Between the Strokes of Night

“One more question!” Sy held up his hand again. “The Kermel Objects — “ “No more questions. However, we volunteer the information that we do not control the Kermel Objects. They are in many ways as mysterious to us as they are to you. We propose to do you one other small favor, the nature of which you will shortly discover. But now, goodbye. You can expect no more contact with our kind until some of you learn how to achieve a non-material state.”

Judith Niles turned her head slowly from side to side, her eyes again lingering for a fraction of a second on each person. She stared at Charlene last of all, and it seemed to Charlene that the gaze was longer and harder than at anyone else. Then JN was gone. A woman sat there still, but Charlene knew that what faced her at the end of the table was nothing more than an empty husk. Already, in just a few seconds, the eyes had dimmed and the face frozen into a dead mask. Charlene reached out and gripped Emil’s hand. He said, very softly, “I know. She’s gone, Charlene. But I’m a believer. Somewhere, in some form, she still lives.”

His quiet comment was drowned out by an excited cry from Gus Eldridge. “Take a look at that red shift. We’re moving again — and we’re not just moving, we’re flying.”

Sy was checking their motion relative to the microwave background radiation. “Better than ninety-nine percent of light-speed,” he said cheerfully. “And my guess is that we’re heading right for Gulf City.”

“Ninety-nine percent of light-speed?” Dan Korwin was anything but cheerful. “Then we’re all dead. There’s no way that the Argo’s engines can slow us down enough for a Gulf City rendezvous.”

Sy shook his head. “My bet is we don’t need to worry about that. If they could speed us up without our knowing it, they can slow us down the same way. I wonder just how fast we’re moving. There has to be significant time dilation. Eva, can you get a handle on that, see what sort of a time compression factor we can look forward to? We’re not just going home — we’re going home in style.” Sy, rarely for him, was showing a little excitement. Everyone else, with the possible exception of Korwin, was delighted to be racing home at such high speed. But Charlene alone, it seemed, had heard and understood the main message from the aliens: S-space was not an end point for existence; nor was T-state. Either you returned to N-space, and lived at the same rapid rate as all of humanity through its multimillion years of development; or you abandoned bodily existence completely, to become an abstract entity with no material attributes. In that form you sought to enjoy the hundred-billion or more years that such a transformation might make possible.

For others, it might be easy. Charlene knew that for her the choice would be difficult. Did she want an existence from which all the usual pleasures of life were excluded? She thought not. But could she then face death itself, that dark part of the future that she had always avoided thinking about?

She knew only one thing for sure: both alternatives terrified her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The Void

The form that had occupied the body of Judith Niles had left unspecified the “small favor” being done on behalf of the crew of the Argo. Even when the nature of the favor, as an accelerated return to Gulf City, was recognized, its magnitude had yet to be measured.

The result, reported by Eva Packland and Gus Eldridge, staggered everyone — even the phlegmatic Sy.

“Ninety-nine point nine nine seven percent of light-speed,” he said. “Let’s see now.” He entered a couple of numbers into his own hand-held. “That gives us a time dilation factor of almost a hundred and thirty. Shipboard travel time back to Gulf City will be less than seventeen years. Which means just three days in S-space. We’ll be there before we know it.”

“And then what?” Dan Korwin seemed in a state of permanent rage. The loss of Judith Niles had left a leadership gap, which Korwin obviously felt best qualified to fill. That others, such as Libby Trask, Emil Garville, Charlene Bloom, and Alfredo Roewen, seemed much more ready to assign that role to a reluctant Sy, did nothing to make Korwin less angry. He went on, “You keep insisting, based on no evidence whatsoever, that the aliens will stop the Argo for us when we get to Gulf City. I hope so. Because I’ll tell you now, I don’t know how to stop this ship.”

“That, I can easily believe.” Sy did not let himself be drawn. “I still say that the aliens will do it.”

“How?”

“I have no idea. The same way they’re protecting us on the way. Do you realize what should be happening to us at this speed? Individual atoms of interstellar hydrogen ought to blast through the Argo like bullets, riddling our bodies and equipment. But everything and everyone is just fine.”

“You have a damned sight more faith in alien goodwill than I do.” Korwin glared at Sy, spun around on his heel, and walked out.