out the answers to this.
But, Sam said uneasily, suppose I am out to overturn the galaxy?
Hurkos and I will be right behind you to stop you before you have a chance.
I hope so, he said.
Later, after more wine and much conjecture, as The Ship of the Soul plunged through the thick river of the void, they retired, leaning back in their chairs, belting themselves in, and shutting their mouths so that they could neither consume nor converse. And eventually they fell into sleep
There was deep and awful darkness, save for the scattered pinpoints of the stars dotting the roof of the night. Then, as the breeze shifted, dawn came crawling over the horizon, tinting the blackness with yellow
then orange
And there was still a hill with a cross upon it. There was a man on the cross. His hands were dripping blood.
And his feet were dripping blood
The wounds were festered and black demon mouths.
The man on the cross raised his head, looked to the dawn. He seemed very weary, as if he were ready to give up more than the body, the spirit also. There were dumps of matting at the corners of his eyes that interfered with his vision. His teeth were yellow from long neglect.
Dammit, let me down! he shrieked.
The words rebounded from the low sky.
Please, he said, groveling.
The sun was a flaming eye. When it was at its zenith, there came angels, beings of light and awesome majesty. They floated about the man, administering to his needs. Some carried water which they poured between his cracked and crusted lips. And some brought oil with which they anointed him. And still others sponged away the oil and fed him. Then they were vanished into air.
The sun was setting. It seemed only minutes since it had risen.
Please, the man wept. The angels had missed some of the oil in his beard. It glistened there-and tickled.
With darkness came the demons. Crawling from under brown stones, slithering out of crevices in the earth, they came. There were dwarfs, slavering, eyeless yet seeing. There were wolves with sabers for teeth. There were things with tails and horns, things with heads that were nothing more than huge mouths. They screamed and cawed, muttered, shrieked, and moaned. They came at the cross, crawling over one another. But they could not reach the man. They clawed the wood of his prison but could not claw him. One by one, they began to die
They withered and became smoke ghosts that the cool wind bore away. They collapsed into dust. They dribbled into blood pools.
Then there were stars for a short time.
And again came the dawn
And the angels
And the night and the demons and the stars and the dawn and the awesome, awesome angels and the night
It continued at a maddening pace. Days became weeks; weeks turned to months. For years, he hung there. For centuries, he remained. Finally, all time was lost as the sun spun madly across the sky and night with its devils was barely a blink of an eye.
Please! he screamed. Please!
The last screams brought them out of sleep, breathing hard. Sam pushed himself up, looked about the ship to reassure himself. Then he turned to Hurkos. What sort of dream was that?
Gnossos looked curious.
Hes a telepath, Sam explained. Irregular talent. But what the hell kind of dreams were those?
Thats what Id like to know, Sam, Hurkos said. I was getting them from you!
----
VI
Me?
Well, not really from your mind. Through your mind. The generator of those thoughts is very distant. No one in this room. And the mind of that generator is horribly large. Immeasurable. This was only a fraction of the thoughts in it, a small corner of them. In this case, I picked up this trace of thoughts and