I knew better than that.

  So—I saw as I began to read Blake’s report—did Blake.

  Bill:

  Tear this sheet out when you’ve read it!

  Well, the worst has happened. We couldn’t have asked fate to give us an unkindlier kick in the pants. I hate to think of Pelham being dead—what a man he was, what a friend—but we all knew the risk we were taking, he more than any of us. Space rest his great soul.

  But Renfrew’s case is now serious. After all, we were worried, wondering how he’d take his first awakening, let alone a bang between the eyes like Pelham’s death. And I think that first anxiety was justified.

  As you and I have always known, Renfrew was one of Earth’s fair-haired boys. Just imagine any one human being born with his combination of looks, money, and intelligence. His great fault was that he never let the future trouble him. With that dazzling personality of his, and the crew of worshiping women and yes-men around him, he didn’t have much time for anything but the present.

  Realities always struck him like a thunderbolt. He could leave those three ex-wives of his—and they weren’t so ex, if you ask me—without grasping that it was forever.

  That good-bye party was enough to put anyone into a sort of mental haze when it came to realities. To wake up a hundred years later, and realize that those he loved had withered, died, and been eaten by worms—we-e-11!

  (I put it baldly like that because the human mind always thinks the worst angles, no matter how it censors speech.)

  I personally counted on Pelham acting as a sort of psychological support to Renfrew; and we both know that Pelham recognized the extent of his influence over Renfrew. That influence must be replaced. Try to think of something, Bill, while you’re charging around doing the routine work. We’ve got to live with that guy after we all wake up at the end of the five hundred years.

  Tear out this sheet. What follows is routine.

  Ned

  I burned the letter in the incinerator, examined the two sleeping bodies—how deathly quiet they lay!—and then returned to the control room.

  In the plate, the sun was a very bright star, a jewel set in black velvet, a gorgeous, shining brilliant.

  Alpha Centauri was brighter. It was a radiant light in that panoply of black and glitter. It was still impossible to make out the separate suns of Alpha A, B, C, and Proxima, but their combined light brought a sense of awe and majesty.

  Excitement blazed inside me; and consciousness came of the glory of this trip we were making, the first men to head for far Centaurus, the first men to dare aspire to the stars.

  Even the thought of Earth failed to dim that surging tide of wonder; the thought that seven, possibly eight generations, had been born since our departure; the thought that the girl who had given me the sweet remembrance of her red lips was now known to her descendants as their great-great-great-great-grandmother—if she was remembered at all.

  The immense time involved, the whole idea, was too meaningless for emotion.

  I did my work, took my third dose of the drug, and went to bed. The sleep found me still without a plan about Renfrew.

  When I woke up, alarm bells were ringing.

  I lay still. There was nothing else to do. If I had moved, consciousness would have slid from me. Though it was mental torture even to think it, I realized that, no matter what the danger, the quickest way was to follow my routine to the second and in every detail.

  Somehow I did it. The bells clanged and birred, but I lay there until it was time to get up. The clamor was hideous, as I passed through the control room. But I passed through, and sat for half an hour sipping my soup.

  The conviction came to me that if that sound continued much longer, Blake and Renfrew would surely waken from their sleep.

  At last, I felt free to cope with the emergency. Breathing hard, I eased myself into the control chair, cut off the mind-wrecking alarms, and switched on the plates.

  A fire glowed at me from the rear-view plate. It was a colossal white fire, longer than it was wide, and filling nearly a quarter of the whole sky. The hideous thought came to me that we must be within a few million miles of some monstrous sun that had recently roared into this part of space.

  Frantically, I manipulated the distance estimators—and then for a moment stared in blank disbelief at the answers that clicked metallically onto the product plate.

  Seven miles! Only seven miles! Curious is the human mind. A moment before, when I had thought of it as an abnormally shaped sun, it hadn’t resembled anything but an incandescent mass. Abruptly, now, I saw that it had a solid outline, an unmistakable material shape.

