AUGUST 18—The Charon is about a month away. I wonder who my relief will be. I wonder what drove him out here?
Earth dreams continue. No. Call them Karen dreams. Am I even afraid to write her name now?
AUGUST 20—Ship today. After it was through I stayed out and looked at stars. For several hours, it seems. Didn’t seem as long at the time.
It’s beautiful out here. Lonely, yes. But such a loneliness! You’re alone with the universe, the stars spread out at your feet and scattered around your head.
Each one is a sun. Yet they still look cold to me. I find myself shivering, lost in the vastness of it all, wondering how it got there and what it means.
My relief, whoever it is, I hope he can appreciate this, as it should be appreciated. There are so many who can’t, or won’t. Men who walk at night, and never look up at the sky. I hope my relief isn’t like that.
AUGUST 24—When I get back to Earth, I will look up Karen. I must. How can I pretend that things are going to be different this time if I can’t even work up the courage to do that? And they are going to be different. So I must face Karen, and prove that I’ve changed. Really changed.
AUGUST 25—The nonsense of yesterday. How could I face Karen? What would I say to her? I’d only start deluding myself again, and wind up getting burned all over again. No. I must not see Karen. Hell, I can’t even take the dreams.
AUGUST 30—I’ve been going down to the control room and flipping myself out regularly of late. No ringships. But I find that going outside makes the memories of Earth dim. More and more I know I’ll miss Cerberus. A year from now, I’ll be back on Earth, looking up at the night sky, and remembering how the ring shone silver in the starlight. I know I will.
And the vortex. I’ll remember the vortex, and the ways the colors swirled and mixed. Different every time.
Too bad I was never a holo buff. You could make a fortune back on Earth with a tape of the way the vortex looks when it spins. The ballet of the void. I’m surprised no one’s ever thought of it.
Maybe I’ll suggest it to my relief. Something to do to fill the hours, if he’s interested. I hope he is. Earth would be richer if someone brought back a record.
I’d do it myself, but the equipment isn’t right, and I don’t have the time to modify it.
SEPTEMBER 4—I’ve gone outside every day for the last week, I find. No nightmares. Just dreams of the darkness, laced with the colors of nullspace.
SEPTEMBER 9—Continue to go outside, and drink it all in. Soon, soon now, all this will be lost to me. Forever. I feel as though I must take advantage of every second. I must memorize the way things are out here at Cerberus, so I can keep the awe and the wonder and the beauty fresh inside me when I return to Earth.
SEPTEMBER 10—There hasn’t been a ship in a long time. Is it over, then? Have I seen my last?
SEPTEMBER 12—No ship today. But I went outside and woke the engines and let the vortex roar.
Why do I always write about the vortex roaring and howling? There is no sound in space. I hear nothing. But I watch it. And it does roar. It does.
The sounds of silence. But not the way the poets meant.
SEPTEMBER 13—I’ve watched the vortex again today, though there was no ship.
I’ve never done that before. Now I’ve done it twice. It’s forbidden. The costs in terms of power are enormous, and Cerberus lives on power. So why?
It’s almost as though I don’t want to give up the vortex. But I have to. Soon.
SEPTEMBER 14—Idiot, idiot, idiot. What have I been doing? The Charon is less than a week away, and I’ve been gawking at the stars as if I’d never seen them before. I haven’t even started to pack, and I’ve got to clean up my records for my relief, and get the station in order.
Idiot! Why am I wasting time writing in this damn book!
SEPTEMBER 15—Packing almost done. I’ve uncovered some weird things, too. Things I tried to hide in the early years. Like my novel. I wrote it in the first six months, and thought it was great. I could hardly wait to get back to Earth, and sell it, and become an author. Ah, yes. Read it over a year later. It stinks.
Also, I found a picture of Karen.
SEPTEMBER 16—Today I took a bottle of scotch and a glass down to the control room, set them down on the console, and strapped myself in. Drank a toast to the blackness and the stars and the vortex. I’ll miss them.
SEPTEMBER 17—A day, by my calculations. A day. Then I’m on my way home, to a fresh start and a new life. If I have the courage to live it.
