Part 15 (1/2)

”You should have rest, Nors-King. You look gaunt and tired--but stronger too. I wonder if I have changed as much as you since we started this trip.

Eh, Nors-King,” he chuckled, ”if you had but one eye, I would swear that you were old Odin himself, rus.h.i.+ng out to the edge of s.p.a.ce to start that last bonfire of suns.”

”Quiet,” Nea pleaded as she worked with the calculator. ”So far this has defied computation. It's unstable, Ato. Before I can identify it, a factor is added or taken away.”

”Grim Hagen went in there,” Ato replied as he studied his instruments. ”If he can, we can.”

”Perhaps,” she answered. ”But s.p.a.ce out there is curdling in his wake.” She s.h.i.+vered. Nea's shoulders were beautifully shaped, and Odin found himself thinking that they were made for a man's arms instead of bending over calculators and machines.

”Oh, well!” he thought. ”They are not for my arms, but why doesn't Ato wake up and claim her? Then there wouldn't be distractions like this--”

With one warning blare, The Nebula plunged into the fringe of the dust-cloud.

The boat rocked. A spattering sound like the falling of heavy sleet filled the control room. Needles jumped and wheeled. Dials turned madly, spun back and forth, and jammed.

The lights flickered on and off. For a time they were in darkness. Then the lights came back, but continued their flickering. The screens were dark.

Nea worked with the instruments. When power enough was available she began probing the dust-cloud as though nothing had happened. Then she fed more figures into the calculator and handed the result to Ato.

”Try this,” she said in a tremulous voice. ”It may work.”

Ato took the tape from her hands and set the controls accordingly.

The lights dimmed again--came on--and remained steady. The expanses of dim yellow light through which coils and ellipses of darkness crawled like black worms.

Odin knew that such a feeling was impossible out here, but it seemed to him that The Nebula leaped forward.

Ato cried out in triumph. ”I've got another fix on Grim Hagen. He's much nearer now.”

”Hurry, Ato. Hurry,” Nea was pleading.

They drove on and on. The screens remained as before. Yellow light and crawling shadows. Then, suddenly, the screens were filled with dancing circles of flame. They blazed brightly, and thrust out little fiery arms and took their neighbors' hands. They danced. They gleamed and glistened.

They became circles of flame. They grew toward each other and ran together into little puddles of light.

”Ato. Hurry,” Nea screamed. One of her instruments melted as she stared into it and she jumped back, her hands to her eyes--

Then they were out of the cloud, and s.p.a.ce lay empty and free before them, with only one tiny sun in view.

Jack Odin twisted the controls to take a look at what was happening back there in the cloud.

Just as he got it in view, the moiling s.p.a.ce out there coalesced into one smoldering ember. Crushed by the awful weight, that single giant of flame suddenly burst into a thousand pieces. Comets streaked away. Dripping suns streamed across the mad sky. Worlds spewed out--and moons dripped tears of light as they followed after their mothers. They crashed and wheeled. They merged in gigantic splashes of fire. Pinwheels rushed across the screen.

Rockets flashed. And fountains of flame spilled sun after sun into the sparkling void. Odin stood transfixed by the sight.

Then, momentarily, the holocaust of flame was over. New suns and new worlds drifted calmly, with only a few erratic meteors and some settling dust-clouds left to tell of the explosion that had shaped them.