A moment of dull wonder was replaced by a deep shuddering from shoulders to hips and a feeling that his legs and arms had turned to dough. His eyes regarded the shadow across the control panel without trying to comprehend it; but the golden light reflected on both sides of the shadow meant something. He turned to see the source ... and it was the goddess of the lobby.
She smiled reassuringly, and the smile seemed to flow through his veins and tingle along his nerves, pushing the numbness out and away. He was alive and eager and yet utterly peaceful for the duration of her smile. But as the corners of her mouth fell into a graver repose, his thoughts sped back through the moment of expected impact ... through the frantic struggle with the cabter ... through the moment of Haulwell's step from the door.
"Bill Haulwell," Herl mumbled, "he ... he's...."
"He's in his cab halfway back to the city to report to Eyefer Placement." The matter-of-fact words were sung in the triumphant cadence of the close of a vast chorale, rich and full.
"You saved him ... and me?" Herl asked incredulously.
"Yes."
"Why?"
Clear recitative explained, "He had not earned his death; he did not wish to die. No more had you."
Herl thought this over for a moment. Did no one die here till he was ready? Were the gods personal guardians? Was the presence of human life one of their conditions of being, one of their motivations? He started to speak, then hesitated as he remembered his conclusion that there were special ways of phrasing special questions for such beings as these. His mind tried in vain to block the consciousness of fear that she would leave him with his questions unasked ... and simply that she would leave him.
But the cloud still swirled and glowed with a million pinpoints of deep yellow incandescence. A sodium halo, Herl thought irrelevantly.