I thought it was all about as clear as Venusian moonlight. I turned quickly as a low soft voice spoke. I knew it was Carleth, her brother, standing just outside the nearest cone building. He was tall and terrifically strong looking. He was studying me, inside and out.
Then he looked at Reeta. "Give the thought order to both our villages right now! That Glora and Mal have sent a man with Third-Stage abilities through. Tell them to throw up full resistance in the sith-sector. Maybe that way, we can hold Durach's attacks off until Berton can get to him."
4
"There Is Durach"
Carleth led me inside the cone, right through the wall. I felt the humming of delicate machinery as though it was part of the working of my own brain. An opening that closed again behind us.
I sat down. I was very tired. Something was very wrong; I knew that. Here I was—but here I wasn't. I was through the Barrier, with enough of this so-called awakened consciousness to live in the Fourth Stage world of perception; but I wasn't like Reeta or Carleth, not by a long shot.
I almost yelled as the chair reached up around me and stretched itself to fit me. I shifted my position, and the chair remolded itself to me. I was still trying to get rid of a clammy helpless feeling when Carleth said: "We still may have time to act against Durach. We've saved this last paraphysical resistance band in each of our minds until the last. He's broken down the others since he came back through the barrier. He might be able to kill the rest of us within an hour."
He looked at me strangely. "One hour perhaps, Ray Berton, to save your world, Earth, from annihilation. One hour to get Durach."
Fine, I thought, but first, I'm hungry. And a tray of food floated out of the wall and settled down on my lap. A steak, and all the accessories, just what I'd wished I had.