by Bryce Walton
space because that was how it was with those whofought their way up to being the dominate life form of whatever worldthey had lived on and grown and died on. If you were the kind who wentinto space, you went because space was there.
Who needed a better reason than that?
"Kew," he whispered. "Lakrit, Lljub, Urdaz, listen now--I thought I wasdoing the right thing--maybe my idea was right--but I just made amistake in the calculations. I just made a helluva mistake--"
The wind sighed over the naked rock and the rusted metal and the rockand the dead blue water.
He turned and pushed his head against the rock, and his body curled upagainst the bitter wind. "You've got to forgive me," he said.
"'_Has anybody here seen Kelly? K-E-double-L-Y?_'"
He shivered and kept his eyes closed. It was part of the wind. He didnot want to go out that way, hearing crazy voices in the wind.
"'Has anybody here seen Kelly--?'"
He raised his head and blinked and the wind drove tears down his cheeks.
"Am I just hearing something that's going crazy inside my head?" Hepeered around. There was nothing, nothing anywhere of course, nothingwhere nothing had ever been, and nothing else but nothing could ever be.
"You're wrong, Kelly. Your Crew's here."
Kelly raised himself painfully to an elbow. "Where--_where_?"
"Right here, Kelly. We had a difficult time locating you. Sure, weforgive you. You were trying to do what was right. We know that."
"There's nothing--nothing--" Kelly said.
"You're wrong. The Crew's here and we're waiting."
He stared at the rock. He put his face against it and pushed his handsto it. There was a kind of dull glow in it, a faint hint of warmth inthe rock.
"How can this be?" Kelly said.
"This is the life here, Kelly. Perhaps there is life everywhere in themost impossible seeming places. And where life is, Kelly, we can livewith it and be welcomed by it. Here, this rock is life, and it has takenus in. It has been here a long time. And it will be here for a muchlonger time."
"Rock," Kelly said.
"But hurry and come back."
"But no one will ever know. How long--how long can we wait?"
"Who can answer that, Kelly? But maybe they will find the Crew someday."
Kelly looked up once at the completely unfamiliar distances growingdarker. Sometime, he thought, they'll come from wherever Earth is andfind the Crew of the ship, find a rock here waiting the ages out.
"Hurry, Kelly!"
His head dropped against the rock. His hands slid down it, and a smilemoved over his lips and froze there as the wind whispered over it.
... THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _If Worlds of Science Fiction_ July 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.