The brain, and the monstrous metal body, and all that incredible red-lit hall, were whirled away from us, as if upon a silent and resistless wind. There remained only the bright phantom, and myself, alone in a giddy void.
Very faintly, however, even in that featureless vertiginous gulf, the brazen voice of Malgarth reached me. Slow, bewildered, stricken, it was saying:
"My science lost! A thing so simple—and I did not know! A fluid-tube ruptured—the Stone knew—fear—fear! They are cast into the mirror—Bari and the Stone—gone beyond returning. But I—who could have been eternal—dying—"
Even that failing voice was swept away. It was lost upon that mighty, soundless wind. And I knew that what seemed a wind was the supernal power of the geodesic mirror. It was the Stone and myself that it carried, not the things that we had left behind. And our destination must be some dark bourn beyond the limits of space.
But a deep rejoicing filled me, even in that spinning gulf. And the woman beside me said joyously:
"It is done, Bari. Our task of a million years is done. Malgarth is dead." Her warm hand tightened on mine. And then it seemed to relax. I looked for her, in that starless chaos, and saw that once more she was growing dim, phantasmal. "Farewell, Bari," she whispered. "My heart, farewell!"
A terrible loneliness smote me.
"Dona, Dona, you can't leave me!" I cried into that vacant pit. "If you go, there will be—nothing! I'll be—beyond—alone!"
That beloved image was fainter than a wraith of mist. But the voice I loved came dimly, thinly, once again: