Part 2 (1/2)

”I always thought we were going straight in the opposite direction from what we should, I guess. I always wanted to turn around and go back. It won't make over maybe a month's difference. And what does a month matter anyway out here--h.e.l.l there never was any time out here until we came along. We make our own time here, and a month don't matter to me.”

Sweat ran down Russell's face. His voice trembled. ”No--that's wrong.

You're both wrong.” He could see himself going it alone. Going crazy because he was alone. He'd have broken away, gone his own direction, long ago but for that fear.

”How can we tell which of us is right?” Alvar said. ”It's like everything was changing all the time out here. Sometimes I'd swear none of those suns had red rims, and at other times--like the old man said, they're all pretty and lying and saying nothing, just changing all the time. Jezebel stars, the old man said.”

”I know I'm right,” Russell pleaded. ”My hunches always been right.

My hunch got us out of that prison didn't it? Listen--I tell you it's that star to the left--”

”The one to the right,” said Johnson.

”We been going away from the right one all the time,” said Alvar.

”We got to stay together,” said Russell. ”n.o.body could spend a year out here ... alone....”

”Ah ... in another month or so we'd be lousy company anyway,” Alvar said. ”Maybe a guy could get to the point where he'd sleep most of the time ... just wake up enough times to give himself another boost with the old life-gun.”

”We got to face it,” Johnson said finally. ”We three don't go on together any more.”

”That's it,” said Alvar. ”There's three suns that look like they might be right seeing as how we all agree the old man was wrong. But we believe there is one we can live by, because we all seem to agree that the old man might have been right about that. If we stick together, the chance is three to one against us. But if each of us makes for one star, one of us has a chance to live. Maybe not in paradise like the old man said, but a place where we can live. And maybe there'll be intelligent life, maybe even a s.h.i.+p, and whoever gets the right star can come and help the other two....”

”No ... G.o.d no....” Russell whispered over and over. ”None of us can ever make it alone....”

Alvar said, ”We each take the star he likes best. I'll go back the other way. Russ, you take the left. And you, Johnson, go to the right.”

Johnson started to laugh. Russell was yelling wildly at them, and above his own yelling he could hear Johnson's rising laughter. ”Every guy's got a star of his own,” Johnson said when he stopped laughing.

”And we got ours. A nice red-rimmed sun for each of us to call his very own.”

”Okay,” Alvar said. ”We cut off the gravity rope, and each to his own sun.”

Now Russell wasn't saying anything.

”And the old man,” Alvar said, ”can keep right on going toward what he thought was right. And he'll keep on going. Course he won't be able to give himself another boost with the life-gun, but he'll keep going.

Someday he'll get to that red-rimmed star of his. Out here in s.p.a.ce, once you're going, you never stop ... and I guess there isn't any other body to pull him off his course. And what will time matter to old Dunbar? Even less than to us, I guess. He's dead and he won't care.”

”Ready,” Johnson said. ”I'll cut off the gravity rope.”

”I'm ready,” Alvar said. ”To go back toward whatever it was I started from.”

”Ready, Russ?”