It then became silent, as it saw that it wasn't alone anymore.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBofJ9b8VC4
A spectral, glimmering trapezoid had formed in the empty air. It solidified into a golden pylon, lost its transparency, and became suffused with a shimmering luminescence. Tantalizing, ill-defined phantoms moved across its surface and in its depths. They coalesced into bars of lights and shadow, then formed intermeshing, spoked patterns that slowly began rotating, in time with the pulsating rhythm that now seemed to fill all space.
It was a spectacle capable of grasping and holding the attention of any child---or of any Paku. But, as it had been three million years ago, it was only the outward manifestation of forces too subtle to be consciously perceived. It was just a playtoy to distract the senses,, while the true processing was carried out at far deeper levels of the brain. This time, the processing was swift and sure, as the new design formed. For in the eons since their last meeting, much had been learned by the Altrusians; and the material upon which they practiced their art was now of an infinitely finer texture. But whether it should be allowed to form part of his still-growing tapestry, only the future knew.
With eyes that already held superhuman intentness, the baby stared into the depths of the golden pylon, seeing---but not yet understanding--the mysteries that lay beyond. It knew that it had come home, that here was the origin of many races other than its own; but it knew that it could not stay. Beyond this moment lay another birth, stranger than any in the past.
Now the time had come! The glowing patterns no longer echoed the secrets in the pylon's heart. As they died, so too the protective walls faded back into the nonexistence from whence they had briefly emerged, and the red sun filled the sky. The metal and plastic of the forgotten bola, and the clothing once worn by a biological unit who had called himself Maisam Dhala, flashed into flames. The final links with Earth were broken, resolved back into their component molecules.
But the child barely noticed, as he adjusted himself to the comfortable glow of his new environment. He still needed, for a little while, this shell of matter as the focus of his powers. His indestructible body was his brain's present image of itself; and for all his powers, he knew that he was still a baby. So he would remain until he had decided on a new form, or had passed beyond the necessities of matter.
Now it was time to say goodbye--though in one sense he would never leave this place where he'd been reborn, for he would always be part of the entity that used this double star for its inscrutable purposes. The direction, though not the nature, of his destiny was clear before him, and there was no need to trace the devious path by which he'd come. With the instincts of three million years, he now perceived that there were more ways than one behind the back of space. The ancient mechanisms of the Skylon had served him well, but he would not need them again.
The glimmering trapezoidal shape that had once seemed no more than a pillar of gold still floated before him, indifferent as he was to the harmless flames of the hell beneath. It encapsulated yet unfathomed secrets of space and time, but some at least he now understood and was able to command.
As his thoughts brushed against it, the empty framework filled with the darkness of the interstellar night. The glow of the red sun faded - or seemed to recede in all directions at the same time - and there before him was the luminous whirlpool of the Milky Way.
It might have just been some beautiful, incredibly detailed scale model, embedded in a block of plastic. But it was the reality, taken at face-value with senses now subtler than ordinary human vision. If he wanted to, he could focus his attention upon any one of its hundred billion stars. Oh, but he could do better than that!
Here he was, adrift in this great river of suns, halfway between the banked fires of the galactic core and the lonely, scattered guardian stars of the galactic rim. And here he wanted to be, on the far side of this yawning chasm in the sky, this snakelike band of darkness, devoid of stars. He knew that this formless chaos, lit solely by the glow that lined its edges from faraway fire-mists, was the still the leftover material of creation, the raw material of the evolutions yet to come. Here, Time had not yet started, and it would not, until the long-dead suns that had once burned hot would re-light and reshape this dreary void.
Unintentionally, he had crossed it once; now he must do so again - this time, of his own free will. That thought filled him with a sudden, bone-freezing terror, so that for one moment he was totally disorientated. His new vision of the universe trembled, threatening to shatter into one thousand fragments.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPcBQcBIKHf
His soul was not chilled by fear of the galactic gulfs, no, it was chilled by a more profound disquiet that stemming from the unrealized future. For he had left behind the time scales of his homo-sapien origin; now, as he studied that band of starless night, he knew his first intimations of the Infinity that yawned before him.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuIW1VrqsoA
And then he remembered that he would never be alone, and his panic slowly faded out. The crystal-clear perception of the universe was restored to him - not, he knew, merely by his own powers. When he needed guidance in taking his first faltering steps, it absolutely would be there.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUzKDLz4suw
Confident once more, like a skydiver who had recovered his courage, he launched himself across the light-years. The galaxy exploded out of the mental frame in which he had enclosed it; stars and nebulae rushed past him in an illusion of infinite speed. Phantom suns blew up and fell behind as he slipped shadow-like through their cores; the cold, dark waste of cosmic dust which he had once feared seemed no633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4U3SepOkg1
more than the beat of a crow's wing across the Sun's hot face.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1S4eeeIgHO
The stars began to thin; the glare of the Milky Way dimmed into a pale imitation of the glory he had known - and would k, when he was ready, would know again.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK79yizbpcs
He was back exactly where he wanted to be, in the space that men called real.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIuQ0NASYvj
