“All right,” said Maclaren. “You win. I’ll go through.”
Ryerson shook his head. “No, you don’t,” he answered. “I changed my mind.” With a lilt of laughter: “I stand behind my own work, Terangi!”
“No, wait! Let me . . . I mean . . . think of your wife, at least . . . please—”
“I’ll see you there,” cried Ryerson. The blue glance which he threw over his shoulder was warm. He opened the transmitter room door, went through, it clashed shut upon him. Maclaren wrestled weakly with the knob. No use, it had an automatic lock.
Which of us is the fool? I will never be certain, whatever may come of this. The chances are all for him, of course . . . in human terms, reckoned from what we know . . . but could he not learn with me how big this universe is, and how full of darkness?
M
ACLAREN stumbled back toward the ladder to the chair. He would gain wrath, but a few more minutes, by climbing up and turning off the controls. And in those minutes, the strangely terrifying negligent operator at the other end might read the teletype message and send a test object. And then Ryerson would know. Both of them would know. Maclaren put his feet on the rungs. He had only two meters to climb. But his hands would not lift him. His legs began to shake. He was halfway to the panel when its main switch clicked down and the transmitting engine skirled.
He crept on up. Now I know what it means to be old, he thought.
His heart fluttered feebly and wildly as he got into the chair. For a while he could not see the vision screens, through the night that spumed in his head. Then his universe steadied a little. The transmitter room was quite empty. The red light still showed contact. So at least there had been no destruction wrought in the receiving place. Except maybe on Dave; it didn’t take much molecular warping to kill a man. But I am being timid in my weakness. I should not be afraid to die. Least of all to die. So let me also go on through and be done.
He reached for the timer. His watch caught his eye. Half an hour since Dave left? Already? Had it taken half an hour for him to creep this far and think a few sentences? But surely Dave would have roused even the sleepiest operator. They should have sent a teletype to the Cross: “Come on, Terangi. Come on home with me.” What was wrong?
Maclaren stared at the blank walls enclosing him. Here he could not see the stars, but he knew how they crowded the
outside sky, and he had begun to understand, really understand what an illusion that was and how hideously lonely each of those suns dwelt.
One thing more I have learned, in this last moment, he thought. I know what it is to need mercy.
Decision came. He set the timer for ten minutes—his progress to the transmitter room would be very slow—and started down the ladder.
A bell buzzed.
His heart sprang. He crawled back, feeling dimly that there were tears on his own face now, and stared into the screen.
A being stood in the receiving chamber. It wore some kind of armor, so he could not make out the shape very well, but though it stood on two legs the shape was not a man’s. Through a transparent bubble of a helmet, where the air within bore a yellowish tinge, Maclaren saw its face. Not fish, nor frog, nor mammal, it was so other a face that his mind would not wholly register it. Afterward he recalled only blurred features, there were tendrils and great red eyes.
Strangely, beyond reason, even in that first look he read compassion on the face.
The creature bore David Ryerson’s body in its arms.
XVII.
W
HERE Sundra Straits lay beneath rain—but sunlight came through to walk upon the water—the land fell
steep. It was altogether green, in a million subtle hues, jungle and plantation and rice paddy, it burned with green leaves. White mists wreathed the peak of a volcano, and was it thunder across wind or did the mountain talk in sleep?