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."• • •They went down to the end of the grounds, past the house where Ezd Malion and his wife lived, and on to the banks of the lake.The sun was out that morning; it was chilly, blustery, refreshing.They followed narrow trails used more often by animals than by people.It was over an hour before they turned back for lunch.Early in the afternoon then, Telzey went into the study and closed the door.She emerged four hours later.Trigger regarded her with some concern."You look pretty worn out!""I am pretty worn out," Telzey acknowledged."It was hard work.Let's go have some coffee, and I'll tell you."She'd picked up her symbol with no trouble--a good sign.She settled her attention on it, and waited.There'd been changes, she decided presently.It was as if a kind of life were seeping into the symbol, accumulating there.Another good sign.No need to push it now; she was moving in the right direction.That might have gone on about an hour.Physically Telzey was feeling a little uncomfortable by then, which again could be counted, technically, a good sign, though she didn't like it.There was a frequent shivering in her skin, moments when breathing seemed difficult, other manifestations of apprehension.What it meant was that she was getting close.Then there was an instant when she wasn't close, but there.Or it was there.The symbol faded as what had been behind it came slowly through.This was no visualization, but reality as sensed by psi.It was the darkness, the cold, in the false emptiness.It simmered with silent power.It was eminently forbidding.It was there--then it wasn't there.It seemed to have become nonexistent.But she needed no symbols to return to it now.What she had contacted, she could contact again.It was in her memory; and memory was a link.She could draw herself back to it.She did, quickly lost it once more.Now there were two links.All she needed was patience.Any feeling of passing time, all awareness of the room about her, of the chair in which she sat, even of her body, was gone.She was mind, in the universe of mind where she moved and searched, tracing the thing she had contacted, finding it, establishing new connections between herself and it.She lost it again and again, but each time it was easier to find, less difficult to hold.It was a great fish, and she a tiny fisherman, not fastening the fish to herself, but herself to the fish.Finally, the connection was stable, unchanging.When she was sure of that, she broke it.She could resume it whenever she chose.At that point, she became conscious of the other reality, of her physical self and her surroundings.And--once more--of having uninvited company.This time, she ignored the presence.It faded quietly from her awareness as she opened her eyes, sat up in the armchair."I think we're almost there," she told Trigger."The thing's a structure, a psi structure.It's what the Service xenos found and tried to probe.And I can believe it bounced them--it's really charged up!""You're going to try to probe it?" Trigger asked.Telzey nodded."I'll have to.There's been no mind trace of the Siren, so that structure must act as its shield.I'll have to try to work through it.How, I won't know till I find out what it's like." She was silent a moment."If it bounces me, too, I don't know what else we can do," she said."But we'll start worrying about that then.I do have very good shields.And if I can get one solid contact with the Siren mind, we may have the problem solved.Unless they're basically murderous, of course.But I agree with you that they don't really seem to be that."There were other factors involved.But that was still nothing to talk to Trigger about."So everything's set up for the probe now," Telzey concluded."Next time I'll try it.But I want to be a lot fresher for that, so it won't be tonight.We'll see how I feel tomorrow."• • •They turned in early.Telzey fell into sleep at once like drifting deep, deep down through a cool dark quiet sea.Some time later then, she found herself standing in the Siren's container.It wasn't exactly the container, though there was a shadowy indication of its walls in the distance.A kind of cold desert stretched out about her, and she stood at the base of the Siren.A Siren which twisted enormously up into an icy sky, gigantic, higher than a mountain, huge limbs writhing.A noise like growing thunder was in the air; the desert sand shook under her, and her feet were rooted immovably in the sand.Then she saw that the Siren was tilting, falling toward her, would crush her.She heard herself screaming in terror.She awoke
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