and faded from the sky.

"I can take you now. It is not far, and the Masters are waiting. I have
warned you. If, after that warning, you still ask to stay, they will
grant your wish. It needed only your free choice. I am glad you have
chosen, but shock treatment is a dangerous chance. Are you sure you love
me--enough?"

"Songeen!" his mind pleaded. "Wait!"

She heard his wordless cry, and waited, opening the glowing, pure
citadel of her thoughts to him. She gave no answer in words or glowing
thought symbols. She waited.

"No, I haven't changed my mind. I want to stay. Maybe I can learn to
like your world. I want the decontamination--the shock treatment. I'm
scared, but I want it, no matter how it hurts. I want to stay here--but
not if you're not here. I want to be with you--Hell, Venus, or even
Callisto--I want to go with you. I love you. If my love is part of my
madness, don't cure me. I haven't asked you, but I'd like to know. Do
you love me?"

Songeen was silent. In the glittering forest of crystalline tree forms,
jeweled birds sang wild riots of bubbling, bursting notes. Darkness
gathered swiftly in the dense air.

"Didn't you know?" Songeen chimed, matching the bird-notes. "Our names
are already enrolled in the Great Book. It was custom here, our mating
rite. It was the only way I could bring you. I did not tell you,
because--"

She stopped, then continued. "Because I had to be sure of you. Because I
wanted you to have free choice. Now you must share all my tasks, my
responsibilities. Before, the task was mine alone. Now we must share it.
You and I are selected--"

"Selected for what?" Newlin broke in.

He could not see her for thick darkness. But he sensed eery tension of
movement, and emotion flowed to him from her mind.

"For the great task, the last and greatest of all. We must go back
together. To Hell. To the system you sprang from. It is for us to
release to them the ultimate weapon. The deadline is close, as I told
you. Other races grow desperate, now that your system's isolation is
breaking down. Pressure for interstellar expansion is extreme on all of
Sol's planets. The technicians work full time at the problems, and they
will solve it, soon. We have until then, to kill or cure the patient.

"Other powers and weapons have been released to them in the hope that
mounting responsibility would bring sanity. Atomic power was turned into
dangerous toys, implements of murder. We gave them knowledg