Shaking, he gripped his head between his hands.
Now the patterns came in dozens, hundreds. Boone's brain reeled under their impact. He staggered, cried out in helpless fury.
As swiftly as they had come, the alien intellects withdrew.
Weak, drenched with sweat, Boone slumped to the bottom of his sphere.
As he did so, the golden glow that bathed him changed to deepest purple.
Taut, eyes flickering, Boone watched and waited.
Slowly, a new sensation came.
This time, there was no alien thought-projection—if, indeed, it had been that which he had felt before.
Rather, now, the other minds were probing his own brain-cells—searching his cortex with tendrils a thousand times more delicate than Man's finest nerve-ends; wringing out his thoughts as one might squeeze water from a sponge. There was a laying-bare of dreams dredged from the deep subconscious, a draining off of skills and knowledge.
And agony came with it—an agony that rose from soul, not body; a pain that seared beyond all human ken. Through a thousand years it stretched, that pain—a thousand years when seconds lasted eons.