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But there was no fight. Hands lifted him up, while other hands hoisted Taggart less gently to his feet. The voice of a Vorn spoke inside his mind. “That was rash and needless. " Harlow turned and saw the tall leader beside him. He knew the man was speaking to him as he would have spoken before he returned through the Converter, and it dawned on Harlow that none of the recreated Vorn had spoken a word aloud, which was one reason for the weird silence in which all this had been done. The Vorn leader smiled.

No human figure now was visible by the Converter. But out of the upper beam sped a last radiant Vorn to join the hosts of others that swirled in the darkness. A dull red spark appeared in the side of the massive cement pedestal that held the Converter. It was not flame, but a force unleashed by whatever fusing device the Vorn had left. It spread, and devoured, and the supernal beam that had been a gateway to the infinite for thousands of years flickered and dimmed and went out. The hungry redness ate all the Converter, and it too went out, and all was dark.

I've hardly met any of them—only one, really, and there was one other I sensed a long way off. " The rest of Dundonald's thought was clear in his mind for Harlow to read. The thought was, I doubt very much if the Vorn will care. "Then we'll have to make them,” Harlow said. " Dundonald sighed mentally. ” He shot away. “Come on then. I'll take you to where I spoke with one of them. " Harlow cried. “Wait! ” said Dundonald. “Exert your will. By will the polarity of your new electronic body is changed, so that it can grip and ride the great magnetic tides.