She studied the craft beyond the wall. It was some thirty feet long -- nearly three times the size of the Room -- and shaped like a fat, rounded disc. It was utterly black, showing only by starshine highlights. It was completely beyond her experience... but she knew what it was. Teal had told her what to expect, with his strange tales of men traveling among the stars.

This was the ship. It was a vessel to take them... somewhere else. (Here her imagination failed.) The Eight Rooms were merely a way station. But if they were to go on they had to find a way through these walls! She laid her palms flat and passed them over the warm, crystalline stuff. But this was not a teepee; there were no flaps to open. She slapped the wall in exasperation.

The gray-haired woman was frustrated! She wanted to explore!

Paul exulted. He slid quantum tendrils into her skull.

...She spread her hand wide and folded the fingers forward so that they formed a kind of cylinder; then she pressed her fingertips against the wall, just -- here...

Erwal gasped and staggered away from the wall. She stared at her hands, flexing them and turning them over, as if to reassure herself that they were still under her control.

It had been like a waking dream.

It could have lasted no more than a second. She had seen her hand reach out and touch the wall in that odd way -- it had been her own hand, undoubtedly; she had recognized the patch of white, frost-killed tissue near the center knuckles -- but the vision had been laid over the sight of her real hand, which had remained resting against the clear wall.

She wrapped her arms around herself and retreated to the door of the Room. For some minutes she allowed the warm, human noises of the villagers to seep over her. She had felt able to cope with her bizarre experiences up to now: she had the stories of Teal to cling to, and as long as it was all out there, as long as she, Erwal, wife of Damen, remained the same, with her comfortable skin smock and her tiny collection of possessions, then she felt strong and able to endure.

But this was different.

Something had reached inside her head, and for the first time since she had left the village she experienced real terror. She wished Teal were here; surely he would be able to understand this...