Thus you live. Therefore God lives. You are the thin skin of life upon an unsensing Earth, you are that growing edge of God which manifests itself in hunger for Space. So much of God lies vibrantly asleep. The very stuffs of worlds and galaxies, they know not themselves.
But here, God stirs in his sleep. You are the stirring. He wakes, you are that wakening. God reaches for the stars. You are His hand. Creation manifest, you go in search. He goes to find, you go to find. Everything you touch along the way, therefore, will be holy. On far worlds you will meet your own flesh, terrifying and strange, but still your own. Treat it well. Beneath the shape, you share the Godhead.
“You Jonahs traveling in the belly of a new-made metal whale, you swimmers in the far seas of deep space, blaspheme not against yourselves or the frightening twins of yourselves you find among the stars, but ask to understand the miracles which are Space, Time, and Life in the high attics and lost birthing-places of Eternity.
Woe to you if you do not find all life most holy, and coming to lay yourself down cannot say, O Father God, you waken me. I waken Thee. Immortal, together we then walk upon the waters of deep space in the new morn which names itself: Forever.”
The congregation—above and below—softly repeated the word, “Forever, forever.”
There was a swell of soft music from somewhere in the heavens as Father Ellery Colworth finished, his figure went dark, and his silhouette was seen descending silently behind the podium.
In the long silence that came upon us I wept.
I lay awake that night in my berth aboard the Cetus 7.
Quell was already asleep. Rain patterns, simulated to aid slumber, fell on our faces and behind us on the wall.
The voice of a clock repeated, very softly, “Tick tock, two o’clock…tick tock, two o’clock.”
At last I spoke.
“Quell, awake?”
And his mind spoke to me silently from across the room.
“Part of my mind, yes, the rest sleeps. I dream of the old man who warned us.”
“Elijah? Did you believe him, that our captain is blind?”
“Yes. That much is common knowledge.”
“And that he is mad?”
“That we must discover for ourselves.”
“But by that time, mightn’t it be too late, Quell?”
The soothing rain patterns continued to fall on my cheeks and the walls. There was a faint rumble of thunder from beyond.
“Quell? What, is all of you asleep now? Good companion, lie there. Your body the strange color of a world I will never see. Cold blood but warm heart; your mouth silent but your mind, even in sleep, breathing friendship.”
Quell’s voice, within my head, murmured drowsily, “Ishmael.”
“Quell, thank God for you in the days ahead.”
From all around me Quell’s voice repeated, “Ishmael…Ishmael.”
Chapter 3
A voice boomed over the loudspeakers. “The captain is in quarters, prepare for countdown.”
The crew all hurried to their assigned stations, suited up and strapped in. The great doors were shut and sealed, the gantries rolled away, the engines fired up.
“Minus one and counting.”
We lay waiting for the fire-wind to seize and throw us at the sky.
And seize and throw it did.
Oh my God, I thought. Help me to shout, “We rise, we rise.”
But silence took us, like penitent monks, to its bosom.
For even the thundering rocket, which rips the soul on Earth, walks silently some few miles high, treads the stars without footfall, as if in awe of the great cathedral of space.
Free, I thought. No gravity. No gravity! Free. Oh, Quell, I find it most pleasant to be…alive.
Safely in orbit, let out of our constraints, I asked, “And now, what do we do?”
“Why, collect data,” said one of the crew.
“Add and subtract constellations,” said another.
“Photograph comets,” said a third. “Which means, capture God’s skeleton in an X-ray.”
Another crew member said, “I grabbed a flash of those passing comets. From such huge ghosts of suns, I borrow cups of energy to power our ship. Sweet alchemy, my game, but fine fun pumps my blood. All round lies death, but I greet even Death with, look, this grin.”
It was First Mate John Redleigh. I touched a computer screen, which whispered his name, and I saw there his log of the first hours of our journey: August 22, 2099. Out of sight of land, yes, out of sight of the blessed land, which means all Earth and those we hold dear upon it. All faces, names, souls, remembrances, streets, houses, towns, meadows, seas—gone. All longitudes, latitudes, meridians, hours, nights, days, all time, yes, time, too, gone. Christ, guard my soul. How lonely.
And to me Quell set free his thoughts: “Friend, I read minds, not futures. Space is large. They say it curves. Perhaps our end is our beginning. Our destination: far, very far, three mystery comets to be found by us in one constellation. Chart their course and map their routes, take their temperatures.”
“How long will we travel?” I asked.
“Ten years,” came the answer.
“My God, how boring,” I said.
“No,” said Quell, “for see how your God sends His meteors to entertain us.”
“Meteor strike!” a voice cried. “Deck seven. All hands report!”
We ran. All ran to the sounds of bells and klaxons and worked to repair the ship’s hull.
And at last I stood, back inside the hatch, taking off my helmet along with the rest of the crew.
And so it went, day in, day out—our ship hurtling through space, each of us with his assigned task, measuring, scanning, calculating, plotting a safe course among the broken stars.
And yet, with all this happening, still, after forty days out in space, not once did we see our captain. He stayed locked up in his cabin. But sometimes, at three or so in the deep morning, I heard the hiss of the elevator shaft, like a long, drawn-out sigh, and knew he was passing, rising up from the interior living and work levels to the outermost deck of his great ship, restricted to all but our ghost leader.
We all listened and heard.
In private, Downs said, “What does he do, up there? I hear he suits up, goes out alone, tethered by just one line.”
Someone answered, “Fool, he plays games with meteors, reaching out as if to catch them, even though he cannot possibly see them coming.”
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-psychoanalyze 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, God, Redleigh, haven’t you more to put in this damn machine? Are you so stale, flat, unbumped, 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 unbuttered bun, flat wine? Pleasantly sensual, but never passionate.
A good husband, fair friend, far traveler, without worry, coming and going so quietly that God 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 passed 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,
