There being no further use for it, the furniture of the suite dissolved back into the minds of its creators, the Altrusians. Only the bed remained--and the walls, shielding this frail organism from the energies that were yet beyond its control.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDAChIVLde1
In his sleep, Maisam Dhala stirred restlessly. He did not wake up, nor did he dream, but he was no longer wholly unconscious. Like a fog creeping onto a seashore, something took over his mind. He sensed it only dimly, as the full impact would've destroyed him just as surely as the fires raging beyond these walls. Beneath that dispassionate scrutiny, he felt neither hope nor fear; all of his emotions had been erased by the Altrusians.
He appeared to be floating in free space, while all around him stretched, in every direction, an infinite geometrical grid of dark lines or threads, along which moved tiny crystals of light---some slowly, some at dazzling speed.
Once he had peered through a microscope at a cross-section of a human brain, and in its network of nerve fibers had glimpsed the same labyrinthine complexity. But that had been dead and static, whereas this transcended life itself. He knew (or did he?) that he was watching the functioning of some gigantic mind, contemplating the universe of which he was such a tiny part.
The vision (illusion?) lasted but one moment, then the crystalline planes and lattices, and the interlocking perspectives of moving light flickered out of existence as Maisam Dhala moved into a realm of consciousness that no man had experienced before.
It seemed like Time itself was running backward. Even this marvel he was ready to accept, before he realized the subtler truth.
The springs of memory were being tapped; in controlled recollection, he was reliving the past. There was the hotel suite---there the bola--there the burning starscapes of the red sun---there the shining core of the galaxy---there they gateway through which he had reemerged into the universe. And not only vision, but all the sense impressions, and all the emotions he had felt at the time, were racing by, increasingly swiftly. His life was unreeling like a tape player playing back at ever-increasing speed.
Now he was once again aboard the Pesquisador and the rings of Saturn filled the sky. Before that, he was repeating his final dialogue with H.A.L.; he was seeing Antonio Quarlos leave on his final mission; he was hearing the voice of Earth, assuring him that everything was fine.
And even as he relived these things, he knew that everything was indeed fine. He was retrogressing down the corridors of time, being drained of knowledge and experience as he swept back toward his childhood. But nothing was being lost; all that he had ever been, at every moment of his life, was being transferred to safer keeping. Even as one Maisam Dhala ceased to be, another became immortal.
Faster, faster he moved back into forgotten years, and into a simpler world. Faces he had once loved, and had thought lost beyond recall, smiled sweetly at him. He smiled back with fondness and without pain.
Now, at last, the headlong regression was slackening; the wells of memory were nearly dry. Time flowed more and more sluggishly, approaching a moment of stasis--as a swinging pendulum, at the limit of its arc, seems to be frozen for one eternal instant, before the next cycle starts. 633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl3qOcsfN8X
The timeless instant passed; the pendulum reversed its swing. In a bare room, floating amid the flames of a double star 20,000 light-years from Earth, a baby opened its eyes and began crying.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKN61IvB3vk
