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.There was a sort of dull rousing in his mind; he thought of Tiua'k Ennbe Ennbe, and of the bust ofSchubert, and of Heather's voice saying furiously, "What thehell, George!" This seemed to be all he hadto cross nothingness on.He went forward.He knew as he went that he would lose all he had.He entered the eye of the nightmare.It was a cold, vaguely moving, rotating darkness made of fear, that pulled him aside, pulled him apart.He knew where the Augmentor stood.He put out his mortal hand along the way things go.He touched it;felt for the lower button, and pushed it once.He crouched down then, covering his eyes and cowering, for the fear had taken his mind.When heraised his head and looked, the world re-existed.It was not in good condition, but it was there.They weren't in the HURAD Tower, but in some dingier, commoner office which he had never seenbefore.Haber lay sprawled on the couch, massive, his beard jutting up.Red-brown beard again, whitishskin, no longer gray.The eyes were half open and saw nothing.Orr pulled away the electrodes whose wires ran like threadworms between Haber's skull and theAugmentor.He looked at the machine, its cabinets all standing open; it should be destroyed, he thought.But he had no idea how to do it, nor any will to try.Destruction was not his line; and a machine is moreblameless, more sinless even than any animal.It has no intentions whatsoever but our own."Dr.Haber," he said, shaking the big, heavy shoulders a little."Haber! Wake up!"After a while the big body moved, and presently sat up.It was all slack and loose.The massive,handsome head hung between the shoulders.The mouth was loose.The eyes looked straight forwardinto the dark, into the void, into the unbeing at the center of William Haber; they were no longer opaque,they were empty.Orr became afraid of him physically, and backed away from him.I've got to get help, he thought, I can't handle this alone.He left the office, went out through anunfamiliar waiting room, ran down the stairs.He had never been in this building and had no idea what itwas, or where.When he came out into the street, he knew that it was a Portland street, but that was all.It was nowhere near Washington Park, or the west hills.It was no street he had ever walked on.The emptiness of Haber's being, the effective nightmare, radiating outward from the dreaming brain, hadundone connections.The continuity which had always held between the worlds or timelines of Orr'sdreaming had now been broken.Chaos had entered in.He had few and incoherent memories of thisexistence he was now in; almost all he knew came from the other memories, the other dreamtimes. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlOther people, less aware than he, might be better equipped for this shift of existence: but they would bemore frightened by it, having no explanation.They would be finding the world radically, senselessly,suddenly changed, with no possible rational cause of change.There would be much death and terrorfollowing Dr.Haber's dream.And loss.And loss.He knew he had lost her; had known it since he stepped out, with her help, into the panic voidsurrounding the dreamer.She was lost along with the world of the gray people and the huge, fakebuilding into which he had run, leaving her alone in the ruin and dissolution of the nightmare.She wasgone.He did not try to get help for Haber.There was no help for Haber.Nor for himself.He had done all hewould ever do.He walked on along the distracted streets.He saw from streetsigns that he was in thenortheast part of Portland, an area he had never known much of.The houses were low, and at cornersthere was sometimes a view of the mountain.He saw that the eruption had ceased; had never, in fact,begun.Mount Hood rose dun-violet into the darkening April sky, dormant.The mountain slept.Dreaming, dreaming.Orr walked without goal, following one street and then another; he was exhausted, so that he sometimeswanted to lie down there on the pavement and rest for a while, yet he kept going.He was approaching abusiness section now, coming closer to the river.The city, half wrecked and half transformed, a jumbleand mess of grandiose plans and incomplete memories, swarmed like Bedlam; fires and insanities ranfrom house to house.And yet people went about their business as always: there were two men looting ajewelry shop, and past them came a woman who held her bawling, red-faced baby in her arms andwalked purposefully home.Wherever home was.11Starlight asked Non-Entity, 'Master, do you exist? or do you not exist?' He got no answer to hisquestion, however. Chuang Tse: XXH Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlSome time that night, as Orr was trying to find his way through the suburbs of chaos to Corbett Avenue,an Aldebaranian Alien stopped him and persuaded him to come with it He came along, docile.He askedit after a while if it was Tiua'k Ennbe Ennbe, but he did not ask with much conviction, and did not seemto mind when the Alien explained, rather laboriously, that he was called Jor Jor and it was calledE'nememen Asfah.It took him to its apartment near the river, over a bicycle repair shop and next door to the Hope EternalGospel Mission, which was pretty full up, tonight
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