At the bottom he scrambled to his feet, launched himself to the next dunecrest in one jump.  
In the meantime, her mind thought of many tangential things, in detail, and she followed the internal paths of inquiry, seeking answers. Even obliterating the evermind on Earth would still leave complete copies of Omnius elsewhere in the Synchronized Worlds. Could thinking machines suffer such a thing as a psychological blow? On the scale of the Synchronized Worlds, a single planet did not seem a substantial enough target, and her concern made it difficult to focus on the calculations. Like sparks of heat lightning jumping from cloud to cloud, her thoughts skittered to new possibilities, fresh ideas.