"You got any plans?"
Wyatt shook his head.
Coop swore moodily. "Never let you alone," he muttered. "Miserable
bastards." He rose up suddenly in the chair, pointing a long
matchstick finger into Wyatt's face. "Listen, Billy," he said with
determination, "you was a good man, you know that? You was one hell of
a good goddam man."
Wyatt took another long pull and nodded, smiling.
"You said it," he said.
"I sailed with some good men, some _good_ men," Coop insisted,
stabbing shakily but emphatically with his finger, "but you don't take
nothin' from nobody."
[Illustration]
"Here's to me, I'm true blue," Wyatt grinned.
* * * * *
Coop sank back in the chair, satisfied. "I just wanted you should
know. You been a good man."
"Betcher sweet life," Wyatt said.
"So they throw you out. _Me_ they keep. _You_ they throw out. They got
no brains."
Wyatt lay back, letting the liquor take hold, receding without pain
into a quiet world. The ship was good to feel around him, dark and
throbbing like a living womb. _Just like a womb_, he thought. _It's a
lot like a womb._
"Listen," Coop said thickly, rising from his chair. "I think I'll quit
this racket. What the hell I wanna stay in this racket for?"
Wyatt looked up, startled. When Coop was drunk, he was never a little
drunk. He was always far gone, and he could be very mean. Wyatt saw
now that he was down deep and sinking; that the replacement was a big
thing to him, bigger than Wyatt had expected. In this team, Wyatt had
been the leader, and it had seldom occurred to him that Coop really
needed him. He had never really thought about it. But now he let
himself realize that, alone, Coop could be very bad. Unless this new
man was worth anything and learned quickly, Coop would very likely get
himself killed.
Now, more than ever, this replacement thing was ridiculous; but for
Coop's sake, Wyatt said quickly:
"Drop that, man. You'll be on this ship in the boneyard. You even look
like this ship--you got a bright red bow."
When the tall man was dark and silent, Wyatt said gently, "Coop. Easy.
We leave at midnight. Want me to take her up?"
"Naw." Coop turned away abruptly, shaking his head. "T'hell with you.
Go die." He sank back deeply in the seat, his gaunt face reflecting
the green glow from the panel. His next words were sad, and, to Wyatt,
very touching.
"Hell, Billy," Coop said wearily, "this ain' no fun."
Wyatt let him take the ship up alone. There was no reason to argue
about it. Coop was drunk; his mind was unreachable.
At midnight, the ship bucked and heaved and leaped up into the sky.
Wyatt hung tenuously to a stanchion by a port, watched the night
lights recede and the stars begin blooming. In a few moments the last
clouds were past, and they were out in the long night, and the million
million speckled points of glittering blue and red and silver burned
once more with the mighty light which was, to Wyatt, all that was real
or had ever meant living. In the great glare and the black he stood,
as always, waiting for something to happen, for the huge lonely beauty
to resolve itself to a pattern and descend and be understood.
It did not. It was just space, an area in which things existed, in
which mechanized substance moved. Wondering, waiting, Wyatt regarded
the Universe. The stars looked icily back.
At last, almost completely broken, Wyatt went to bed.
* * * * *
Beauclaire's first days passed very quickly. He spent them in combing
the ship, seeking her out in her deepest layers, watching and touching
and loving. The ship was to him like a woman; the first few days were
his honeymoon. Because there is no lonelier job that a man can have,
it was nearly always this way with men in the Command.
Wyatt and Cooper left him pretty much alone. They did not come looking
for him, and the few times that he did see them he could not help but
feel their surprise and resentment. Wyatt was always polite. Cooper
was not. Neither seemed to have anything to say to Beauclaire, and he
was wise enough to stay by himself. Most of Beauclaire's life until
now had been spent among books and dust and dead, ancient languages.
He was by nature a solitary man, and therefore it was not difficult
for him to be alone.
On a morning some weeks after the trip began, Wyatt came looking for
him. His eyes twinkling, Wyatt fished him up, grease-coated and
embarrassed, out of a shaft between the main dynamos. Together they
went up toward the astrogation dome. And under the great dome, beneath
the massive crystal sheet on the other side of which there was nothing
for ever and ever, Beauclaire saw a beauty which he was to remember as
long as he lived.
They were nearing the Hole in Cygnus. On the side which faces the
center of the Galaxy the Hole is almost flat, from top to bottom, like
a wall. They were moving in on the flat side now, floating along some
distance from the wall, which was so huge and incredible that
Beauclaire was struck dumb.
It began above him, light-years high. It came down in a black,
folding, rushing silence, fell away beneath him for millions upon
millions of miles, passed down beyond sight so far away, so
unbelievably far away and so vast, that there could be nothing as big
as this, and if he had not seen the stars still blazing on either side
he would have had to believe that the wall was just outside the glass,
so close he could touch it. From all over the wall a haze reflected
faintly, so that the wall stood out in ridges and folds from the great
black of space. Beauclaire looked up and then down, and then stood and
gazed.
After a while, Wyatt pointed silently down. Beauclaire looked in among
the folds and saw it, the tiny yellow gleam toward which they were
moving. It was so small against the massive cloud that he lost it
easily.
Each time he took his eyes away, he lost it, and had to search for it
again.
"It's not too far in," Wyatt said at last, breaking the silence.
"We'll move down the cloud to the nearest point, then we'll slow down
and move in. Should take a couple of days."
Beauclaire nodded.
"Thought you'd like to see," Wyatt said.
"Thanks." Beauclaire was sincerely grateful. And then, unable to
contain himself, he shook his head with wonder. "My God!" he said.