  Stunned, I leaped to my feet because—

  It was a spaceship! An enormous, mile-long ship. Rather—I sank back into my seat, subdued by the catastrophe I was witnessing, and consciously adjusting my mind—the flaming hell of what had been a spaceship. Nothing that had been alive could possibly still be conscious in that horror of ravenous fire. The only possibility was that the crew had succeeded in launching lifeboats.

  Like a madman, I searched the heavens for a light, a glint of metal that would show the presence of survivors.

  There was nothing but the night and the stars and the hell of burning ship.

  After a long time, I noticed that it was farther away, and seemed to be receding. Whatever drive forces had matched its velocity to ours must be yielding to the fury of the energies that were consuming the ship.

  I began to take pictures, and I felt justified in turning on the oxygen reserves. As it withdrew into distance, the miniature nova that had been a torpedo-shaped space finer began to change color, to lose its white intensity. It became a red fire silhouetted against darkness. My last glimpse showed it as a long, dull glow that looked like nothing else than a cherry-colored nebula seen edge on, like a glaze reflecting from the night beyond a far horizon.

  I had already, in between observations, done everything else required of me; and now, I reconnected the alarm system and, very reluctantly, my mind seething with speculation, returned to bed.

  As I lay waiting for my final dosage of the trip to take effect, I thought: the great star system of Alpha Centauri must have inhabited planets. If my calculations were correct, we were only 1.6 light-years from the main Alpha group of suns, slightly nearer than that to red Proxima.

  Here was proof that the universe had at least one other supremely intelligent race. Wonders beyond our wildest expectations were in store for us. Thrill on thrill of anticipation raced through me.

  It was only at the last instant, as sleep was already grasping at my brain that the realization struck that I had completely forgotten about the problem of Renfrew.

  I felt no alarm. Surely, even Renfrew would come alive in that great fashion of his when confronted by a complex alien civilization.

  Our troubles were over.

  Excitement must have bridged that final one hundred fifty years of time. Because, when I wakened, I thought:

  “We’re here! It’s over, the long night, the incredible journey. We’ll all be waking, seeing each other, as well as the civilization out there. Seeing, too, the great Centauri suns.”

  The strange thing, it struck me as I lay there exulting, was that the time seemed long. And yet…yet I had been awake only three times, and only once for the equivalent of a full day.

  In the truest sense of meaning, I had seen Blake and Renfrew -and Pelham—no more than a day and a half ago. I had had only thirty-six hours of consciousness since a pair of soft lips had set themselves against mine, and clung in the sweetest kiss of my life.

  Then why this feeling that millenniums had ticked by, second on slow second? Why this eerie, empty awareness of a journey through fathomless, unending night?

  Was the human mind so easily fooled?

  It seemed to me, finally, that the answer was that I had been alive for those five hundred years, all my cells and my organs had existed, and it was not even impossible that some part of my brain had been horrendously aware throughout the entire unthinkable period.

  And there was, of course, the additional psychological fact that I knew now that five hundred years had gone by, and that—

  I saw with a mental start, that my ten minutes were up. Cautiously, I turned on the massager.

  The gentle, padded hands had been working on me for about fifteen minutes when my door opened; the light clicked on, and there stood Blake.

  The too-sharp movement of turning my head to look at him made me dizzy. I closed my eyes, and heard him walk across the room toward me.

  After a minute, I was able to look at him again without seeing blurs. I saw then that he was carrying a bowl of the soup. He stood staring down at me with a strangely grim expression on his face.

  At last, his long, thin countenance relaxed into a wan grin.

  “’Lo, Bill,” he said. “Ssshh!” he hissed immediately. “Now, don’t try to speak. I’m going to start feeding you this soup while you’re still lying down. The sooner you’re up, the better I’ll like it.”

