"No!" He could not turn back now! This was why he had come. He would destroy them. Somehow! This had to be the key. But they no longer seemed an enemy and this silent, screaming void was no friend. Was it yet too late…..
"NO!" He was inside.
*
It was cold in that place, through the ship and through the celluloid, and the last thing he saw as he looked back through the monitor was a tightening circle of black, like a swirl of inky cloud, enveloping the Guardians' web.
Then all was dark, but for a sickly and sporadic flashing of the console. He felt a kind of dull dread, a physical weakness, but not yet fear. He had pierced all barriers, and stood at the heart of the nightmare.
Only he could not remember why he had come. No, he remembered. But it did not seem like much of a reason. "Guardians!" His rage would not fire in that place, and the screaming hurt his throat. As the silence hurt his ears.
The ship's momentum had begun to deteriorate, as if such principles did not apply here. This did not startle him. It seemed almost doubly familiar. But then the outer hull began to deteriorate as well—-he could feel it. "It isn't possible." The shields were down, this he knew, but the vessel's outer skin was of pure platinated osmodidium, seven times descended from stainless steel. It resisted heat, friction, impact and atmosphere. But in that cold wet nothing it tinged and flaked as if with rust, was pocked and threw out buds like a face torn by a shotgun. It broke down, came apart, and fell away all around him, leaving him naked and without a ship.
He stood alone in the black without protection. The celluloid and wires were all that remained—-why he couldn't say. For a time his body was suspended, and his feet danced like those of a marionette trying to find the stage. Then they touched bottom on something very hard and smooth. A wide stair. He began to feel suffocated, knew there was no oxygen but this wasn't why. He took a step forward, up another, and the feeling eased, if only slightly. He was as a shark that could never sleep. Unless it kept moving, he would die.
He continued to climb, as the steps got steeper, which was very soon. They were taller, progressing, and he labored on and it was harder and harder to breathe. Finally the stairs were eight feet high and he could go no further. He was almost weeping, feeling lost, when he went to lean against the obstructing wall before him. But it was gone, and he fell forward into grey mists.
He stumbled to the rocky ground—-the rocks were red—-and he found himself in a deep chasm lit and shadowed by a pale sun in a purple sky. Looking up he saw an ancient and abandoned stone fortress upon the heights to his left, with tattered streams of white flying distended circles about it and a sound like the wind wailing but there was no wind. The air was thin and weak.