As flecked gray-rose tendrils coiled forth and shrouded out the night. They reached seeking across the now vibrant sky. She dropped her flower and, looking down at it, saw the petals scatter in a rustling wind. The soft grass clouds under her heels now caught at her shoes. The snaky growths were closer now, hissing strangely in the now-warm air. She began to run. Sweat beaded on her forehead in the cloying, heavy clothes, and the entrance to the grasslands zone swam up toward her. Yet her steps were sluggish and the panic grew. Acid spittle rose in her mouth and sulfurous stench burned her nostrils.

She reached the perimeter. With dulled fingers she punched in codes that yawned open the lock. Glanced back. Snakes grasping down at her from a violent yellow sky—

And she was out, into cool air again. Panting, fevered, breath rasping, back in her world.

You don’t know your own mind, gal….

She could not deal with this anymore. Now, Masoul.

She composed herself outside Masoul’s office. A shower, some strong dark coffee, and a change back into classic Library garb had helped. But the shower couldn’t wash away her fears. You really must stop clenching your fists….

This was more than what those cunning nucleic acids could do with the authority they wield over who you are, she thought—and wondered where the thought came from.

Yet she knew where that crawling snaky image warping across the sky came from. Her old cultural imagistic studies told her. It was the tree of life appearing in Norse religion as Yggdrasil. The world tree, a massive spreading canopy that held all that life was or could be.

But why that image? Drawn from her unconscious? By what? She recalled wearing a thick wool skirt with a heavy long-sleeved blouse… watching the crawling sky… yet she did not own such clothes. When she had returned and stripped for the welcoming shower, she had been wearing standard hiking gear….

She knocked. The door translated it into a chime and ID announcement she could hear through the thin partition. In Masoul’s voice, the door said, “Welcome.”

She had expected pristine indifference. Instead, she got the Prefect’s troubled gaze, from eyes of deep brown.

Wordlessly he handed her the program for the Symphony, which she had somehow not gotten at the performance. Oh yes, by sneaking in… She glanced at it, her arguments ready—and saw on the first page:

Sigma Structure Symphony

Librarian Rachel Cohen

“I… did not know.”

“Considering your behavior, I thought it best to simply go ahead and reveal your work,” Masoul said. His voice was rich and full, resounding in her ears like music.

“Behavior?”

“The Board has been quite concerned.” He knitted his hands and spoke softly, as if talking her back from the edge of an abyss. “We did not wish to disturb you in your work, for it is intensely valuable. So we kept our distance, let the actions of the Sigma Structure play out.”