Just then he realized that the sun’s rays were disappearing. While he didn’t need a sheltered spot to put up his small living nodule, the thought of staying out in the open area frightened him. Hopefully he eyed the hills—if only he could reach them before night came—the real night—without the city’s gentle illumination. He tried not to think of the ancient Earth night as he’d read of it in old records. For the first time he wondered how far the hills were in actual miles from—well, from Cyprus.

Chapter Five

Oversoul Seven’s Mini-Vacation

Oversoul Seven kept making platforms to hold himself above the well of Ma-ah’s experience, only to topple down into it again. His apartness from her was slipping, and in those moments of his own lucidity he thought that this wasn’t fair at all. Cyprus was going too far. This part of the examination was too difficult for his stage of development. He’d fail miserably, if he didn’t end up losing himself in Ma-ah completely, if that was possible.

The only time he managed to reassert himself was when he was called on consciously or unconsciously by one of his other personalities, or when Ma-ah needed him in some direct manner. For example, he was lost within Ma-ah, or thought he was, when suddenly he was aware of Proteus’ descent to Earth. Quick, clear images came to him as Proteus landed. Once he saw the entire landscape from the tip of one of Proteus’ skis. What on Earth was he up to? Seven wondered irritably.

And what was happening to Josef and Lydia while he was trapped (what else could you call it?) inside Ma-ah’s body? Ma-ah, it seemed, needed his help at every turn. When he was Ma-ah, losing his independence, then he felt her own fear and insecurity, unmitigated, without the benefit of his own superior knowledge. And her fear threatened to devour him. He had to get her above it, he realized suddenly. Only her release would free them both.

Actually, she was pretty aggressive and independent on her own, except when her fear made her forget everything she knew. As it had yesterday—was it yesterday?—when they’d been found. The men who captured them were different in appearance from any people that Ma-ah or Rampa had ever seen, and it was this that frightened them so completely.

Ma-ah cried out as they were led down the hall beneath torches that were set in the wall niches. She and Rampa were terrified of fire, Seven discovered. Both of them cowered at the fire itself, and at the dark shadows that leaped up the rocky gray walls. Their captors—or rescuers?—were approximately nine feet tall, as Lydia would have measured them, to Ma-ah’s five-foot-three and Rampa’s five-eight. Besides this, the men wore robes dyed with brilliant colors, and obviously not made of hides.