Everyone reported the same experience: human, Hanni, Castigar, even the cyborg intelligences of the Hivers. The illusion was that you shared the vastness with something. That it became aware of you and came closer, from outside the ship to inside, from inside to lurking in the next room. From the next room to standing at your very shoulder. And the one key characteristic of this presence that everyone imagined was that it was intolerable. It represented the worst, absolutely unabideable thing for any given observer. When it finally caught up and was there, breathing on your neck, darkening the
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