II
Lure of the Crystal
There was a change in the boy after that. The dream in his eyes did not fade, but he worked now with an intensity of purpose that had never existed before. Previously, the two had held routine jobs in a huge commercial organization. Without warning O’Brien quit. Arnsen followed suit, feeling the necessity for staying close to the younger man. Yet in the days to come, he amounted to little more than excess baggage.
O’Brien had plans. He borrowed money, scraped together enough to equip a small laboratory, and there he worked long hours. Arnsen helped when he could, though that was not often. He seldom knew exactly what the boy was trying to accomplish.
Once O’Brien said a queer thing. They were in the laboratory, awaiting the result of an experiment, and Arnsen was pacing back and forth nervously.
“I wish I knew what was up, Doug,” he said almost with anger. “We’ve been at this for months now. What do you expect, anyway? You’ve had no more than an ordinary training in physics.”
“The jewel helps,” O’Brien said. He took the gem from its suede bag and stared into the cloudy depths. “I catch—thoughts from it.”
Arnsen stopped short, staring. His face changed.
“You kidding?” he demanded.
O’Brien flushed. “Okay, try it,” he said, thrusting the stone at Arnsen, who took it rather reluctantly. “Shut your eyes and let your mind go blank. That does it, sometimes.”
“I—all right.” Arnsen squeezed his eyes closed and thought of nothing. Instantly a sick, horrible feeling swept through him—a terrible yearning such as he had never known before. So might the Assassins feel, deprived of the magic drug that took them to Paradise. An Assassin exiled, cast into outer darkness.
A face swam into view, lovely and strange beyond imagination. Only a glimpse he had, blotted out by rainbow, coruscating lights that darted and flashed like elfin fireflies. Then darkness, once more, and the frightful longing—for what?
He let go of the gem; O’Brien caught it as it fell. The boy smiled wryly.
“I wondered if you’d get it, too. Did you see her?”
“I saw nothing,” Arnsen snarled, whirling toward the door. “I felt nothing!”
“Yet you’re afraid. Why? I don’t fear her, or the stone.”
“The more fool you,” Arnsen cast over his shoulder as he went out. He felt sick and weak, as though unnameable vistas had opened before him. There was no explanation for what he had felt—no sane explanation, at least.
And yet there might be, he thought, as he paced about the yard, smoking an endless chain of cigarettes. Telepathy, thought-transference—he had simply caught what was in O’Brien’s mind. But it was horrible to know that Doug was feeling that soul-sick craving for the goddess-girl who could not exist.
O’Brien came out of the laboratory, eyes aglow. “It’s done,” he said, trying to repress his triumph. “We’ve got the alloy at last. That last treatment did the trick.”
Arnsen felt vague apprehension. He tried to congratulate O’Brien, but his tone rang false to his own ears. The boy smiled understandingly.
“It’s been good of you to string along, Steve. The thing will pay off now. Only—I’ll need a lot of money.”
“You’ll have a lot. Plenty of companies will be bidding for the process.”
O’Brien said, “I want enough to buy a spaceship.”
Arnsen whistled. “That’s a lot. Even for a small boat.” His eyes narrowed. “Why do you want it?”
“I’m going to find Deirdre,” the other said simply. “She’s out there, somewhere.” He tilted his head back. “And I’ll find her.”
“Space is pretty big.”
“I’ve a guide.” O’Brien took out the gray gem. “It wants to go to her, too. It wants to go back. It isn’t really alive here on Earth, you know. And I’m not just dreaming, Steve. How do you suppose I managed to make this alloy—the perfect plastic, tougher than beryllium steel, lighter than aluminum, a conductor or nonconductor of electricity depending on the mix. … You know I couldn’t have done it alone.”
“You did it.”
O’Brien touched the jewel. “I found out how to do it. There’s life in here, Steve. Not earthly life, but intelligent. I could understand a little, not much. Enough to work out the alloy. I had to do that first, so I could get money enough to buy a spaceship.”
“You don’t know how to pilot in space.”
“We’ll hire a pilot.”
“We?”
He grinned. “I’m going to prove my point. You don’t believe in Deirdre. But you’ll see her, Steve. The jewel will guide us. It wants to go home—so we’ll take it there.”
Arnsen scowled and turned away, his big shoulders tense with unreasoning anger. He found himself hating the imaginary being O’Brien had created. Deirdre! His fists clenched.
