Now and Forever (14 page)

CHAPTER 9

The trembling became more convulsive, the light on the screen more erratic. The sound grew loud, but, we knew, it was not the immense sound Leviathan might make when it arrived.

“Captain,” said Redleigh. “Permission to turn back. We'll be destroyed.”

“Head on, Mr. Redleigh,” said the captain. “It's merely testing us.”

The storm on the screen rose and fell and rose again. And then, a sudden silence.

“What?” said Redleigh.

The captain said, “What, what, indeed!”

“It's gone,” I said, checking my screen again in disbelief. “The storm that ran before the comet is gone. But what of Leviathan itself?”

I ran some more scans, searching the vast expanse around our ship for hostile entities. “The comet! It's vanished, too! It's gone from the sensors.”

“No!” said the captain.

“Yes,” I said. “According to the readings, all the space around us is empty.”

“Thank God,” said Redleigh, almost to himself.

“No, I say, no!” the captain yelled. “My eyes see nothing. Yet—it
must
be there. I can almost touch it. I
feel
it. It is—”

A familiar voice broke in. “Gone,” Quell said, quietly, staring at the emptiness of space on the computer screen. “Gone.”

“Quell!” I cried. “You've come back! Thank God.”

Quell said nothing.

“Quell, what happened,” I asked. “Out there?”

Quell moved forward slowly. “The funeral music—it's gone. Our traveling burial grounds, gone. The comet, the nightmare, all … gone.”

“Yes,” I said. “But why?”

Quell remained silent.

“Out with it, man!!” cried the captain.

Quell finally turned away from the screen and spoke to us. “That storm has wounded Time. We have turned a corner in Eternity. The very stuff of the void, the abyss has been … turned wrong side out … atom on atom … molecule on molecule … particle on particle reversed … I feel it …
so.”

And Quell reached out a hand as if his mind had fled.

“It can't be!” I heard myself say.

“So say I!” said the captain, disbelieving.

“Space says otherwise,” said Quell, calmly. “The storm has picked us up and thrown us back two thousand years. The past has become our present.”

“If this is now the past,” said Redleigh, “what year is it?”

Quell thought for a few moments. “Before Columbus? Yes, certainly. Before the birth of Christ? Most likely. Before your Caesar built his Roman roads through Britain's moors, or Plato spoke or Aristotle listened? Maybe. That great star, the beast, it pities us.”

“Pity?” said the captain. “How can you say pity?”

Quell searched through space with eye and mind. “It would not fight with us. Instead, it would hide us deep, so it would not be forced to war against us. It has given us a chance, a path away from it.
That,
sir, is pity.”

“I will have none!” the captain said.

“Elijah,” I whispered.

“What?” the captain turned toward my voice.

“Elijah. The day before our liftoff from Earth. Elijah said—”

“Said
what
?” the captain demanded impatiently.

“‘Far out in space, there'll come a time when you see land where there is no land, find time where there is no time; when ancient kings will reflesh their bones and reseat their crowns …'”

“Is that time now?” asked Redleigh.

And Quell replied, “Yes, now. For look. And …
feel.
”

I finished the memory of Elijah's words: “‘Then, oh then, ship, ship's captain, ship's men, all, all will be destroyed! All save
one.'
”

All save one, I thought, as the captain exploded with rage. “Fools, damn fools!” he cried. “We do not take this past, accept these ancient years. We do not hide in pyramids or run from locust plagues to cower, grovel underneath the robes of Christ! We will stand forth.”

He turned and strode toward the lift to the upper reaches. “The airlock, open it! Although blind, I will go forth and find the monster myself!”

CHAPTER 10

Quell's mind moved outside the ship to find the captain, alone.

And though I could not see, I heard, and what the captain finally said was this: “What? Nothing? All quiet, gone, spent? Is this the end? No more the hunt, the journey, and the goal? That terrifies me most: No more the goal! From here on then, what is the captain for? What does he do, if time and circumstance knock all the mountains down to one dull flat and endless plain, one long bleak winter afternoon, not even tea and simple bread to brighten it?

