"The Portal reopened. I ordered my crew back. It closed. Since then, have I been alone...." "Bram," Miss Carroll said. "Bram ... you stayed when you could have escaped--and I--" "I would that I could give you back those lost years, Linda Carroll," Bram said. "I would that we could have been together under a brighter sun than this." "You gave up your world, to give this one a little time," Tremaine said. "And we rewarded you with a shotgun blast." "Bram ... when will the Portal open again?" "Not in my life, Linda Carroll. Not for ten thousand years." "Why didn't you recruit help?" Tremaine said. "You could have trained someone...." "I tried, at first. But what can one do with frightened rustics? They spoke of witchcraft, and fled." "But you can't hold out forever. Tell me how this thing works. It's time somebody gave you a break!" V Bram talked for half an hour, while Tremaine listened. "If I should fail," he concluded, "take my place at the Repellor. Place the circlet on your neck. When the wall clears, grip the handles and pit your mind against the Niss. Will that they do not come through. When the thunder rolls, you will know that you have failed." "All right. I'll be ready. But let me get one thing straight: this Repellor of yours responds to thoughts, is that right? It amplifies them--" "It serves to focus the power of the mind. But now let us make haste. Soon, I fear, will they renew the attack." "It will be twenty minutes or so, I think," said Tremaine. "Stay where you are and get some rest." Bram looked at him, his blue eyes grim under white brows. "What do you know of this matter, young man?" "I think I've doped out the pattern; I've been monitoring these transmissions for weeks. My ideas seemed to prove out okay the last few nights." "No one but I in all this world knew of the Niss attack. How could you have analyzed that which you knew not of?" "Maybe you don't know it, Bram, but this Repellor of yours has been playing hell with our communications. Recently we developed what we thought was a Top Secret project--and you're blasting us off the air." "This is only a small portable unit, poorly screened," Bram said. "The resonance effects are unpredictable. When one seeks to channel the power of thought--" "Wait a minute!" Tremaine burst out. "What is it?" Miss Carroll said, alarmed. "Hyperwave," Tremaine said. "Instantaneous transmission. And thought. No wonder people had headaches--and nightmares! We've been broadcasting on the same band as the human mind!" "This 'hyperwave'," Bram said. "You say it is instantaneous?" "That's supposed to be classified information." "Such a device is new in the cosmos," Bram said. "Only a protoplasmic brain is known to produce a null-lag excitation state." Tremaine frowned. "Bram, this Repellor focuses what I'll call thought waves for want of a better term. It uses an interference effect to damp out the Niss harmonic generator. What if we poured more power to the Repellor?"