He awoke as from some misty, prolonged, vaguely disturbing dream, yet somehow he knew that what had happened and what was happening had a strange reality. It was not the kind of reality his disciplined mind would have accepted in the past, though his consciousness rejected the concept of present and past. This reality seemed to exist outside thought and apart from emotion.

There was the lingering physical sensation of having traveled infinite distances through unimaginable dimensions. There was, too, the sense of unthreatening mystery, of soft, overpowering greyness. This total greyness meant limitless peace, he seemed to know.

He knew his name. He spoke it aloud. The beautiful girl bending over him repeated it. Her skin was grey...