Eldon shrugged, rejecting the thought, his mind still unwilling to
believe in the very existence of Sasso.
Then it was time for her to visit the Chamber. Her thought-body
_thinned out_, vanished.
Eldon found their private world dreary and dead without her. With the
bright, vital waves of her personality missing there was no joy. He
grew intolerably lonely, anxious for her return.
When she reappeared everything was right again in their self-created
world. The news she brought was mixed. Their bodies were repairing
satisfactorily, she reported, but outside the Chamber there was chaos
and steadily deepening defeat for the Forest People. Many had been
captured--she shuddered with horror--while others more fortunate had
been killed.
Her eagerness to leave their dream world communicated itself to Eldon,
but their reasoning was different. She was dedicated to the struggle
against Sasso. He hoped with his newfound knowledge to escape the
brutalities of Varda and return to old familiar Earth.
But the time was not yet.
Once more she went away and once more she returned, this time almost at
once. "Eldon!" she wailed even as she materialized. "We must go back
now!"
"Why?" he demanded.
"Because The Night approaches. Two Earth minds aiding the Faith have
disturbed the balance. My people can not hold the Gateway much longer."
"But--?"
"If we don't we shall be lost here forever!"
Suddenly Eldon's homesick longing for Earth gave way to hesitation.
Here he was whole, not a cripple. There--
But Krasna's absences had shown him that to be alone for all eternity
on this self-created world would be unendurable. Even a disembodied
brain could--would--go mad from loneliness. And there was Margaret, a
prisoner of the Faith. He had no choice.
"All right," he agreed reluctantly.
"Now!"
Instinctively he knew the way.
"Eldon! El-ve-don! Stay near me!" He sensed Krasna's appeal even as
their thought-world crumbled back into the featureless opacity of
limbo, and he responded amid the _nothingness_.