She did not exist. The major planets and satellites had been explored; the inhabited ones held nothing remotely human. Martians were huge-headed, spindle-legged horrors; Venusians were scaled amphibians, living in a state of feudalism and constant warfare. The other planets … the avian, hollow-boned Callistans were closest to humanity, but by no stretch of the imagination could they be called beautiful. And Deirdre was beautiful. Imaginary or not, she was lovely as a goddess.
Damn her!
But that did no good. O’Brien was not to be turned from his purpose. With relentless, swift intensity he patented the alloy process, sold it to the highest bidder, and purchased a light space cruiser. He found a pilot, a leather-skinned, tough, tobacco-chewing man named Tex Hastings, who could be depended on to do what he was told and keep his mouth shut.
O’Brien chafed with impatience till the cruiser jetted off from the spaceport. The closer he came to achieving his goal, the more nervous he grew. The jewel he kept clenched in one hand most of the time. Arnsen noticed that a dim brilliance was beginning to glow within it as the ship plunged farther out toward the void.
Hastings cast quizzical glances at O’Brien, but did what he was told. He confided in Arnsen.
“We haven’t even bothered with charts. It’s screwy, but I’m not kicking. Only this isn’t piloting. Your friend just points at a star-sector and says, ‘Go there.’ Funny.” He scratched his leathery cheek, faded eyes intent on Arnsen’s face.
The big man nodded. “I know. But it isn’t up to me, Hastings. I’m supercargo.”
“Yeah. Well, if you—want any help—you can count on me. I’ve seen space-madness before.”
Arnsen snorted. “Space-madness!”
Hastings’ eyes were steady. “I may be wrong, sure. But anything can happen out here. We’re not on Earth, Mr. Arnsen. Earth laws don’t apply. Neither does logic. We’re on the edge of the unknown.”
“I never thought you were superstitious.”
“I’m not. Only I’ve been around, and seen a lot. That crystal Mr. O’Brien lugs around with him—I never saw anything like that before.” He waited, but Arnsen didn’t speak. “All right, then. I’ve known things to drift in from Outside. Funny things, damn funny. The Solar System’s like a Sargasso. It catches flotsam from other systems, even other universes, for all I know. One rule I’ve learned—when you can’t guess the answer, it’s a good idea to stay clear.”
Arnsen grunted moodily, staring out a port at the glaring brilliance of the stars.
“Ever heard any stories about jewels like that one?”
Hastings shook his closely-cropped head. “No. But I saw a wreck once, Sunside of Pluto—a ship that hadn’t been designed in this System. It was deserted; God knows how long it had been out there. Or where it came from. Inside, it wasn’t designed for human beings at all. It came from Outside, of course, and Outside is a big place. That jewel, now—” He bit the end off a quid of tobacco.
“What about it?”
“It’s an Outside sort of thing. And your friend isn’t acting normal. It may add up to trouble. It may not. My point is that I’m going to keep my eyes open, and you’d be wise to do the same thing.”
Arnsen went back to the galley and fried eggs, angry with himself for listening to Hastings’ hints. He was more than ever uncomfortable. Back on Earth, it had been easier to disbelieve in any unknown powers that the gray jewel might possess; here, it was different. Space was the hinterland, the waste that bordered the cryptic Outside. The forward step in science that threw open the gates of interplanetary travel had, in a way, taken man back in time to a day when he cowered in a cave, fearing the powers of the dark that lurked in the unknown jungle. Space travel had broken barriers. It opened a door that, perhaps, should have remained forever closed.
On the shores of space strange flotsam was cast. Arnsen’s gaze probed out through the port, to the red globe of Mars, the blinding brilliance of the Milky Way, the enigmatic shadow of the Coal Sack. Out there anything might lie. Life grown from a matrix neither Earthly nor even three-dimensional. Charles Fort had hinted at it; scientists had hazarded wild guesses. The cosmic womb of space, from which blasphemous abortions might be cast.
So they went on, day after day, skirting Mars and plunging on into the thick of the asteroid belt. It was uncharted country now, a Sargasso of remnants from an exploded planet that had existed here eons ago. Sounds rang loudly in the narrow confines of the space ship. Nervousness gripped all three of the men. But O’Brien found comfort in the gray crystal. His eyes held a glowing light of triumph.
“We are coming closer, Steve,” he said. “Deirdre isn’t far away now.”
“Damn Deirdre,” Arnsen said—but not aloud.
The ship went on, following the blind course O’Brien pointed. Hastings shook his head in grim silence, and trained his passengers in the use of the spacesuits. Few of the asteroids had atmosphere, and it became increasingly evident that the destination was an asteroid. …