We plunge to this world, gorgeous in its balance of ocean and sky, sea and shore, mountain and plain, lake and hill, pond and knoll, tree and shrub, prey and predator, fungus and rotifer, parasite and prion, clay and crystal, molecule and atom, electron and …

Diving ever smaller, we cry out to wait!

Go back!

What was that passing glimpse we just had of gleaming, multibranched spires built by fascinating hands? A brief impression of docked ships and shops and tree-perched homes where shaded figures spoke a demure language, like song?

Backtrack. It should be easy to find. Just return to a size and scale midway between a cosmos and a quark.

Another civilization. Another race of thinking, feeling beings! Wasn’t that what you were looking for?

Apparently not.

Little remained of the gleaming me that stepped out of a kiln Tuesday morning, resigned to cleaning the house and running the chores of Albert Morris. A body that wound up living — let’s see — close to three extra days, thanks to Aeneas Kaolin, and a dash of mulish stubbornness. A self who wound up doing a whole lot more than scrub toilets! Who gathered so many interesting memories and thoughts — what a pity there’d be no chance to deposit them. To share them.

The things I’ve seen.

And hallucinated, reminding myself of all the fun echoes and trippy/bossy voices I made up along the way. Oh, realAl was going to miss out on a lot. Assuming that he escaped the burning of his home, Albert probably spent the whole week at a computer screen, or waving his arms under a chador, coordinating ebony researchers and gray investigators and dickering with insurance agents. Working hard, the poor dull fellow.

And yet, he can’t be a complete bore. Not if Clara loves him.

I’d smile if I could. How nice if my last mental picture could be of her … a woman I never met in person, yet still adored.

I could see her now — a final, pleasant feat of imagination as the last of my torso dissolved, leaving only a pathetic head rolling at the bottom of a dustbin. Yes, it was she who came before me, all blurry in a Hollywood-romantic way that softens any image, even one wearing a duralloy helmet covered with spiky antennas.

Through that gauzy light, Clara seemed to peer down at me, her sweet voice beckoning like an angel.

“Well, I’ll be cut to bits and served as tempura,” said my illusory seraph, pushing aside a pair of holo goggles that gleamed like sunlit cobwebs. “Chen! Does this dit look like an Albert to you?”

“Hm. Maybe,” said another figure, crowding in to have a look. While my conjured Clara seemed all soft and feminine (albeit wrapped in heavy armor), the newcomer was fanged and scaly.

A demon!

In its hand, a slim rod poked my brow.

“Damn, you’re right! The pellet says … wait, this can’t be.”

A third voice, much higher, squeaked, “Oh yes it can!”

From around Clara’s shoulder a thin face like an eager fox appeared, bending over to leer down, grinning at me with twin V-rows of shiny teeth. “It’s got to be the one who signaled,” said the ferret-figure I had dreamed up, looking quite a bit like my old companion Palloid. “Maybe this is old Gumby, after all.”

I would have shaken my head if I could, or closed my eyes if I had lids.

This was all too much, even for a dream.

Time to melt, before it got worse.

Only, I had to rouse a bit when Clara called.

“Albert? Is that you in there?”

Illusion or not, I couldn’t refuse her anything. Though lacking a body — or any other means to make sound — I somehow gathered strength to mouth four words.

“… just … a … fax … ma’am …”

All right. I should have come up with something better. Everything was fading, though. Anyway, I felt happy enough. Before utter blackness, my final image would be of her smile, so reassuring that you just had to believe.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart.” Clara said, reaching into the wastebasket. “I’ve got you. Everything will be just fine.”

With a wide-open main gate, the estate seemed to lack security, an illusion the owner could afford. Cruising toward a great stone mansion, our limousine passed groundskeepers at work. They were ostentatiously real.

“This is kind of familiar,” said Pal from his life-sustaining chair. “I remember thinking we’d be lucky to get out of this place alive.” Somehow he had managed to absorb some bits of memory from the smashed mini-golem — my companion across a frantic Tuesday and Wednesday. It felt good knowing some of clever Palloid survived.

Sensors turned a narrow patch of the limo’s body transparent wherever a passenger’s eye happened to focus, creating an illusion of no roof or walls, though nosy outsiders would spy just a few dim circles, darting about madly. Still, in order to inhale the scent composition of Aeneas Kaolin’s gardens, I had to roll down a window.

Smells kept surprising me, like memories of another life.

Someone else took a deep breath when I did. Albert, to my left, gave one of his distant smiles, clearly enjoying hints of autumn in the breeze. Except for a small bandage below an ear, and one around his thumb, he didn’t look too bad. He could even dress and shave himself, if gently coaxed. But his attention lay elsewhere.

Are you a neshamah? I wondered. A body without a soul?

If so, what an ironic role reversal. For I, a golem, felt well equipped in that regard.

Is there no one home in there, Albert? Or are we just getting a “busy signal”?

I must have been staring again. A gentle squeeze from the other side drew me back as Clara’s slim, strong hand took mine.

“Do you think we’ll get to look over Kaolin’s medieval armor collection?” she asked. “I’d love to try a few cuts with that big, two-handed Claymore.”

This from a beautiful young woman wearing a sun hat and a light summer dress. Clara sometimes enjoyed downplaying her “formidable” side. It enhanced her feral attractiveness.

“He may be in no mood to play tour guide,” I predicted, but she just smiled.

Closer to the house, Clara glanced pointedly at a sunken parking area holding two more automatic limos, just like this one. We had timed our arrival to closely follow that pair.

Red-striped guardits watched a forklift remove a tall shipping crate from a delivery truck by the chateau’s main entrance. They turned warily as we pulled up … till some hidden signal made them back off.

“I always wanted a job like that,” Pal murmured as the grunting forklift hoisted its cargo on sturdy legs, ascending wide steps to the house.

“No, you didn’t,” I replied, maneuvering his life-support chair onto the pavement. Hard work wasn’t Pal’s style.

Clara examined the chair’s medical dials, then fussed over realAlbert, straightening his collar. “Will you two be okay out here?”

Pal took Albert’s arm, getting another enigmatic smile. “Us? We’ll just stroll the grounds, helping each other over bumps and looking for trouble.”

Clara still worried, but I squeezed her hand. What place could be safer? And their presence would make a point to Kaolin.