Reach found yielding
It noted, disinterestedly, that the shape of the spaceship was slightly altered. It was widening slowly near the base, and bulging about the middle, and losing height. The Twerlik did not care. It had shown its gratitude, and that was all that mattered. The two big Wyndham-Clarke blasters were ready primed and he set them both at maximum, while they stood in the airlock and waited for the air to go. Then the outer door slid into the wall and they were out there in the freedom and the vastness and the fear that was not fear. The stars were very cold and it was black between the stars. There were not many stars and the black was vast where there were no stars. The stars and the black together were what gave the freedom. Without the stars or without the black there would not have been the freedom, only the vastness, but with the stars and the black you had the freedom as well as the vastness. The stars were few and the light from them was small and cold and around them there was the black. J. G. thought about this for a while and then cautiously asked why he was not able to talk. There was something, said Brock hesitantly, something in the middle.” A vertical bulge formed. Frenchy was bathed, dressed in a white linen robe with a red cloak and led down to the great hall. Amity started to speak, then once more shifted her gaze to the fire. When Ian stepped into the foyer the second time, it was empty. He went to the door to the living room of Kenebucks suite, found it ajar, and stepped through it. Within the room was empty, with glasses and overflowing ashtrays still on the tables; the lights had been lowered. Kenebuck rose from a chair with its back to the far, large window at the end of the room. Ian walked toward him and stopped when theywere little more than an arm’s length apart. Dr. James Chien was a friendly, gregarious man. He liked to go to conventions and discuss his work with his colleagues. He was, in addition, a man who would never let anything go once he had got hold of it, unless he was convinced that he was up a blind alley. And, as far as Dr. Ch’ien was concerned, thattook a devil of a lot of convincing. The big head nudged him and as Benedict turned, the faint light from the one good eye illuminated his face. Ben seemed to comprehend his expression, because he touched Benedicts knee with one paw, looking at him soulfully with his brave blind eye. Then he flexed his body and drew it under him in a semblance of his old powerful grace and set off at a run, heading for the artificial lake. The tiger looked back once and made an extra little bound, as if to show Benedict that he was his old self now, that there was nothing to forgive, and launched himself in a leap across the lake. He started splendidly, but it was too late—the mechanism had been unused for too long now, and just as he was airborne it failed him and the proud body stiffened in midair and dropped, rigid, into the lake. And then? Why only radio and television signals? Susan? It was then and there that the monster well and truly engulfed you, mantling you round and about within itself— formless, borderless, the illimitible ameba. The beach, mere yards away, and the rocky arms of the bay, and the not-too-distant boat—these you could identify but no longer distinguish, for they were all one and the same thing , the thing called unreachable. 88888 THE CARSON EFFECT He was still nodding..
