Far ahead, the slot's walls were becoming dimly visible once again, in the faint light diffusing downward from some still concealed source. And then the darkness was abruptly whipped away, as the tiny bola hurtled upward into a sky ablaze with stars.407Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4BP54PqQnm
He was back in normal space, true, but a single glance told him that he was light-centuries from Earth.
He didn't even try to find any of the familiar constellations that, since the dawn of time, had been the friends of man; perhaps none of the stars that blazed around him had ever been seen by the naked human eye.
Most of them were concentrated in a glowing belt, broken in places with dark bands of thick cosmic dust, which completely circled the sky. It was like the Milky Way, but hundreds times hundreds brighter; Dhala wondered if this was indeed his own galaxy, seen from a point much closer to its brilliant, crowded middle.
He hoped that it was; then he would not be so far from home. But this, he realized at once, was an infantile thought. He was so inconceivably remote from the Solar System that it made little difference whether he was in his own galaxy or the most distant one that any telescope had ever glimpsed.
He looked back to see the thing from which he was rising, and had another shock.
Here was no giant, multifaceted planet, nor any clone of Japetus. There was nothing--except an inky shadow against the stars, like a doorway opening from a darkened room into a still darker night. Even as he watched, that doorway closed.
It did not retreat from him; it slowly filled up with stars, as if a tear in the fabric of space had been sealed. Then he was alone beneath the alien sky.
The bola was slowly turning, and as it did so it brought fresh wonders into view. First there was a perfectly spherical swarm of stars, becoming increasingly packed toward the middle until its heart was a perpetual glow of light. Its outer edges were indistinct---a slowly thinning halo of suns that merged imperceptibly into the background of more distant stars.
This glorious apparition, Dhala knew, was a globular cluster. He was looking upon something that no mortal man had ever seen, save as a smudge of light in the field of a telescope. He could not remember the distance to the nearest known cluster, but he was sure that there were none within a thousand light-years of the Solar System.
The bola continued its slow rotation, to disclose an even stranger sight---a huge red sun, many times the size of the Moon as seen from Earth. Dhala could look straight into its face without discomfort; judging by its color, it was no hotter than a glowing coal. Here and there, set into the somber red, were rivers of bright yellow---incandescent Amazons, meandering for thousands of miles before they lost themselves in the wastelands of this dying sun.
Dying? No--that was a totally false impression, born of human experience and the emotions aroused by the hues of dusk, or the glow of fading embers. This was a star that had left behind the fiery extravagances of its youth, had raced through the blues and violets and greens of the spectrum in a few fleeting billions of years, and now had settled down to a peaceful maturity of unimaginable length. All that had gone before was not a thousandth of what was yet to come; the story of this star had only just begun.
The bola had ceased to roll; the great red sun lay straight ahead. Tough there was no sense of motion, Dhala knew that he was still gripped by whatever dominating force had brought him here from Saturn.
All the science and engineering skill of the Viagens Interplenetarias seemed hopelessly primitive now, against the powers that were carrying him to some unimaginable fate.
He stared into the sky ahead, trying to pick out the goal toward which he was being taken---maybe some planet circling the great sun. But there was nothing that showed any visible disk or exceptional brightness; if there were planets orbiting here he could not disassociate it from the stellar background.
And then he noticed that something odd was happening on the very edge of the sun's crimson disk. A white glow had appeared there, and was rapidly waxing in brilliance; he wondered if he was seeing one of those sudden eruptions, or flares, that trouble most stars from time to time.
The light became brighter and bluer; it began to spread along the edge of the sun, whose blood-red hues paled swiftly by comparison. It was almost, Dhala told himself, smiling at the absurdity of the thought, as if he were watching sunrise---on a sun!
And indeed he was. Above the burning horizon lifted something no bigger than a star, but so brilliant that the eye could not bear to look upon it. A mere point of blue/white radiance, like an electric arc, was moving at unbelievable speed across the face of the great sun. It must be very close to its giant companion; for immediately below it, draw upward by its gravitational pull, was a column of flame thousands of miles high. It was as if a tsunami of fire was marching forever along the equator of this star, in vain pursuit of the searing ghost in its sky.
That pinpoint of incandescence must be a White Dwarf---one of those strange, fierce little stars, no bigger than the Earth, yet containing a million times its mass. Such ill-matched stellar couples were not uncommon; but Dhala had never dreamed that one day he would see such a thing with his own two eyes.
The White Dwarf had transited almost 1/2 the disk of its companion---it must take mere minutes to make a complete orbit.....when Dhala was at last sure that he too was moving. Ahead of him, one of the stars was becoming rapidly brighter, and was starting to drift against its background. It must be some small, close body---maybe the planet toward which he was traveling.
It was upon him with unexpected speed and he saw that it was not a planet at all. A dully gleaming spiderweb or latticework of metal, hundreds of miles in extent, grew out of nowhere until it filled the sky. Scattered across its continent-wide surface were structures that must have been the size of cities, but which appeared to be machines. Around many of these were assembled scores of smaller objects, ranged in neat rows and columns. Dhala had passed several such groups before he realized that they were fleets of spaceships; he was flying over a gigantic orbital parking lot!407Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5QCrchmpfK
Because there were no familiar objects with which he could judge the scale of the scene flashing by below, it was nearly impossible to estimate the size of the vessels hanging there in space. But they were certainly enormous; some must have been miles in length. They were of many different designs--spheres, faceted crystals, slim pencils, ovoids, disks. This must be one of the meeting places for the commerce of the stars!407Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2JAytOhfjc
Or it had been---maybe one million years ago. For nowhere could Dhala see any sign of activity; this sprawling spaceport was as dead as the Moon.
He knew it not just by the absence of all movement, but by such unmistakable signs as huge gaps in the ripped in the metal spiderweb by the wasplike blunderings of asteroids that must have smashed through it, eons ago. This wasn't a parking lot any more: it was a cosmic junkyard.407Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtNxyi9lXMo
He had missed its builders by ages, and with that realization Dhala felt a sudden sinking in his chest. Though he had not known what to expect, at least he had hoped to meet some intelligence from the stars.407Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQlKOKasdjl
Now, it seemed, he was too late. He had been caught in an ancient, automatic trap, set for some unknown purpose, and still operating when its makers had long since died. It had swept him across the galaxy, and dumped him (with how many others?) in this galactic Sargasso, doomed to die when his air was exhausted.
Well, was it truly unreasonable to expect more? Already he'd seen wonders for which many men would have sacrificed their lives. He thought of his deceased companions, he had no cause to complain.407Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCGPlqtR7Nn
He then saw that the derelict spaceport was still sliding past him with undiminished speed. He was sweeping over its outlying suburbs; its ragged edge went by, and no longer eclipsed the stars. In a few more minutes, it had fallen behind.
His fate did not lie here--but far, far ahead, in the huge crimson sun toward which the bola was now unmistakably falling. 407Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRChgEDUZaE
