Time. Time since little frozen Pluto was incandescent gas.
"You closed the opening we came through," said Avery abruptly.
"Of course."
"But you'll open it again? You'll let us go?"
The tone of his voice betrayed him. Falken knew, and Sheila.
"No," said Sheila throatily. "It won't let us go. It'll keep us up here to play with, until we die."
Ugly dark reds washed the Sun-child. "Death!" it whispered. "My creatures exist until I bid them vanish. But death, true death—that would be a supreme amusement!"
A desperate, helpless rage gripped Falken. The vast empty vault mocked him with his dead hopes. It jeered at him with solid walls that were built and shifted like smoke by the power of this lovely, soulless flame.
Built, and shifted....