bright and liberating as I sit here at the center of the great silence.Perhaps I shall see visions. Already I hear voices. Are there ghosts inDeadland? No, there was never anything here to be ghosted. Except perhapsfor the little biped. Why did it cross Deadland, I wonder? Why did it headfor the center of destruction rather than away, as its fellows did? I shallnever know. Unless perhaps I have a vision. I think it is time to suit upand take a walk. The polar icecaps are heavier. The glaciation has begun.Soon, soon things will be better. Soon the silence will end, I hope. Iwonder, though, whether silence is not the true state of affairs in theuniverse, our little noises serving only to accentuate it, like a speck ofblack on a field of blue. Everything was once silence and will be soagain--is now, perhaps. Will I ever hear real sounds, or only sounds out ofthe silence? Sanza is singing again. I wish I could wake her up now, to walkwith me, out there. It is beginning to snow."

Jarry awakened again on the eve of the millennium.

Sanza smiled and took his hand in hers and stoked it, as he explainedwhy he had let her sleep, as he apologized.

"Of course I'm not angry," she said, "considering I did the same thingto you last cycle."

Jarry stared up at her and felt the understanding begin.

"I'll not do it again," she said, "and I know you couldn't. Thealoneness is almost unbearable."

"Yes," he replied.

"They warmed us both alive last time. I came around first and told themto put you back to sleep. I was angry then, when I found out what you haddone. But I got over it quickly, so often did I wish you were there."

"We will stay together," said Jarry.

"Yes, always."

They took a flier from the cavern of sleep to the Worldchangeinstallation at Deadland, where they relieved the other attendants and moved