He raced after all the pieces of the woman at a practiced, steady trot and gathered them all in. He made a rough boundary and compartmentalized her.
For an instant, he looked through the jumble that was her mind. Sensuality, sloth, greed, hate, envy, pride, hunger, death wish—it was the usual human pattern well enough, but they were letters that spelled out no words. It would be impossible to find any information in that psychic junk heap.
Deftly, Hammen turned Gordus back on.
"... must know. You'll have to help me, Hammen."
"Why must I?"
"Simplicity. You must. We stay here until you do. You can't close the transmission without me, and I will not do it until you help me pick the woman's mind. We can wait forever until you decide to do as I order. There is no time here."
Gordus was a blind old man stumbling in the dark. He hadn't seen Lad join them inside the diagram. He probably wasn't even aware that Hammen had the woman under tow.
"Listen to me, Gordus. That about there being 'no time' here is a mathematical abstraction. Practically, it has its limitations. There is some flow of some kind of duration here, otherwise our questions and answers would come at the same time."
"What are you trying to teach me?" Gordus demanded. "I was a Companion before you were born."
"But then the Mindsnake wasn't so active or so powerful. If the 'duration' of our transmission is too long, he'll get a clear fix on us—and that will be that."