The wailing shriek rose to a crescendo, and then it died. Earth was gone. They had stepped away from it. Even its sky was behind them. A weight like to the weight of mountains lay on Trehearne, and he was horribly afraid.
He waited for the pressure to ease. His temples were bursting, it was an agony to breathe, and he thought, It can’t go on like this, it’s got to let up! But it did not. There was a change in the pitch of the motor vibration. He listened to it climb, higher and higher, until it slipped over the threshhold of hearing, and as it climbed, the pressure grew. The bones of his chest crushed in upon his lungs. Everything around him began to waver and grow vague, to recede slowly into a reddish twilight.
And still the pressure grew.
Something was happening to him. Something une
