'It is a net,' said Horseface, 'useful for the fishing of the universe.' Enid crinkled up her face, staring at what he called a net. It was a flimsy thing and it had no shape. 'Certainly,' she said, 'you would not go fishing the universe in so slight a thing as this.' 'Time means nothing to it,' said Horseface, 'nor does space. It is independent of both time and space except as it makes use of them.'

Perversity, she thought. Could that have been what happened to the human race - a willing perversity that set at naught all human values which had been so hard…

Boone gulped and swallowed. He spoke to The Hat. 'You said the Highway to Eternity?' That is not what I said. I said the Highway of Eternity. 'Small difference…

He stirred again, halfway between sleep and wakefulness, and he was not alone. Across the fire from him sat, or seemed to sit, a man wrapped in some all-envelo…