SEPTEMBER 18—Nearly midnight. No sign of the Charon. What’s wrong?
Nothing, probably. These schedules are never precise. Sometimes as much as a week off. So why do I worry? Hell, I was late getting here myself. I wonder what the poor guy I replaced was thinking then?
SEPTEMBER 20—The Charon didn’t come yesterday, either. After I got tired of waiting, I took that bottle of scotch and went back to the control room. And out. To drink another toast to the stars. And the vortex. I woke the vortex and let it flame, and toasted it.
A lot of toasts. I finished the bottle. And today I’ve got such a hangover I think I’ll never make it back to Earth.
It was a stupid thing to do. The crew of the Charon might have seen the vortex colors. If they report me, I’ll get docked a small fortune from the pile of money that’s waiting back on Earth.
SEPTEMBER 21—Where is the Charon! Did something happen to it? Is it coming?
SEPTEMBER 22—I went outside again.
God, so beautiful, so lonely, so vast. Haunting, that’s the word I want. The beauty out there is haunting. Sometimes I think I’m a fool to go back. I’m giving up all of eternity for a pizza and a lay and a kind word.
NO! What the hell am I writing! No. I’m going back, of course I am. I need Earth, I miss Earth, I want Earth. And this time it will be different.
I’ll find another Karen, and this time I won’t blow it.
SEPTEMBER 23—I’m sick. God, but I’m sick. The things I’ve been thinking. I thought I had changed, but now I don’t know. I find myself actually thinking about staying, about signing on for another term. I don’t want to. No. But I think I’m still afraid of life, of Earth, of everything.
Hurry, Charon. Hurry, before I change my mind.
SEPTEMBER 24—Karen or the vortex? Earth or eternity?
Dammit, how can I think that! Karen! Earth! I have to have courage, I have to risk pain, I have to taste life.
I am not a rock. Or an island. Or a star.
SEPTEMBER 25—No sign of the Charon. A full week late. That happens sometimes. But not very often. It will arrive soon. I know it.
SEPTEMBER 30—Nothing. Each day I watch, and wait. I listen to my scanners, and go outside to look, and pace back and forth through the ring. But nothing. It’s never been this late. What’s wrong?
OCTOBER 3—Ship today. Not the Charon. I thought it was at first, when the scanners picked it up. I yelled loud enough to wake the vortex. But then I looked, and my heart sank. It was too big, and it was coming straight on without decelerating.
I went outside and let it through. And stayed out for a long time afterward.
OCTOBER 4—I want to go home. Where are they? I don’t understand. I don’t understand.
They can’t just leave me here. They can’t. They won’t.
OCTOBER 5—Ship today. Ringship again. I used to look forward to them. Now I hate them, because they’re not the Charon. But I let it through.
OCTOBER 7—I unpacked. It’s silly for me to live out of suitcases when I don’t know if the Charon is coming, or when.
I still look for it, though. I wait. It’s coming, I know. Just delayed somewhere. An emergency in the belt maybe. There are lots of explanations.
Meanwhile, I’m doing odd jobs around the ring. I never did get it in proper shape for my relief. Too busy star watching at the time to do what I should have been doing.
OCTOBER 8(OR THEREABOUTS)—Darkness and despa
ir.
I know why the Charon hasn’t arrived. It isn’t due. The calendar was all screwed up. It’s January, not October. And I’ve been living on the wrong time for months. Even celebrated the Fourth of July on the wrong day.
I discovered it yesterday when I was doing those chores around the ring. I wanted to make sure everything was running right. For my relief.
Only there won’t be any relief.
The Charon arrived three months ago. I—I destroyed it.
Sick. It was sick. I was sick, mad. As soon as it was done, it hit me. What I’d done. Oh, God. I screamed for hours.
And then I set back the wall calendar. And forgot. Maybe deliberately. Maybe I couldn’t bear to remember. I don’t know. All I know is that I forgot.
But now I remember. Now I remember it all.
