"And how did you motivate Slide?"

"Slide believed that he was following the Prophecy of Ami Enlil, but, in fact, he was actually running the tests on you to determine if you were in fact the specimen we required. The idimmu are easy to control. They are, after all, Our creatures."

"What about all the people who died?"

"Your species spends half its time dying. It's really no concern of Ours."

Gibson slowly shook his head. "This is all too much."

The messenger's voice was very quiet. "It's only a tiny part of it."

A faint flush of silent lightning flashed across the sky, and Gibson stared silently across the valley. The messenger took a step toward him. His voice was almost sympathetic. "I wouldn't try to comprehend it, Joe. You can't. You're no longer in the reality of men and it's really no disgrace not to understand."

"You still haven't told me what's being done to me."

"What happens to a specimen, to a sampling? You're being tested, analyzed, typed, recorded, and inspected. Right now, we are making an evaluation of everything from the mutating microorganisms that infest your body to the conditioned responses of your subconscious. Everything about you is being absorbed and considered. We know your childhood memories and your DNA codings, the weaknesses in your immune system, and the capacity of your paranoia."

Gibson was starting to become alarmed. "I don't feel anything."

"There's no need for you to feel anything. Would you rather you were stretched out on a cold steel table with tubes up your nose and electrodes in your brain?"

"No, but…"

"And stop all the self-pitying nonsense about why me, why me. It's you and them were the breaks. Things could be a lot worse. And also don't flatter yourself, there are thousands of you from as many dimensions being tested in the same way. Much has changed in the time We've been dormant and there is much that We have to know before We can plan Our waking behavior."

"You make it sound like I'm being fed into a giant computer."

The messenger shrugged. "Think of it as market research of the gods if it helps you accept your situation."

"Who says that you're gods? All this god talk only started just recently. Before that, everyone called you a superior being."

"Isn't a superior being a god to the inferior being? Go ask your dog."

Gibson was gripped by the flash of heady, self-destructive rebellion. "Yeah? Well I ain't no dog and I don't see you as a god."

The messenger's eyes hardened, and Gibson realized that his rebellion may have been a very bad idea. This was confirmed when lightning lanced across the clouds, chased by an extended and deafening clap of thunder, and even the ground trembled. The messenger's voice deepened and intensified to one much closer to Gibson's expectations of Necrom, the kind of voice that biblical prophets must have heard when they went one-on-one with Jehovah.

"WHAT'S THE MATTER, LITTLE MAN? DON'T WE MEASURE UP TO YOUR EXPECTATIONS OF A GOD?"

Gibson was so afraid that he responded by blurting out the absolute truth. "I never heard of a god who went to sleep for fifteen thousand years."

The messenger's voice instantly returned to the way it had been. "That is a weakness."

Gibson realized that he had possibly spotted another weakness. Necrom, or at least this part of Necrom that he was being allowed to experience, could get angry, could come near to letting go of its control. He had a strong feeling that it had come close to blasting him. How was that possible? It shouldn't be possible for him, Joe Gibson, alcoholic and washed-up rock star, to spot a weakness in a being that was so powerful that it could alter his reality on a whim. It was only then that another, even more terrifying thought struck him. If it could read his mind…

"Of course We can read your mind, and that is an avenue of thought that We would advise you to avoid."

A long silence passed before the messenger finally offered the bottle of champagne again. "Refill?"

Gibson held out his glass. The champagne bottle appeared to remain perpetually full, and, as the messenger poured, Gibson asked a question. "You keep referring to yourself as 'We,' as though you were some kind of composite being."

"We are, for the moment. Only when the waking is complete will we achieve Our Full Singular Wholeness."

"And what will happen when you are fully awake?"

The messenger winked. "That's something you will have to wait and see."

"Yancey Slide seemed to think…"

"The idimmu are tough and cunning but they suffer from a great narrowness of vision. They believe that our return will make things as they were fifteen thousand years ago. I can guarantee that this will not be the case."

"Can I ask one more question?"

"It hasn't stopped you so far."

"What's going to happen to me?"

"You will eventually be returned to your dimension of origin. It may be necessary for you to remain here for a while until an unobtrusive reentry cover can be devised, so you're not seen to simply appear out of nowhere. We assure you that, in the meantime, you will be quite comfortable."

"How long will I have to stay here?"

"It shouldn't be more than a couple of weeks, as you perceive time."

Gibson nodded. "I guess I can handle that."

The thought occurred to him that, if he was placed in the right illusion, it might even constitute a well-earned rest. The messenger winked. "Look on it as a rest, Joe."

"I wish you wouldn't read my mind."

"It's unavoidable."

"Then just don't read it back to me."

The messenger sighed. "If it makes you happier to pretend."

"I take it that I'm not going to get to be the Master of Men out of all this?"

"You want that?"

Gibson grinned and shoved his thumbs into the pockets of his white pants in a decidedly hoodlum gesture. "Maybe I could handle that."

The messenger shook his head. "I'm afraid that's idimmu romance. Things will be a good deal more complicated this time around."

"So I just drop back into my old life?"

The messenger laughed. "Your old life has gone. You've seen far too much to return to the way you were. Of course, the memories of what you've been through, particularly this current episode, will become blurred and indistinct."

Gibson was outraged. "I'm going to forget all this?"

"Temporarily."

"More drugs?"

"Your own mind will do it. You're not going to rest easily with the memory of talking to a superior being. You're going to suppress and mythologize all of this, and turn it into some symbolic peyote vision, something that you'll be able to handle more easily."

"You said I'd forget temporarily."

"When the time comes for Us to enter your world, We may need you to serve Us. When that time comes, your memories will return."

Gibson looked sideways at the messenger. "I'm going to be your servant?"

"We always reward Our servants, and if it's power you want, We can easily give you power."

"I've really never been that keen on power."

"You make that obvious in your behavior. It may be one of your redeeming features."

An abrupt flash of crimson stained the clouds across the valley. It seemed as though one of the volcanoes was burning red rather than gold. A second volcano belched red flame and purple smoke that spread like a stain across the clouds.

Gibson looked sharply at the messenger. "What is that? Is something wrong?"

The messenger didn't answer right away. He stood staring out across the valley at the angry red intrusion, as though listening to instructions inside his head. "We have been made aware that the Hole in the Void is under attack."

"What?"

"Streamheat forces are attacking the Hole in the Void. They have transported aircraft and heavy weapons across the dimensions and seem to be bent on wiping out the idimmu."