There was no answer from Ron.
“Hurry!” Yiddir exclaimed. “We can't burn through from here without causing the ice plug to melt in the hole, and without a space suit, Yldra would die-just like Gradon did in the execution chamber."
“Ron!” came Nad's voice.
Then Ron: “I-I can't! The air will go out. I'll die!"
“Then die, you coward! If I find you alive and Yldra dead I'll kill you anyway!"
But Ron only fell in his chair and sobbed. “Kill me then!” he cried. “I can't do it! I love her, but I-I can't make myself do it!"
Nad and Yiddir were in space suits in the next chamber forward. Their forward hatch was sealed. Instead of using the heat gun, Nad blasted the hatch with a Disruptor and leaped into the room. But the ice plug cracked, and the air rushed out again. Before new ice could form, Yldra's nose and ears flowed red.
The two men carried her out to safety. Between them and Ron were two airless chambers.
Time passed endlessly for Ron, but nothing more happened. Finally, he addressed the sonophone in a choking voice.
“Nad!” he called. “Have you got her? Is she all right?"
After a long, terrible silence, Nad; replied. “You don't know, do you?” he said. “Two airless rooms separate you from us, Ron. If you try to come out, you'll die. If you stay there, you'll suffocate in a few hours. Just stay there and think about it!"
“Nad!” Ron called, frantically. “Tell me! Is she alive?"
“Your cowardice wrecked our plans before,” came Nad's voice, murderously cold.
“Nad!” Ron was hysterical, crying out in falsetto. “Don't leave me here! Nad!"
But only silence answered him...
* * *
CHAPTER VIII
Yldra died. Fortunately, Lylwani was spared the grief of the others, but Yiddir, Nad and Karg could only sit there in painful silence looking at her lovely form as it lay inert before them. All but Yiddir, perhaps, hoped that Ron would die in agony. Silently, they prepared her for space burial, and just before they put her in the disposal lock, Nad bent over and kissed her cold forehead,
“Goodbye, sweet,” he whispered, tenderly.
Rod, in a delirium of fright and mortal anguish, seemed to hear a distant voice chanting:
Oh Darkness that is Light!
Oh mighty judge that offers peace
Forever in abyssmal night!
Oh Truth that gives me naked
Nothing for falsely vested life,
Where in an instant that is ever
I may be free of Wrong or Right!
“Yldra!” he screamed. "Yldra!"
Silence brought loneliness to sit with his conscience, while the air about him grew stale...
* * * *
Yiddir finally prevailed upon Nad to rescue Ron. At first, Nad refused, with close-mouthed stubbornness, but when Karg offered to get in a space suit, Nad gave in.
They used one compartment for an air lock, and Nad went into the damaged chamber and repaired the holes. Then air was admitted and they announced to Ron over the sonophones that he could come out.
After almost a minute, the hatch opened, and Ron stood there looking blankly at his brother.
“Yldra is dead and buried in space,” said Nad. “You didn't deserve to see her. If you care to live with yourself after this, I'm giving you your life back. Not that I can see why. You can thank Yiddir."
Ron's face was colorless. his eyes severely bloodshot, but the fear was gone out of him. In fact, the spirit had gone out of him.
They left him to his own resources for a while, but later on when it was necessary for him to speak, they found that he could not articulate. As though unseeing, he stared mutely through them. He ate and slept like a somnambulist.
“The shock may wear off in time,” said Yiddir, sympathetically. “Nad, both you and Karg may despise Ron, but I feel terribly sorry for him. No man could experience a greater hell than to be born a coward and want to die and yet not have the courage to commit suicide. I know that Ron despises himself more, perhaps, than both of you put together. He is experiencing more punishment than anyone could possibly administer to him externally. Whether you may think so or not, I believe he loved Yldra as much as any man can love a woman, but the mechanism of cowardice worked in him in a way that was uncontrollable. Just leave him alone and give time a chance to heal his mind and shattered nerves."
After a long moment of silence in which neither Nad nor Karg could think of anything to say, Yiddir added, “We have more important things to worry about. That galactite damaged certain electrical circuits that are virtually inaccessible to us. Our meteor detection system works only intermittently. It can only be hoped that no meteors cross our path while the system is not functioning, Of course, the hull might withstand the blow, but the change of course might be violent and the inertia would most certainly kill us at this velocity. just now the system is functioning again. I hope it continues to do so."
Yiddir looked significantly at Nad and felt that he was thinking of the same thing. If a meteor could get through without detection at some future date, so could Sargon.
* * *
CHAPTER IX
The great event they had been waiting for finally occurred. It happened one day when Nad was on watch and while Karg and Ron and Yiddir slept.
He was in the control room alone with Lylwani. Before him were control panels, and above these were large observation ports. There was nothing to do but watch the deceleration indicators occasionally.
Lylwani sat close beside Nad, looking blissfully at the black observation ports. Nad had been watching her affectionately. She appeared to be in good health, and the loneliness in him transformed her natural beauty into irresistible allure. He could not resist taking her hand in his, and she did not object. In fact he was elated to feel the suggestion of a responsive pressure from her slender fingers.