“Oh Christ, the thought of mindless noons that have no ends, or end in maunderings, stale tea leaves in a cup which tell no murders and no blood, and so no life—
that
breaks my bones. The sound of one leaf turning in a book would crack my spine. One dust mote burning on a sunlit hearth would smother my soul. The simple things that snug themselves in halls too clean, too quiet, that lie in well-made beds and smile idiot smiles! Oh, turn away. Such peace is a winepress to crush your soul.

“And yet … God,
feel
… the universe itself fills me this hour with quiet joy. Unseen by me, there one small fire goes out, but yet another freshens itself forth in birth. It is my heart's midnight, but yet some foundling sun reminds me that somewhere a million light-years on, a boy gets out of bed in cold well-water morn; the circus now arrives, a life's begun with animals and flags and bunting and bright lights. Would I deny his right, his joy at rising to run forth and greet the show? I would deny, I
would
!

“But no, ah God, but surely no. It cracks my heart to think of him derelict with age, but would I warn him not to turn the page and let life begin?

“I would! Our very life's a sin against itself!

“But then again, once more, I'd keep my tongue and let him play. Go, boy, I would advise, on some far world. Start up the day, spin forth your captured joys. O, know delight. Mind not on me. I stay here with my night.”

Suddenly Small was behind me, and reached over my shoulder to adjust some controls on the console. The screen came to life, and we saw the captain out on the hull, tethered to the ship by an airline. Redleigh, similarly suited for space and tied to the ship by a line, hovered a few yards behind the captain. He had a weapon in his hand, but indecision showed on his face behind his airmask. Quell's mind moved, searching, and he touched good Redleigh's mind and in his thoughts I read: “When he speaks so, what must I do? Destroy or not destroy? And even as he moves back and forth, from light to dark, his madness most inconstant, so my own sanity wavers. I would kill him. But then again, I would not.”

“Leviathan!” yelled the captain at the black emptiness surrounding him. “Stand forth! You
must
be there!”

I heard his breath rasping in the silent void, as he waited for an answer that would not come.

“Oh, God,” he continued. “Give me, oh give me back just one millionth part of all the visions of my youth. Restore my sight. For just one moment in this long night, give me the strength that vision gives to finish out this thing, see darkness with these eyes, know whiteness then for death, do justice with these hands! Give back, oh I beseech, I humbly ask, I do cry out, I
pray
!”

At this the captain spun around, as if he was about to fall in the zero gravity of space, as if the weight of all he had said was too much.

“Captain!” Redleigh cried out. “No!”

“But yes … it's
given.”
The captain struggled to right himself. “Hold on, it's given back! My vision is clear. The universe stands right. I can see! The stars! My God, the billion stars, the stars!”

At which the captain wept.

Redleigh, seeing those same stars, spoke to himself. “Oh thank you, God, for miracles which teach. But then, I wonder, will he
learn
?”

“Who is that?” the captain said. “Redleigh? Is that you? My
friend's
face seen at last?”

He reached out and almost touched the faceplate of his first mate's helmet.

Redleigh responded, “It is the face of a friend. And this friend says, Turn back. There is still time. Time comes back to us. Your sight is healed. What more can you ask for now? It is a sign, a miracle. It is a true gift given you, sir. Now
act
on it.”

“I will,” the captain said. “Let me drink first. Let me look. Oh, Redleigh, it is like fresh mountain water. It is a cold, clear thing, this gift of seeing once again. Oh, God, the universe is lovely strange. I have hungered for it for thirty years. There is no bottom to my thirst. Let me stare. Let me truly stand alert. Let my eyes open wide, there, and yet more and more.”

There was a soft pulsation of green and yellow light on the monitor before us, a far sound of bells and cries of murmuring waves and crowds.

I listened, close.

“Quell,” I asked. “What is it?”

“Time,” Quell said, “turns upon itself.”

