Yes.
Thank God. Light, yes! Thank any god that might ever have existed!
He was at the end of the Tunnel! He was coming back to the station! It must be. Yes. Yes. His heartbeat, which had become a panicky thunder, was starting to return to normal. His eyes, adjusting now to the return of normal conditions, began to focus on familiar things, blessed things, the stanchions, the platform, the little window in the control booth- Cubello, Kelaritan, watching him.
He felt ashamed now of his cowardice. Pull yourself together, Sheerin. It wasn 't so bad, really. You 're all right. You aren 't lying in the bottom of the car sucking your thumb and whimpering. It was scary, it was terrifying, but it didn 't destroy you-it wasn 't actually anything you couldn 't handle- "Here we go. Give us your hand, Doctor. Up-up-"
They hauled him to a standing position and steadied him as he clambered out of the car. Sheerin sucked breath deep down into his lungs. He ran his hand across his forehead, wiping away the streaming perspiration.
"The little abort switch," he murmured. "I seem to have lost it somewhere-"
"How are you, Doctor?" Kelaritan asked. "How was it?"
Sheerin teetered. The hospital director caught him by the arm, steadying him, but Sheerin indignantly brushed him away. He wasn't going to let them think that those few minutes in the Tunnel had gotten to him.
But he couldn't deny that he had been affected. Try as he might, there was no way to hide that. Not even from himself.
No force in the world could ever get him to take a second trip through that Tunnel, he realized.
"Doctor? Doctor?"
"I'm-all-right-" he said thickly.
"He says he's all right," came the lawyer's voice. "Stand back. Let him alone."
"His legs are wobbling," Kelaritan said. "He's going to fall."
"No," Sheerin said. "Not a chance. I'm fine, I tell you!"
He lurched and staggered, regained his balance, lurche again. Sweat poured from every pore he had. He glanced ove his shoulder, saw the mouth of the Tunnel, and shudderec Turning away from that dark cave, he pulled his shoulders u high, as if he would have liked to hide his face between then
"Doctor?" Kelaritan said doubtfully.
No use pretending. This was foolishness, this vain and stut born attempt at heroism. Let them think he was a coward. L them think anything. Those fifteen minutes had been the wor5 nightmare of his life. The impact of it was still sinking in, an sinking in, and sinking in.
"It was-powerful stuff," he said. "Very powerful. Very di~ turbing."
"But you're basically all right, isn't that so?" the lawyer sai eagerly "A little shaken, yes Who wouldn't be, going mt Darkness~ But basically okay As we knew you'd be It's only few, a very few, who undergo any sort of harmful-"
"No," Sheerin said The lawyer's face was like that of a grir ning gargoyle in front of him Like the face of a demon H couldn't bear the sight of it But a good dose of the truth woul exorcise the demon No need to be diplomatic, Sheen thought Not when talking with demons -"It's impossible fc anyone to go through that thing without being at grave risi I'm certain of it now. Even the strongest psyche will take terrible battering, and the weak ones will simply crumble I you open that ride again, you'll have every mental hospital 1 four provinces full up within six months"
"On the contrary, Doctor-"
"Don't 'on the contrary' me! Have you been in the Tunne Cubell& No, I didn't think so But I have You're paying fc my professional opinion: you might as well have it right no~ The Tunnel's deadly. It's a simple matter of human natun
Darkness is more than most of us can handle, and that's nevc going to change, so long as we've got a sun left burning in th sky. Shut the Tunnel down for good, Cubello! In the name c sanity, man, shut the thing down! Shut it down!"
Parking his motor scooter in the faculty lot just below the Observatory dome, Beenay went jogging quickly up the footpath that led to the main entrance of the huge building. As he began to ascend the wide stone steps of the entranceway itself he was startled to hear someone calling his name from above.
"Beenay! So you are here after all."
The astronomer looked up. The tall, heavyset, powerful figure of his friend Theremon 762 of the Saro City Chronicle stood framed in the great door of the Observatory.
"Theremon? Were you