'What is it, Sylviana?' Still for a time she could not speak, trying to follow the rapid, and incredible chain of thought. 'My father was a scientist,' she said finally. 'And I knew something of on-going research. This technology: the fire that burned from nothing, the ability to read my thoughts..... And the violet beam, GIVING YOU THE POWER OF SPEECH. Kalus, unless I'm dead wrong. This equipment, and the altar. . .weren't left here by men! We haven't advanced nearly this far.' With this her weary despondency left her. She was consumed instead by the eager, questioning thought that her father had passed on to her almost without her knowing it: Science, the study of the visible God. Examining the back of the chamber, she found a steep passage carved into the rock, after a single bend to the left, leading in a straight line upward and eastward. But surely ‘carved' was not the right word. The walls were smooth as glass, the floor rippled, as if to accommodate some creature which had used the uneven surface to enter and return..... The slanting tube rose far out of sight---to the top, she imagined, of Skither's fifteen-hundred foot mountain. A score of masons couldn't have done the fine work in twenty years. 'What does it mean?' asked Kalus, lost in the wake of her discovery and unable to follow. 'The oldest question of all, Kalus. Is there life among the stars? But here, let's follow the passage and see where it leads. I'll tell you more when I know more.' Now it was he who became trepid, not understanding. She couldn't help herself. She laughed. 'Oh, did I look as foolish when you broke the mirror? There's no reason to be afraid. I'm sure there's no one here now. Machinery this advanced could have been working completely on its own for centuries.' She took his hand, and together they made their way up the long, arrow-straight passageway, pacing their steps and resting often, so as not to exhaust themselves in the climb and have nothing left. And yet at each pause their sense of wonder, as well as the now tenable magic of the peyote, only seemed to increase. For so, too, do Science and the indescribable beauty Nature walk---the study and living manifestation, respectively, of the enigmatic Spirit of the Universe. And as they stepped out at last onto a high platform open to the stars, both felt it so clearly. The sabled dome of sky, scattered with living diamonds, throbbed and pulsed, undeniable: Eternity's Breath. And though they found nothing more alien or fantastic than a smooth, half-crater floor, opening unbarriered on the East, still, this was more than enough. The vastness of the sky reached like a limitless ocean, islanded by countless suns and unseen planets.