The power of the Other struck me like a tangible blow. I have no words to tell of an experience so completely disassociated from human memories. I remember only this: my mind and soul were sucked down into a black abyss where I had no volition or consciousness. It was another dimension of the mind where my senses were altered....
Nothing existed there but the intense blackness beyond time and space. I could not see the Other nor conceive of it. It was pure intelligence, stripped of flesh. It was alive and it had power—power that was god-like.
There in the great darkness I stood alone, unaided, sensing the approach of an entity from some horribly remote place where all values were altered.
I sensed Lhar's nearness. "Hurry!" her thought came to me. "Before it wakens!"
Warmth flowed into me. The blackness receded....
Against the farther wall something lay, a thing bafflingly human ... a great-headed thing with a tiny pallid body coiled beneath it. It was squirming toward me....
"Destroy it!" Lhar communicated.
The pistol in my hand thundered, bucking against my palm. Echoes roared against the walls. I fired and fired again until the gun was empty....
"It is dead," Lhar's thought entered my mind.
I stumbled, dropped the pistol.