"It's no use, Skipper. He may be in this universe, infinitely small,
traveling at infinite speed; he may be in some other universe undreamed
by man. He may be living, he may be dead. But wherever he is--he is
gone forever from the ken of man. Lancelot Biggs is--dead. So far as
man is concerned, he is dead."
Dick Todd said something then. His words were not clear. They were
choked, and he didn't finish the quotation. But I caught the first part.
"'Greater love hath no man'," he said.
And the skipper coughed, and his eyes were red, and he turned away
like a broken, aged man.
"Amen," he said. "Amen!"
* * * * *
So--Lancelot Biggs is gone. Dead, perhaps. Or in another existence,
undreamed, unrecognized, by we who spin our fiery trails along the
spaceways. And it is a strange, strange thing that he, who of all men
looked least like a spaceman, should have lived and died the greatest
of them all.
Tomorrow or the next day I must tell Diane. Hanson will not do it
because he can't.
He dares not face her when she hears. And I, myself, would sell my soul
to be free of that sad duty. But I was Lancelot Biggs' best friend, and
this is the least last thing I can do in his memory.
There is nothing else to say. He is gone. Will I ever see him again?
That gangling frame, that easy, fluent grin--lost in the nameless
depths of the crypts of space. There seems nothing else to say
except--good-by.
And so I say it to the stars. The far-flung stars amongst which,
somewhere, is the finest man I ever knew.
Is it good-by, Mr. Biggs?
Or is it only "au revoir"?