"I am, bucko," Seaton informed him cheerfully. "I told you quite a while ago that you'd be surprised at what I could do, and that still goes as it lays. But I'm surprised at your rancor and at the survival of your naughty little passions. What d'you make of it, Drasnik? Is it simply a hangover, or may it be permanent in his case?" "Not permanent, no," Drasnik decided. "It is only that he has not yet become accustomed to his changed state of being. Such emotions are definitely incompatible with pure mentality and will disappear in a short time." "Well, I'm not going to let him think even for a minute that I slipped up on his case," Seaton declared. "Listen, you. If I hadn't been dead sure of being able to handle you I would have killed you instead of dematerializing you. And don't get too cocky about my not being able to kill you yet, either, if it comes to that. It shouldn't be impossible to calculate a zone in which there would be no free energy whatever, so that you would starve to death. But don't worry, I'm not going to do it unless I have to." "Just what do you think you _are_ going to do?" "See that miniature space ship there? I am going to compress you and your new playmates into this spherical capsule and surround you with a stasis of time. Then I am going to send you on a trip. As soon as you are out of the Galaxy this bar here will throw in a cosmic-energy drive--not using the power of the bar itself, you understand, but only employing its normal radiation of energy to direct and to control the energy of space--and you will depart for scenes unknown with an acceleration equal to the sixth power of the velocity of light. You will travel at that acceleration until this small bar is gone. It will last approximately ninety thousand million years, which, as One will assure you, is but a moment. "Then these large bars, which will still be big enough to do the work, will rotate your capsule into the fourth dimension. This is desirable, not only to give you additional distance, but also to destroy any orientation you may have remaining, in spite of the stasis of time and the not inconsiderable distance already covered. When and if you get back into three-dimensional space you will be so far away from here that you will certainly need most of what is left of eternity to find your way back here." Then, turning to the ancient physicist of Norlamin: "O.K., Rovol?" "An exceedingly scholarly bit of work," Rovol applauded. "It is well done, son," majestic Fodan gravely added. "Not only is it a terrible thing indeed to take away a life, but it is certain that the unknowable force is directing these disembodied mentalities in the engraving upon the sphere of a pattern which must forever remain hidden from our more limited senses." Seaton thought into the headset for a few seconds, then again projected his mind into the capsule.