FOLLOW

dataspace,

hardly tell now: was it trying to capture him or kill him?
He cried out with a flinty rage, /You got Charlie, you bastard, but you won't get me!/ And he shot faster down into the icecore.
The fire, rippling with darkness, roared after him.

* * *

Antares saw Bandicut vanish, but not before reacting to her cry. She had done some good, perhaps. He appeared to be moving to evade the shadow before he vanished. She could make little sense of what was happening. The visible landscape here was churning with metamorphosis, and the only thing she understood with certainty was the smell of danger and fear. Was Bandicut fighting for his life against the boojum, trapped in a pocket somewhere in this murky inner world?
She wished she could do more. She shouted again, with no idea if he could hear her: /JOHN BANDICUT, DON'T SURRENDER TO IT! YOU MUST NOT GIVE IN!/ There was no return echo, just the reverberating throb of danger. But at least she could be a beacon to the fleeing Bandicut; maybe she could show him the way to safety.
As she began to cry out once more, she was startled by a movement of dark, flitting shapes, from somewhere behind her—flying past like dusk-hornets, and on down into the ever-changing confusion. She caught her breath, focused her thoughts, and shouted, /IT'S ANTARES, BANDIE! I'M ON THE OUTSIDE! HOLD ONTO MY PRESENCE! FOLLOW MY VOICE OUT!/ And she let down her own defenses just a little, and strained to make an empathic connection.

* * *

As he skidded away from the ring of fire, he heard that cry again, as if from another world, leaking through the phase-space boundary. /Follow i