Flaith whimpered, watching him. She crouched, her long-nailed fingers digging into the soft flesh of a white thigh. Her eyes were wide, frightened.
He went twenty feet, then thirty. He grew smaller, walking across the flat stretch of dunes toward the great black tower.
As he walked, the McCanahan threw his blaster, fastened on a length of rope, ahead of him. If some electrical force was probing, it would seek out the metal of his addy-gun and shatter it.
Nothing happened to the gun.
He walked on and on.
No death struck at him. Now he stood under the shadow of the great gateway that was formed of a queer, sleek marble that held green fire frozen beneath its glazed surface. He put a hand on the gate and pushed.
To his surprise, the doorway opened, noiselessly.
Kael moved under the arched gateway, into a region of dim light and sharp black shadow, where a towering pile of glass and metal bulked huge in the center of the hall.
And then his legs crumbled beneath him, and Kael McCanahan went down, onto the tiled yellow flooring of the tower room.