The memory of an ancient story she had read in the library jumped into her mind. What was it called? The Pit and the Pendulum, that was it. The hero had been a prisoner in a place of horror, rather like this. And then ... She stared up at the ceiling, imagining that at any moment a knife blade would come swinging down, slicing through the air, to and fro, lower and lower. In spite of herself she shrank back onto the couch, making herself as flat as possible.

But of course, nothing like that really happened. Nothing happened at all, and after a time she just lay on her back staring up at the blackness. It was most extraordinary, this black room. It was hard to define its edges, to guess how high the ceiling must be, how far away the walls.

After a time she began to feel that she was floating weightlessly in the black void of space. Briefly she remembered the second part of Poe's story, in which the floor opened up and the walls moved inward so that he would either be crushed or hurled into a fiery abyss far below. “But it's only a story,” she said out loud, no longer afraid. Her words were absorbed by the blackness around her. She had never felt such quiet, such peace. Her eyes shut and she slept.

SHE WOKE feeling that she had slept deeply, better than she had done in months. She sat up and swung her legs down from the couch. What was so different? Why did she feel newly made?

Why, of course! There had been no dreams, not a single one. The silence she felt around her was more than the silence of an empty room. It was a room from which all the psychic clutter, that was part of everyday life on Ark Three, had been removed. She could feel her mind stretching out without bumping against the mind of another person. It was a room without the Web.

She lay down again, better to enjoy the peace. She was still resting, her hands behind her head, when she heard the sound of a latch. She turned her head lazily to see who it was.

An oblong of light shone upon one wall. Space established itself once more in her little domain. The walls rushed in and the ceiling seemed to descend, not as in Poe's story, but to show her that the reality of the Black Hole was not illimitable space, but a little room not much larger than a closet.

She recognised the tall figure silhouetted against the golden light of the passage outside. It was the Initiator. Ruth slid off the couch and stood politely waiting as she entered the room and shut the door behind her. At once the illusion of space returned and the prickly agitation, that she had begun to feel through the open door, vanished.

“How do you feel?” The Initiator smiled.