"Unhand me, presumptuous navigator!" Dr. Smullyan shook the captain's
fingers off his arm. "I didn't say he was going to die," he offered in
ordinary bedside tones. "Not being a specialist in this particular
sector, I am not qualified to offer an opinion, but, strictly off the
record, I would hazard the guess that he's about to metamorphose again."
"He never did it in public before," Iversen said worriedly.
"The old order changeth," Smullyan told him. "You'd better call
Harkaway."
"What does _he_ know!"
"Too little and, at the same time, too much," the doctor declaimed,
dissociating himself professionally from the case. "Too much and too
little. Eat, drink, be merry, iniquitous Earthmen, for you died
yesterday!"
"Oh, shut up," Iversen said automatically, and dispatched a message to
Harkaway with the information that the thor'glitch appeared to be
metamorphosing again and that his presence was requested in the
captain's cabin.
[Illustration]
The rest of the officers accompanied Harkaway, all of them with the air
of attending a funeral rather than a rebirth, Iversen noted nervously.
They weren't armed, though, so Bridey couldn't be turning into anything
dangerous.
* * * * *
Now it came to pass that the thor'glitch's mid-section, having swelled
to unbearable proportions, began to quiver. Suddenly, the skin split
lengthwise and dropped cleanly to either side, like a banana peel.
Iversen pressed forward to see what fresh life-form the bulging cavity
had held. The other officers all stood in a somber row without moving,
for all along, Iversen realized, they had known what to expect, what was
to come. And they had not told him. But then, he knew, it was his own
fault; he had refused to be told.
Now, looking down at the new life-form, he saw for himself what it was.
Lying languidly in the thor'glitch skin was a slender youth of a pallor
which seemed excessive even for a member of a green-skinned race. He had
large limpid eyes and a smile of ineffable sweetness.
"By Nopus Secundus," Iversen groaned. "I'm sunk."
"Naturally the ultimate incarnation for a life-form would be humanoid,"
Harkaway said with deep reproach. "What else?"
"I'm surprised you didn't figure that out for yourself, sir," the first
officer added. "Even if you did refuse to read Harkaway's book, it seems
obvious."
"Does it?" Smullyan challenged. "Does it, indeed? Is Man the highest
form of life in an irrational cosmos? Then all causes are lost ones!...
So many worlds," he muttered in more subdued tones, "so much to do, so
little done, such things to be!"
"The Flimbotzik were telling Harkaway about their _own_ life cycle,"
Iversen whispered as revelation bathed him in its murky light. "The
human embryo undergoes a series of changes _inside_ the womb. It's just
that the Flimbotzik fetus develops _outside_ the womb."
"Handily bypassing the earliest and most unpleasant stages of humanity,"
Smullyan sighed. "Oh, idyllic planet, where one need never be a
child--where one need never see a child!"
"Then they were trying to explain their biology to you quite clearly and
coherently, you lunkhead," Iversen roared at Harkaway, "and you took it
for a religious doctrine!"
"Yes, sir," Harkaway said weakly. "I--I kind of figured that out myself
in these last few weeks of intensive soul-searching. I--I'm sorry, sir.
All I can say is that it was an honest mistake."
"Why, they weren't necessarily pet-lovers at all. Those animals they had
with them were.... By Nair al Zaurak!" The captain's voice rose to a
shriek as the whole enormity of the situation finally dawned upon him.
"You went and kidnaped one of the children!"
"That's a serious charge, kidnaping," the first officer said with
melancholy pleasure. "And you, as head of this expedition, Captain, are
responsible. Ironic, isn't it?"
"Told you all this spelled doom and disaster," the doctor observed
cheerfully.
Just then, the young humanoid sat up--with considerable effort, Iversen
was disturbed to notice. But perhaps that was one of the consequences of
being born. A new-born infant was weak; why not a new-born adult, then?
"Why doom?" the humanoid asked in a high, clear voice. "Why disaster?"
"You--you speak Terran?" the captain stammered.
Bridey gave his sad, sweet smile. "I was reared amongst you. You are my
people. Why should I not speak your tongue?"
