Instantly Prim and the rest were around him, choking his thoughts, strangling his mind, thinking his destruction along with that of the worlds.
The throbbing of the darkness became that of a great storm, in which even the Probability Engine seemed on the verge of breaking from its moorings. Like a many-branched lightning-flash, came a vision of time-streams lashed and shaken—Worlds I and II torn apart—the invasion bridge snapped—
But through it Thorn kept sending the call. And he seemed to feel the eight talismans and the central engine take it up and echo it.
His mind began to suffocate. His consciousness to darken.
All reality seemed to tremble on the edge between being and not-being.
Then without warning, the storm was over and there was only a great quiet and a great silence present, that might have come from the end of eternity and might have been here always.
Awe froze their thoughts. They were like boys scuffling in a cathedral who look up and see the priest.
What they faced gave no sign of its identity. But they knew.
Then it began to think. Great broad thoughts of which they could only comprehend an edge or corner. But what they did comprehend was simple and clear.