"Still conscious?" Nik asked. "You have a lot of resistance, I must admit. But it won't be long now. Believe me, there's no need to worry. Just relax."
"Why?" Hendley wanted to shout the question, but he wasn't even sure that he had spoken aloud. His throat was tight, his vocal cords paralyzed. Why, why, why?
"Why? Is that what you're asking?" Nik's distorted features twisted into an even more grotesque shape. "Because I want out! I'm sick of this prison, sick of freedom, sick of the boring pleasure-pures!"
"You're mad!" The words dribbled through Hendley's loose lips.
"What's that? Mad? Of course I'm mad! Who wouldn't be after a lifetime in this place? You'll find out. Or maybe you won't. Maybe you'll be one of those who likes it. Stupid fools! You don't know what you have on the outside. To have work! Something to do! Someplace to go! Something with a purpose, a meaning—"
No, Hendley wanted to tell him. You don't understand. There is no meaning. It's all a hoax.
Nik was laughing. His face floated away. His voice came to Hendley from a great distance. "I won't be seeing you again, old boy. Sorry, you're not making any sense when you try to talk. Can you hear me all right? Just want to say, have fun! It's all yours—the stars and the sun and the pleasures of freedom! If you ever get out, look me up at the Architectural Center. Just ask for TRH-247..."
His laughter thinned out like a piece of string. Hendley wanted to reach for it, to get his hands around the thin white throat of laughter. He could not move. He was alone under a vaulting black sky, without stars, without light of any kind. He was drifting through space. Ann! He called her soundlessly in the cavern of his mind. I'll find you. Wait for me!
But his last conscious thought was the realization that she could not hear him. She would never know what he had said.