So near and yet so far. So diabolically similar to attempts to wake from a nightmare--and the blackness of his cell increased the similarity. All he had to do was summon up enough mental energy, find sufficient impetus, to force a re-exchange of viewpoints between himself and Thorn II. And yet as he struggled and strained through seeming eternities in the dark, as he strove to sink, to plunge, down the dark channels of the subconscious and found them closed, as he felt out the iron resistances of that other Thorn, he began to think the effort impossible--even began to wonder if World I were not just the wishful dream of a scarred, hunted, memoryless man in a world where invisible tyrants plotted un-understandable invasions, commanded the building of inexplicable machines, and bent millions to their wholly cryptic will. At least, whatever the sufficient impetus was, he could not find it. A vertical slit of light appeared, widened to a square, revealed a long corridor. And in it, flanked by two black-uniformed guards, the other Clawly. So similar was the dapper figure to the Clawly he knew--rigged out in a strange costume and acting in a play--that it was all he could do not to spring up with a friendly greeting. And then, to think that this Clawly's mind was linked to the other's, that somewhere, just across its subconscious, his friend's thoughts moved--Dizzying. He stared at the trim, ironic face with a terrible fascination. Clawly II spoke. "Consider yourself flattered. I'm going to deliver you personally to the Servants of the People. They'll want to be the ones to decide, in your case, between immediate self-sacrifice, assisted confession, or what not." He chuckled without personal malice. "The Servants have devised quite amusing euphemisms for Death and Torture, haven't they? The odd thing is, they seem to take them seriously--the euphemisms, I mean." The uniformed guards, in whose stolid faces were written years of unquestioning obedience to incomprehensible orders, did not laugh. If anything, they looked shocked. * * * * * Thorn staggered up and stepped slowly forward, feeling that by that action he was accepting a destiny not of his own making but as inescapable as all destinies are, that he was making his entrance, on an unknown stage, into an unknown play. They started down the corridor, the guards bringing up the rear. "You make rather a poorer assassin than I'd have imagined, if you'll pardon the criticism," Clawly II remarked after a moment. "That screaming my name to get me off guard--a very ill-advised dodge. And then dropping your weapon in the streambed. No--you can't exactly call it competent. I'm afraid you didn't live up to your reputation of being the most dangerous of the Recalcitrants. But then, of course, you were fagged."