( Should not, or need not? He thinks the difference thin and increasingly more narrow, emaciated. There is a point past which rhetoric is, in agreement with the Lan principles, entirely wasteful and purposeless.

He starts at a slow step to walk the raw-edged, energy pouring periphery of the beacon, feeling out its residual power, any restraints past the initial guard. Nothing introduces itself. )

Too late. ( Isn't it? )