“Look, and
feel
!” the captain said.

And Quell told all that he felt and saw: “The knot falls loose … great Time unties itself. The years reverse. We have returned. Leviathan gives back our time and years. This is 2099.”

“2099,” the captain said. “Redleigh, did you hear?”

“Yes, Captain, yes!”

“We are once again in our proper hour! Two gifts, Mr. Redleigh. The gift of seeing and the gift of long-returning years.”

“God is generous, Captain. He has corrected the calendar and touched your eyes.”

“Would that
that
were true.
”

“It
is!”

“No, it only
seems
to be so,” the captain said. “Not God but the beast has made these offerings. It bribes me to stand clear. It sweetens me with banquetings of sight to mend my soul and fend me off. That stuff is spoiled. Need be, I'll now sew up these eyes or pluck them out with these two hands. I do not bribe. I do not take. I do not stay. If time is given me, I'll use it to make plans. If sight is given me, I'll use it well to mark my enemy's burial place. Leviathan, thy gifts will be a sword into thy breast!”

“Captain, it says escape!”

“To what? To run to Earth and on the way have time reversed again so we are greeted by the bones of Charlemagne or fall dead with Caesar, bloodied in his forum?”

“Christ's bones! God's ghost, oh give me strength to pull this trigger.”

The weapon Redleigh carried was now pointed directly at the captain.

“You never will.”

“But if I could!” said Redleigh. “How fine to land back home and go with simple cavemen into a cave, live out a life less a nightmare than all this, lie down with saber-tooths, sweet Christ, and
rest
awhile.”

“We shall rest, Mr. Redleigh, at the dead heart of the comet.”

“I see,” said Redleigh. “Now I
am
dead. Let me put away my gun. Here comes Leviathan, to pick my bones. Shall I greet it, Captain, with you?”

There was a great light, an immense sound, a fantastic approaching dazzle and splendor.

And Quell echoed, “To pick my bones.”

CHAPTER 11

“Sir?”

Quell came to attention as Downs came on deck.

“Sir, your suit is finished.” The engineer held out a suit made of some stiff black material.

“Much thanks,” said Quell. “It is a fine piece of work.”

Downs tapped on the metal carapace. “I am tempted to die and wear the damned thing myself.”

“Stick around,” said Quell. “You may get your wish.”

“Quell!” I said.

Quell stiffened, alert, turning toward me.

“You heard it all.”

“The captain,” I said, “has been given his sight, but is more blind than ever before.”

“And we shall share his blindness,” said Quell. “Look!”

The dazzling storm of light grew behind my eyes, where Quell had placed it. Likewise, it burst on the screens all around the deck.

“All hands!” the captain commanded. “Emergency life-suits on! Ready and stand by emergency life-craft! Redleigh,
inside
! All hands! All hands!”

The crew ran with eager shouts.

“Oh, yes,” I said to myself. “The comet approaches. And it
is
a great white holy terror that fills the universe and swallows every star. And look, my God, oh look! The crew! They run like children run at their games.”

“Listen to their thoughts,” Quell said, gesturing at the people rushing madly around us. “I give you leave. The hot blood rushes in their veins. Hear how they
truly
run!”

He touched my brow and their thoughts flowed into mine. I felt and heard the shriek, the joyous cry, the glorious wail and shout of men running downhill to doom.

 

The captain appeared among us, and all hands turned to him, faces flushed with anticipation.

“Have you ever seen the like?!” said the captain. “Oh God, that fire, brighter than ten million suns. Everyone to stations.”

“Aye aye, sir!” the crew shouted as one.

“Now,” said the captain by radio to the crew in their suits, “in each and every life-craft ship, know the engines of destruction. Draw on my hunger to devour this thing—make it yours! In each craft is a beam more powerful than any hell-fire laser ever built. Wider, longer, swifter, surer. Use that power! Fret the beast. Lay him waste. Life-craft One under command of crewman Downs?”

“Downs here,” cried the man. “Life-craft One ready!”

