“I have to do it, Tom. If you won’t help me, I’ll find someone who will. Probably someone less competent and reliable than you.”

“Why do you have to do it? Give me one good reason.”

“You know why, if you think about it.” Drake spoke slowly, coaxingly. “For Ana’s sake. Unless I go on ahead, they may never choose to wake her. She could be one of the last on their list. You and I know her for what she really is, a unique and marvelous woman. But what will the records show? A singer, still not as famous as she would have been, who died young of a devastating disease. I’ve had time to prepare, I’m sure that they will wake me. And it’s an advantage that I’m in good health, because there will be no reason to delay my revival on medical grounds. As soon as I am sure that they have a cure for what killed Ana, I can wake her. We’ll start over, the two of us.”

Tom Lambert’s cheeks had gone from fiery red to pale. “We have to talk about this some more, Drake. The whole idea is crazy. Did you really mean what you said, that if I won’t help you will go to someone else?”

“Look at me, Tom. Tell me if you think that I mean it.”

Lambert looked. He did not speak again; but his hands slowly came up to cover his eyes.

It took six days of solid argument, another seven to make final preparations. Drake Merlin and Tom Lambert drove together to Second Chance.

Drake took a long last look out of the window at the wind-blown trees and the cloudy sky, then climbed slowly into the thermal tank.

Tom injected the Asfanil.

Drake decided that the easy part was ending. That the hard part, if there was another part, was about to begin.

A few seconds later the long fall began, dropping him steadily down the longest descent that a human can ever make.

Down, down, down.

All the way down, to two degrees absolute; colder than the coldest hell ever conceived by Dante.