13.
Through the darkness, spangled with stars, the great wheel spins toward our world, then....
Flash! Crashing and twisting of metal and plastic. Screaming of death, silent in the sudden vaccuum of space... the ship that safely crossed the vast gulf between the stars, is ripped into a thousand pieces on the threshold of our world, and....
I wake sweating, twisted in Jorak's sheets. He is in the other room, quietly strumming a guitar. I go to him, sit by the fire.
14.
There are circles, spinning in darkness. I cannot see them, but I know they are there. A door opens and I am blinded by the brilliance of the light.
"Please come this way, Doctor Martin."
Why is he calling me by my first name? "Who are you?" I ask, following through the door into the sharp, bright space.
"I am Quanta."
He shuts the door behind us, leaning around me. But he doesn't straighten up. He continues to bend, twisting all the way about me, until his hands and arms stretch toward his ankles. I gasp. He smiles and holds his feet, rising from the floor, spinning around me. He is the circle spinning in darkness. But now he is in the light, and I know him.
"At superconductive temperatures, barely a zillionth of a degree above absolute zero, we act as one massive particle, one enormous quanta composed from billions and billions of separate atoms joined together into a coherent, instantaneous mass... all you need to do, Dr. Martin, is capture that one rare photon that emerges as we fall into this coherent state, and then isolate the gravitons that bind us to the surface of this world, and then...you will become death, the destroyer of worlds...."
I wake, sweating again, shivering. This time Jorak is in bed beside me. I know he is not asleep. I wish I could tell him what I have done... I....
He stirs, turns toward me. "You've had another nightmare, Marty?"
"Yes."
"Come here."
He takes me in his arms. Begins to sing softly to me. Oh yes. That helps. The terror fades. Or rather, I shove it away from me. Far, far away. Stay away. It's not so bad that just a ship might be destroyed, but... if you fire that damn thing at another planet....
No. I will not think it. I will not think it.