He was somewhere else than Mutie City.
Patiently, his quivering mind reassembled the world of sense-constructs and data from which he had been hurled.
He was not alone.
He made out the other figure clearly: a tall, old man, sitting upright in a webwork chair halfway across the room. The old man's eyes were closed; he grasped a small object, unfamiliar looking, in one hand. His skull was hairless.
Kesley assembled the data.
"The mutants finally found you," the other said. His voice was deep and musical, a rich basso with an underlying harmonic tremolo. "They were searching quite diligently, you know."
"Yes, they found me," Kesley said. "I'm here. Where's here?"
"Antarctica," the old man said.
Nodding, Kesley absorbed the fact and added it to those he had already. The jolting shock of the teleportation was beginning to wear off now; having been plucked from the spatial framework, he was returning to it, somewhere else. His mind emerged from its numbness.
"You're Daveen the Singer," he said calmly.