crude dirty miserable barbaric
subhuman in-human less-than-human
but
they
were
going
to
be
DEAD
and DEAD they would be seven million
blackened corpses that
would blacken your dreams
all dreams dreams
forever because those
H Y D R O G E N B O M B S
were waiting
to kill
them unless ... unless ... unless ...
you Ihjel stopped it you Ihjel
(DEATH) ... you (DEATH) ...
you (DEATH) alone couldn't do
it you (DEATH)
must have
BRION BRANDD wet-behind-the-ears-raw-untrained-Brion-Brand-to help-you he was the only one in the galaxy who could finish the job....
As the flow of sensation died away, Brion realized he was sprawled back weakly on his pillows, soaked with sweat, washed with the memory of the raw emotion. Across from him Ihjel sat with his face bowed into his hands. When he lifted his head Brion saw within his eyes a shadow of the blackness he had just experienced.
'Death,' Brion said. 'That terrible feeling of death. It wasn't just the people of Dis who would die. It was something more personal.'
'Myself,' Ihjel said, and behind this simple word were the repeated echoes of night that Brion had been made aware of with his newly recognized ability. 'My own death, not too far away. This is the wonderfully terrible price you must pay for your talent.
'Yes, of course,' Brion said. 'I'll go with you.'
IV
'I've never seen anyone quite as angry as that doctor,' Brion said.
'Can't blame him,' Ihjel shifted his immense weight and grunted from the console, where he was having a coded conversation with the ship's brain. He hit the keys quickly, and read the answer from the screen. 'You took away his medical moment of glory. How many times in his life will he have a chance to nurse back to rugged smiling health the triumphantly exhausted Winner of the Twenties?'
'Not many, I imagine. The wonder of it is how you managed to convince him that you and the ship here could take care of me as well as his hospital.'
'I could never convince him of that,' Ihjel said. 'But I and the Cultural Relationships Foundation have some powerful friends on Anvhar. I'm forced to admit I brought a little pressure to bear.' He leaned back and read the course tape as it streamed out of the printer. 'We have a little time to spare, but I would rather spend it waiting at the other end. We'll blast as soon as I have you tied down in a stasis field.'
The completeness of the stasis field leaves no impression on the body or mind. In it there is no weight, no pressure, no pain—no sensation of any kind. Except for a stasis of very long duration, there is no sensation of time. To Brion's consciousness, Ihjel flipped the switch off with a continuation of the same motion that had turned it on. The ship was unchanged, only outside of the port was the red-shot blankness of jump space.
'How do you feel?' Ihjel asked.
Apparently the ship was wondering the same thing. Its detector unit, hovering impatiently just outside of Brion's stasis field, darted down and settled on his forearm. The doctor back on Anvhar had given the medical section of the ship's brain a complete briefing. A quick check of a dozen factors of Brion's metabolism was compared to the expected norm. Apparently everything was going well, because the only reaction was the expected injection of vitamins and glucose.
'Can't say I'm feeling wonderful yet,' Brion answered, levering himself higher on the pillows. 'But every day it's a bit better, steady progress.'
'I hope so, because we have about two weeks before we get to Dis. Think you'll be back in shape by that time?'
'No promises,' Brion said, giving a tentative squeeze to one bicep. 'It should be enough time, though. Tomorrow I start mild exercise and that will tighten me up again. Now—tell me more about Dis and what you have to do there.'
'I'm not going to do it twice, so just save your curiosity a while. We're heading for a rendezvous-point now to pick up another operator. This is going to be a three-man team, you, me and an exobiologist. As soon as he is
