don't know shit. But they know.' '
As Troy finished the tale, Carol came over beside him and pulled out two handfuls of tiny fragments from the final drawer. They were a little sticky to the touch. She shook them off her hands and they miraculously flew around the room and coalesced into the ring systems of Saturn and Uranus. She looked at Troy in awe.
'Does that bizarre story have a point?' Carol asked. 'I must admit that I am amazed at how nonchalant you are about this whole damn thing. For myself, I'm just about ready to freak out. Completely.'
Troy pointed at the miniature planets floating in the air. 'What we are seeing has no explanation in terms of our experience. We've either died together or transferred to a new dimension or someone is playing mind games with us.' He smiled at Carol. 'If you must know, angel, I'm scared absolutely shitless. But like that old stoned hippie, I keep telling myself, They know.' Somehow it gives me comfort.'
They heard a soft sliding sound and a shaft of bright light burst into the room from an opening that was forming between two panels, one brown and one white, just to the right of the exit. Carol recoiled automatically and covered her eyes for an instant. Troy also jumped back at first, but then shaded his eyes with his hands and watched. The panels continued to slide until an opening about two feet wide had developed. The room was beginning to fill with light. Troy saw a great illuminated ball coming slowly through the opening. 'Here comes the Sun Doot-un-Doo-Doo Doo ... Here comes the Sun,' he sang anxiously, 'And I say ... it's all right ...' He hummed a few more bars of the song as Carol opened her eyes.
'Jesus,' she said. The bright orb, the size of a giant beach ball, lifted itself into its proper place in the orrery and flooded the entire room with its radiance. The spinning, orbiting planets shone with reflected light from their sides facing the Sun. Carol stood transfixed, silent tears running down her face. She could not speak or move. She was completely overwhelmed.
Troy was also frightened, but not yet so much that his ability to function was impaired. However, a moment later he saw something in the exit that sent a bolt of terror through his system. His heart surged into overdrive as he blinked and then squinted, making certain his mind was not playing tricks on him as he looked just around the bright light of the model Sun. Instinctively, he turned to protect Carol and shielded her from what he had just seen.
'Don't look now,' he whispered, 'but we have a visitor.'
'What?' said Carol, confused and still stunned.
Troy held her by the arms and they moved together several steps to the right. He looked over his own shoulder and saw the thing again.
'Over by the exit,' he said, turning around, unable any longer to hide his panic.
Carol's eyes indicated that she had found the source of Troy's terror. She had no idea what it was, but she could see that it was large, clearly threatening, and absolutely different from anything that she had ever seen or imagined. It had also moved into the room. She heard Troy's frantic, incoherent shouts, but their meaning didn't register. She looked at the thing again and her mind balked. She opened her mouth to scream. Nothing came out at first. She dropped to her knees on the floor. She heard the sound of screams in her ear, but they seemed far, far away. Her brain was sending a message that said, You're screaming,' but for some reason it didn't seem possible. It had to be someone else.
The thing was coming toward her Its main body was about eight feet tall at that moment, but it was continually changing its shape and size as it undulated across the room. Whatever it was, Troy and Carol could see into it and even through parts of its structure. A transparent external boundary membrane was wrapped around a permanently seething set of mostly clear fluid matter that ebbed and flowed with each movement. The thing moved like an amoeba, matter simply heading in the right direction, but with astonishing speed. Tiny black dots were scattered just behind all its external surfaces, darting in all directions, apparently supervising the continuous reconfigurations that gave it motion. A half dozen chunks of grayish, opaque matter, objects a foot or so