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incoherently at him. Dom nodded, lost in a dream.
    The man in the blue robe stepped lightly towards them, and took his theatrical stance. Ig shrilled.
    Korodore lurched forward, raised the stripper in both hands, and gave a growl and dropped its smoking butt. In the same motion he flung himself towards the outstretched arm.
    The ball of non-light spun up above the blackened lawn and the landscape twisted. See-Why was a bright sun. In the painfully light sky it showed now as a darker speck.

3
    ‘Understanding is the first step towards control. We now understand probability.
    ‘If we control it every man will be a magician. Let us then hope that this will not come to pass. For our universe is a fragile house of atoms, held together by the weak mortar of cause and effect. One magician would be two too many.’
    Charles Sub-Lunar, Cry Continuum
     
    ‘The fish swims – vsss!
The bird flies – rsss!
The fungi-squirrel run – gsrss!
The wheel turns and
All is one.
    ‘I must scream yet I have no mouth.
I must run yet I have no feet.
I must die yet I have no life.
The wheel turns and
All is one.’
    Funeral song of the Deep Rocky region,
Five Islands, Phnobis.
     
    The sound of the sea. Breathe? But he could not breathe.
    It came and went like the surf. It was only a sound, but it carried strange harmonies – warmth, and softness.
    Dom floated somewhere on the breathing sea.
    A man appeared, dressed in the old brown robes of a Sadhimist adept garbed for the ceremonies of Hogswatchnight. The face was familiar. It was his own.
    ‘Don’t be so damn silly. I am your father.’
    ‘Hullo, Dad. Is it really you?’
    John Sabalos gestured aimlessly. ‘No, I am an extension of your own deep mind. Hasn’t Hrsh-Hgn taught you anything? Chel! Down all the stars, boy, you should be dead. So much for probability math, therefore.’
    ‘Dad, what’s happening to me?’
    The familiar face faded. ‘I don’t know – it’s your dream,’ was left hanging in the air.
    Hrsh-Hgn appeared, standing in front of the familiar faxboard.
    ‘In an infinite universe all things are possible, including the possibility that the universe does not exisssst,’ he purred. ‘Expand this theory, with diagramsss—’
    Dom heard himself say: ‘That is not a theory. That is a mere hypothesis.’
    ‘Ahh, beware of paradox!’ The phnobe shook a finger. ‘For once you have a paradox let loose in
    the universe you have a poiyt.’
    ‘Poiyt?’
    ‘And let uss consider …’
    Isaac appeared, doing a soft-shoe shuffle through the mists.
    ‘Goodness, are robots allowed in this dream? Or do they have to sit in the second-class dream at the back? Now here’s the plot, boss, see, really you are the hereditary chairman of Earth itself but because of a palace coup you were sent here—’
    ‘No,’ said Dom firmly. That wasn’t right.
    ‘No, you have this wild talent which is the result of generations of careful breeding and all you have to do is give the word and hordes will—’
    ‘Not me. Try the Infinity next door.’
    ‘No, well, the universe doesn’t really exist – we can’t hide this from you – except in your imagination, and so this secret organization called the Knights of Infinity, they—’
    ‘Try some other universe, robot.’
    ‘Well, okay, if you want it straight from the shoulder, you are not important at all but you happen to have this magic bracelet which was made by the God of the Universe and He wants it back and you have got to get together a few trusted friends, such as me, and travel many a weary light year to the searing fires of Rigel and—’
    ‘Uhuh.’
    ‘I was only trying to cheer you up, chief.’ The robot shed a tear of mercury. ‘We Freudian extensions of personality have feelings too, you know!’
    Dom .
    ‘Who are you?’
    Dom, can you hear me?
    ‘I can hear you. What are you?’
    Dom, if you can’t hear me, what can you see?
    See?
    He sensed a light above , tinted with green.
    Good, Dom, you are in