lowered, slowly, into the huge vat of bubbling oil. He felt his skin shrivel. The pain was unbelievable. He screamed again and again as the boiling liquid engulfed him, his feet, his calves, his knees, his groin, his soft stomach skin. Regaining control, he willed the pain to stop. It did not stop. It crept upward, to his chest, to his neck. Then he was halted in his downward motion, and seas of agony swept over him. But instead of a scream, the raspy, eerie laugh came from his lips. Once again he willed the pain to stop and slowly, steadily, he gained control. «You will have to destroy me,» he said aloud, seated in the scout. «That is your only choice. Destroy me or talk.» Below him, the planet went wild. Quakes buckled the crust, sent wild constructions toppling. Fire and lightning flashed, inflicting tremendous destruction. The sea rose and smashed the shore, inundating thousands of the erratic constructions. Volcanoes appeared where no volcanoes had been, spouting fire and smoke, darkening the atmosphere. Plank laughed wildly. He punched, blinked and was ready to fire. «I'll give you a hand,» he said, «since you seem to want to wreck the whole place.» But the area surrounding the atomic accelerator was unharmed and his beams did not touch it, smoking instead into a previous area of destruction as he was, once again, shifted. The voice in his head had a petulant quality. Why can't you be nice? Plank roared. The sound was a mixture of rage and laughter. He punched in the coordinates and blinked and fired and felt the shiftings and he was seated in a luxurious chair in a comfortable room. He had a glass of good brandy in his hand. Soft music, his favorite, wafted from
huge, but invisible, speakers. A fire burned cozily in a fireplace. He heard a door opening, turned his head. Hara, dressed in a gleaming white swimsuit, smiled down at him, her pale hair hanging to her shoulders. He was armed. He had been shifted from the scout with his hand weapon at his side. Hara walked toward him, hips swinging with a seductive movement that he knew, immediately, was not Hara. True, she looked real. «Oh, John,» Hara said. «It's been so long.» «Yes,» he said, taking out his weapon, aiming it. The beam lanced out and encountered the sweet, soft area of her navel. It cut through. He swept it and her upper body was floating, legs working sweetly as she continued to move toward him, a woman cut in half, her stomach missing. «John,» Hara said, «be nice.» With a wild cry, he blasted the thing, sweeping up and down until there was left only smoking particles on the floor. Then he turned the weapon on the room and began to destroy it. Walls burned through, the roof crashed down on him, crushing him, burying him. He lay beneath the wreckage for hours, his life ebbing slowly away. This time, he hoped, it would be a real death. He was tired. Real or not, he had endured the pain of death and dismemberment. And it was all for nothing. He was merely a man, not even a whole man. And he was fighting hopelessly against overwhelming odds with no chance of winning. Give up, then. Die. But, failing to find the peace of death, fight on. Try once again. If he were nothing more than nuisance, that, at least, was something. He was not simply going to give up, do the creature's bidding. He vented some of his frustration on the blasted planet, smashing and destroying with impunity until, once again, the area of the atomic installation was in his sights and this time a wild sound of fury filled his mind and the scout was buffeted and thrown by insane forces; he himself was jerked and drained as the erratic movements created monstrous g-forces. But even that had to end. «You will have to destroy me,» he said aloud. He felt a presence. He was being washed in a sea of anger. «Destroy me,» he said. Slowly the anger abated, leaving a blankness, a silence. Plank slowly punched in the coordinates and was ready to activate the generator. Come, the voice said in his mind. The room was red. Softness was under his feet. The walls seemed less than solid. They tended to writhe as he tried to gain perspective. There were changing colors and shapes, a panorama of eerie beauty. The furnishings were low and luxurious. He sensed that things had changed, that there was a new element in his relationship with his unseen enemy. He choose a low, padded freeform protrusion from the soft floor of the room and sat, cross-legged. «Do we talk?» he asked. A wall glimmered, altered, became a huge viewport. The galaxy swept away in glory and grandeur. Plank felt a strangeness. Gradually, he faded away from himself, merging, becoming one with a mind that dominated his will, left him no thoughts of his own. In swift movement, stars streamed past as he moved with incredible speed, true speed, speed not related to a blink—the instant shortcut between distant points. He was moving physically through the galaxy and scattered stars became more than mere pinpoints of light; distances were as nothing and the overall awareness of form, content, the clockwork movement of the massive wheel of stars was his, his to know and possess. For one fleeting moment he felt a surge of triumph. They had finally become irritated enough with him to do something. He did not know why, but they were taking time to explain, to communicate. But his triumph faded, overwhelmed by the sensation of seeing the universe before him and that he was no longer Plank but a part of something else. It was as if he were in the mind of another being, seeing through eyes other than his own, and the universe was no more permanent than he. The universe was
his, all of it, spread out in its lights and darks from the nearby stars to the
distant clouds. He could hasten the natural evolution of a star and cause it
to fall into itself to bloom in a blaze of light, which was pleasing to him, because he had caused it. He could see deep down into things, and he
realized that the simplest atom had a life of its own, a purpose. That life, that purpose, could be altered but not exterminated. He shared the movements of the most minute subatomic particles. He felt pride, knowing that he was the culmination of endless advancement, greater than the galaxy, lesser than the universe. Far out, on the periphery, where stars were thin and darkness ruled, he felt loneliness. Behind him in time stretched a glorious history; now he was alone and his greatness was diminished by something there. He hated it. It stood between him and his destiny. He, the most powerful force in the galaxy, was denied exit from that galaxy by something there, something he could not understand. He felt a soundless, mindless scream of frustration. He was Plank. There were no words, but there was communication. He had intruded, back on Plank's World, on the favorite game. This was a minor anger now, for the little animals would breed and increase their numbers again. No words, but he heard. You dare to stand between us and a greater game. However, we will find them, the others. Submerged again, Plank shared a feeling of obscene delight. We will savor the moment and make it last for more than a moment. Plank tried to speak, show his resistance. Once more we try to explain. Not in words, but inside him. He was outbound on a ship. Charts before him showed dots representing inhabited planets. The scope of the civilization was awesome, covering large areas of the galaxy. «We were the first intelligent life form,» he was told. «All this was created for us. And other life existed, but only to serve us. We used it, refined it, made useless forms into something of value.» He saw the food creatures of Plank's World. «See how beautiful, how functional. They exist for us. We made them to provide our food. And though we are now advanced beyond the need, we remember the pleasure; and it is only a game, a game to help pass away the endless eons of time.» Motion ceased. Around him were the changing lights of the strange room. He was himself again, but the communications continued. «You pride yourself on producing a drive much like the one existing in the primitive ship we gave you. This and other incidentals allow you to