They were quiet then for a long time—several hours, in fact. Doolittle found himself drifting off to sleep. The sound of long, distant waves was in his ears, the cry of curious seagulls overhead, wondering at him sleeping on warm sand under his belly, when Talby’s voice came over the suit speaker and roused him again.
“Doolittle… I’m moving out fast, Doolittle and… there’s something else here with me. It’s behind me, still in the distance, but coming up fast. Something that glows.” Another pause and then, later, this: “It’s a lot of things all grouped together, Doolittle. I can’t describe it… a glow, radiation, internal light… but how they shine, Doolittle! I think it just might be the Phoenix, Doolittle!”
Doolittle roused himself sleepily and mumbled, “Phoenix?” He tried to turn himself, but no matter how he twisted his head, he couldn’t seem to locate the brilliant apparition Talby was describing.
That was strange. He felt he’d covered every section of the sky. But there was no gleaming mass of “things” from outside. According to Talby’s description, they should have dominated the heavens—if they were really there, that is.
Only it didn’t seem to matter, now. Nothing seemed to matter. Edward Vincent Doolittle… how melodic. Melodic—no, symphonic! He heard it on his organ, played variations on it, piled fugue on fugue, made adagios of Edwards and scherzos of Vincents and great roaring Doolittle fortissimos!
What’s in a name? Everything. What is a man but a measure of syllables?
If Talby saw his Phoenix, well, then he was glad for Talby. Yet it bothered him that he couldn’t see it too. It had always bothered him that Talby seemed able to see so many things no one else could.
But he liked the astronomer in spite of that. Talby’s excited voice cut in on his thoughts.
“It is… it’s got to be, Doolittle! The Phoenix!”
“That’s fine,” Doolittle agreed encouragingly. He wanted Talby to see his Phoenix. And who was he to say it wasn’t there, brought along specially for Talby by his good buddies the stars?
Talby saw them, all right. Drank them. They were so bright the intensity should have hurt his eyes, but somehow it didn’t. There appeared to be a pattern, a regularity of form to the asteroidal collage.
But that was quite impossible. Weren’t they purely a natural phenomenon? Weren’t they?
And yet it seemed, as he drifted closer, that the pattern took on a definite outline, forming clearly established planes and connections here, sides and walls there, all bound glittering together in an astronomical baroque conclave of gravity and light and color and—something else.
He tried to concentrate on the nearest element of the Phoenix, but here the light was strong enough to defeat him. Yet he was sure he’d gotten a glimpse, and that the object at the center of that incredibly intense luminary was something other than mere rock.
What else it might be he couldn’t put a name to. Or was it simply that in the last stages of life he saw what he wanted to see instead of what was really there? A peculiar tingling ran along his nerves, and there was a pulsing in his temple. He felt like a man teetering on the abyss of a great revelation.
“I’m… going into them,” he whispered into his headset. “I’m going to hit them, Doolittle.”
He ought to be sensible and close his eyes, he knew. The radiation that must surely be pouring from the ever-nearing Phoenix would undoubtedly burn out his retinas forever, despite the heavy shielding of his helmet faceplate.
But what mattered that? He would be dead inside an hour anyway. And there was no pain, no pain at all. Only that feeling of expectancy.
There was one last thing he had to do.
“Doolittle?”
“Yes, Talby,” came Doolittle’s ever-fading voice, distorted by static.
“Before we get too far apart and our signals go, I wanted to tell you… you were my favorite. Of all the guys on the ship you were my favorite. I really like you, Doolittle.”
Doolittle considered this. His own attention was focused on the rapidly growing world below.
“I really liked you too, Talby.”
Something floated past his face-plate. He blinked, forced his nearly quiescent mind back to a semblance of sentience.
“Hey, there’s more debris from the ship coming past, Talby.” Several large chunks of corridor wall ambled leisurely past him. “They’re coming right past me.”
“I’m going into them,” came Talby’s receding tones.
And then the astronomer looked down and saw something that amazed him, twice amazed that he could still see. The red world appeared to be receding far more rapidly than before.
“Hey, Doolittle. They’re taking me with them, Doolittle. I’m going with them. I’m gonna circle the universe. Hey, how about that?”
Then he looked down at his arm. Tiny motes of light like curious insects were dancing around the sleeve, and the bright suit material was glowing brighter, brighter, until it pained him to look at his own arm.
He looked further, down at his right leg, saw that it too was starting to shine like the miniature firmament of an incandescent lamp. And something—something was happening to his body. Something painless and passing strange—a space change, rare and beautiful.
“I’m with them now, Doolittle,” he called. “I’ll be back again this way some day.” And then the change was complete, and he fell into that abyss of revelation and—knew.
“Doolittle, it’s wonderful… Before it’s too late, I want to tell you. I know what the Phoenix is now, Doolittle, and I want to tell you… it’s…”
Edward Vincent Doolittle watched fragments of the Dark Star parade past him, tumbling slowly.
What was it Talby had said there at the last, before his suit radio had faded forever? He didn’t remember.
But it had been good, he knew that. Poor Talby, poor grand, gone, lucky Talby. Out of the ashes of the Dark Star at least one of them had been reborn.
And he—he had his name again. He eyed the debris and his gaze focused on one particular, unspecial piece. And perhaps—something more.
A slow smile started to spread across his face. A quick glance at the panel of miniature instruments inside his faceplate showed pressure outside—slight, but rising rapidly. He was in the outer edges of the atmosphere and falling fast.
It would be over very soon, but he still ought to have time.
“Talby,” he called, unaware that the astronomer was completely out of range. Even if he’d been within range, the present Talby couldn’t have heard him anyhow. But he called nonetheless. “Hey, Talby!”
The ladder would pass very close—the metal ladder that had once led from one level of the Dark Star to another. It would pass too far… no. He reached out and got a hand on it, pulled it close.
A long section of ship’s ladder, straight and unbroken. It held steady as the two of them plunged planetward together.
“I’ve caught a hunk of junk, Talby, and… I think I’ve figured out a way!”
He’d been sitting in the water for hours now. Hours. It was evening and overcast and the wind was starting to get really bad. But the tourists had long since gone and even most of the regulars had taken their boards in, strapped them atop their cars and called it a day.
But at the last minute before sunset the red ball of the sun had slipped under the clouds and now exploded over the mountainous horizon in a last warming burst of affection.
He knew it was out there. You had to be patient, that was all, and meet the vast open spaces on their own terms. Even so, they might play you false all day, all month, all year, forever… but eventually, if you were patient and played straight with them and bided your time, they’d come through.