ckness, with the empty ship humming to itself all
around him.

* * * * *

It was an entirely different thing, he told himself; there were no
names, and no descriptions, and no feeling of going from one known place
to another known place. It was more like--

It was like standing outdoors, on a still summer night, and looking up
at the dizzying depths of the stars. And then looking down, to discover
that there was no planet under your feet--and that you were all alone in
that alien gulf....

It was enough to make a grown man cry; and Weaver had cried, often, in
the empty red twilight of the ship, feeling himself hopelessly and
forever cut off, cast out and forgotten. But as the weeks passed, a kind
of numbness had overtaken him, till now, when he looked out the porthole
at the incredible depth of sky, he felt no emotion but a thin,
disapproving regret.

Sometimes he would describe himself to himself, just to refute the
feeling that he was not really here, not really alive. But his mind was
too orderly, and the description would come out so cold and
terse--"Algernon James Weaver (1942- ) historian, civic leader, poet,
teacher, philosopher. Author of _Development of the School System in
Schenectady and Scoharie Counties, New York_ (pamphlet, 1975); _An
Address to the Women's Clubs of Schenectady, New York_ (pamphlet, 1979);
_Rhymes of a Philosopher_ (1981); _Parables of a Philosopher_ (1983),
_Reflections of a Philosopher_ (1986). Born in Detroit, Michigan, son of
a Methodist minister; educated in Michigan and New York public schools;
B.A., New York State University, 1959; M.A., N.Y.S.U. Extension, 1964.
Unmarried. Surviving relatives--"

That was the trouble, it began to sound like an obituary. And then the
great humming metal shell would begin to feel like a coffin....

[Illustration]

Presumption. Pure presumption. None of these creatures should have been
allowed to get loose among the stars, Man least of all. It cluttered
up the Universe. It undermined Faith. And it had got Algernon Weaver
into the devil of a fix.

* * * * *

It was his sister's fault, actually. She would go, in spite of his
advice, up to the Moon, to the UN sanatorium in Aristarchus. Weaver's
sister, a big-framed, definite woman, had a weak heart and seventy-five
superfluous pounds of fat. Doctors had told her that she would live
twenty years longer on the Moon; therefore she