The remaining records — six reels of observations — were to be specially studied by Earth’s astronomers and the moat important details broadcast round the Great Circle.
Nobody wanted to see films about the later history of Parus, the hard struggle to repair the damaged ship and the battle with star T; nobody wanted to hear the last sound spool as their own experiences were still too fresh. They decided to leave the examination of the remainder until the time came for the whole crew to be awakened. Leaving the commander alone in the control tower the others went away for a brief rest.
Erg Noor’s dreams had collapsed and he no longer thought of them. He tried to estimate the value of those few pitiful crumbs of knowledge the two expeditions, his and Parus’, would bring back to mankind at such terrific cost. Or did they seem pitiful only on account of his disappointment?
For the first time Erg Noor began to think of beautiful Earth as an inexhaustible treasure-house of refined, cultured human beings who had an insatiable thirst for knowledge now that they had been relieved of the terrible worries and dangers that nature and primitive society had inflicted them with. The sufferings of the past, the searchings and failures, the mistakes and disappointments still remained in the Great Circle Era but they had been carried to a loftier plane of creative activity in science, art and building. Knowledge and creative labour had freed Earth from hunger, over-population, infectious diseases and harmful animals. The world no longer had to fear the exhaustion of fuel and useful chemical elements, premature death and debility had been eliminated. Those crumbs of knowledge that Tantra would bring home would also be a contribution to the mighty stream of knowledge that made for constant progress in the organization of society and the study of nature.
Erg Noor opened the safe that housed Tantra’s records and took out the box containing the piece of metal from the spiral spaceship on the black planet. The heavy piece of sky-blue metal lay flat on his palm. Although he had put off the analysis of this precious sample for the huge laboratories on Earth, he knew that neither on Earth not-on any of the planets of the solar system or neighbouring stars was any such metal to be found. The Universe was made up of similar simple elements that had long before been systematized in the Mendeleyev Table. Consequently no new element — no metal — could be discovered; but in the processes of the creation of elements, natural or artificial, countless isotope variations, possessing vastly different physical properties, could emerge. Then again, directed recrystallization changed the properties of elements to a great extent. Erg Noor was convinced that this piece of the hull of a spaceship from worlds inconceivably far away was a terrestrial metal whose atoms had been completely rearranged. This would be something, perhaps the most important thing after news of Zirda’s ruin, that he would take bade to Earth and the Great Circle.
The iron star was very close to Earth and a visit to its planet by a specially prepared expedition would not now, after the experience of Purus and Tantra, be particularly dangerous, no matter what multitude of black crosses and medusae there might be in that eternal darkness. They had been unfortunate in their opening of the spiral spaceship. If they had had time to ponder over the tiling they would have realized then that the gigantic spiral tube was part of the spaceship’s propulsion system.
In his mind the commander went over the events of hat fateful last day. He remembered Nisa spread over him like. a shield after he had fallen unconscious near the roonster. Youthful emotions that combined the heroic loyalty of the ancient women of Earth and the frank and wise courage of the modern world had not had time to develop in her to the full….
Four Hyss appeared silently from behind him to relieve she commander at his post. Erg Noor went through the library-laboratory but did not go on to the central dormitory cabin; instead he opened the heavy side-bay door; The diffused light of an earthly day was reflected from the silicolloid cupboards containing drugs and instruments, from the X-ray, artificial respiration and blood-circulation apparatus. He drew back a heavy curtain that reached up to the ceiling and entered the semi-darkness of the sick-room. The faint illumination, like moonlight, acquired warmth in the rosy crystal of the silicolloid. Two tiratron stimulators were kept permanently switched on in case of sudden collapse; they clicked away almost soundlessly, keeping the paralyzed patient’s heart beating. In the rosy-silver light inside the hood Nisa was stretched out motionless and seemed as though she were sunk in calm, sweet slumber. A hundred generations of the healthy, clean and full life of her ancestors had produced the strong and supple lines of the female body that approached the acme of artistic perfection — the most beautiful creation of Earth’s powerful life.
Everything moves and develops in a spiral and Erg Noor could see in his imagination that magnificent spiral of the common ascent as applied to life and to human society. Only now did he realize with surprising clarity that the more difficult the conditions for the life and work of organisms as biological machines, the harder the path of social development, the tighter the spiral is twisted and the closer to each other are its turns, the slower the process and more standardized and similar are the forms that emerge. By the laws of dialectics, however, the more imperceptible the ascent, the more stable is that which has been achieved.
He had been wrong in his pursuit of the wonderful planets of the blue sun and he had been teaching Nisa wrongly! They should not fly to new worlds in search of some uninhabited planet that chance made suitable for life, but man should advance deliberately, step by step, through his own arm of the Galaxy in a triumphal march of knowledge and the beauty of life. Such as Nisa….
In a sudden burst of deep sorrow Erg Noor dropped to his knees in front of the astronavigator’s silicolloid sarcophagus. The girl’s breathing was not perceptible, her eyelashes cast blue shadows on her cheeks and her white teeth were just visible through her slightly parted lips. On her left shoulder, at the base of her neck and near the elbow there were pale, bluish marks — the places where the injurious currents had struck her.
“Can you see me, do you remember anything in your sleep?” asked Erg Noor in agony, in an outburst of grief; he felt his own will-power becoming softer than wax, it was difficult for him to breathe and there was a catch in his throat. The commander strained his interlocked fingers until they turned blue in his effort to transmit his thoughts to Nisa, to make her hear his impassioned call to life and Happiness. But the girl with the auburn curls lay as immobile as a statue of pink marble carved to perfection from a living model.
Dr. Louma Lasvy entered the sick bay softly and sensed the presence of somebody else in the silent room. Cautiously withdrawing the curtain she saw the kneeling figure of the commander as motionless as a memorial to the millions of men who have mourned their loved ones. This was not the first time she had found Erg Noor there and her heart was moved with pity for him. He rose gloomily to his feet. Louma went over to him and whispered in anxious tones:
“I want to speak to you.”
Erg Noor nodded and went out, blinking as he entered the lighted part of the sick bay. He did not sit down on the chair Louma offered him but remained leaning against the upright of a mushroom-shaped irradiation apparatus. Louma Lasvy stood up in front of him to her full, lint not very great, height, trying to make herself look taller and more important for the impending talk. The commander’s looks gave her no time for preparations.