Thirty years later this novella is my final effort to focus and revitalize what began as a radio dream for Norman Corwin. Whether or not it deserves to appear in this incarnation is for you to decide.
DEDICATED WITH GREAT ADMIRATION to Herman Melville
Chapter 1
Call me Ishmael.
Ishmael? In this year 2099 when strange new ships head beyond the stars instead of merely toward them? Attack the stars instead of fearing them? A name like Ishmael?
Yes.
My parents flew with the first brave ones to Mars. Turned less than brave, gone sick for Earth, they returned home. Conceived on that journey, I was born in space.
My father knew his Bible and recalled another outcast who wandered dead seas long years before Christ.
And I being, at that time, the only child fleshed and delivered forth in space, how better to name me than as my father did.
And he did indeed call me…Ishmael.
Some years ago I thought I would ride all the seas of wind that roam this world. Whenever it is a damp November in my soul, I know it is high time to brave the skies again.
So I soared up among bird cries, bright kites, and thunderheads on a Saturday, late summer in this year of 2099, borne upon my own jet-packet power. I flew over and away toward Cape Kennedy in my wild journey hung upon the air, a fledgling bird among the memories of old da Vinci’s antique aircraft dreams. I was warmed by the real fire of great birds of steel, and felt the floodgates of the vast and waiting universe swing open my soul.
There were great concussions at a distance: the furnace heat of Kennedy and its thousands of rockets, burning in towers all about. When the fires died at last, only a simple wind whispered.
Then, quickly and calmly, I descended into town, where a river flowed for me to walk upon, a moving sidewalk.
Shadows stirred all about me as I glided through architectural arches and doors. Where was I going? Not to a cold metal barracks for tired spacemen, no, but a beautiful, quietly programmed, machined Garden of Eden. I was to attend an academy for astronauts to train for a great voyage beyond the stars, a mission about which as of yet I knew nothing.
Such a place is a world between: part meadow for mind, part gymnasium for flesh, and part theological seminary, reaching ever skyward in its thoughts. For does space not have the look of a vast cathedral?
So I walked among shifting shadows and entered the reception foyer of the school’s dormitory. I registered by pressing my hand to an identity panel, which read my sweaty prints like some modern witch of palmistry, and instantaneously chose my roommate for my coming mission.
There was a buzz, a hum, a bell, and a voice—female, sibilant, mechanical—came from somewhere above: “Ishmael Hunnicut Jones; twenty-nine years; height, five-foot-ten; eyes, blue; hair, brown; bone frame, light. Please attend: floor one, room nine. Cubicle roommate, Quell.”
And I repeated, “Quell.”
“Quell?” another voice cried behind me. “My God, that’s terrible.”
Yet another voice added, “God help you, Mr. Jones.”
I turned to find three astronauts of varying sizes and demeanors, all some years older than me, facing me, holding drinks. One was held out to me.
“Take this, Ishmael Jones,” said the first man, who was tall and thin. “You’ll need it if you’re going upstairs to meet that monster,” he said. “Drink up.”
“But first,” said the second, holding out his hand to stay my arm, “how do you fly, shallow or deep?”
“Why, deep, I think,” I said. “Deep space.”
“By the timid mile or the great light-year?”
“Light-year, yes,” I thought, then said.
“You may drink with us, then.”
The third man, who had been silent to this point, spoke up. “I’m John Redleigh. This fellow here,” with a nod toward the tall man, “is Sam Small. And he,” indicating the remaining man, “is Jim Downs.”
And so we drank. Small declared, “We give you permission to share our space, and also with God’s permission. Do you go to unravel a comet’s tail?”
“I think I do.”
“Have you searched for comets before?”
“Now’s my time.”
“Well said. Look there.”
The three men turned and nodded toward a vast video screen across the reception hall. As if aware of our regard, it pulsed to life, and displayed an immense photo of a blinding white comet pulling planets in its wake.
“The lovely destroyer of the universe,” said Small. “The eater of the sun.”
“Can comets do that?” I asked.
“That, and more. Especially that one.”
Downs said, “Why, if God should manifest here, He’d come as a comet. Are you one for jumping down the throat of such a holy presence, boy, and dancing in its bright guts?”
“I am,” I said, reluctantly, “if it should be absolutely inescapable.”