“Launch!”

I heard the first craft blast away, carrying Downs and his companion.

“Life-craft Two!” the captain shouted. “Crewman Small!”

“Small here,” a voice replied. “Life-craft Two … ready!”

“Launch!”

Concussion, and Small and his voice and his crewmate were gone.

“Mr. Redleigh,” said the captain, turning to his first mate. “The third craft is yours. Use it well.”

“Sir!” said Redleigh.

“Quell,” said the captain. And I saw that Quell had donned his black suit. “Quell, you go with Redleigh. Ishmael stays with me, here on the main ship. Stand by for launch of Life-craft Three.”

“Quell,” Redleigh said, as the two prepared to leave the main deck. “You wear your suit of death.”

“It fits, Mr. Redleigh, it fits.”

“Will there be room for me?”

“Death,” Quell said, “makes a large coffin. We shall not knock elbows.”

“All right,” said Redleigh. “Then, on the double.”

Quell turned to me before leaving, as if to say something.

“Quell,” I said, “let me go with you. Captain? I must ask—”

But Quell cut in. “No. Stay. And live. You
will
live, you know, to be very old. I, who sees beyond, tell you this. Be old, Ishmael. Be happy. Dear friend, goodbye.”

“Oh, Quell,” I whispered. “Leave your mind with me, so we may be friends to the end.”

I felt his thoughts, his mind did linger in my ears and in my head.

“My mind is yours,” said Quell as he left. “Yours.”

A few moments later, the captain commanded, “Launch Life-craft Three!”

Redleigh's voice came over the intercom, “Life-craft Three launching!”

Concussion. Quell and Redleigh catapulted into the universe.

“Ishmael, stand close,” said the captain.

“Sir!” I said.

“They fly,” the captain said. “There, see the life-crafts as they go.”

Watching the computer screen, we saw the craft, already far out beyond us, and heard their voices, mingled. And in those lonely craft, Quell, Redleigh, Small, and Downs. The voices said, “Craft One, full speed. Craft Two, full. Three, on target.”

“Oh, Ishmael, look!” the captain said. “That is the whole Antarctic continent, all white, and somehow hurled upon the universal air to shake our sight! Leviathan!”

“It's too much!” I cried. “I cannot see!”

“Let it burn your eyes, as it burned mine,” the captain said. “We'll still have hands to put it out!”

“Quell!” I shouted.

For I was hearing music: the music of Quell's ancestors, the funeral dirge of his grandfather. It was in Quell's mind, and somehow it came to me.

Quell's voice replied, long miles away: “I hear you, young friend.”

“Oh, Quell, that music!”

“Yes,” Quell said. “Leviathan has learned that tune … and plays it well.”

And then the music was playing not only in my head, but coming over the ship's speakers—loud, crashing, melancholy waves.

Suddenly the captain said, “I'll stop that sound! I'll kill that thing! Crafts One and Two—destroy! Craft Three—destroy! Redleigh—destroy!”

And Redleigh's voice, in concert with the others, echoed back: “Destroy!”

The music crescendoed—immense sounds and vibrations. It swelled and rose and fell away.

“Destroy and be destroyed,” I said to myself, remembering. To the captain, I said, “Oh, sir, our ships are too small. That comet destroys
them
! I see the men's bones, as if on an X-ray. The laser-beam weapons they aim are no more than match-stick torches against that great hand of fire that closes in on them like a fist.”

I watched as Life-crafts One, Two, and Three disappeared.

“There,” I whispered. “I faintly see. My vision fades. The ships, one by one, fall, plucked free of skins, their metal skeletons revealed, the men tossed out in millrace radiation. Flashing meteors … all swallowed … vanishing.”

“No, good Ishmael,” came Quell's faint whisper. “We are gone, but we have each been thrown to a different warp in Time.”

“The men in Life-craft One,” I asked, “their weapons stilled, where do they go?”

