"Where's the buzzer?" he sobbed. "I must find the buzzer."
Crifer's voice, from the darkness inside, said, "You broke it. You broke it. And now we will break you—"
Rikud got up and ran. He reached the door again and then he slipped down against it, exhausted. Behind him, the voices and the footsteps came, and soon he saw Crifer's head peer in through the passageway. Then there were others, and then they were walking toward him.
His head whirled and the viewport seemed to swim in a haze. Could it be variable, as Crifer had suggested? He wondered if the scurrying brown thing waited somewhere, and nausea struck at the pit of his stomach. But if the plants could live out there and the scurrying thing could live and that was why the world had moved through the blackness, then so could he live out there, and Crifer and all the others....
So tightly did he grip the handle that his fingers began to hurt. And his heart pounded hard and he felt the pulses leaping on either side of his neck.
He stared out into the garden, and off into the distance, where the blue-white globe which might have been a star stood just above the row of mounds.
Crifer was tugging at him, trying to pull him away from the door, and someone was grabbing at his legs, trying to make him fall. He kicked out and the hands let go, and then he turned the handle and shoved the weight of his body with all his strength against the door.
It opened and he stepped outside into the warmth.
The air was fresh, fresher than any air Rikud had ever breathed. He walked around aimlessly, touching the plants and bending down to feel the floor, and sometimes he looked at the blue-white globe on the horizon. It was all very beautiful.