Wall Around a Star

FOURTEEN

And now I wake to desperate danger.

Unholy intruders are stumbling on HIS most precious secrets. They are violating the forbidden spaces, attempting to destroy HIS masterwork, in which HE lives, as HE must live forever.

There are urgent things to be done. Though the first clumsy desecrations have failed to end HIS eternal being, as all others in the past have failed, grave damage has been done. Graver danger still exists. I summon the clustered servants that cling to the inner shell and dispatch them to the scene. They are ready. They have rested and fed and grown fat in the flood of energy from the central source. For centuries of centuries of centuries they have been ready to protect and repair HIS everlasting body, and they are eager.

I trace the star-girdling rings for further damage and further danger. I find HIS great creation still supported by its shells of superatomic rings. No ring is broken. None must ever be, for there even HE is vulnerable.

I find no breaks. As yet the shell is safe.

The driving-mouths at the poles are safe. They continue to slow us for entrance into the new galaxy and they are ready to maneuver us when the time is here.

The billion clones are safe, in their liquid-helium baths.

I am safe, in spite of the intruders within my fabric, for they do not even know I exist.

And HE is yet safe.

I need not wake HIM yet. But soon.

Now I long for the moment of HIS awakening because my fear of him is drowned in my dutiful concern for the eternal wonder of HIS plan. HE will end all danger when HIS holy moment comes. When every mind has surren­dered to HIM, even every parasite within HIS eternal being and every crawling thing in the galaxy ahead, none will remain free to profane HIS ultimate plan.

That time is near. And when it comes—

When it comes there will be no safety for anyone, any­where, except the ultimate terminal safety of surrender to HIM.