I apologise, but the important thing for Carry Dallen to understand at this stage is that we have never regarded the situation as irretrievable. We have taken steps to normalise it.

But that means… Dallen's mind was a sun going nova. Orbitsville!

Yes. Orbitsville is an instrument, one which was designed to attract intelligent life forms and to transport them hack through time to the Region II universe. And the moment of Departure is close.

No! The rapport between Dallen and the Ultan began to weaken, but he was still sufficiently in thrall to the near-invisible alien to react logically rather than emotionally. "It won't work! It can't make any difference — one sphere to an entire universe.

We have deployed more than one sphere. To be sure of capturing a viable stock we constructed similar instruments in every galaxy in your universe. Each galaxy, depending en its size, has anywhere from eight to forty spheres, all If them in localities favourable to the development of intelligent life. Your race's discovery of Orbitsville was not entirely fortuitous.

A hundred billion galaxies, multiplied by…! Dallen faltered, numbed by immensity, as he tried to calculate the number of Orbitsvilles scattered through the universe.

The total may be large by human scales of magnitude but the Region II universe has as many galaxies as this one — and all have to be seeded. The Ethic requires it.

WRONG! The forceful contradiction from the second Ultan disturbed and confused Dallen, further weakening the inhuman persuasive force of the first. He took one step nearer to his normal state of being, and as emotion began to pit itself against intellect his thoughts homed in on Silvia London. She was on Orbitsville. And Orbitsville, now pulsing so rapidly that the eye detected only a frenzied hammering on the retina, was about to depart…

"Carry Dallen, you can see for yourself the fallacious nature of that interpretation of the Ethic." As the second Ultan forced itself upon Dallen's mind he detected it as an agitated swirling current of blackness. "I, in common with many of my kind, understand that we Ultans have no right to impose our will, our necessarily limited vision, upon the natural ordering of Totality. The imbalance between Regions I and II in the present cycle heralds drastic change — that is true — but it was change which produced us and all we know. Resistance to change is wrong. Totality must evolve.

Why tell me? The psychic pressure on Dallen was becoming intolerable. Vm only a man, and I have other…

Chance has placed you in a unique situation, Carry Dallen. My forces are at a disadvantage in this part of this particular galaxy, and consequently I have had to proceed by stealth.

You have learned that Orbitsville is an instrument. To nullify it I, too, constructed an instrument — one which has only to make contact with the Orbitsville shell to he absorbed into it and denature it and lock it into the Region I continuum for ever. That instrument is the physical form of the being you knew as Gerald Mathieu.

I chose him because be wanted to terminate his own life, and because in your society be existed in circumstances which would allow him to travel to Orbitsville and approach it unobtrusively. When he killed himself by deliberately crashing his aircraft I recreated him — incorporating the physical modifications necessary for my purpose — and directed him to this point.

Unfortunately, his approach was detected and the preparations for the translation of this sphere into the Region II universe was speeded up. In addition, enormous energies are being directed against the body of Gerald Mathieu, paralysing it, counteracting my energies.

And now everything depends on you, Carry Dallen.

You are at the fulcrum, at the balance point of two of the greatest personalised forces in any universe, where neither can dominate you — where your own reason, will and physical strength can decide a cosmic issue.

Only seconds remain before the sphere is due to depart, but there is time for you to break Gerald Mathieu's bold on the tine and propel hts body into contact with the shell.

I, on behalf of the Ethic, charge you with that responsibility…

Dallen sobbed aloud as the two hemispheres of the divided universe clapped together.

His senses were returning to normal, but he knew that the entire confrontation with the Ultans had .taken place between heartbeats. A confusion of gasps and startled cries from his suit radio suggested that the watchers in the Hawkshead' s airlock had shared the experience to some extent. His three companions in the centre of the extra-dimensional episode knew least of all — Cona floating in her drug-induced torpor; Mikel in his starry-eyed incomprehension; Gerald Mathieu, dead but not dead, frozen to the line which snaked upwards to…

Dallen's breathing stopped as he saw that the shell material was a plane of green fire, its pulsations now so dose together as to be almost beyond perception. The departure was imminent. There were no more reserves of time. Silvia was standing at the rim of the portal, leaning dangerously over the abyss, but restrained by Rick Renard's arms. Her lips were moving, forming words Dallen needed to hear, and her eyes were locked on his.

"Silvia," he shouted, surging up the line towards her. Mathieu's rigid body blocked the way, the blind face grinning into his. There had been talk of a great responsibility .'. . of forcing the instrument that was Mathieu across those last few metres of space… but would take time… and there was no more time… the shell material was as bright as the sun… burning steadily…

No more fairness, Dallen screamed inwardly. This is for ME!

He unclipped himself from the lifeline, from his wife's inert figure, from his son's crib. He clawed his way around Mathieu's body, frantic with haste, and launched himself upwards toward the rim of the portal. Silvia extended her arms as if to catch him…

But Orbitsville vanished.

He had missed Silvia by a second, and now she was separated from him by a gulf of time equal co twice the age of the universe.

Dallen drew his knees up to his chin, closed his eyes, and went slowly tumbling into the newly created void.

The headquarters of the London Anima Mundi Foundation had been set up a short distance south of Winnipeg for a number of reasons, an important one being administrative convenience. It was close to Metagov Central Clearing, the largest fragment of governmental machinery remaining on Earth, and therefore was at the centre of a pre-existing communications and transport network. A trickle of off world traffic was coming in from the Moon, the various orbital stations and from Terranova, the single small planet which had been discovered before Orbitsville had relegated it to the status of a backwater. The level of traffic was barely enough to keep the facility alive, but that was seen as an important contribution to the Renaissance. The global picture was more encouraging than many futurologists would have predicted, but it would be a long time before there would be any reserve capacity in the technology-based industries. Dallen was satisfied with the location for reasons of his own, not the least being that the climate was often comparable to that of his native Orbitsville. There were days, especially in spring and fall, when the air flowing in across the high grasslands had an evocative steely purity which, taking him unawares, would cause him to tilt his head and search the skies as though he might see in them the pale blue watered silk archways of his childhood. And even in midsummer, when the temperatures were higher than he would have preferred, the air was lively and had a freshness he did not associate with Earth.