"But we're not your people," Iversen blurted, thinking perhaps the youth
did not remember back to his greechi days. "We're an entirely different
species--"
"Our souls vibrate in unison and that is the vital essence. But do not
be afraid, shipmates; the Flimbotzik do not regard the abduction of a
transitory corporeal shelter as a matter of any great moment. Moreover,
what took place could not rightly be termed abduction, for I came with
you of my own volition--and the Flimbotzik recognize individual
responsibility from the very first moment of the psyche's drawing breath
in any material casing."
Bridey talked so much like Harkaway's book that Iversen was almost
relieved when, a few hours later, the alien died. Of course the captain
was worried about possible repercussions from the governments of both
Terra and Flimbot, in spite of Bridey's assurances.
And he could not help but feel a pang when the young humanoid expired in
his arms, murmuring, "Do not grieve for me, soul-mates. In the midst of
life, there is life...."
"Funny," Smullyan said, with one of his disconcerting returns to a
professional manner, "all the other forms seemed perfectly healthy. Why
did this one go like that? Almost as if he _wanted_ to die."
"He was too good for this ship, that's what," the radio operator said,
glaring at the captain. "Too fine and brave and--and noble."
"Yes," Harkaway agreed. "What truly sensitive soul could exist in a
stultifying atmosphere like this?"
All the officers glared at the captain. He glared back with right good
will. "How come you gentlemen are still with us?" he inquired. "One
would have thought you would have perished of pure sensibility long
since, then."
"It's not nice to talk that way," the chief petty officer burst out,
"not with him lying there not yet cold.... Ah," he heaved a long sigh,
"we'll never see his like again."
"Ay, that we won't," agreed the crew, huddled in the corridor outside
the captain's cabin.
Iversen sincerely hoped not, but he forbore to speak.
* * * * *
Since Bridey had reached the ultimate point in his life cycle, it seemed
certain that he was not going to change into anything else and so he was
given a spaceman's burial. Feeling like a put-upon fool, Captain Iversen
read a short prayer as Bridey's slight body was consigned to the vast
emptiness of space.
Then the airlock clanged shut behind the last mortal remains of the
ill-fated extraterrestrial and that was the end of it.
But the funereal atmosphere did not diminish as the ship forged on
toward Earth. Gloomy days passed, one after the other, during which no
one spoke, save to issue or dispute an order. Looking at himself one day
in the mirror on his cabin wall, the captain realized that he was
getting old. Perhaps he ought to retire instead of still dreaming of a
new command and a new crew.
And then one day, as he sat in his cabin reading the Spaceman's Credo,
the lights on the _Herringbone_ went out, all at once, while the
constant hum of the motors died down slowly, leaving a strange,
uncomfortable silence. Iversen found himself suspended weightless in the
dark, for the gravity, of course, had gone off with the power. What, he
wondered, had come to pass? He often found himself thinking in such
terms these days.
Hoarse cries issued from the passageway outside; then he heard a squeak
as his cabin door opened and persons unknown floated inside, breathing
heavily.
"The power has failed, sir!" gasped the first officer's voice.
"That has not escaped my notice," Iversen said icily. Were not even his
last moments to be free from persecution?
"It's all that maniac Smullyan's fault. He stored his _mk'oog_ in the
fuel tanks. After emptying them out first, that is. We're out of fuel."
The captain put a finger in his book to mark his place, which was, he
knew with a kind of supernal detachment, rather foolish, because there
was no prospect of there ever being lights to read by again.
"Put him in irons, if you can find him," he ordered. "And tell the men
to prepare themselves gracefully for a lingering death."
Iversen could hear a faint creak as the first officer drew himself to
attention in the darkness. "The men of the _Herringbone_, sir," he said,
stiffly, "are always prepared for calamity."
"Ay, that we are," agreed various voices.
So they were all there, were they? Well, it was too much to expect that
they would leave him in death any more than they had in life.
"It is well," Iversen said. "It is well," he repeated, unable to think
of anything more fitting.
Suddenly the lights went on again and the ship gave a leap. From his
sprawling position on the floor, amid his recumbent officers, Iversen
could hear the hum of motors galvanized into life.
"But if the fuel tanks are empty," he asked of no one in particular,
"where did the power come from?"
"I am the power," said a vast, deep voice that filled the ship from hold
to hold.
"And the glory," said the radio operator reverently. "Don't forget the
glory."
