And then, very, very clearly, Hank Merry caught the wisp of thought, resigned, frightened, tender, massively reluctant: Yes. We have to try.
—10—
The crossing this time was the same as it had always been for Robert—a sudden, breathtaking leap into the abyss—but this time it was different, too, because Sharnan had crossed with him. They had never crossed together before. Robert was quite sure that they had been together on the Other Side at one time or another; they had even crossed through in tandem, one after the other, on one or two occasions. But somehow crossing through together, hand in hand, at the same instant, was something quite different. Sharnan had never agreed to that, before. She had always been strangely afraid, a fear Robert could not understand but felt was always primarily fear for him, not for herself.
But now, at last, she had reluctantly, in desperation, agreed.
He was aware of her very close to him, almost a part of his own, wild, whirling fragmented shadow-body. He knew that he must always present to her a similar confusing, distorted geometrical appearance while she was on his side of the Threshold that she presented to him on her side, even though he could not imagine himself appearing that way to her eyes. He also knew that he carried with him here, on her side, his own memory of her as she appeared on his side—a lovely girl, graceful, attractive, with long hair and violet eyes. He knew that it was this “human” picture of her that he had found increasingly attractive, but that she must carry whatever picture of him she saw now on her own side, as her picture of him. And that this was the Robert, here, to whom she was so clearly drawn, not the Robert of his world.
Confusing. Hard even to think about. Impossible to put into words. It seemed that he had been trying to fight his way around words for so long, in dealing with this universe beyond the Threshold, and that those rare, brief moments of contact had occurred only when-—somehow—words had been brushed aside, or circumvented. Could it be that words alone were the barrier he had been fighting to break down? Maybe. Certainly part of it. Two minds, trying to understand each other, and no way to bridge the gulf of words that stood between them.
Here, now, they moved gently downward through the darkness together, as he had moved alone before. Other Thresholders were around them as they moved. He even thought he recognized some individuals from the familiarity of the physical patterns he saw. And there was surprise here, and apprehension; not fear so much as concern and an eagerness, a tension…
As though they realized, as he had realized, that a final breaking point had come. As though they knew that now, at last, the gulf had to be permanently bridged, that something new, perhaps something very dangerous, had to be attempted.
He agreed. He knew it too, he had forced it. But now he was floundering. Maybe so…but what?
Suddenly, he felt something stirring in his mind. It was an odd feeling, as though a hesitant voice was speaking without words, very cautiously, very gentle, deep in his mind. A girl’s voice, not violating him or forcing its way in, but merely tapping for admittance, gently tapping. Sharnan, of course. There was no mistaking that. A different Sharnan than he had yet known, but clearly Sharnan, tapping for attention, trying not to frighten him. It was similar to the faint, feeble touch of her thoughts and feelings that he had felt in his mind there at the Hoffman Center, but so much sharper, so much deeper, that the keenness left him breathless. ‘Robert, don’t be afraid, but there is something we have to do. Mostly you…it is more natural for me. Words are no good, and side-stepping words is too limited. We have to go beyond that.’
‘But how?’ he answered her.
‘By opening your mind to them all the way. It’s the only chance. It may be dangerous, we don’t know. You stood it briefly before, but this must be far longer and deeper. If I can shield you, be a buffer for the blow, soak up some of the shock, it may work.’
Holding himself tight, Robert tried to focus his mind as he did once before, in a single channel, to get through one idea, but this time directed at the girclass="underline" ‘I’m willing to try, but how?’
‘Mostly just let it happen; don’t panic and don’t fight. Just remember that nobody here will willfully hurt you, and try not to fight.’
And then, as his assent seemed to touch her, he felt other thoughts moving into his mind, the Thresholders, not just Sharnan, probing gently, then more firmly, then fiercely. He tried to open his mind, to fight down the panic that was growing suddenly, even against his bidding, as contact grew, came closer and closer. He held tight and forced himself, like sticking out his finger to touch a red-hot stove. He knew it would burn; he had to force it, inch by inch, closer and closer, but he had to now, there was no turning back—
It burned. In a violent burst, pain and fear and grief flared in his mind; blinding pain, the sort of pain that comes from suddenly staring into the full glare of the noonday sun. He flinched, fought, flailed against it, but Sharnan was there too, fighting to protect him, helping to hold him, acting almost as a buffer, a channeling device for the force of thought that came pounding at him; encouraging him, reassuring him, and channeling his thought to the Thresholders as well.
The pain and fear exploded and billowed in his mind and still he went on, letting them in, trying not to fight.
And then, amazingly, thoughts were passing back and forth, not tenuously, but clear as crystal. At the same time the Threshold world seemed to be changing, drawing into focus. It had happened once before, fleetingly, when he had come here through the distorting energy-field of the transmatter; he had seen a comprehensible world about him then, for just an instant. Now he saw it again, for more than an instant. It seemed to materialize from the fog, and he knew that it was Sharnan who was doing this. He was actually seeing through Sharnan’s eyes, hearing through her ears, catching the thought of other Thresholders through her mind, and they were receiving his thought clearly, also through her mind. But if it was hurting him, it was hurting her, too. ‘Sharnan! Are you all right?’
‘Yes, yes…all right…and you?’
Relief, and something more. ‘Yes. It’s harder than I dreamed. But I’m all right.’
‘Then listen. Listen closely.’
For a moment, a confusion of thought, muddled and incoherent. Then, a spokesman, not Sharnan but another Thresholder. ‘Can you understand me? Can you hear?’
‘Yes, I can hear.’
‘Then you know there is trouble. Something is wrong, the routes we arranged aren’t working all the time. Sometimes we get off slightly and things go to the wrong places.’
Wrong places? Robert struggled to comprehend. ‘What places? What other places are there…’
‘Many other places, of course. Who knows what places, or how many?’
He was really confused now. ‘But there is my universe and yours. Where else?’
A long pause, then amazement, confusion. ‘Yours and ours, of course…but surely you don’t think that your universe and ours are the only ones that exist!’
Something flickered in Robert’s mind, a horrible, sinking sense of comprehension.
Other places…other places…
‘What about 61 Cygni? What happened to that man?’
‘We were off, somehow. We must have, been off, the routing wasn’t right. But we couldn’t control it. We followed your routing as closely as we could but the angle was off.
Maybe only infinitesimally off, but off, and he went to another Cygni.’
‘Another Cygni? How many 61 Cygnis are there?’ Incomprehension, as if he had asked them, “How green is red?” Silence, awful and abysmal.