"That's better," a voice seemed to be saying to him a bit later. "Seems to beworking fine."

"Who -- What are you?" Jeremy asked.

"I'm a Fleep," came the answer. "I'm that flickering patch of light you werewondering about a while back."

"You live around here?"

"I have for a long while, Jeremy. It's easy if you're an energy being with a lotof psi powers."

"That's how we're conversing?"

"Yes. I installed a telepathic function in your mind while I had youunconscious."

"Why aren't I being stretched into miles of spaghetti right now?"

"I created an antigravity field between you and the black hole. They cancel."

"Why'd you help me?"

"It's good to have someone new to talk to. Sometimes I get bored with my fellowFleep."

"Oh, there's a whole colony of you?"

"Sure. This is a great place to study physics, and we're all into suchpursuits."

"It doesn't seem an environment where life would develop."

"True. We were once a race of material beings but we were sufficiently evolvedthat when we saw our sun was going to go supernova we elected to transformourselves into this state and study it rather than flee. In fact, that blackhole used to be our sun. Makes a great lab. Come on, I'll show you. You can seemore than you used to because I fiddled with your senses, too. I increased theirrange. For one thing, you should be able to detect a halo of Hawking radiationabove the event horizon."

"Yes. Lavender, violet, purple... . It's rather lovely. If I kept going andpassed through the event horizon would my image really be captured thereforever? Could I come back and see myself frozen at that moment?"

"Yes, and no. Yes, you would clutter up the view with your arrested light. No,you couldn't come back and see yourself doing it. There's no way out once you goin."

"I phrased it poorly. Say, if there are other Fleep, there must be something