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Chapter 13

Harybdartt was no longer aware of the passage of time. Consciousness was only a blur now, a haze penetrating the lower levels of awareness. The breathing gases had become dank and heavy in his suit. His membranes barely fluttered in his neck; the fouled air collected in his body like sludge. His suit's power was failing; the last of the warning readers had flickered off; and now the heat was failing and he was passing into night, into the cold.

A memory flickered before his inner eyes: the enemy, its mind probe glowing, then the robot vanishing into space, leaving him alone to prepare; alone to review his life, his duties; alone to die.

The haze crowded in again. The struggle to stay alive was fading. Not much longer.

A dim sparkle in his thoughts glimmered through the fog: remembering the first encounter with the enemy, the robot looming before him, paralyzing him in its ray . . .

It was as though he were reliving the episode in his mind with a clarity of vision he had not possessed since the enemy had left. The force-field blazed, dazzling him. It was so real, he could almost feel the enemy gripping him now, gripping him with physical clamps around his body. He was too weak to resist. (Resist what—a dream, a hallucination?) He could feel objects being removed from his suit, and other objects being attached . . .

This had never happened; what was the remembering . . . ?

Or was this a memory . . . ?

There was a tug, and a shifting of weight, a sensation of acceleration. He tried to grope; he could not move, but neither could he feel the asteroid against his back. He gasped for air, but there was no fresh air to be had; his body was full of poison and his mind full of delusion . . . he was dying, and this now was the end. He was . . .

 . . . flying, floating . . .

      . . . the force-field twisting . . .

           . . . too late he felt the wrench into transient . . .

                 . . . as the cold and blackness of death overtook him.

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Framed