  He was grim again, as he finished almost as if it were an afterthought: “I’ve been up for two weeks.”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed, and ladled out a spoonful of “soup.” There was silence, then, except for the rustling sound of the massager. Slowly, the strength flowed through my body; and with each passing second, I became more aware of the grimness of Blake.

  “What about Renfrew?” I managed finally, hoarsely. “He awake?”

  Blake hesitated, then nodded. His expression darkened with frown; he said simply:

  “He’s mad, Bill, stark, staring mad. I had to tie him up. I’ve got him now in his room. He’s quieter now, but at the beginning he was a gibbering maniac.”

  “Are you crazy?” I whispered at last. “Renfrew was never so sensitive as that. Depressed and sick, yes; but the mere passage of time, abrupt awareness that all his friends are dead, couldn’t make him insane.”

  Blake was shaking his head. “It isn’t only that. Bill—”

  He paused, then: “Bill, I want you to prepare your mind for the greatest shock it’s ever had.”

  I stared up at him with an empty feeling inside me. “What do you mean?”

  He went on, grimacing: “I know you’ll be able to take it. So don’t get scared. You and I, Bill, are just a couple of lugs. We’re along because we went to U with Renfrew and Pelham. Basically, it wouldn’t matter to insensitives like us whether we landed in one million b.c. or a.d. We’d just look around and say: Taney seeing you here, mug!’ or ‘Who was that pterodactyl I saw you with last night?’ ’That wasn’t no pterodactyl; that was Unthahorsten’s bulbous-brained wife.’”

  “For Mars’ sake,” I whispered, “get to the point What’s up?”

  Blake rose to his feet. “Bill, after I’d read your reports about, and seen the photographs of, that burning ship, I got an idea. The Alpha suns were pretty close two weeks ago, only about six months away at our average speed of five hundred miles a second. I thought to myself: ‘I’ll see if I can tune in some of their radio stations.’

  “Well,” he smiled wryly, “I got hundreds in a few minutes. They came in all over the seven wave dials, with bell-like clarity.”

  He paused; he stared down at me, and his smile was a sickly thing. “Bill,” he groaned, “we’re the prize fools in creation. When I told Renfrew the truth, he folded up like ice melting into water.”

  Once more, he paused; the silence was too much for my straining nerves.

  “For Heaven’s sake, man—” I began. And stopped. And lay there, very still. Just like that the lightning of understanding flashed on me. My blood seemed to thunder through my veins. At last, weakly, I said: “You mean—”

  Blake nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s the way it is. And they’ve already spotted us with their spy rays and energy screens. A ship’s coming out to meet us.

  “I only hope,” he finished gloomily, “they can do something for Jim.”

  I was sitting in the control chair an hour later when I saw the glint in the darkness. There was a flash of bright silver, that exploded into size. The next instant, an enormous spaceship had matched our velocity less than a mile away.

  Blake and I looked at each other. “Did they say,” I said shakily, “that that ship left its hangar ten minutes ago?”

  Blake nodded. “They can make the trip from Earth to Centauri in three hours,” he said.,

  I hadn’t heard that before. Something happened inside my brain. '

  ‘What!” I shouted. “Why, it’s taken us five hund—”

  I stopped; I sat there. “Three hours!” I whispered. “How could we have forgotten human progress?”

  In the silence that fell then, we watched a dark hole open in the clifflike wall that faced us. Into this cavern, I directed our ship.

  The rear-view plate showed that the cave entrance was closing. Ahead of us fights flashed on, and focused on a door. As I eased our craft to the metal floor, a face flickered onto our radio plate.

  “Cassellahat!” Blake whispered in my ear. “The only chap who’s talked direct to me so far.”

  It was a distinguished, a scholarly looking head and face that peered at us. Cassellahat smiled, and said:

  “You may leave your ship, and go through the door you see.”

  I had a sense of empty spaces around us, as we climbed gingerly out into the vast receptor chamber. Interplanetary spaceship hangars were like that, I reminded myself. Only this one had an alien quality that—

  “Nerves!” I thought sharply.

