-an Express Room of our
Spiders!--sloshing two feet deep in water, much more cramped for space
than this Place. It was manned by a magician, an old coot named
Benson-Carter. He dispelled the water quickly and reported on his
Caller. We'd got dry, were feeling human, Illy here had shed his
swimsuit, when we looked at the Maintainer. It was glowing, changing,
melting! And when Benson-Carter touched it, he fell backward--death was
in him. Then the Void began to darken, narrow, shrink and close around
us, so I called upon my Caller--without wasting time, let me tell you!

"We can't say for sure what was it slowly squeezed that sweet Express
Room, but we fear the dirty Snakes have found a way to find our Places
and attack outside the cosmos!--found the Spiderweb that links us in the
Void's gray less-than-nothing."

No murmur this time. This reaction was genuine; we'd been hit where we
lived and I could see everybody was scared as sick as I was. Except
maybe Bruce and Lili, who were still holding hands and beaming gently. I
decided they were the kind that love makes brave, which it doesn't do to
me. It just gives me two people to worry about.

"I can see you dig our feelings," Kaby continued. "This thing scared the
pants off of us. If we could have, we'd have even Introverted the
Maintainer, broken all the ties that bind us, chanced it incommunicado.
But the little old Maintainer was a seething red-hot puddle filled with
bubbles big as handballs. We sat tight and watched the Void close. I
kept calling on my Caller."

* * * * *

I squeezed my eyes shut, but that made it easier to see the three of
them with the Void shutting down on them. (Was ours still behaving? Yes,
Bibi Miriam.) Poetry or no poetry, it got me.

"Benson-Carter, lying dying, also thought the Snakes had done it. And he
knew that death was in him, so he whispered me his mission, giving me
precise instructions: how to press the seven death's hands, starting
lockside counterclockwise, one, three, five, six, two, four, seven, then
you have a half an hour; after you have pressed the seven, do not monkey
with the buttons--get out fast and don't stop moving."

I wasn't getting this part and I couldn't see that anyone else was,
though Bruce was whispering to Lili. I remembered seeing skulls engraved
on the bronze chest. I looked at Illy and he nodded a tentacle and
spread two to say, I guessed, that yes, Benson-Carter had said som