And the high, mocking laughter followed him down and down, into the eternal blackness where he fell.
VII
A hot sun blanketed his naked body. It blazed from a molten sky and cooked him where he lay on warm red rocks. Kael McCanahan lifted his head and stared at the searing desolation before him. Sand and rock, and the shale of evaporated seas, stretching like the finger of Time to infinity itself, outward to that blazing blue bowl of sky where the golden sun hung high, pouring down its heat.
He came to his feet and swayed with the pain that the heat was putting in his muscles.
Come to me! Come! Come!
He put trembling hands to his head, and again that sweet call sounded, with the siren lure of all the lost treasures of all space.
He stumbled forward, hearing the summons in his brain, in every fibre of his being.
Come to my riches! Lift up your hands to the jewel that gives man everything he wants! Touch me! I am yours!
He was running across the hot sands that bit his naked feet with hot teeth, and over the sharp rocks that cut into his flesh until he bled. Dimly, he knew that nothing could help him now. That here he was cut off from everything that was sane.