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their burden of knowledge as an offering to the whole. Our entire physical existence is merely that
process of assimilation, our mission for the group soul. We have no better purpose than to learn all we
can, for that knowledge is all that we are capable of carrying with us to the Viscous Circle. Our only
wrong-ness, our only error, is the failure to garner the best experience we are able: that which will
enrich the soul."
She paused to make sure Rondl was assimilating all this. He slid up the sunbeam to flash to her. "I am
receiving."
"Did I heat up your lens?"
"You warmed it pleasantly."
Her magnetism intensified momentarily with pleasure. "Does it make sense to you, the Viscous
Circle?"
"Seems like Nirvana," he flashed.
"Like what?"
He seemed to have produced another alien concept. "Like an ideal reunion after disbanding."
"Oh, yes, that's it!" She resumed her broadcast position and he slid back downbeam. "When I was
rejected by the Band I loved, I no longer wanted to gain new experience, but wasn't sure I had
amassed enough to be worthy of return to the Soul, the great Circle. So I did not disband, exactly; I
flew into the region of tempests. If the Viscous Circle wanted me, it would let me disband then; if not,
it would arrange to leave me in fragmentary state, doomed to live separately for some time longer.
Yet when it seemed the Circle was indeed ready to take me, I suffered uncertainty and was afraid.
Somehow I wanted to cling to substance, unpleasant as it was. I fell-and you are conversant with the
rest."
Somehow, as she flashed, Rondl absorbed the larger concept. There was a gigantic and beautiful
imagery associated with the Nirvana soul. The Viscous Circle as Cirl envisioned it was a tremendous
swirl of color, perhaps as big as the universe, turning quickly at the center, slowly at the fringe, so that
its internal structure was constantly charging while its external torus shape remained constant. Of
course it was shaped like a Band; the gods of all creatures resembled those who believed in them-
except that this god was not rigid, but fluid, viscous-beautifully so. From it tiny sparks of
consciousness radiated, as though flung out by centrifugal force: the individual flakes of aura, to
animate living, solid Bands. To it other sparks, or embers, returned, gratefully: the tired lives of
disbanded individuals, heavy with their burdens of experience and the rigors of separate existence.
She paused again. Rondl shifted around so that he could reestablish the dialogue, using the light from
Dazzle. "No, my lens is not heating uncomfortably," he informed her before she asked. "I take
pleasure in receiving your beam."
"I take pleasure in your pleasure," she returned. "I do love to communicate."
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"And you do it well."
She seemed almost to glow with her own light.
"So you believe there is no death," he continued after a moment. "Merely the release of individual
auras to the Viscous Circle."
"Of course. Don't you?"
Rondl considered. "No, I don't. I don't know why, since I have no basis for belief or disbelief, but I
find I can't believe in a nonphysical consciousness. It has to be a myth. But I admit it is a pretty
concept."
"It is reality!" she flashed, dismayed by his doubt. "Everyone knows! How could you ever disband if
you did not believe in the Viscous Circle?"
How indeed! Rondl certainly did not want to disband. "How can consciousness exist without physical
substance?" he flashed. "There can be no organization, no mind. Death to the body must mean
dissipation of the aura it houses, the soul. It cannot be otherwise."
"You poor creature!" she returned. "How horrible to be thus deluded!"
She felt sorry for his disbelief! "I'm not sure which of us has the delusion-"
"I must labor ever so much to get you well again!" she flashed warmly.
Rondl realized that it was pointless to argue further. "As you wish."
"Of course I wish! How lonely your life must be! And no wonder you feared to let me disband. You
thought I was erring!"
That was it exactly. "At any rate, there is much to be appreciated in the physical existence. We must
live for the present-me because I know there is no other life, you because you believe you are
amassing information for the eventual benefit of your Viscous Circle."
"I must make you see the error of your nonbelief!" she insisted. "It is mooted that those who
disbelieve are not welcomed back to the Viscous Circle, and that is a fate too horrible to be
contemplated. I must reason with you, show you-"
"You are welcome to try," Rondl agreed, beginning to appreciate a quality in her that might have
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