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to the bridge.
Donovan had not watched the Black Nebula grow over the days, swell to a monstrous thing that blotted out half the sky, lightlessness fringed with the cold glory of the stars. Now that the ship was entering its tenuous outer fringes, the heavens on either side were blurring and dimming, and the blackness yawned before. Even the densest nebula is a hard vacuum; but tons upon incredible tons of cosmic dust and gas, reaching planetary and interstellar distances on every hand, will blot out the sky. It was like rushing into an endless, bottomless hole, the ship was falling and falling into the pit of Hell.
“I noticed you never looked bow-wards on the trip,” said Jansky. There was steel in her voice. “Why did you lock yourself in your cabin and drink like a sponge?”
“I was bored,” he replied sullenly.
“You were afraid!” she snapped contemptuously. “You didn’t dare watch the Nebula growing. Something happened the last time you were here which sucked the guts out of you.”
“Didn’t your Intelligence talk to the men who were with me?”
“Yes, of course. None of them would say more than you’ve said. They all wanted us to come here, but blind and unprepared. Well, Mister Donovan, we’re going in!”
The floorplates shook under Wocha’s tread. “You not talk to boss that way,” he rumbled.
“Let be, Wocha,” said Donovan. “It doesn’t matter how she talks.”
He looked ahead, and the old yearning came alive in him, the fear and the memory, but he had not thought that it would shiver with such a strange gladness.
And—who knew? A bargain—
Valduma, come back to me!
Jansky’s gaze on him narrowed, but her voice was suddenly low and puzzled. “You’re smiling,” she whispered.
He turned from the viewscreen and his laugh was ragged. “Maybe I’m looking forward to this visit, Helena.”
“My name,” she said stiffly, “is Commander Jansky.”
“Out there, maybe. But in here there is no rank, no Empire, no mission. We’re all humans, frightened little humans huddling together against the dark.” Donovan’s smile softened. “You know, Helena, you have very beautiful eyes.”
The slow flush crept up her high smooth cheeks. “I want a full report of what happened to you last time,” she said. “Now. Or you go under the probe.”
Wanderer, it is a long way home. Spaceman, spaceman, your sun is very far away.
“Why, certainly.” Donovan leaned against the wall and grinned at her. “Glad to. Only you won’t believe me.”
She made no reply, but folded her arms and waited. The ship trembled with its forward thrust. Sweat beaded the forehead of the watch officer and he glared around him.
“We’re entering the home of all lawlessness,” said Donovan. “The realm of magic, the outlaw world of werebeasts and nightgangers. Can’t you hear the wings outside? These ghosts are only the first sign. We’ll have a plague of witches soon.”
“Get out!” she said.
He shrugged. “All right, Helena. I told you you wouldn’t believe me.” He turned and walked slowly from the bridge.
*
Outside was starless, lightless, infinite black. The ship crept forward, straining her detectors, groping into the blind dark while her crew went mad.
Spaceman, it is too late. You will never find your way home again. You are dead men on a ghost ship, and you will fall forever into the Night.
“I saw him, Wong, I saw him down in Section Three, tall and thin and black. He laughed at me, and then there wasn’t anything there.”
Sound of great wings beating somewhere outside the hull.
Mother, can I have him? Can I have his skull to play with?
Not yet, child. Soon. Soon.
Wicked rain of laughter and the sound of clawed feet running.
No one went alone. Spacemen First Class Gottfried and Martinez went down a starboard companionway and saw the hooded black form waiting for them. Gottfried pulled out his blaster and fired. The ravening beam sprang backward and consumed him. Martinez lay mumbling in psychobay.
The lights went out. After an hour they flickered back on again, but men had rioted and killed each other in the dark.
Commander Jansky recalled all personal weapons on the grounds that the crew could no longer be trusted with them. The men drew up a petition to get them back. When it was refused, there was muttering of revolt.
Spacemen, you have wandered too far. You have wandered beyond the edge of creation, and now there is only death.
The hours dragged into days. When the ship’s timepieces started disagreeing, time ceased to have meaning.
Basil Donovan sat in his cabin. There was a bottle in his hand, but he tried to go slow. He was waiting.
When the knock came, he leaped from his seat and every nerve tightened up and screamed. He swore at himself. They wouldn’t knock when they came for him. “Go on, enter—” His voice wavered.
Helena Jansky stepped inside, closing the door after her. She had thinned, and there was darkness in her eyes, but she still bore herself erect. Donovan had to salute the stubborn courage that was in her. The unimaginative peasant blood—no, it was more than that, she was as intelligent as he, but there was a deep strength in that tall form, a quiet vitality which had perhaps been bred out of the Families of Ansa. “Sit down,” he invited.
She sighed and ran a hand through her dark hair. “Thanks.”
“Drink?”
“No. Not on duty.”
“And the captain is always on duty. Well, let it go.” Donovan lowered himself to the bunk beside her, resting his feet on Wocha’s columnar leg. The Donarrian muttered and whimpered in his sleep. “What can I do for you?”
Her gaze was steady and grave. “You can tell me the truth.”
“About the Nebula? Why should I? Give me one good reason why an Ansan should care what happens to a Solarian ship.”
“Perhaps only that we’re all human beings here, that those boys have earth and rain and sunlight and wives waiting for them.”
And Valduma—no, she isn’t human. Fire and ice and storming madness, but not human. Too beautiful to be flesh.
“This trip was your idea,” he said defensively.
“Donovan, you wouldn’t have played such a foul trick and made such a weak, self-righteous excuse in the old days.”
He looked away, feeling his cheeks hot. “Well,” he mumbled, “why not turn around, get out of the Nebula if you can, and maybe come back later with a task force?”
“And lead them all into this trap? Our subtronics are out, you know. We can’t send information back, so we’ll just go on and learn a little more and then try to fight our way home.”
His smile was crooked. “I may have been baiting you, Helena. But if I told you everything I know, it wouldn’t help. There isn’t enough.”
Her hand fell strong and urgent on his. “Tell me, then! Tell me anyway.”
“But there is so little. There’s a planet somewhere in the Nebula, and it has inhabitants with powers I don’t begin to understand. But among other things, they can project themselves hyperwise, just like a spaceship, without needing engines to do it. And they have a certain control over matter and energy.”
“The