He stared into the rank water and saw huge movements there, and heard the limber tongue slap nearer. He could escape his choice by flinging himself into the maw of that personified muck. The septic threads of slime would foul his skin and imprint in it the malodorous blight that had taken his father. It would not be merciful.

Did Aurelius still live? Aton did not know.

There had to be some other alternative. Some outlet that would free him, or at least postpone the choice. A drain, an exit from the pool—some rushing aperture leading into the unknown, but an escape, a relief. Could he find it?

When he recognized his need for it, it was there: an opening into the unknown. It might lead to death, or to choices more appalling even than those he fled from. Once taken, this step could never be withdrawn, as a plunge into a waterfall cannot be reversed. He hesitated.

“Aurelius is dead,” the minionette said, very close. She would have felt the old man go, vanquished at last by the genuine pool-monster, the blight. Aton had felt the loss himself, had felt the cessation of an emotional compartment, in that half-telepathy he had never before admitted he possessed. That same sense hinted darkly that he had had some part in the death of his father, however unintentionally. Had the decision he was making been so wide-ranging? Was this the price of his escape?

Committed now, by obscure circumstance, he took the step, refusing to examine whatever hideous price was being exacted. He would skirt the verge of insanity itself, for the sake of the fainting hope it offered. The swirling vortex sucked him in, and the dark smothering wave closed over him, carrying him after all to—

Fifteen

Aton found himself on the surface of the spotel asteroid, naked between its bulk and the immensity of space. Naked because this rock was featureless and night was close; no gravity comforted him with her embrace, no atmosphere caressed his clinging suit. Only the static action of his boots maintained his tenuous contact with the little planet linking them firmly enough so long as he did not deliberately wrench both feet away at once. So long as he did not jump.

He looked about, awed in his blood by this singular and not unpleasant confrontation with inanimate nature. Behind him was the lock of the spotel, leading to the shuttle he meant to pilot away from here, leading also to the plush interior and an offering he could not accept. No matter what she said, what she was, she was forbidden. He had to get away from her. But first, this walk on the surface, to calm himself.

Ahead was almost total isolation, and he needed that. Easily was the contrast made between the facets of man, with his measurable accomplishment and immeasurable loneliness, who thus traversed a rock on which he could not live.