Gladia was in space again and once again Aurora could be made out as a globe. D.G. was busy elsewhere and the entire ship had about it a vague but pervasive air of emergency, as though it were on a battle footing, as though it were being pursued or expected pursuit. Gladia shook her head. She could think clearly; she felt well; but when her mind turned back to that time in the Institute, shortly after Amadiro had left her, a curiously pervasive unreality swept over her.
There was a gap in time. One moment she had been sitting on the couch, feeling sleepy; the next there were four robots and a woman in the room who had not been there before. She had fallen asleep, then, but there was no awareness, no memory, that she had done so. There was a gap of nonexistence.