The sky was full of stars, and he was able to recognize many his grandfather had taught him to identify — Capella, Epsilon Cassiopeia, and the constellation of Perseus the Hero. He yawned and replaced the food in his pack. The temperature of the air was so agreeably warm — presumably because the ground had soaked up hours of sunlight — that he was tempted to sleep covered only by his cloak. Then it struck him that if he did that, he would have to use his pack for a pillow. It seemed more sensible to use the sleeping bag, which had a kind of pocket intended to accommodate a pillow, and rest his head on the folded cloak.
He fell asleep in the manner that had been taught him by the chameleon men — that is, he concentrated hard and maintained this concentration as he grew sleepy. The result was that he lowered himself into sleep as he might have lowered himself into a warm bath. As he did so, he had a sense of the presence of the chameleon men, and felt dreams swirling around him like a mist blown by a breeze. Even as he sank into sleep, a part of himself remained conscious.
Half an hour or so later, he was awakened by spots of rain on his face, and sleepily pulled the top of the sleeping bag over his head. Then, as the rain became heavier, he pulled up the zipper as far as it would go, to prevent the rain leaking inside. Soothed by the sound of raindrops on the waterproof fabric, he drifted back into sleep.
He was dreaming about the chameleon men. They were in their underground cave, and they were talking about him. That, he realized, was why he was dreaming about them; there was a link between their minds and his. But since he knew he was dreaming, then he must in some sense be awake. Where was he? Where was his sleeping body? He had forgotten where he left it.
Then the leader of the chameleon men spoke to him in their own symbolic language. His meaning was perfectly clear. He was saying: “Lie perfectly still.”
Moments later he was wide awake. He could still feel the presence of the chameleon men. He could also sense danger, and an awareness of the importance of not giving the slightest sign that he was awake.
The first thing he noticed was a curious and distinct smell that reminded him of the Delta: a blend of fish and rotting vegetation. Then he noticed that he could no longer feel the hard pressure of the ground underneath him. Instead, he might have been lying on the softest feather mattress in his palace. And both he and the mattress were floating through the air, as if transported on a flying carpet. He knew this because the waterproof flap was no longer covering his eyes, and he could see the lake glimmering in the moonlight, and recognize that he was moving toward it. Something — or someone — was carrying him with infinite gentleness, to prevent him from waking up. And he suddenly knew that his life depended on showing no sign that he was awake.
The curved fingers of his right hand were resting against his chest, and by moving the middle finger slightly, he could feel the slit at the top of his tunic. Since he had fallen asleep on his right side, the thought mirror had fallen down in this direction. With immense caution, he stretched the middle finger until it encountered the fine metal chain that held the mirror. Then he hooked the top of his finger into the chain and bent the joint until he was in contact with the thought mirror. A gentle movement of two fingers turned it over until the concave surface rested against his skin. Instantly, he felt the surge of power and wide-awakeness.
The increased attention induced by the mirror told him that he was being conveyed toward the lake at a speed of a few feet a minute. And the water still lay about a hundred yards ahead.
Now he knew that he would have to call on all his powers of focused attention if he was to escape with his life. But whereas this knowledge would normally have caused a certain nervous tension, it only increased his sense of self-control.
But what was carrying him? He did not dare to move his head, even slightly, to try to see what it was. But whatever it was, it did not possess the same telepathic ability as the spiders. A spider would have known long ago that he was wide awake.
Because the ground was sloping downward toward the lake, the waterproof flap fell open enough to allow Niall to see what was happening. He was about two feet above the ground, and the creature that was carrying him forward shone in the moonlight like a giant slug. But unlike a slug, it was not using the expansion and contraction of muscles to provide locomotive power. It seemed to be rolling forward, like a great mass of jelly.
Niall knew precisely what would happen if his slightest movement betrayed that he was not unconscious. He would instantly be absorbed into this huge cushion of slime and suffocated. This would have happened sooner, except that his body was enclosed in the sleeping bag. The slime-creature was unaccustomed to animals that could not be absorbed, yet could sense that, inside this waterproof cover, Niall was made of living flesh.
A moment later, a faint stir of breeze caused the waterproof flap to fall away from his eyes enough to be able to form an estimate of what was happening. The creature that was carrying him so silently and smoothly was transparent in the moonlight, and he could see the ground through its jellylike body.
Niall ignored what was happening, and the fact that he might be dead within a few minutes. Instead he focused his sense of interest until he felt himself sinking into the relaxation most animals achieve on the point of sleep. Using the trick taught him by the chameleon men, he went beyond this level to the point of deep relaxation, the level accepted by the chameleon men as a natural limit — indeed, which is a natural limit, in the sense that it allows simple organisms to survive temperatures close to absolute zero. Again, Niall felt his metabolic processes become static as his heartbeat sank to a point that no medical instrument could have detected.
There followed the strange sense of swimming down through total darkness. He no longer felt the slightest concern about what was happening to his body as the slime-creature conveyed it toward the lake; this now seemed absurdly unimportant. Instead, his mind was entirely concerned with detecting the first sign of the fragmentary energy that flickered in the darkness. Moments later, he felt it all around him, like a million bubbles. As that happened, he began absorbing it, sucking it into himself, and experiencing a sense of pure joy.
As before, this soon became almost too much to bear. Sheer vitality threatened to destroy the relaxation, and like a swimmer whose lungs are bursting, Niall allowed himself to be drawn back into present awareness.
The slime-creature sensed this increase in his vitality, and began to move faster, probably looking forward to its anticipated meal. But Niall was aware that his own vitality — and therefore his will — was far stronger than that of this absurd mass of semiconscious protoplasm. With deliberate concentration, he took over the instinctive will that organized these cells, and sent out the command to halt. It took several seconds before it responded, and Niall guessed that this was because it possessed no unifying control center, and the order had to be diffused to all its cells. The edge of the water was less than a dozen yards away when it finally came to a stop.
He swung his legs sideways, as if dismounting a horse, and encumbered by the sleeping bag, landed awkwardly on his feet. He unzipped the bag and stepped out of it. The slimy surface of the jelly reflected the moonlight, and seemed to be in continuous motion, like running water. Niall was deeply curious. How could an organism as simple as this — little more, after all, than animated frog spawn — behave as if it possessed muscles and some kind of central nervous system? Niall sent out a command for it to move in the opposite direction, away from the water. This took a far greater effort of concentration than merely ordering it to halt, since the hunger in its cells, which Niall could actually feel as a discomfort in his own stomach, pulled it toward the lake. But the force of his will finally compelled it to obey.
As it moved, he watched carefully what happened, trying to fathom the secret of its locomotion. The whole transparent mass rolled in the direction he commanded, with no sign of how this was done. He had half expected it to reach out with some kind of pseudopodia, but in fact it seemed to move as a whole, each part touching the ground in turn on the same principle as a wheel.
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