He slipped into sleep and in dream, he saw himself luxuriously lounging on a broad couch. Above his head was a draped canopy of silk, its draped folds hanging low in a gorgeous pattern of silken folds. It was gently tinted in delicate colors that blended in a complete lack of regular pattern. It seemed more beautiful for lacking pattern than it could have been with any regularity.
It was none-ending, that canopy. From the draped dome above his couch the silken cyclorama fell in a colorful swirl to the floor where it folded over and over somewhere miles below the couch.
He—was isolated. He was protected. No intrusion could come even though Thomas Barden wanted the intrusion. Certainly if he denied entry, nothing could enter.
And yet he knew that beyond the many layers of flowing silk there was something demanding entry. He could not see nor hear the would-be intruder. He could not even see motion of the silk to show that there was such a being. Yet he seemed to sense it.
And when, finally, the intruder breached the outer layers of shrouding silk, Tom Barden knew it and was glad. Course after course of silken screen was opened by the intruder until finally the silk parted before his eyes and there entered—
Sentience!
It was without form and void.
But it was sentience and it was there for a definite purpose. It came and it hovered over Thomas Barden's broad couch and its thoughts were apparent. It was in communication with another sentience outside—
"I am in."