Carleth led me inside the cone, right through the wall. I felt the humming of delicate machinery as though it was part of the working of my own brain. An opening that closed again behind us.
I sat down. I was very tired. Something was very wrong; I knew that. Here I was—but here I wasn’t. I was through the Barrier, with enough of this so-called awakened consciousness to live in the Fourth Stage world of perception; but I wasn’t like Reeta or Carleth, not by a long shot.
I almost yelled as the chair reached up around me and stretched itself to fit me. I shifted my position, and the chair remolded itself to me. I was still trying to get rid of a clammy helpless feeling when Carleth said: “We still may have time to act against Durach. We’ve saved this last paraphysical resistance band in ea