She could converse and think for herself with a childlike simplicity, so Nad tried to engage her in conversation.
“You and I,” he said, are the last of our kind.” There was no point in telling her of the arks, he thought.
“There is Yiddir,” she replied,"and Karg, and Ron."
“I know, dearest, but—” He stopped, helplessly. How could he explain to an infant mind the gracelessness of their still extant ability to procreate their kind? How could he tell her that they were the potential parents of a new humanity?
“But what?” she asked, looking at him with the sweet, trusting smile of a child.
In her mind, he thought, she is a child, but physically she is a woman. She is my woman! He took her head between his hands, very gently, so as not to startle her.
“I must teach you to love me again,” he said, “or I'll lose my mind."
“Love?” She raised her brows, quizzically.
“Yes,” he said. “Love, Lylwani! A very important thing. Do you understand what it is to be happy?"
“I am happy."
“But I mean-happier."
“Very happy?"
“That's right, darling. When you love, you are very happy."
“I am very happy. Am I in love?"
A wave of discouragement sought to engulf him, but he persisted stubbornly.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked her, and then he kissed her gently while his arms ached to hold her.
She did not resist or respond, but he felt a slight tremor pass through her. Her eyes were wide, puzzled.
“Kiss?” she said.
“Kiss of love,” he corrected. “Makes us both very happy. I love you, Lylwani. Do you love me?"
“Kiss,” she said, raising her lips to his.
Nad swept her into his arms and kissed her as he had wanted to kiss her ever since they had left the ark, and she responded happily.
“You're mine, Lylwani! Mine!” he whispered.
“Mine,” she answered, and her arms stole around his neck. “I am very happy."
* * * *
When Nad next looked up, something bothered him that he could not define. He started to turn back to Lylwani, but his attention was dragged back again to something-something that was not as it should be.
Then he saw, through the observation panel, several dim glimmerings of violet light. Lylwani felt his body tense and she arose from his arms.
“What is wrong?” she asked.
Now Nad's cup was overflowing. A fierce, glad joy suffused him. “Look!” he cried, pointing at the lights. “The stars, Lylwani! The stars!"
“Stars?” She looked up in puzzlement at the lights. “I see lights-pretty lights."
“Oh don't worry about what they are sweetheart!” he exclaimed. “They just make me very happy."
She frowned. “Happy? Do you love the stars?"
“I could kiss them!
“I don't understand,” she said. “Everything is love and kisses."
Nad laughed and hugged her. “Come on!” he said. “Let's wake up the others and show them the stars!” Yiddir and Karg came rushing forward when he called them, but Ron did not respond and they left him alone.
“Yes, there they are at last!” cried Yiddir, his old face flushed with the emotion of relief.
“Is that all they amount to?” queried Karg disappointedly. “I can see only about ten violet points of light."
“No!” Yiddir laughed. “You see only the beginning of them. We have to slow down still more. We see only a few that are moving away from us, and their light waves are still reaching us at such a high frequency that we can only discern the highest visible band of their spectra. That is the so-called Doppler effect. In a few hours you will see the blazing glory of God's whole universe!
“This is a very happy occasion,” said Karg.
“Are you happy?” Lylwani asked him.
“Yes,” Karg answered. “Very happy."
To everyone's intense surprise, Lylwani kissed him. “The kiss of love will make you happier,” she explained.
Karg blushed crimson and looked at Nad, who was utterly crestfallen. But the Martian's sense of humor saved the situation as he admonished Nad with mock severity.
“Teacher,” he said, “you'll have to make your lessons more explicit!"
It was Nad's turn to blush. Both Yiddir and Karg patted him on the back with silent eloquence. They understood his problem.
“As soon as visibility has been completely established,” Yiddir announced, in an effort to change the subjects “we're going to have a lot of work to do. I've got to locate definitely the solar system where our little planet is. It will be several weeks yet before we will be stationary and can start acceleration back toward our goal. Our trip to the planet will have to be made as much as possible within the speed of light, so it may take us a long time to reach it. Just how long I'll have to determine. If it is too many light years distant we'll have to plunge again into the velocity of darkness, but I hope not."
Yiddir thought of Ron. He reasoned that if Ron was mentally incapable of evaluating their present position it could be a blessing. For otherwise his first thought must be, as was Yiddir's: Poor Yldra died before she got to see the stars...
* * * *
True to Yiddir's prediction, within a few hours the majority of the stars shifted into full spectrum visibility and shone with their natural light, at least to an effective extent. There was a slight tendency for the stars ahead to be predominantly blue-white and the ones astern to be predominantly yellow-white or even dull red, but Yiddir promised that within a week or so everything would be absolutely normal.
As the flaming universe took form before their eyes, they felt a great oppressiveness lift from them. Their spirits found room for expansion and life took on new values.
Ahead of them, in the direction of their goal, was a tremendous spectacle that none of them would ever forget. Towering in awe-inspiring grandeur among the great, blazing tiers and banks of stars was an opaque mass of gas that Yiddir said was hundreds of millions of kilometers in extent. He called it a nebula.
