, physically incapable of dealing with this fear.
His weakness cried out strange horrors; his strength was confused.

He continued, not knowing what else to do. The surface of that plain
was cracked and uneven---warm, and unbearably long. The cacophony of
human fears climbed and fell back, rising now as if engulfed in flame,
then chilled, despairing.

HUMAN FEAR. At last he understood. He felt the presence of other
minds so strongly that he wondered if Shannon were truly dead, and not
merely the emissary of human suffering and grief. For this, surely,
was an unearthly place of His world. The high ceiling, the infinite,
trackless waste. The heat. Words raced through his beleaguered body,
slowing, till with a dread he would not have thought possible..... The
voice of a weary, tortured old man, his spirit broken in the end---a
Jew, his lungs filled with poison---formed physically, undeniable, in
his ears.

"Inferno."

He stopped, as if a razor had cloven him in two. It was there before
him, all around. He could not go forward, or back. He was dying.
Yes, dying in that place, where the river of his dreams, fallen to a
trickle, had at last died into unconquerable sand. He stood frozen in
terror. To breathe was a pointless misery. There was
nothing---alone---in that hollow place but death.

He knew not where he got the strength, or desperation. He lifted the
first of his walking legs, moved it forward. It touched the ground, a
little farther ahead. He moved the next, and then the next. He
staggered forward, feeling a will such as he had never known hardening
out of his weakness and despair. He was terrified, in pain. Burning
with fever. But he moved.

With this action the resistance seemed to falter, the wailing of human
passions to subside. But only for a moment. They redoubled their
assault---the current against him was physical---but broke against his
stubborn movement like a wall of water against stone. He continued.
The sand of many hours flowed past him.

He was nearing the crater, now certain he would die. If only by his
death he could achieve for Shannon, and for the other..... He forced a
foreclaw to shackle the edge of the crater, looking down. Determined.
The dry heat of that place was unbearable; and still distance defied
him. A silver-white core, cruel mockery of the Carrier stone, glowed
at the center of the broken-rock pit. From within came the voices, the
fever, the Heat.