Yet when they touched their contact was not unpleasant.

They were like flexible strands of glass; their smooth tips questioned us, passing through our hair, searching our faces, writhing over our clothing.
There was a pulse in the great clipped rose, a rhythmic throbbing of vermilion fire that ran into it from the angled veins, beat through the latticed nucleus and throbbed back whence it had come.

The huge, high square of scarlet and yellow was liquid flame; the diamond organs beneath it seemed to smoke, to send out swirls of orange red vapor.
Holding us so the Keeper studied us.
The rhythm of the square rose, became the rhythm of my own mind.

But here was none of the vast, serene and elemental calm that Ruth had described as emanating from the Metal Emperor.

Powerful it was, without doubt, but in it were undertones of rage, of impatience, overtones of revolt, something incomplete and struggling.