The archaeologist Anson Hunter plummeted, tumbling uncontrollably into darkness.
Was it a tomb shaft he was plunging down, he thought, feeling the darkness rip past his body?
Yet instead
of sliding walls of stone, he flew down a pit of glowing green perspective
lines that converged at the point of infinity.
He saw a
woman, depicted in graphic green mesh-lines of light, watching him drop.
The strands
of her hair were like strings of binary computer code, a rainfall of green ones
and zeroes and her Egyptian eyes were bright points of light.
When
he hit bottom, a place where the darkness coalesced into crushing density, even
his mind went dark,
After
an eternity, he opened his eyes.
He
was seeing stars.
But
they were not stars in a night sky, instead they were leopard skin spots on a tight
body gown worn by the ancient Egyptian goddess Seshat, Mistress of Knowledge. The
spots transformed into stars and then into electronic green spangles against a
darker green sky and in her headband appeared a crowning star with seven
brilliant points and a downturned crescent above it.
He
was either dead or had entered her realm.
Seshat spoke in a thrilling
whisper that made his body quiver. It was the voice of the infinite, yet was as
gentle and fluttering in his ears as a breeze...
