Unendurable pain, indefinitely prolonged. His only escape from the nightmare had been his ability to wake. But now he was doomed to go on sleeping, sleeping and dreaming and knowing the infinite, implacable pain—

—for five hundred years!

Joha, who was part Venusian, dove easily and silently into the swamp lake. She swam to the other side and stood poised on the bank. She met them there. The green fish faces gazed at her with unblinking eyes and one of them said:

"It has been done, as you planned it, Joha?"

"It is done," she said softly. "For two years I prepared him for fulfillment of the dream. There is no escape for him now. The dream is planted too deeply. He will suffer torture greater than any he inflicted on our people. And he will suffer them for half a thousand of his years."

"Then your redemption is complete," said the little green fishman. "What you have done entitles you to enter our tribe again. Even though you are part Tellurian, you are again considered one of us. Come, my daughter. Shall we go back?"

Joha dropped down, bowed her head twice before him. "I am ready," she said.

 Prev. P 13/13