The scanners had warned me of the Charon’s approach. I was outside, waiting. Watching. Trying to get enough of the stars and the darkness to last me forever.
Through that darkness, Charon came. It seemed so slow compared to the ringships. And so small. It was my salvation, my relief, but it looked fragile, and silly, and somehow ugly. Squalid. It reminded me of Earth.
It moved towards docking, dropping into the ring from above, groping towards the locks in the habitable section of Cerberus. So very slow. I watched it come. Suddenly I wondered what I’d say to the crewmen, and my relief. I wondered what they’d think of me. Somewhere in my gut, a fist clenched.
And suddenly I couldn’t stand it. Suddenly I was afraid of it. Suddenly I hated it.
So I woke the vortex.
A red flare, branching into yellow tongues, growing quickly, shooting off blue-green bolts. One passed near the Charon. And the ship shuddered.
I tell myself, now, that I didn’t realize what I was doing. Yet I knew the Charon was unarmored. I knew it couldn’t take vortex energies. I knew.
The Charon was so slow, the vortex so fast. In two heartbeats the maelstrom was brushing against the ship. In three it had swallowed it.
It was gone so fast. I don’t know if the ship melted, or burst asunder, or crumpled. But I know it couldn’t have survived. There’s no blood on my star ring, though. The debris is somewhere on the other side of nullspace. If there is any debris.
The ring and the darkness looked the same as ever.
That made it so easy to forget. And I must have wanted to forget very much.
And now? What do I do now? Will Earth find out? Will there ever be relief? I want to go home.
Karen, I—
JUNE 18—My relief left Earth today.
At least I think he did. Somehow the wall calendar was broken, so I’m not precisely sure of the date. But I’ve got it back into working order.
Anyway, it can’t have been off for more than a few hours, or I would have noticed. So my relief is on the way. It will take him three months to get here, of course.
But at least he’s coming.
WITH MORNING COMES MISTFALL
I WAS EARLY TO BREAKFAST THAT MORNING, THE FIRST DAY AFTER landing. But Sanders was already out on the dining balcony when I got there. He was standing alone by the edge, looking out over the mountains and the mists.
I walked up behind him and muttered hello. He didn’t bother to reply. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he said, without turning.
And it was.
Only a few feet below balcony level the mists rolled, sending ghostly breakers to crash against the stones of Sanders’ castle. A thick white blanket extended from horizon to horizon, cloaking everything. We could see the summit of the Red Ghost, off to the north; a barbed dagger of scarlet rock jabbing into the sky. But that was all. The other mountains were still below mist level.
But we were above the mists. Sanders had built his hotel atop the tallest mountain in the chain. We were floating alone in a swirling white ocean, on a flying castle amid a sea of clouds.
Castle Cloud, in fact. That was what Sanders had named the place. It was easy to see why.
“Is it always like this?” I asked Sanders, after drinking it all in for a while.
“Every mistfall,” he replied, turning toward me with a wistful smile. He was a fat man, with a jovial red face. Not the sort who should smile wistfully. But he did.
He gestured toward the east, where Wraithworld’s sun rising above the mists made a crimson and orange spectacle out of the dawn sky.
“The sun,” he said. “As it rises, the heat drives the mists back into the valleys, forces them to surrender the mountains they’ve conquered during the night. The mists sink, and one by one the peaks come into view. By noon the whole range is visible for miles and miles. There’s nothing like it on Earth, or anywhere else.”
He smiled again, and led me over to one of the tables scattered around the balcony. “And then, at sunset, it’s all reversed. You must watch mistrise tonight,” he said.
We sat down, and a sleek robowaiter came rolling out to serve us as the chairs registered our presence. Sanders ignored it. “It’s war, you know,” he continued. “Eternal war between the sun and the mists. And the mists have the better of it. They have the valleys, and the plains, and the seacoasts. The sun has only a few mountaintops. And them only by day.”
He turned to the robowaiter and ordered coffee for both of us, to keep us occupied until the others arrived. It would be fresh-brewed, of course. Sanders didn’t tolerate instants or synthetics on his planet.
