was it that when he shut his eyes
and allowed the bright sun to beat down on the lids through the cell
window he saw an image of the sun-browned maid, Ylia?

Could it be, he asked himself, wondering if somehow he were profaning
the memory of the mother he had never known, that Ylia stood not for
the past but for the present and the future, and that it was in the
present and the unknown future that Bram Forest must live and do his
life's work and perhaps perish, although he was motivated from the
past?

A guard brought food on a tray. The cell door clanged open, the tray
was delivered, the cell door clanged shut. The guard did not pay
particular attention to Bram Forest: he had been a docile enough
prisoner.

Ylia, he thought.

He knew he must escape next time the guard brought food.

* * * * *

Dr. Slonamn held up the bracelet with the metal disc on it and stared
curiously at the contraption. He was a psychologist, he could hardly
consider himself an expert on metallurgy. Still, he had never seen a
metal like that from which the disc had been fashioned. It seemed too
opaque for steel, too hard for silver. A steel and silver alloy, then?
But he had never heard of a steel and silver alloy.

He held it up to the light. Like a fly's many-faceted eye it threw
back manifold images of--himself. Somehow, it made him dizzy to gaze
at the images. He drew his eyes away and had an impulse to fling the
strange disc away across the room.

The sun was going down. He heard a clattering from the prison kitchen
as the evening meal was prepared. Tomorrow, he thought, should see the
completion of his work here. Another interview with the paranoid giant
who had brought the disc, perhaps. The disc fascinated him.

He looked at it again. He didn't want to, and recognized the strange
compulsion within himself. Then, before he quite realized it, he was
staring at his multiple image again. His senses swam. There was a
far-away rustling sound like--the words came unbidden to his mind from
a poem by Kipling--like the wind that blows between the worlds. He
gazed again at the disc. It seemed to draw him, as a magnet draws iron
filings. Now he wanted to fight it, wanted to fight with every ounce
of his strength. A wave of giddiness swept over him, leaving nausea in
its wake. He clutched at the prison-office desk for support. The
rustling grew louder.

He saw--or thought he saw--a girl, a lovely, sun-bronze