His thought was silent for a long while and then it came again with a kind of sad amusement. “The little Sun Child, who is so very new! Come then, I shall help you find your friend.”
He led off across the tortured moving mountains of the Sun, across the lashing burning seas. Newton followed and as Thardis went he called and presently from out of the veils and clouds of fire came two others who joined them.
Thardis asked, “Do you know of one called Carlin? He is new.”
One did not but the other answered, “I know him. He bas gone deep into the inner fires to study the Sun’s life.”
“I will take you to him”, Thardis said to Newton. “Come.”
He dropped swiftly downward into the raging wilderness of flame. And Newton was afraid to follow.
Then he was ashamed. If Carlin had gone that way he could go. He plunged down after the fleeting Thardis.
The crested waves of holocaust reached up and received them and buried them in depths of smoky gold, shot through with gouts and shafts of blazing color. They entered a region of denser matter and to Newton it was like swimming under troubled waters, sensible of the pressure and the awful turmoil, blending his own substance with the medium that held him.
He clung close to Thardis. Gradually as they sank deeper and deeper beneath the surface the golden depths grew quieter, the flashing colors softer. Buried currents ran fiercely like rivers under the sea. Thardis entered one of these, breasting the mighty flowing force as a man walks against the wind, finding exhilaration in the battle.
Newton joined him, and felt his own strength surge in joyous pleasure.