“Our little planet lies close beside it,” he said, and he showed them a yellowish sun in the telescope that was the center of the system they sought. “The outer fringe of the dark nebula is at about the same distance as our planet,” he explained. “It is about three light years away, so I am afraid we'll have to make a large part of our journey in the darkness of higher velocity, but it will be necessary to watch our course and not get too close to the nebula."
“Why?” asked Karg, who was at the telescope.
A shadow of concern crossed momentarily over Yiddir's wrinkled brow. “I became informed, some time ago, of certain unaccountable phenomena connected with that region,” he said. “Exploration reports are on file in the ark we have left, and I found the opportunity to peruse some of them secretly. At the time the rebel Navigators visited the little world we are seeking, several of the scout boats, such as this one, made excursions to the nebula. itself, to gather samples of the gas for analysis. Their pilots and accompanying observers returned with accounts of strange physical phenomena occurring within the nebula. There were planes of strong gravitational currents separated by regions of no attraction whatsoever. One of the ships was almost lost in a powerful eddy for which they had no name but which I would call a space warp. My only theory on this subject is that the nebula is so huge and its gasses so dense that various regions of superior density have enough concentrated mass to set up strong gravitational fields. As these masses exert pressure, expand, contract or attract each other they cause motion, as well, and probably a very complicated series of orbits is set up for multitudinous masses of gas, which change and change again. The result is that probably all the freak laws of Nature occur there, and it would be dangerous for a ship to go too near to the nebula or to attempt to pass through it. That's why I want as much visual flight as I can get enroute to the planet, because in the darkness of super velocity I could go off course and end up too close to that dark colossus."
Karg had been wandering among the star clusters with the telescope as Yiddir spoke. Now he turned and asked a question that brought Nad sharply to attention.
“Yiddir,” he said, “I was present when you first contacted us by sonophone, and I remember you told us that Man had a magnificent purpose to accomplish in the living flesh. You said this purpose had been hidden from us by the Navigators who had robbed us of memory, and that you could not reveal it to us until we had learned many more facts. Is it the proper time now to ask you what that purpose is?"
At this point, Yiddir, alone, noticed that Ron focused his eyes on him, and that there glimmered in him the faintest spark of interest for the first time since Yldra's death.
“The answer to your question,” he said, “is a very vital one, but also the most problematical one that may be asked. I can't answer you in one neat sentence. In fact, it may take me days, months, or even years to get the idea across to you, but if you'll be patient I'll start."
He then began to approach the subject of Man's duality, amazing them all with the concept of life beyond the flesh.
“Centuries and millennia ago, all this was so incomprehensible,” he continued, “that it was discussed on the basis of a blind and trusting faith. As science developed in its constant search for the truth, certain things could not very readily be reconciled with the old religious ideas and they were regarded merely as parables disguising, for a more ignorant mass of people, the real truths that science was after. So atheism developed, unfortunately, and Man retrogressed through rank materialism almost to the brink of sheer animalism, until the scientists, still valiantly searching, finally found the road to a seeing and a knowing faith in Man's duality, by proving it, and by basing the new approach to godliness on the proof that nothing was supernatural-that even the next plane of existence was as physical as this. The discovery of sub-matter and second order phenomena led to the actual detection and even, in some cases, photographs, of Man's sub-material self. Just as in the flesh we are
formed in embryo and born into the corporeal plane of existence, so the sub-material, or ethereal Man, or spirit, as it was once called, is embryonic within the living human, until our grosser body disintegrates and releases the final entity of Man into the sub-material world which was once called Heaven, or the Hereafter, but which we know now is merely a vast universe composed of a finer matter."
“But the purpose of our present existence-what is that? asked Nad.
Yiddir smiled. “I could talk for years,” he said, “but to make a long story short and go into the details later, I will tell you that there is one fundamental law behind all things, and failure to adhere to that law leads to disruption and unhappiness. That law says that there are two opposite forces-which may be called anything you like-active and passive, positive and negative, good and bad, construction and destruction. No matter where you look you find its manifestation: love and hate, man and woman, peace and war, happiness and despair. All is surge or vibration between these opposites. Without surge and striving between these extremes there would be no energy, hence no matter, or space, or time, or existence. And as Man is finite, so by this law may we positively deduce the Infinite, Man called God; not an arbitrary entity sitting somewhere on an ethereal throne, but the Incomprehensible Total of all sub-material energy, of which we are part and contributors."
“But still I don't see the great purpose of life,” protested Karg.
“That purpose,” said Yiddir, “is expansion, surge, or striving toward godliness, from finite to Infinite! No civilization that defies this principle of Natural Law can progress or stabilize itself at all!"
“But how can we progress toward this godliness?” asked Nad.
“We are doing it now,” said Yiddir. “In our self-denial and sacrifice to safeguard a potential future generation which must spring from you and Lylwani, we have advanced just that much out of our finite selves. Concentration upon self, alone, is merely a process of densifying and becoming infinitesimal even to the point of spiritual extinction."
Martian Honeymoon and Beyond the Darkness Page 13