Omega V was gone. Without reason, without warning, an entire system. A synthetic sun that was supposed to last a billion years. While he was away fighting for the lives of others..... He had never trusted the Guardians, though the soft and protected Commonwealth did; and now he would ram it down their throats. Spirit beings! The space they occupied was real enough---the silver threads like a massive, geometrical spider's web encircling the Hole in Space, the white globes pulsing across them. Hole in Space. That was what THEY called it. An immense dark clot in the sky, so black, with no stars behind it. He would see how untouchable they were. His hatred had had four long years to smolder. The year of isolation had been longest, training himself to feel nothing, in the face of danger. Even the fourteen odd months of pirating had crawled---the killing of his crew had been a sad necessity. Then the slow, meticulous construction of the fleet. Human minds were worthless here; they would only be read and turned to jelly with strange fears and false images. Only a close-knit, automatic response to telepathic command, forty fast-black robot ships, were of any use. Why he had chosen black he couldn't say, unless perhaps it was a gut feeling they didn't like it. But the Hole was black..... STOP THESE USELESS THOUGHTS! NEXT YOU'LL BE THINKING OF MARIA. It was not possible they weren't aware of his opposition. But they seemed to allow such things. . .or perhaps they couldn't stop them. No, that was too much to ask himself to believe. Certainly no one had stopped the fascist uprising, the snowballing of events which had led to interworld war, the slaughter, the death camps. True the Commonwealth had eventually come to grips. But the destruction, the loss of life, could never be justified. So much for Divine intervention. He had to start closing down his mind, as he had taught himself through the years of emptiness. He wasn't sure how greatly distance mattered, but he was getting close. Already the shimmering outline could be seen on the monitor, the bright specks of racing white. From here the blackness beyond did not seem so dark. But soon it would be Darkness itself, enveloping the sky. It was for the heart of the blackness he aimed. Perhaps it was their only vulnerable point, they guarded it so well. He looked up at the wide portal, and as he expected the visions had begun. A long chute, a cylindrical spiraling of gray and glossy skulls. He looked away, then remembered. Shook his head sardonically and tightened his face. The images weren't outside, they were inside. He stood atop a geyser of emerald fire. But they couldn't stop his thoughts. "Central computer, phase three," he just managed. Now unless his commands were coded and specific the ships would not respond. He felt his own surge forward, felt the sharp jolt of electric current as for a moment his wired throat cleared the images away.