“You like it here,” I said, while we waited for the coffee.
Sanders laughed. “What’s not to like? Castle Cloud has everything. Good food, entertainment, gambling, and all the other comforts of home. Plus this planet. I’ve got the best of both worlds, don’t I?”
“I suppose so. But most people don’t think in those terms. Nobody comes to Wraithworld for the gambling, or the food.”
Sanders nodded. “But we do get some hunters. Out after rockcats and plains devils. And once in a while someone will come to look at the ruins.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But those are your exceptions. Not your rule. Most of your guests are here for one reason.”
“Sure,” he admitted, grinning. “The wraiths.”
“The wraiths,” I echoed. “You’ve got beauty here, and hunting and fishing and mountaineering. But none of that brings the tourists here. It’s the wraiths they come for.”
The coffee arrived then, two big steaming mugs accompanied by a pitcher of thick cream. It was very strong, and very hot, and very good. After weeks of spaceship synthetic, it was an awakening.
Sanders sipped at his coffee with care, his eyes studying me over the mug. He set it down thoughtfully. “And it’s the wraiths you’ve come for, too,” he said.
I shrugged. “Of course. My readers aren’t interested in scenery, no matter how spectacular. Dubowski and his men are here to find wraiths, and I’m here to cover the search.”
Sanders was about to answer, but he never got the chance. A sharp, precise voice cut in suddenly. “If there are any wraiths to find,” the voice said.
We turned to face the balcony entrance. Dr. Charles Dubowski, head of the Wraithworld Research Team, was standing in the doorway, squinting at the light. He had managed to shake the gaggle of research assistants who usually trailed him everywhere.
Dubowski paused for a second, then walked over to our table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. The robowaiter came rolling out again.
Sanders eyed the thin scientist with unconcealed distaste. “What makes you think the wraiths aren’t there, Doctor?” he asked.
Dubowski shrugged, and smiled lightly. “I just don’t feel there’s enough evidence,” he said. “But don’t worry. I never let my feelings interfere with my work. I want the truth as much as anyone. So I’ll run an impartial expedition. If your wraiths are out there, I’ll find them.”
“Or they’ll find you,” Sanders said. He looked grave. “And that might not be too pleasant.”
Dubowski laughed. “Oh, come now, Sanders. Just because yo
u live in a castle doesn’t mean you have to be so melodramatic.”
“Don’t laugh, Doctor. The wraiths have killed people before, you know.”
“No proof of that,” said Dubowski. “No proof at all. Just as there’s no proof of the wraiths themselves. But that’s why we’re here. To find proof. Or disproof. But come, I’m famished.” He turned to our robowaiter, who had been standing by and humming impatiently.
Dubowski and I ordered rockcat steaks, with a basket of hot, freshly baked biscuits. Sanders took advantage of the Earth supplies our ship had brought in last night, and got a massive slab of ham with a half dozen eggs.
Rockcat has a flavor that Earth meat hasn’t had in centuries. I loved it, although Dubowski left much of his steak uneaten. He was too busy talking to eat.
“You shouldn’t dismiss the wraiths so lightly,” Sanders said after the robowaiter had stalked off with our orders. “There is evidence. Plenty of it. Twenty-two deaths since this planet was discovered. And eyewitness accounts of wraiths by the dozens.”
“True,” Dubowski said. “But I wouldn’t call that real evidence. Deaths? Yes. Most are simple disappearances, however. Probably people who fell off a mountain, or got eaten by a rockcat, or something. It’s impossible to find the bodies in the mists.
“More people vanish every day on Earth, and nothing is thought of it. But here, every time someone disappears, people claim the wraiths got him. No, I’m sorry. It’s not enough.”
“Bodies have been found, Doctor,” Sanders said quietly. “Slain horribly. And not by falls or rockcats, either.”
It was my turn to cut in. “Only four bodies have been recovered that I know of,” I said. “And I’ve backgrounded myself pretty thoroughly on the wraiths.”
Sanders frowned. “All right,” he admitted. “But what about those four cases? Pretty convincing evidence, if you ask me.”