  But I could see that Blake felt it, too. A silent duo, we filed through the doorway into a hallway that opened into a very large, luxurious room.

  It was such a room as a king or a movie actress on set might have walked into without blinking. It was all hung with gorgeous tapestries—that is, for a moment, I thought they were tapestries; then I saw they weren’t. They were—I couldn’t decide.

  I had seen expensive furniture in some of the apartments Renfrew maintained. But these chesterfields, chairs and tables glittered at us, as if they were made of a matching design of differently colored fires. No, that was wrong; they didn’t glitter at all. They—

  Once more I couldn’t decide.

  I had no time for more detailed examination. For a man arrayed very much as we were was rising from one of the chairs. I recognized Cassellahat

  He came forward, smiling. Then he slowed, his nose wrinkling. A moment later, he hastily shook our hands, then swiftly retreated to a chair ten feet away, and sat down rather primly.

  It was an astoundingly ungracious performance. But I was glad that he had drawn back that way. Because, as he shook my hand so briefly, I had caught a faint whiff of perfume from him. It was a vaguely unpleasant odor; and, besides—a man using perfume in quantities!

  I shuddered. What kind of foppish nonsense had the human race gone in for?

  He was motioning us to sit down. I did so, wondering: Was this our reception? The erstwhile radio operator began:

  “About your friend, I must caution you. He is a schizoid type, and our psychologists will be able to effect a temporary recovery only for the moment. A permanent cure will require a longer period, and your fullest cooperation. Fall in readily with all Mr. Renfrew’s plans, unless, of course, he takes a dangerous turn.

  “But now”—he squirted us a smile—“permit me to welcome you to the four planets of Centauri. It is a great moment for me, personally. From early childhood, I have been trained for the sole purpose of being your mentor and guide; and naturally I am overjoyed that the time has come when my exhaustive studies of the middle period American language and customs can be put to the practical use for which they were intended.”

  He didn’t look overjoyed. He was wrinkling his nose in that funny way I had already noticed, and there was a generally pained expression on his face. But it was his words that shocked me.

  “What do you mean,” I asked, “studies in American? Don’t people speak the universal language any more?”

  “Of course”—he smiled—“but the language has developed to a point where—I might as well be frank—you would have difficulty understanding such a simple word as ‘yeih.’”

  “Yeih?” Blake echoed.

  “Meaning ‘yes.’” .

  “Oh!”

  We sat silent, Blake chewing his lower lip. It was Blake who finally said:

  “What kind of places are the Centauri planets? You said something on the radio about the population centers having reverted to the city structure again.”

  “I shall be happy,” said Cassellahat, “to show you as many of our great cities as you care to see. You are our guests, and several million credits have been placed to your separate accounts for you to use as you see fit”

  “Gee!” said Blake.

  “I must, however,” Cassellahat went on, “give you a warning. It is important that you do not disillusion our peoples about yourselves. Therefore, you must never wander around the streets, or mingle with the crowds in any way. Always, your contact should be via newsreels, radio, or from the inside of a closed machine. If you have any plan to marry, you must now finally give up the idea.”

  “I don’t get it!” Blake said wonderingly; and he spoke for us both.

  Cassellahat finished firmly: “It is important that no one becomes aware that you have an offensive physical odor. It might damage your financial prospects considerably.

  “And now”—he stood up—“for the time being, I shall leave you. I hope you don’t mind if I wear a mask in the future in your presence. I wish you well, gentlemen, and—”

  He paused, glanced past us, said: “Ah, here is your friend.”

  I whirled, and I could see Blake twisting, staring—

  “Hi, there, fellows,” Renfrew said cheerfully from the door, then wryly: “Have we ever been a bunch of suckers!”

  I felt choked. I raced up to him, caught his hand, hugged him. Blake was trying to do the same.

  When we finally released Renfrew, and looked around, Cassellahat was gone.

  Which was just as well. I had been wanting to punch him in the nose for his final remarks.