Now And Forever Part 16

The captain spoke again. "Away! I go to redeem your son. G.o.d help you, Captain."

The Rachel's captain, voice fading, said, "G.o.d forgive you, master of the Cetus 7."

And the recording went dead. We five looked at each other, stung by the exchange. I said, "So the Rachel, mourning her lost children, fell away and we move toward what, annihilation?"

My companions looked away, uneasily.

Quell spoke. "Mr. Redleigh, you sent for us?"

Distantly, an airlock door opened and somewhere, above, out of sight, we felt the captain's strange magnetic tread.

Downs looked upward and said, "Is it about him?"

"Him, and more," said Redleigh. "About clouds of old radio time that spoke in tongues, which we let pa.s.s. Fellow s.p.a.cefarers travel-weary and lonely. Priest s.h.i.+ps we refuse to rescue. Jobs left undone-"

Downs cut in. "But, sir, the captain has told us that this comet is our job."

"Well, then," said Redleigh, "here are the captain's charts. Leviathan will strike Earth, yes?"

"Yes," we all agreed. "Why, of course, yes."

"Here is Earth," Redleigh said, pointing at the chart. "Now, Downs, light its substance. Now, let us illuminate Leviathan, there. Move both Earth and white light on their ways, here, and see how they travel. The computer sums and keeps the score. There!"

The great star chart took fire. We saw our planet Earth. We saw the comet. Earth moved. Leviathan moved. The universe wheeled. Leviathan rushed along s.p.a.ce and Earth spun about the sun.

"There, see," said Downs. "A collision course! The comet will destroy Earth! Just as the captain said."

"No, it will not," said Redleigh.

And as we watched the unfolding of the great star chart, the huge comet streaked by without striking Earth.

"See, it goes," commented Redleigh. "The comet continues on, leaving Earth untouched."

We watched the comet fade.

Redleigh switched off the chart.

Downs spoke up. "Captains don't lie."

"They don't," said Redleigh, "unless they are mad. Then lying's all the truth they know. Quell?"

We looked at Quell, who s.h.i.+fted uneasily.

"Quell knows," said Redleigh. "Quell, these men are drowning. Give them air."

Quell remained silent with his eyes shut and when he spoke, spoke only to himself. "O fathers of time, forgive me. Here," he gestured, pulling us close into his spider arms. "Let me gather your minds. So. And thus."

We felt our souls embraced. We looked up. Quell had gathered us and bound it to the soul and mind and voice of the captain.

From the uppermost deck of the s.h.i.+p, beneath the stars, we heard our captain cry, "I think I see!"

We were shaken, for we did hear him clearly, though he was impossibly far away.

Quell shook his head and pulled back and the captain's voice faded.

"Quell," I urged. "Go on! Please. We must hear."

Quell gathered us to him again. There was fire in his eyes and strange green cheeks. The captain's voice grew strong again as it moved through Quell.

"Yes, I almost think I do. Far worlds, long dead, break on these eyes with living sights, again, again, again, and say: 'We live! Remember us! Oh, think on us. Our sins forgive! Our virtues celebrate, though flesh and blood, and blood's sweet will are gone. And with it that despair called hope, which wakes us at dawn. Remember us!'

"You are remembered, though I knew you not. Your ancient plight inspires, your nightmare's not forgot...I keep it here kindled with my own; your ghost of outrage I give flesh and bone; your spirit war moves my arm to smite; you speak my noon and instruct my night.

"As you to me, so I to other worlds will one day be when this night's deeds, the things we say and act out on this lonely stage, one million years on from this hour will break and flower on some far sh.o.r.e, where such as you look up, and behold, and know our loss or gain, life's wakening or death's yawn."

And again, quietly, our captain continued.

"So we, like they, pa.s.s on, forever ghosts, knocking at portals, prying at doors, speaking our actions, re-promising old dreams, welcome or unwelcome. Yet on we go, light-year on light-year, and no one there beyond to know. Thus they and theirs, and we and ours will shadow-show eternity, two films projected to opposite screens and nothing and nothing and nothing in between.

"I murder or murdered will be this night. But there, trapped and traveled in storms of light I am not yet born.

"O G.o.d I would be that child, to start again and, starting, know some peace on a clean baptismal morn."

Quell let us go, dropping his arms, his eyes closed.

"Oh, G.o.d...," Redleigh said, touched and anguished.

"G.o.d, yes," said Small. "No more, no more of this. It must be stopped."

Quell drew in a breath, and then again the captain's voice came. "Eternal noons, I asked, O Lord! Eternal midnight, my reward. O whiteness there! My pale and wandering l.u.s.t. O spirit dread, stand forth! This time I will not swerve. My path is fixed beyond the gravities! Tracked like the worlds that fire about the sun, so runs my soul in one trajectory.