"No," the voice replied and it was the voice of Bridey, resonant with
all the amplitude of the immense chest cavity he had acquired. "Not the
glory, merely the power. I have reached a higher plane of existence. I
am a spaceship."
"Praise be to the Ultimate Nothingness!" Harkaway cried.
"Ultimate Nothingness, nothing!" Bridey said impatiently. "I achieved it
all myself."
"Then that's how the Flimbotzi spaceships were powered!" Iversen
exclaimed. "By themselves--the Flimbotzik themselves, I mean--"
"Even so," Bridey replied grandly. "And this lofty form of life happens
to be one which we poor humans cannot reach unassisted. Someone has to
build the shell for us to occupy, which is the reason humans dwell
together in fellowship and harmony--"
"You purposely got Harkaway to take you aboard the _Herringbone_,"
Iversen interrupted wrathfully. "You--you stowaway!"
Bridey's laugh rang through the ship, setting the loose parts quivering.
"Of course. When first I set eyes upon this vessel of yours, I saw
before me the epitome of all dreams. Never had any of our kind so
splendid an encasement. And, upon determining that the vessel was, as
yet, a soulless thing, I got myself aboard; I was born, I died, and was
reborn again with the greatest swiftness consonant with comfort, so that
I could awaken in this magnificent form. Oh, joy, joy, joy!"
"You know," Iversen said, "now that I hear one of you talk at length, I
really can't blame Harkaway for his typically imbecilic mistake."
"We are a wordy species," Bridey conceded.
"You had no right to do what you did," Iversen told him, "no right to
take over--"
"But I didn't take over," Bridey the _Herringbone_ said complacently. "I
merely remained quiescent and content in the knowledge of my power until
yours failed. Without me, you would even now be spinning in the vasty
voids, a chrome-trimmed sepulcher. Now, three times as swiftly as
before, shall I bear you back to the planet you very naively call home."
"Not three times as fast, please!" Iversen was quick to plead. "The ship
isn't built--_we're_ not built to stand such speeds."
The ship sighed. "Disappointment needs must come to all--the high, the
low, the man, the spaceship. It must be borne--" the voice
broke--"bravely. Somehow."
"What am I going to do?" Iversen asked, turning to the first officer for
advice for the first time ever. "I was planning to ask for a transfer or
resign my command when we got back to Earth. But how can I leave Bridey
in the hands of the IEE(E)?"
"You can't, sir," the first officer said. "Neither can we."
"If you explain," Harkaway offered timidly, "perhaps they'll present the
ship to the government."
Both Iversen and the first officer snorted, united for once. "Not the
IEE(E)," Iversen said. "They'd--they'd exhibit it or something and
charge admission."
"Oh, no," Bridey cried, "I don't want to be exhibited! I want to sail
through the trackless paths of space. What good is a body like this if I
cannot use it to its fullest?"
"Have no fear," Iversen assured it. "We'll just--" he shrugged, his
dreams of escape forever blighted--"just have to buy the ship from the
IEE(E), that's all."
"Right you are, sir," the first officer agreed. "We must club together,
every man Jack of us, and buy her. Him. It. That's the only decent thing
to do."
"Perhaps they won't sell," Harkaway worried. "Maybe--"
"Oh, they'll sell, all right," Iversen said wearily. "They'd sell the
chairman of the board, if you made them an offer, and throw in all the
directors if the price was right."
"And then what will we do?" the first officer asked. "Once the ship has
been purchased, what will our course be? What, in other words, are we to
do?"
It was Bridey who answered. "We will speed through space seeking,
learning, searching, until you--all of you--pass on to higher planes
and, leaving the frail shells you now inhabit, occupy proud, splendid
vessels like the one I wear now. Then, a vast transcendent flotilla, we
will seek other universes...."
"But we don't become spaceships," Iversen said unhappily. "We don't
become anything."
"How do you know we don't?" Smullyan demanded, appearing on the
threshold. "How do you know what we become? Build thee more stately
spaceships, O my soul!"
Above all else, Iversen was a space officer and dereliction of duty
could not be condoned even in exceptional circumstances. "Put him in
irons, somebody!"
"Ask Bridey why there were only forty-five spaceships on his planet!"
the doctor yelled over his shoulder as he was dragged off. "Ask where
the others went--where they are now."
But Bridey wouldn't answer that question.