Part 2 (1/2)

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 G.o.d!” he said.

Wyatt smiled. ”It's a big show.”

Later, much later, Beauclaire began to remember what the Commandant had said about Wyatt. But he could not understand it at all. Sure, something like the Hole was incomprehensible. It did not make any sense--but so what? A thing as beautiful as that, Beauclaire thought, did not _have_ to make sense.

They reached the sun slowly. The gas was not thick by any Earthly standards--approximately one atom to every cubic mile of s.p.a.ce--but for a stars.h.i.+p, any matter at all is too much. At normal speeds, the s.h.i.+p would hit the gas like a wall. So they came in slowly, swung in and around the large yellow sun.

They saw one planet almost immediately. While moving in toward that one they scanned for others, found none at all.

s.p.a.ce around them was absolutely strange; there was nothing in the sky but a faint haze. They were in the cloud now, and of course could see no star. There was nothing but the huge sun and the green gleaming dot of that one planet, and the endless haze.

From a good distance out, Wyatt and Cooper ran through the standard tests while Beauclaire watched with grave delight. They checked for radio signals, found none. The spectrum of the planet revealed strong oxygen and water-vapor lines, surprisingly little nitrogen. The temperature, while somewhat cool, was in the livable range.

It was a habitable planet.

”Jackpot!” Coop said cheerfully. ”All that oxygen, bound to be some kind of life.”

Wyatt said nothing. He was sitting in the pilot chair, his huge hands on the controls, nursing the s.h.i.+p around into the long slow spiral which would take them down. He was thinking of many other things, many other landings. He was remembering the acid ocean at Lupus and the rotting disease of Altair, all the dark, vicious, unknowable things he had approached, unsuspecting, down the years.

... So many years, that now he suddenly realized it was too long, too long.

Cooper, grinning unconsciously as he scanned with the telescope, did not notice Wyatt's sudden freeze.

It was over all at once. Wyatt's knuckles had gradually whitened as he gripped the panel. Sweat had formed on his face and run down into his eyes, and he blinked, and realized with a strange numbness that he was soaking wet all over. In that moment, his hands froze and gripped the panel, and he could not move them.

It was a h.e.l.l of a thing to happen on a man's last trip, he thought.

He would like to have taken her down just this once. He sat looking at his hands. Gradually, calmly, carefully, with a cold will and a welling sadness, he broke his hands away from the panel.

”Coop,” he said, ”take over.”

Coop glanced over and saw. Wyatt's face was white and glistening; his hands in front of him were wooden and strange.

”Sure,” Coop said, after a very long moment. ”Sure.”

Wyatt backed off, and Coop slid into the seat.

”They got me just in time,” Wyatt said, looking at his stiff, still fingers. He looked up and ran into Beauclaire's wide eyes, and turned away from the open pity. Coop was bending over the panel, swallowing heavily.

”Well,” Wyatt said. He was beginning to cry. He walked slowly from the room, his hands held before him like old gray things that had died.

The s.h.i.+p circled automatically throughout the night, while its crew slept or tried to. In the morning they were all forcefully cheerful and began to work up an interest.

There were people on the planet. Because the people lived in villages, and had no cities and no apparent science, Coop let the s.h.i.+p land.