"Blind, my body aches and is one eye! I'll weave eclipse to darken you who dared to darken me. Your veil will be your winding sheet. Your mindless gossamer I'll bind to strangle you. Leviathan! Leviathan!"

We felt his hands reach out to grasp and hold and kill.

And, last: "Can I do this and bank my fires?"

Quell echoed, in his own weary voice, "Fires."

And we were silent, standing there, and the captain said no more.

CHAPTER 7.

At last Redleigh said, "Well?"

And Downs lifted his head and looked straight at the first mate and said, "That was unlawful, uncommon, criminal eavesdropping. We have no right!"

"Upon uncommon dangers!"

"Would you mutiny, sir?" said Small.

Redleigh pulled back, a horrified look on his face. "Mutiny?!"

Quell broke in. "He would...take over."

And we answered mutely, with our own horrified faces.

Redleigh said, "Have you not just heard what is in his heart, what he intends to do?"

Downs replied, "We have. But those thoughts of the captain's which we have borrowed...why, how do they differ from ours? All men are poet-murderers in their souls, ashamed to bleed it out."

Small said, "You ask us to judge thoughts!"

"Judge actions then!" Redleigh responded. "Leviathan comes. We are changing our course to meet it. Someone has tampered with the computer-just twenty-four hours ago it said one thing, now it says another."

Downs said, "And so it goes with machines. Astronomical sums are nice, but blood is best. Flesh is easier. Mind and will are excellent. The captain is all these. The computer doesn't know I live. The captain does. He looks, he sees, he interprets, he decides. He tells me where to go. And as he is my captain, so I go."

"Straight to h.e.l.l," said Redleigh.

"Then h.e.l.l it is." Downs shrugged. "The comet's birthing-place. The captain has the beast in his sights. I hate beasts too. My captain rouses me with No! And I am his dearest echo."

Little said, "And I!"

"Quell?" said Redleigh, turning to the green alien.

"I have said too much," said Quell. "And all of it the captain's."

"Ishmael?" said Redleigh.

"I," I replied, "am afraid."

Downs and Small stepped away. "Excused, Mr. Redleigh?"

"No!" shouted Redleigh. "Sweet Jesus, he's blinded you, too. How can I make you see?"

"It's late in the day for that, Redleigh," said Small.

"But see you will, dammit! I'm going to the captain. Now. You must stand behind if not with me. You'll hear it from his own mouth."

"Is that a command, sir?"

"It is."

"Well, then," said Small, "aye, sir."

"And aye, I guess," said Downs.

And the three crewmen walked away, Quell and me following, listening for the strange electronic pulse of the captain, near but far.

CHAPTER 8.

"Mr. Redleigh, you have come to mutiny."

The captain had granted us entrance to his quarters and he stood within, facing us, his strange white eyes seeming to stare.

"Sir," said Redleigh. "The simple fact is-"

The captain interrupted. "Simple? The sun's temperature is 20,000 degrees. Yet it will burn Earth. Simple? I distrust people who come with plain facts and then preach calamities. Now, Redleigh, listen. I am giving over command of this s.p.a.cecraft to you."

"Captain!" cried Redleigh in surprise.

"Captain no more. You will take the credit for the grand destiny ahead."

"I have no desire for destinies," said Redleigh.

"Once you know it, you will desire it. You come with facts? Leave with more than that. Who has seen a comet up close?"

"Why no one, sir, save you."

"Who has touched a comet's flesh?"

"Again, no one that we know."

"What is a comet's stuff that we should run to welcome it?"

"To the point, Captain."

"The point! We go as fishers with our nets. We go as miners to a deep and splendid mine of minerals both raw and beautiful. That school of fish, which is Leviathan in s.p.a.ce, is most certainly the largest treasure of all time. Dip our nets in that and bring up miracles of fish, pure energies that put the miracles at Galilee to shame. In that vast treasure house we shall unlock and take of as we will. There must be ten billion mines, so vast their glitter would burn your eyes. Such black diamonds fall from s.p.a.ce each night, all night, throughout all our lives, and burn to nothing. We catch that rain. We save its most bright tears to sell in common markets most uncommonly. Who says no to this?"

"Not I-as yet," said Redleigh, warily.

"Then siphon off the very breath of that great ghost. Its breath is hydrogen and mixtures of such flaming vapors as will light entire civilizations for our children's children's lifetimes. Such energy, harnessed, controlled, collected, kept, released, will work atomic wonders for our race, and cause such further wonders of recompense. I see rare bank accounts that will retire us all early, on to madness."

"Madness?"

"The madness of pleasure and the good life and sweet ease. Leviathan's breath and body are yours to bank for cash and credit. As for myself, I ask a single thing: leave its soul to me. Well?"