Now And Forever Part 13

And Quell added, "He shows no trust in our radar screens. Blind, he thinks he sees clearer and beyond the human eye."

"Sees what?" I asked. "Quell, you catch his thoughts. What?"

Quell was silent for a few moments, then said, "My mind hears, but the captain's mouth must speak. It is not for me to say. When he finds what he searches for, he will let us know. He-"

Suddenly Quell put his strange hands to his face, and from far off we heard the captain's cry over the intercom.

"No, no!" Quell yelled, and fell to his knees. He collapsed before us, and contorted one of his hands into a fist, eyes shut.

Quell shook his fists at the unseen stars. "Gah!" cried Quell, as if possessed. "No more of this, no more!"

And, suddenly, all was quiet. No sound came from the intercom, and Quell's arm dropped to the deck. He stood, weakened, shaken by this strange thing that had happened.

I went to my friend. "Quell," I said. "Tell me what just happened. That was not you, was it? That was the captain. You knew the captain's mind, you acted as he did, yes?"

"No," said Quell, quietly.

"Yes," I insisted. "You have no reason to defy the stars. It was he who raised his fist at the universe."

But Quell refused to respond, turning his gaze upward instead.

From First Mate John Redleigh's log: Fifty days out. Correction: twelve hundred hours out from Earth. Student, do your sums. Computer, electro-psychoa.n.a.lyze my soul. Thrust your finger, First Mate Redleigh, in a computer socket. What would you find? John Redleigh, born 2050, Reedwater, Wisconsin. Father, a maker of outboard motors. Mother, a baker of children, a dozen in all, of which the plainest of plain bread is old John Redleigh. Old, I say. Old when I was ten, long gone in senility by thirteen. Married a fine plain woman at twenty-two; filled the nursery by twenty-five. Read occasional books, thought occasional thoughts. Ah, G.o.d, Redleigh, haven't you more to put in this d.a.m.n machine? Are you so stale, flat, unb.u.mped, untouched, unscarred, unmoved? Have you no nightmare dreams, secret murders, drugs, or drink in your soul? Is your heart missing, the pulse spent? Did you give over when you were thirty, or were you ever more than a dry biscuit, an unb.u.t.tered bun, flat wine? Pleasantly sensual, but never pa.s.sionate. A good husband, fair friend, far traveler, without worry, coming and going so quietly that G.o.d himself never noticed. And when you die, Redleigh, will even one horn sound? Will one hand flutter, one soul cry, one tear drop, one door slam? What's your sum? Let's finish it. There, there it is: zero. Did my secret self put those ciphers there? Feed zero, get zero? So I, John Redleigh, sum myself.

"You there," said Redleigh, as I pa.s.sed him outside the door to the captain's cabin.

"Sir," I said.

"Don't jump. What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be on the quarterdeck?"

"Well, sir," I said, nodding at the captain's door. "Six days. Isn't that a long time for the captain to be shut in? I can't help but wonder...Is he all right? I have an urge to knock upon his door."

Redleigh regarded me for a moment, then said, "Well, then..."

I stepped quietly to the door and rapped upon it lightly.

"No, no," said Redleigh. "Let me show you."

And he stepped up and knocked hard on the door with his fist.

He waited a moment, then knocked again.

I said, "Does he never answer, then?"

"If he knew that G.o.d Himself were out here, he might venture forth for a chat. But you or me? No."

Suddenly there was the sound of a bell, a klaxon, and from the intercom a voice spoke: "Hear this! Captain's inspection. All hands a.s.semble, main deck. All hands, Captain's inspection."

And we turned and ran.

All gathered, five hundred strong, on the main deck.

"In line!" called Redleigh, from the head of the a.s.sembly. "He's coming, the captain is coming. Tenshun!"

There was a faint hum, a touch of electrical sound, which wavered like a swarm of insects.

The door to the main deck hissed open, and the captain was there. He stepped forward three steady, slow paces and stopped.

He was tall, well proportioned, and his uniform was completely white. The great shock of his hair was almost white, with faint traces of gray.

Over his eyes he wore a set of opaque radar-vision gla.s.ses, in which danced small firefly electric traces.

To a man, we held our breath.

At last he spoke.

"At ease."

And, as one, we let out our breath.

"Redleigh," the captain said.

"All present, sir."

The captain traced the air with his hands. "Yes, the temperature has gone up ten degrees. All present, indeed."

He moved along the front line, then stopped, one hand out, hovering near my face.

"Ah, here's one who runs the very furnace of youth. Your name?"

"Sir," I said. "Ishmael Hunnicut Jones."

"G.o.d, Redleigh," said the captain, "isn't that the sound of Blue Ridge wilderness or the scarred red hills of Jerusalem?"

Without waiting for a response, he continued, "Well, now, Ishmael. What do you see that I don't?"

Staring at him, I pulled back, and from the far side of my mind, in a panic, I whispered, "Quell?"

Suddenly I knew that if I should seize the captain's dark machine electric lenses, behind them I would find eyes the color of minted silver, of fish that had never been born. White. Oh, G.o.d, this man is white, all white.

And in my head I heard Quell, a shadow upon the air: "Some years ago the universe set off a light-year immensity of photographic flash. G.o.d blinked and bleached the captain to this color of sleeplessness and terror."

"What?" the captain demanded, for he had sensed our thoughts.

"Nothing, sir," I lied. "And there is nothing I can see that you do not."

I waited for his reply, but none was forthcoming. Instead, he turned and walked back to the head of the a.s.sembly and spoke. "How runs a ship in s.p.a.ce, men?"

The crew murmured, and one replied, "With tight seams and oxygen suits at the ready, sir."

