‘I never realized how big this place was.’
Rinter’s voice, grating and sounding unnaturally harsh, cut brutally into the deep silence of Pinnatte’s vision. Flooding in its wake came the babble of the gathering audience. Pinnatte grimaced and his hands were halfway to his ears before he remembered where he was. Rinter, however, was too engrossed in the scene below to notice the reaction. Pinnatte took a deep breath to calm himself and looked again at the crystal. It glittered as brightly as before in the comparative gloom, but its strange, penetrating presence was gone. Unexpectedly, he was possessed by a terrible rage that Rinter’s mewling should have torn this wonder from him, and his mind was suddenly filled with a vision of the animal trainer flailing and screaming as he hurled him fro
