positions. For a brief moment he was tempted to follow them; but his repairman's skills were all that they had between themselves and disaster until Ariane returned. He felt a sense of duty strongly, not to mention fear. He exchanged a tired glance with Beth, who apparently had lost her enthusiasm over the eclipse and was staring away into nowhere, looking pale and distracted, then turned to face a necessary external reality.
Ariane fired the retrojet and the MPT slid along a barely perceptible downward arc until, not twenty paces from the CM dome, it contacted the ice and electrostatic attraction brought it to a stop. She and John dismounted and, summoning two work-units, made for the fusion generator.
'This shouldn't be too hard,' said Ariane.
Out of nowhere, two spider-legged work machines appeared, carrying with apparent ease the girder maker as well as a bulky container holding a just fabricated field modulus device. Though it was a tedious procedure, the machines soon had constructed a simple enclosure of struts around the fusion equipment, and, guided by Ariane's precise control, the housing was calibrated and subsequently turned on. A quick reading showed that the operation had been successful, and Ariane reactivated the battery tori . That crisis, at least, was over. They made for the CM, somewhat exhilarated by the danger now that it was over.
Demogorgon stood with his back against the elaborately inscribed inner wall of the high pinnacle at Suraxheian and looked out across the broad meadows that lined the surrounding countryside, gentling its contours. It had been a good visit, bringing him still closer to the two women, and it made him happy. He wished that Prynne had come along, but knew that much the same purpose was being served by his duties in that 'real' world far above. The anger and jealousy were gone, now, and Prynne needed what he was getting out there.
A flicker in the springtime light made him glance up at the two suns overhead. They seemed unchanged, but . . . the sky flickered again. How . . . Demogorgon looked around at his world. For some unaccountable reason it seemed rather grainy and far away. In the distance he could see the Brendan-like GAM running toward him. Suddenly it stumbled and fell. Demo took a step forward, lurching away from the wall. A ripple surged through the universe, twisting at his insides, then the GAM was before him, standing again, agonized. It turned to stare at the fading sky.
'Master?' it whispered, and then vanished.
Demogorgon stared into the dimness. 'Brendan?' What's happening? He felt a cold, hard tremor of fear.
The world blacked out for an instant, then wrenched itself back to an artificially brilliant normalcy. Vana and Axie were standing below him on the hillside, looking frightened. It was as if . . . Demogorgon said, 'We've got to get out of here!' and they fled upward through an electronic storm.
Cornwell and Methol were sitting beside each other in the common room, a little distance from Beth. They'd tried talking with her, but she was unresponsive, affectively flat. The feeling washed over them and soon they gave up their attempts to talk to each other and joined her in staring out at the moonscape, at the slowly waxing eclipse storm.
The hatch to Brendan's room crackled open. Krzakwa climbed through, looking more like an apparition than if his hair had been standing on end. 'Sealock's dead,' he told them. There was silence and Methol felt a numbness stealing over her. Cornwell said, 'What?' but the Selenite had turned and gone away again. They rose to follow him, holding hands as they went. Beth sat for a long moment, staring out the window, then she turned and looked at the still open hatchway. It didn't sink in. Dead? Death couldn't happen in the dawn of the twenty-second century, not to real people.
She too stood and walked out of the room.
Demogorgon surfaced from the Illimitor World and lay for a moment flat on his back in the little padded amphitheater. He could hear Axie and Vana stirring beside him and, some distance away, a commotion. He stood and, without looking at the two women, walked slowly to the open door of Sealock's chamber. Something, some odd feeling of anticipatory dread, made him not want to look inside, but he did nonetheless. There was the horrid tableau of tangled machinery, four motionless people, eyes upon him, and in the midst of it all a man's still body.
He crossed the room on slow, dead feet, feeling suspended far above everything, and stood looking down on him. He looked at the others and saw it in them. 'He's gone, isn't he?' Ariane Methol nodded slowly and then, clutching at him, began to cry silently.
'What happened?' demanded Cornwell.
'I don't know.' Krzakwa told about the machine and what had happened during its activation. As he spoke, Beth and Axie hooked into the medical scanners of Shipnet and began conducting an emergency examination. It confirmed their worst fears. What remained of Sealock was basically a mindless body in a state that was worse than trancelike.
Axie, her face strained, said, 'He'll hang on for a little while, but soon he'll require total life support. There's no way he can ever come back from this. . . .'
The Selenite nodded and, in that moment, passed sentence: 'His personality is totally discharged. He's as good as dead.'
Krzakwa stood looking at them all, feeling remote, in a state of semidetachment . They all seemed like characters on a stage, players in some old-fashioned 'Grand Hotel' production. Berenguer and Prynne were together, but, incredibly, Axie stood between them, and they each held one of her hands. What could be happening there? Demogorgon and Methol were close beside them, arms about each other, sharing a mutual grief. Beth stood