"Well said," the captain replied, and continued. "And how do you treat a meteor, men?"

This time I gave him the answer. "A seven-second patch and all hands saved, sir."

The captain paused at this, and then gravely asked, "Then how do you swallow a flaming comet whole, men?"

Silence.

"No answer?" thundered the captain.

Quell wrote invisibly on the air. "They have not as yet seen such comets, sir."

"They have not," the captain said. "And yet such comets do come by. Redleigh?"

Redleigh touched a control pad and a star chart descended from the ceiling before us. It was a three-dimensional work of art, a chart-maker's multi-textual dream of the universe.

The captain reached out a blind hand.

"So, here, in miniature, is the universe."

The star chart blinked.

The captain went on. "Will your eyes accomplish what mine, gone dead, cannot? From the regions of the Horsehead Nebula, among a billion fires, one special light burns. Blind, I feel its presence thus."

He touched the center of the screen. At that instant, a vast, long, beautiful comet was illumined before us.

"Do I touch the maelstrom, Redleigh?" the captain said.

"Yes, sir," replied Redleigh, as the crew whispered at the vast beauty revealed.

"Closer. Brighter," commanded the captain.

The image of the comet brightened to an immense ghost.

"So," said the captain. "Not a sun, a moon, or a world. Who'll name it?"

"Sir," said Redleigh, gently. "That is merely a comet."

"No!" shouted the captain. "It is not merely a comet. That is a pale bride with flowing veil come back to bed her lost unbedded groom. Isn't she lovely, men? A holy terror to the sight."

We stood silent, waiting.

Redleigh, moving closer, said, "Captain, is that not the comet that first pa.s.sed Earth some thirty years ago?"

And I, half-remembering, spoke and gave its name: "Leviathan."

"Yes!" the captain said. "Speak up! Again!"

"Leviathan," I repeated, wondering what was going on. "The largest comet in history."

The captain whirled away from the star screen and turned his blind gaze upon us. "The brute chemistry of the universe thrown forth in light and trailing nightmare. Leviathan!"

"Was it not Leviathan, Captain," said Redleigh, softly, "that put out your eyes?"

The men murmured and stared harder at the beautiful beast.

"But to give me great vision!" the captain said. "Yes! Leviathan! I saw it close. I touched the hem of its great million-mile-long bridal veil. And then that virgin whiteness, jealous of my loving glance, rubbed out my sight. Thirty, thirty, thirty years ago. I still see it on my inner lids every night, so pa.s.sing strange, so full of Arctic miracles, that huge white thunderhead of G.o.d. I ran to it. I offered up my fevered soul. And it snuffed me out! And then it ran, leaving me. Yet look."

He touched the three-dimensional chart and the comet brightened yet again, loomed even larger.

"Leviathan returns," said the captain. "I have waited thirty long years, and the moment has finally come. And I have chosen you, men, to be with me on this starship to rush and meet that downfell light, which having once doomed me now cycles round to doom itself. Soon, I will lift my hands-your hands-to make that strike."

The men stirred, but said nothing.

"What?" the captain said. "Silence?"

"Sir," Redleigh said, "that is not our mission, our destination. What of our loved ones on Earth..."

"They will know of it! And they will celebrate when we have bled this beast and interred it in the Coalsack Nebula burial ground."

"But questions will be asked, sir," said Redleigh.

"And we will answer those questions. And we will complete our mission. After we have dealt with Leviathan. We must learn the stuffs of pure destruction. Look on Leviathan! What is it? Some dread thing torn from out G.o.d's throat when He knew darkness in His sleep? Gone evil with time, gone tired with creation, did G.o.d frighten up his bones and mind and lungs in one t.i.tanic seizure to cough forth this sickening? Who knows, can guess, or tell? All I know is that old curse and bled-forth wound now terrorizes s.p.a.ce and ravens at our heels.

"Let us speak gently now. Wherever G.o.d now is, why, spring and sweet winds play. But with Leviathan, all dies and bleeds away. Great G.o.d, I worship thee. But thy old ailment comes to winnow me and split my bones and kindle up dead eyes to half an obscene light. So madness gives me strength for this last night. Insanity makes grasp both long and broad. Once clutched and killed, Leviathan, I will turn back to my G.o.d."

We stood, as if spellbound.

Redleigh at last dared to propose: "This h.e.l.l you speak of...is it quite that h.e.l.l?"

"Why," said the captain, "there's Death himself come round to even up old scores. G.o.d sums Himself on Earth four billion strong. But here's the beast to make that right go wrong. Within a month, this light-year creature, mid-Pacific, will submerge and murder all that's living on Earth."

"But our scientists, sir-" began Redleigh.

"Are blind!" yelled the captain. "No, worse! For even blind, I see! On other journeys, Leviathan missed our Earth by a million miles or more."

"And this time round," insisted Redleigh, "the calculations show that it will miss Earth by six times as much."

"Your wise men say Survival? I say Death," the captain roared. "Our funeral comes this way. Changed, pulled, put on new tracks by far dark worlds beyond our sight, put off by gravities of malice, Leviathan now veers to doom us. Does no one see or care?"

We in our ranks shifted uneasily. What our captain spoke seemed madness, and yet he was so sure, so strong.

"We must take care now," said Redleigh finally, "if what you say is true."

"Aye to that!" we yelled as one.

"Proof, now, Redleigh," said the captain. "Here are my charts." He pulled a slim disk from his coat and held it out in the direction of Redleigh's voice. "Computerize these as far as you or G.o.d can count and then beyond."

"I will take your charts, sir," said Redleigh, gravely.