He felt like a skydiver about to make his first jump. He wanted to eat one last hot fudge sundae, make love to one last woman.
The hippo urged him on, telling him that the window of opportunity was closing. Now or never, said the hippo, now or never.
What it boiled down to, Thal finally decided, was certain death versus survival. The plane was on fire, the last working parachute strapped to his chest.
And the door was open.
He dove through it.
Focusing his thoughts as the hippo had told him, he concentrated on the tingling beams in his head. The hippo was there inside him, guiding him, channeling the billion winking sparks of his awareness upstream along the beams. Like glittering salmon, the pieces of Thal bucked the incoming current, then leaped across the differential gap and
