Now and Forever (13 page)

CHAPTER 6

Deep in the false night, our captain walked along the sleeping quarter corridors. Quell scanned his mind and spoke his words to me in whispers: “‘What, pretending at sleep? Do that, and bite your bitter tongues, which hate me for spoiled games. But if Christ Himself walked through space this night—'”

And Quell, speaking in his own voice, added: “Not Christ. But one of His lost shepherds.”

 

The next morning, Redleigh summoned Quell and me to Small's communication console. There we met crewman Downs.

“This communication occurred last night,” Redleigh said, nodding at Small, who touched a contact on his console. We listened, and heard at first the usual static and pulses of space, and at last a fine voice began to speak.

“This is starship
Rachel,”
a far voice said. “Theological starship
Rachel,
the spacecraft of Pius the Wanderer, calling
Cetus 7.
Answer,
Cetus 7
.”

And the captain, switching on, said, “
Cetus 7
here.”

The mournful voice of Pius filled the air. “Have you seen a small life-rocket adrift? A space storm carried it away. Fine priests were in it, pacing that comet—”

“Leviathan?!” asked the captain.

The
Rachel
's captain responded, “Yes! My son, my
only
son, good child of God, was on that rocket. Fearless, curious. The Great White Bride, he called it. He went to search the White Bride's wake, with two other good men. And now I search for him. Will you help?”

“I have no time, sir,” said our captain.

“Time!” the
Rachel
's captain cried. “Why, I've lost my whole
life.
You must help me.”

The captain spoke again. “Away! I go to redeem your son. God help you, Captain.”

The
Rachel
's captain, voice fading, said, “God
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 pass. Fellow spacefarers travel-weary and lonely. Priest ships 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 space 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 shifted 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 ship, 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 shore, 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, pass 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 God 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, God … ,” Redleigh said, touched and anguished.

“God, 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 lust. 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 hell,” said Redleigh.

“Then hell 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 spacecraft 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 space, 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 space 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?”

“Why, if that's the sort of shower that falls from space,” Downs said, “I'll run out in that rain.”

“Yes! As children run in spring showers!”

And I thought, His poetry has won me, but not his facts.

The captain now turned to Quell and said, “Good Quell, you read my mind. Are not fair weather there and rain and minted silver coins lost in a high new grass?”

And Quell had no answer.

“Redleigh?”

“Damn you, sir.”

“No sooner damned than saved,” replied the captain. “Salvation rings me in. Listen to its sound. Small? Downs?”

“Aye, sir!” said both.

“Quell? Ishmael?” A pause. “Your silence is affirmative.” And, turning to Redleigh: “Where is your mutiny now?”

“You have
bought
them, sir!” said Redleigh,

“Bid then, and buy them back,” replied the captain.

 

Later, in the privacy of my own bunk, I made the following entry in my personal journal:
We have run from old radio voices, shunned lost moons with lost cities, refused to share glad drinks and fine laughs with lonely spacemen, and ignored rare priests searching for their lost sons. The list of our sins grows long. Oh God! I must listen then, to space, to see what else is there, what other crimes we might commit in ignorance.

Putting the journal down, I touched a contact on the room's radio set. At first there was nothing but cold static and then came music, a symphony stranger than any I'd ever heard.

I turned it up and listened with my eyes shut.

The sound of the music caused the sleeping Quell to stir. I switched it off, and from his side of the room came Quell's voice, urgent.

“Turn it back on, quickly.”

I touched the contact again, and the music returned. It was beautiful, a requiem for the living to be mourned like the dead.

I knew it haunted Quell, for his mind now embraced mine.

“Oh, listen,” he whispered. “Do you hear? Music from my far world.”

“Yours?” I said. “Billions of miles off? Oh, Lord!”

“Lord indeed,” said Quell. “Music that has traveled all the way from my galaxy, and more. That is the music of my father's father's suffering and death.”

The music continued to play, somber and funereal.

I felt tears sting my eyes for no reason, and Quell went on: “The dirge my grandfather composed for his own funeral, his great lament.”

“Why, listening,” I wondered aloud, “do I mourn for myself?”

Then Quell reached out with an unseen hand and an invisible mind and spoke to Downs.

“Downs,” he said. “Can you put aside your ship's tasks for a while and make me a special space suit?”

“I would, sir, if I knew how,” came Downs's reply.

“I will draw it,” said Quell, “and give you the plan. Come here now.”

“Quell!” I said, alarmed. “What's this about?”

I sat up, and saw Quell at his desk, his strange hand drawing a strange shape on the computer screen before him.

“There,” said Quell. “The proper suit, decorated with symbols of my lost world.”

“Is this to be your coffin, then?” said Downs, as he entered our room and looked at Quell's plans.

“All beings in space suits inhabit future coffins of their own use and shape. This is but a darker thing. Cut it from night, solder it with shadows.”

“But why?” Downs wanted to know. “Why do you want a suit of death?”

“Listen,” I urged.

I turned up the otherworldly music. Downs listened and his eyes trembled and his hands began to move.

“God, look at my fingers. It's as if they have a mind of their own. That dirge does this. Oh, Quell, good Quell, I guess there's no way but that I must make this terrible suit.”

“Quell,” I interrupted, “that music has been to the far side of the universe and back. Why does it arrive here,
now
?”

“Because it is the proper time.”

“Quell!”

But silent, he sat there, staring in a fixed position at nothingness.

“Quell,” I urged. “Listen to me.”

Downs put a hand on my shoulder. “He doesn't hear you.”

“He must feel what I think!” I replied.

“No,” said Downs. “I've seen the like before. Whether among the natives in the lost seas of Earth or the far side of space, it's much the same.
Death
is speaking to him.”

“Don't listen, Quell!” I said, and put my hands over his ears, which was stupid, for as Downs then said: “His whole body hears. How will you stop that?”

“Like this!” I cried. “Like
this
!”

I wrapped my arms around Quell and held him tight, very tight.

Downs said, softly, “Let it be. You might as well try to breathe life into the white marble on a tomb.”

“I will!” I said. “Oh, Quell, it's Ishmael here! Your friend. Dammit, Quell, I ask, no, I
demand
—let it go! This very instant, stop! I'll be very angry with you, if this goes on. I won't speak to you again! I'll, I'll …” And here I paused, for I could not breathe. “I shall weep.”

I was surprised by my own tears and pulled back to see them falling on my numbed palms. I held out my hands to Quell, showing him those tears.

“Quell, look, please look,” I pleaded.

But Quell did not see.

I tried to think what I must do.

And then I turned and stabbed at the radio contact on the console. The far funeral music died.

I stared at Quell and waited. An echo of the music lingered in the room.

“He still hears it,” said Downs.

Suddenly, breaking the silence, a horn, a klaxon, a bell, and a voice: “Red alert! Crew to stations! Red alert!”

I turned and ran, following Downs along the corridor toward the main deck.

Reaching my post, I brought up the lights on the multi-level screen before me. A pattern of atomic light, many-colored, played before my eyes.

“What is that?” I wondered aloud.

Redleigh came to stand behind me, and posed the question, “Leviathan?”

The captain approached with his pulsing electric sound.

“No. The great comet's beyond, still some distance away. It sends a messenger ahead to warn us off. It fires a storm of gravities, atomic whirlwinds, dust storms of meteors, cosmic bombardments, solar explosions. Pay it no mind. That is but a mere mote of dust compared to Leviathan.”

I tuned into the sensors on my console, and it was as the captain said. Somewhere, nearly out of range, far off but approaching fast, was a behemoth of unimaginable size and power.

Our spacecraft trembled.