I found
Fion only 3 meters from the far end of the crack. She was hung up there
with her knees slightly flexed, her tunic caught on a spine of rock at
her shoulders. She was unconscious but alive. I made certain of that pressing
my fingers to her neck as I reached her. She roused as I freed her with
a rough wrench ripping the fabric. She slumped into me, then pulled away
sensing me in the darkness. "She is in there, the Progenitor," she rasped.
"I
know." I began to tug at her, drawing her along through the crack.
"Get
her."
"You
1st."
"No!"
She
attempted to struggle against me but her actions made her lose consciousness
again as I knew they would. I concentrated on getting her out.
My
head roared with its angry difference. I knew the changes racing through
the massive block of planetary rock into which we had penetrated. They
were not cracks but lines of difference and it was the difference in my
head which was allowing me to sense this new dimension for it was a thing
for which I had no words and scarcely the ability to conceive. Alone, without
the difference I had acquired I could not have conceived it but only fruitlessly
conjectured in vague extrapolations beyond more than my knowledge and experience:
beyond my ability. And beyond that of any of my species. I would have been
left to guess at what this message was and at the nature of this information.