“Skip?” Salo called again.
Kazak, the hound of space, answered the call. Kazak came from the domed and minareted building that was reflected in the pool. Kazak came stiffly from the lacy shadows of the great octagonal chamber within.
Kazak looked poisoned.
Kazak shivered, and stared fixedly at a point to one side of Salo. There was nothing there.
Kazak stopped, and seemed to be preparing himself for a terrible pain that another step would cost him.
And then Kazak blazed and crackled with Saint Elmo’s fire.
Saint Elmo’s fire is a luminous electrical discharge, and any creature afflicted by it is subject to discomfort no worse than the discomfort of being tickled by a feather. All the same, the creature appears to be on fire, and can be forgiven for being dismayed.
The luminous discharge from Kazak was horrifying to watch. And it renewed the stench of ozone.
Kazak did not move. His capacity for surprise at the amazing display had long since been exhausted. He tolerated the blaze with tired rue.
The blaze died.
Rumfoord appeared in the archway. He, too, looked frowzy and palsied. A band of dematerialization, a band of nothingness about a foot wide, passed over Rumfoord from foot to head. This was followed by two narrow bands an inch apart.
Rumfoord held his hands high, and his fingers were spread. Streaks of pink, violet, and pale green Saint Elmo’s fire streamed from his fingertips. Short streaks of pale gold fizzed in his hair, conspiring to give him a tinsel halo.
“Peace,” said Rumfoord wanly.
Rumfoord’s Saint Elmo’s fire died.
Salo was aghast. “Skip — ” he said. “What’s — what’s the matter, Skip?”
“Sunspots,” said Rumfoord. He shuffled to his lavender contour chair, lay his-great frame on it, covered his eyes with a hand as limp and white as a damp handkerchief.
Kazak lay down beside him. Kazak was shivering.
“I — I’ve never seen you like this before,” said Salo. “There’s never been a storm on the Sun like this before,” said Rumfoord.
Salo was not surprised to learn that sunspots affected his chrono-syndastic infundibulated friends. He had seen Rumfoord and Kazak sick with sunspots many times before — but the most severe symptom had been fleeting nausea. The sparks and the bands of dematerialization were new.
As Salo watched Rumfoord and Kazak now, they became momentarily two-dimensional, like figures painted on rippling banners.
They steadied, became rounded again.
“Is there anything I can do, Skip?” said Salo.
Rumfoord groaned. “Will people never stop asking that dreadful question?” he said.
“Sorry,” said Salo. His feet were so completely deflated now that they were concave, were suction cups. His feet made sucking sounds on the polished pavement.
“Do you have to make those noises?” said Rumfoord peevishly.
Old Salo wanted to die. It was the first time his friend Winston Niles Rumfoord had spoken a harsh word to him. Salo couldn’t stand it.
Old Salo closed two of his three eyes. The third scanned the sky. The eye was caught by two streaking blue dots in the sky. The dots were soaring Titanic bluebirds.
The pair had found an updraft.
Neither great bird flapped a wing.
No movement of so much as a pinfeather was inharmonious. Life was but a soaring dream.
“Graw,” said one Titanic bluebird sociably.
“Graw,” the other agreed.
The birds closed their wings simultaneously, fell from the heights like stones.
They seemed to plummet to certain death outside Rumfoord’s walls. But up they soared again, to begin another long and easy climb.
This time they climbed a sky that was streaked by the vapor trail of the space ship carrying Malachi Constant, Beatrice Rumfoord, and their son Chrono. The ship was about to land.
“Skip — ?” said Salo.
“Do you have to call me that?” said Rumfoord.
“No,” said Salo.
“Then don’t,” said Rumfoord. “I’m not fond of the name — unless somebody I’ve grown up with happens to use it.”
“I thought — as a friend of yours — ” said Salo, “I might be entitled — ”
“Shall we just drop this guise of friendship?” said Rumfoord curtly.
Salo dosed his third eye. The skin of his torso tightened. “Guise?” he said.