“Then let’s drink to him, aye, men? Let’s drink to young Ishmael Hunnicut Jones.”
At which moment I heard a faint electronic buzz, a pulse, at some distance. I listened, and the buzz grew louder with each pulse, as if it was coming nearer.
“That,” I said. “What’s that?”
“That?” said Redleigh. “That sound like a scourge of locusts in flight?”
I nodded.
“A scourge of locusts?” said Small. “That’s a fine way to refer to our captain.”
“Captain?” I said. “Who is he?”
Redleigh said, “Let it be for now, Mr. Jones. You’d best get to your room and meet up with Quell. My God, yes, go meet Quell.”
“From beyond the great Andromeda Nebula, he is,” Downs said, in a confidential tone. “Tall, huge, immense, and…”
“A spider,” the first mate interjected.
“Yes, yes,” Downs continued. “A vast, tall, giant green spider.”
“But…,” said Small, frowning slightly at his companions, “most benevolent. You will like him, Mr. Jones.”
And I replied, “I will?”
Redleigh said, “Get along. We’ll meet again. Go meet your spider roommate. Good luck.”
I tipped back my glass to take a last swallow. And then I turned, eyes shut, and said to myself, Luck. My God!
I touched a button beside a door panel that slid open, and I walked along a dimly lit corridor till I came to room number 9. I touched the identity pad and the door glided open wide.
But wait, I said to myself. I can’t go in. Look at my hands. Great God, they’re shaking.
I stood there, unmoving. My roommate was inside, I knew. He had come from a far world and was a giant spider, or so they had said. Hell, I thought, step in.
I took three steps into the room and froze.
For in the far corner of the cubicle there was a huge shadow. Something was there, but not there.
“It can’t be,” I whispered to myself. “It simply can’t be.”
“A spider,” something whispered from the far side of the room.
The large shadow trembled.
I flinched back into the doorway.
“And,” the whisper continued, “a shadow of a spider? No. Stand still.”
I stood still as commanded and watched as the room was illuminated and the shadow fell away and there before me was a great figure, a creature some seven feet tall and colored the most peculiar shade of green.
“Well,” came the whisper again.
I replied as steadily as I could. “What can I say?”
“Anything,” came the whisper.
“Once,” I replied, “I went to see Michealangelo’s David. It was tall. I circled it.”
“And?”
“You look to be at least as big around as that great work.”
I moved forward and began to circle the creature, which didn’t move. I was, nevertheless, trembling.
The shadows continued to melt, and the shape of the creature became more apparent.
“Quell,” came the whisper again. “That is my name. I have come a long way, some ten million miles and five light-years. Here on your world, judging by your size, I’d say your god has just one half-cracked eye awake. On our world, God jumped with a shout of creation, thus our great height.”
And the creature stood, even taller.
I stared at the face and said, “You—your mouth hardly moves.”
The thing named Quell replied, “But my thoughts move as do yours. So,” said the creature, “tell me, Jack, would you slay the giant?”
“I—” I stammered.
“I read the beanstalk in your mind.”
“Damn!” I cried. “Forgive me,” I said. “This is my first meeting with a telepath.”
“Let me save you from damnation,” said my roommate. “Once more, my name is Quell. And yours?”
“You know my name,” I said. “You read minds.”
“But out of politeness,” Quell replied, “I pretend otherwise.”
The great creature reached down with one of his appendages. I put forward my hand, and we touched.
“Ishmael Hunnicut Jones,” I said.
“Well,” said Quell. “That name has traveled out of your Bible and into this age of space.”
“Which is much the way you’ve come,” I said.
“Five light-years off,” said Quell. “I was in deep freeze for five whole years, as cold as death. I slept the time away. It is good to be awake again. Am I not strange?”
“Oh, no,” I said.
“Oh, yes,” said Quell, with something like a laugh. “If thoughts fly, I catch them. That must be strange to you. And you must also be thinking that I have too many eyes, too many ears, far too many fingers, greenish skin—certainly strange. And yet I look at you and see that you have only two eyes, two tiny ears, five little fingers on each of only two hands. So then we are both—look at us—quite amusing. And both, finally…human.”
“Yes,” I said, seeing the truth in this. “Oh yes, that is human.”
Quell was provoked to some sort of humor, for he went on and said, “So now, Ishmael, shall I grind your bone to
