Korzenowski, body spinning like a pennant cut loose in a storm, held in place only by the traction field connecting the clavicle and the console, felt his natural consciousness fade. He immediately switched all thought to his implant processors…And saw a glimmer of inequity, a hint of instability, from a certain “angle” on the link. The implant was wildly interpreting the flow of data from the clavicle; the defect “smelled” like something burnt, and left a sharp resinous taste in his mind.

The rush of wind slowed, the bore hole pressure having dropped almost to the level of the outer vacuum, but the blaze of energy pouring through the tiny link with the Way was narrowing, seeming to grow more specific in its targets. It had not yet, as far as Olmy had been able to see, hit any people, concentrating instead on large chunks of machinery, but now in its curls and convolutions it was coming dangerously close to the Engineer.

Korzenowski felt the heat but with eyes tightly closed, did not see the edge of his robe glow and disintegrate. More traction fields fought to regain the bore hole’s integrity, and emergency fields quickly formed spheres around the remaining people, but they were still being disrupted by the energy pouring out of the link.

The bore hole filled with spinning debris, stunned and unconscious people, agonized whorls and streamers of smoke; the loose flawship rolled and bounced slowly against the wall, threatening to crush the confused remotes that had gathered at the sides, awaiting instructions and an end to the chaos.

Korzenowski directed all the energies of the sixth chamber through the clavicle, at the defect in the link, seeking to open a gate there, a premature and disruptive gate that would force the link to close or create a violent crimp in the Way itself.

He wondered for a dark instant if they were facing the power of the Final Mind, as Mirsky had threatened; his intuition said otherwise.

The link blossomed into redness, like an expanding rose, and the petals lashed and abraded the cap of the open seventh chamber. He saw all of this briefly through the clavicle, and then felt an implant overload. If he did not disconnect, the implant—and part of his natural mind, as well—would probably be erased.

He removed his hands from the clavicle, but the work was already done.

The rose shrank against the blackness and stars. The blaze of energy vanished. The point of light, dimming rapidly, winked out.

Air stopped its painful rush past the Engineer. The traction fields held, and somewhere in the bore hole far behind, huge pumps began to replace the air lost in the past few…

How long had it been? Korzenowski queried his implant.

Twenty seconds. Only twenty seconds.