outward.

NO. I CANNOT PUT IT INTO THEM. THEY HAVE NOT THE RIGHT TYPE OF MINDS.

What a shame, Flinx reflected sadly. So much beauty and it could not be shared. He would have to describe it to Clarity and the others as best he could when he emerged from his present state. If he emerged. Another might find it unsettling, being forced to lie motionless and helpless while contemplating the possibility of imminent death. Not Flinx. He'd been there before.

“Why are we stopping here?” he inquired. He thought he had an inkling of the answer, but he wanted to hear it. The ship did not disappoint.

TO SAFELY DISCHARGE THE ENERGY FROM