"N-neither. You could not grasp the concept. Let me go. Please!" "Where?" Vogel prodded. "Another dimension?" "You would call it that," the alien whispered. Hope brightened his face. "You want something? Wealth? Power?" It was the way he said the words, like a white trader offering his aborigine captors glass beads to set him free. Vogel nodded toward the circuit. "That hookup—you tap the gravitational field direct? Cosmic rays?" "Your planet's magnet force lines. Look, I'll leave you the schematic diagram. It's simple, really. You can use it to transmute—" He babbled on with a heartbreaking eagerness, and Vogel listened. "In my own world," said Amenth brokenly, "I am a moron. A criminal moron. Once, out of a childish malice, I destroyed beauty. One of the singing crystals." He shuddered. "I was punished. They sent me here—to the snake pit. Sentence for felony. This—" he indicated the helmet—"would have fused three seconds after I used it. So, incidentally, would this entire shop. I had no time to construct a feedback dispersion." "Tell me about your world," Vogel said. Amenth told him. Vogel's breath hissed softly between his teeth. All his life an unformed vision had tormented him, driven him toward perfection. Abruptly the vision was reality. He smiled, moved forward. "You shouldn't have told me." Amenth saw the intent in his eyes and started to beg. Vogel clipped him behind the ear. He put the helmet on, gingerly. The electrodes tingled against his temple and his grin was wry as he thought of Alice. Then he depressed the stud. Vogel sobbed. olor blinded him, rainbows blared in sweet, sparkling thunder. He whimpered, covering his eyes. The music drowned him in a fugue of weeping delight. Slowly he raised his head. He stood ankle-deep in gold crystals that stretched out forever in a splendid sea of flame. The crystals sang softly, achingly, to a silver sun in an emerald sky. A grove of blue needle trees tinkled in ecstasy on his left. And beyond those trees.... The city sang.
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