They were not human eyes.
Now Arnsen knew why O’Brien had asked if he had looked into Deirdre’s eyes. They were her secret and her power. Her human form was not enough to enchant and enslave the beings of a hundred worlds. It was the soul-shaking alienage that looked out of Circe’s eyes.
Through those dark windows Arnsen saw the Outside. He saw the gulf between the stars, and no longer did he fear it. For Circe was a goddess.
She was above and beyond humanity. A great void opened between her and the man, the void of countless evolutionary cycles, and a million light-years of space. But across that gulf something reached and met and clung, and Arnsen’s senses drowned in a soul-shaking longing for Circe.
It was her power. She could control emotion, as she could control the crystals, and the power of her mind reached into Arnsen and wrung sanity and self from it. Only in outer semblance was she even slightly human. Beside her Arnsen was an animal, and like an animal he could be controlled.
She blazed like a flame before him. He forgot O’Brien, forgot Hastings and Earth and his purpose. Her power clutched him and left him helpless.
The grip upon his mind relaxed. Circe, confident of her triumph, let her eyelids droop.
And Arnsen’s mind came back in a long, slow cycle from the gulfs between the stars, drifted leisurely back into the crystalline cavern and the presence of the goddess—and woke.
Not wholly. He would never be whole again. But he felt the crowding vibrations of the countless prisoners in crystal who had gone the way his own feet were walking now, bewildered, drunken and drowning in emotions without name, sacrificing identity without knowing what they sacrificed. Flung into eternity at the whim of a careless goddess to whom all life-forms were one. …
She was turning half away as realization came back to Arnsen. She had lifted one round white arm to let the crystals cascade along it. She did not even see him lurch forward.
What he did was without thought. The emotions she had called up in him drowned all thought. He only knew that he must do what he did—he could not yet think why.
The breath hissed between his lips as he stumbled forward and thrust Circe into the flame. …
From the roof a gray jewel dropped. The tower of fire paused in its rhythm—beat out strongly again. From it a crystal leaped. It hung motionless in the air, and Arnsen seized it with shaking fingers. He felt great, racking sobs shake him. His fingers caressed the jewel, pressed it to his lips.
“Circe!” he whispered, eyes blind with tears. “Circe—”
Epilogue
Arnsen had not spoken for a long time. Through the window I could see the Cairo stratoship being wheeled into place. Beyond, the lights of New York glowed yellow.
“And so you came back,” I said.
He nodded. “And so I came back. I put on my spacesuit and went back to the ship. The crystals didn’t try to stop me. They seemed to be waiting. I don’t know for what. I blasted off and headed Sunward. I knew enough to do that. After a while I began to send out SOS signals, and a patrol boat picked me up. That was all.”
“Doug—”
“Still there, I suppose. With all the others. Vail, why did I do it? Was I right?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but cupped the little shagreen box in his hand. He didn’t open it.
“No,” he went on, “you can’t answer me; nobody can. Circe took the soul out of my body, and I’m empty now. There’s no peace for me on Earth, or in the spaceways. And out there, somewhere, on that asteroid, the crystals are waiting—waiting for Circe to come back—
“But she will never come back. She will stay with me till I die, and then she’ll be buried with me in space. In the meantime—Circe doesn’t like it here on Earth. So I’m going out again. Sometime, perhaps, I’ll take her back Outside, to the unknown place from which she came. I don’t know—”
An audio announced the plane for Kansas. Arnsen stood up, gave me a smile from his ravaged face, and without a word went out.
I never saw him again.
I think that beyond Pluto, beyond the farthest limits of the system, a little cruiser may be fleeing into the void, controls set, racing, perhaps, for the darkness of the Coal Sack. In the ship is a man and a jewel. He will die, but I do not think that even in death his hand will relax its grip on that jewel.
And the ship will go on, into the blackness which has no name.
War-Gods of the Void
I
Earth Consul, Goodenow, tossed a packet of microfilms to Vanning, and said, “You’re crazy. The man you’re after isn’t here. Only damn fools ever come to Venus—and don’t ask me why I’m here. You’re crazy to think you’ll find a fugitive hiding on this planet.”
Jerry Vanning, earth state investigator, moved his stocky body uneasily. He had a headache. He had had it ever since the precarious landing through the tremendous wind-maelstroms of the pea-soup Venusian atmosphere. With an effort he focused his vision on the micro-projector Goodenow handed him, and turned the tiny key. Inside the box, a face sprang into view. He sighed and slid another of the passport-films into place. He had never seen the man before.
“Routine checkup,” he said patiently. “I got a tip Callahan was heading here, and we can’t afford to take chances.”
The consul mopped his sweating, beefy face and cursed Venusian air-conditioning units. “Who is this guy Callahan, anyway?” he asked. “I’ve heard a little—but we don’t get much news on the frontier.”
“Political refugee,” Vanning said, busy with the projector. “Potentially, one of the most dangerous men in the System. Callahan started his career as a diplomat, but there wasn’t enough excitement for him.”
The consul fumbled with a cigar. “Can you tell
