Shaw beamed. «Hell? I know it well. Come. I'll show I you around!»
Laughing, they jumped into the feather-tube and fell up.
This was the place of stars.
Which is to say the one place in all the ship where, if one wished, one could come and truly look at the Universe and the billion billion stars which poured across it and ' never stopped pouring, cream from the mad dairies of the gods. Delicious frights or outcrops, on the other hand, if you thought it so, from the sickness of Lord God Jehovah turned in his sleep, upset with Creation, and birthing dino-saur worlds spun about Satanic suns.
«It's all in the thinking,» observed Mr.Shaw, sidling his eyes at his young consort.
«Mr.Shaw! You can read minds?»
«Poppycock. I merely read faces. Yours is clear glass. I glanced just now and saw Job afflicted, Moses and the Burning Bush. Come. Let us look at the Deeps and see what God has been up to in the ten billion years since He collided with Himself and procreated Vastness.»
They stood now, surveying the Universe, counting the stars to a billion and beyond.
«Oh,» moaned the young man, suddenly, and tears fell from his eyes. «How I wish I had been alive when you were alive, sir. How I wish I had truly known you.»
«This Shaw is best,» retorted the old man, «all of the mincemeat and none of the tin. The coattails are better than the man. Hang to them and survive.»
Space lay all about, as vast as God's first thought, as deep as His primal breathing.
They stood, one of them tall, one short, by the scanning window, with a fine view of the great Andromeda Nebula whenever they wished to focus it near with a touch of the button which made the Eye magnify and suck things close.
After a long moment of drinking stars, the young man let out his breath.
«Mr.Shaw…?.Say it. You know what I like to hear.»
«Do I, my boy?» Mr.Shaw's eyes twinkled.
All of Space was around them, all of the Universe, all of the night of the celestial Being, all the stars and all the places between the stars, and the ship moving on its silent course, and the crew of the ship busy at work or games or touching their amorous toys, so these two were alone with their talk, these two stood viewing the Mystery and say-ing what must be said.
«Say it, Mr.Shaw.»
«Well, now…»
Mr.Shaw fixed his eyes on a star some twenty light-years away.
«What ore we?» he asked. «Why, we are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will. Incredible. The Life Force experimenting with forms. You for one. Me for another. The Universe has shouted itself alive. We are one of the shouts. Creation turns in its abyss. We have bothered it, dreaming ourselves to shapes. The void is filled with slumbers; ten billion on a billion on a billion bombardments of light and material that know not themselves, that sleep moving and move but finally to make an eye and waken on themselves. Among so much that is flight and ignorance, we are the blind force that gropes like Lazarus from a billion-light-year tomb. We summon ourselves. We say, O Lazarus Life Force, truly come ye forth. So the Universe, a motion of deaths, fumbles to reach across Time to feel its own flesh and know it to be ours. We touch both ways and find each other miraculous because we are One.»
Mr.Shaw turned to glance at his young friend.
«There you have it. Satisfied?»
«Oh, yes! I―»
The young man stopped.
Behind them, in the viewing-cabin door, stood Clive. Beyond him, they could hear music pulsing from the far cubicles where crewmen and their huge toys played at amorous games.
«Well,» said Clive, «what goes on — ?»
«Here?» interjected Shaw, lightly. «Why, only the con-founding of two energies making do with puzzlements. This contraption — " he touched his own breast, "speaks from computerized elations. That genetic conglomeration ―» he nodded at his young friend, «responds with raw, be loved, and true emotions. The sum of us? Pandemonium spread on biscuits and devoured at high tea.»
Clive swiveled his gaze to Willis. «Damn, you're nuts. At dinner you should have heard the laughter! You and this old man, and just talk! they said. Just talk, talk! Look, idiot, it's your stand-watch in ten minutes. Be there! God!»
And the door was empty. Clive was gone.
Silently, Willis and Mr.Shaw floated down the drop-tube to the storage pit beneath the vast machineries.
The old man sat once again on the floor.
«Mr.Shaw.» Willis shook his head, snorting softly. «Hell. Why is it you seem more alive to me than anyone I have ever known?»
«Why, my dear young friend,» replied the old man, gently, «what you warm your hands at are Ideas, eh? I am a walking monument of concepts, scrimshaws of thought, electric deliriums of philosophy and wonder. You love concepts. I am their receptacle. You love dreams in motion. I move. You love palaver and jabber. I am the consummate palaverer and jabberer. You and I, together, masticate Alpha Centauri and spit forth universal myths. We chew upon the tail of Halley's Comet and worry the Horsehead Nebula until it cries a monstrous Uncle and gives over to our creation. You love libraries. I am a library. Tickle my ribs and I vomit forth Melville's Whale, Spirit Spout and all. Tic my ear and I'll build Plato's Republic with my tongue for you to run and live in. You love Toys. I am a Toy, a fabulous plaything, a computerized ―»
«— friend,» said Willis, quietly.
Mr.Shaw gave him a look less of fire than of hearth.
«Friend,» he said.
Willis turned to leave, then stopped to gaze back at that strange old figure propped against the dark storage wall.
«I–I'm afraid to go. I have this fear something may happen to you.»
«I shall survive,» replied Shaw tartly, «but only if you warn your Captain that a vast meteor shower approaches. He must shift course a few hundred thousand miles. Done?»
«Done.» But still Willis did not leave.
«Mr.Shaw,» he said, at last. «What… what do you do while the rest of us sleep?»
«Do? Why, bless you. I listen to my tuning fork. Then, I write symphonies between my ears.»
Willis was gone.
In the dark, alone, the old man bent his head. A soft. hive of dark bees began to hum under his honey-sweet a breath.
Four hours later, Willis, off watch, crept into his sleep-cubicle.
In half-light, the mouth was waiting for him.
Clive's mouth. It licked its lips and whispered:
«Everyone's talking. About you making an ass out of yourself visiting a two-hundred-year-old intellectual relic, you, you, you. Jesus, the psychomed'll be out tomorrow to X-ray your stupid skull!»
«Better that than what you men do all night every night,» said Willis.