n
the books. But blackout, nevertheless. Not just plain blackout but a
thick mucous, slimy undulating blackout--the very black.

The very very black.

* * * * *

General Hotchkiss, "What's he saying, Melrose?"

Melrose, "Doesn't answer."

General Eaton, "Try again."

Melrose, "Yes sir."

General Hotchkiss, "What's he saying, Melrose?"

General Eaton, "Still nothing?"

Melrose, "Nothing."

General Hotchkiss, "Dammit, you've still got him on radar, haven't
you?"

Melrose, "Yes sir."

General Hotchkiss, "Well, dammit, what's he doing?"

Melrose, "Still going up, sir."

General Eaton, "How far up?"

Melrose, "Signal takes sixty seconds to get back, sir."

General Hotchkiss, "God in heaven! One hundred and twenty thousand
miles out! Halfway to the moon. How much more fuel has he?"

Melrose, "Five seconds, sir. Then the auto-switch cuts in. Power will
go off until he nears atmosphere again. After that, if he isn't
conscious--well, I'm awfully afraid we've lost another ship."

General Eaton, "Cold blooded--"

* * * * *

The purple drapes before my eyes were wavering. Hung like rippled
steel pieces of a caisson suspended by a perilously thin whisper of
thread, they swayed, hesitated, shuddered their entire length, then
began to bend in the middle from the combined weights of thirteen
galaxies. The bend became a cracking bulge that in another second
would explode destruction directly into my face. I screamed.

"Is--is that you, Anders?"

I screamed good this time.

"An--Anders! You all right? What happened? I couldn't get through to
you?"

I took my hand from the accelerator control and stared numbly at it.
The mark of it was deep in the skin. I sucked in oxygen.

"_Anders!_ Your power is off. When you hear the signal you've got just
three more seconds. You know what to do then. You've been out of the
envelope, Anders! You broke through the atmosphere!"

And then I heard him speak to somebody else--he must have been
speaking to somebody else, he couldn't have meant me--"Crissake, give
me a cigarette. The guy's still alive."

I suppose I was grinning when they unstrapped me and slid me out of
the hatch. They were grinning back at any rate. The ground held me up
surprisingly--like it always had all my life before. They'd stopped
grinning now, their eyes were eating the inside of the ship. They
weren't interested in me anymore--all t