Epilogue + 

Arnsen had not spoken for a long time. Through the window I could see the Cairo stratoship being wheeled into place. Beyond, the lights of New York glowed yellow. + 

“And so you came back,” I said. + 

He nodded. “And so I came back. I put on my spacesuit and went back to the ship. The crystals didn’t try to stop me. They seemed to be waiting. I don’t know for what. I blasted off and headed Sunward. I knew enough to do that. After a while I began to send out SOS signals, and a patrol boat picked me up. That was all.” + 

“Doug⁠—” + 

“Still there, I suppose. With all the others. Vail, why did I do it? Was I right?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but cupped the little shagreen box in his hand. He didn’t open it. + 

“No,” he went on, “you can’t answer me; nobody can. Circe took the soul out of my body, and I’m empty now. There’s no peace for me on Earth, or in the spaceways. And out there, somewhere, on that asteroid, the crystals are waiting⁠—waiting for Circe to come back⁠— + 

“But she will never come back. She will stay with me till I die, and then she’ll be buried with me in space. In the meantime⁠—Circe doesn’t like it here on Earth. So I’m going out again. Sometime, perhaps, I’ll take her back Outside, to the unknown place from which she came. I don’t know⁠—” + 

An audio announced the plane for Kansas. Arnsen stood up, gave me a smile from his ravaged face, and without a word went out. + 

I never saw him again. + 

I think that beyond Pluto, beyond the farthest limits of the system, a little cruiser may be fleeing into the void, controls set, racing, perhaps, for the darkness of the Coal Sack. In the ship is a man and a jewel. He will die, but I do not think that even in death his hand will relax its grip on that jewel. + 

And the ship will go on, into the blackness which has no name. + 