Quell's whisper said, “Our friend Downs is sent to death, perhaps, and burial with Richard, mad lost king, on his green plain, his crown and blood tossed at his feet.”

“The men in Life-craft Two spin further on. They drop, despairing, where?”

“In Illinois. Oh strange,” came Quell's mute words.

“In Illinois, near the tomb where Lincoln sleeps. And Redleigh? Quell, what of him?”

“Still here. We know not where we go. This comet steers us.
Time
is its weapon!”

I turned to the captain. “Time,” I said. “The comet has flung them throughout Time. Quell says Time is its weapon.”

“As Time is mine!” said the captain. “My crew dispersed, my weapons gone, yet I have one huge weapon left, aboard this ship. Time! Time is all! So I have made an engine that, like Leviathan, can twist all Time like a spinning top. Now, with my vast machine we'll use the comet's power against itself. As in the Orient, we fall and take our killer with us, using all his weight for his defeat. That mouth which would have swallowed us, we will cause to gape and turn about. What's larger than Leviathan? Eternity! The void! The dark abyss! The stuff
between
the stars! That is the mouth
I
use. My engine will open a seam in space and drop Leviathan in.”

And in that instant, our captain played some keys of the main computer console and the engines of our rocket throbbed to hysteria.

“Leviathan,” cried the captain, “meet Leviathan! Destruction, meet destruction! Comet, see thy mirror image! Annihilation,
know
annihilation!”

The entire universe around us shook. I heard Quell's voice as it faded among the stars.

“Oh, Ishmael.”

“Quell!”

The captain's voice was loud in that last great sound, and in that final moment he shouted, “What? My ship gone, too? Its flesh ripped free? Its bones strewn forth? Am I blind once more? Then blind, I seize on thee! Dead, I grapple with thee. Where is thy heart? Oh there, now there—I'll stifle it. Oh damned and dread Leviathan, it comes to
this
!”

There was a final explosion—a great outpouring of shrapneled ship, lost humans, and wild beams. And I, thrown upward, floated in my life-suit above the wreckage, surrounded by mirages, dreams, motes, shadows, stars.

Gone, yes, all gone, I thought. Down the long black mineshaft of the universe, its bridal veil trailing despairs and woes, celebrating itself, a mindless mystery forever in motion, but … wait … now truly gone? Gone all the ships, men, large, small, sane or mad, the captain with them, madness maddened. Did he open wide the seam, that strange vast hole in eternity he spoke of, and drop Leviathan in? And are they lost forever? Or will, I wonder, Leviathan return? Will he return in thirty years and bring with him all those who would have killed him?

Long years from now, will the monster and my mates slide down the length of the abyss, return as one at last … the hunter and the hunted, the feared and the fearer, the madness and the vaulting dream of madness, together fused forever through centuries yet unborn? Will it all be here, will it all pass by when Earth is old and looks up to behold Leviathan, our ships, our crew, our captain—an endless cortege to the specter ghost?

A dark shape floated nearby, turning slowly. I recognized it as Quell's funeral suit.

“Quell!”

I reached out and seized the suit, and turning it, found it empty. I spoke to empty space. “No, just the chaff, the husk. My good friend gone. Oh, Quell.”

I embraced the empty suit and the lost funeral music of Quell's ancestors sounded once again in my ears.

Alone, I floated with the memory of good Quell, who had gone to be with comets and their gods. I drifted so, aimlessly, holding on to the suit, a strange life-raft, knowing the air in my life-suit would soon be gone. How long? I wondered. A day, maybe two … until … ?

 

Above, I see a light, and hear a voice through static.

“Starship
Rachel,
this is starship
Rachel
…”

A ship, passing, investigating the wreckage, comes to pick me up at last. The
Rachel,
who, in her long search for her missing children finds but another orphan. I let the coffin go. I let the memory of Quell go to his light-year burial ground.

The drama's done. Only one remains. I, Ishmael, alone, am here to tell you this.

“Starship
Rachel
standing by. We see you. Come aboard. Come aboard.”