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  JULY 4—No ringship today. Too bad. Earth ain’t never had no fireworks that could match the nullspace vortex, and I felt like celebrating.

  But why do I keep Earth calendar out here, where the years are centuries and the seasons a dim memory? July is just like December. So what’s the use?

  JULY 10—I dreamed of Karen last night. And now I can’t get her out of my skull.

  I thought I buried her long ago. It was all a fantasy anyway. Oh, she liked me well enough. Loved me, maybe. But no more than a half-dozen other guys. I wasn’t really special to her, and she never realized just how special she was to me.

  Nor how much I wanted to be special to her—how much I needed to be special to someone, somewhere.

  So I elected her. But it was all a fantasy. And I knew it was, in my more rational moments. I had no right to be so hurt. I had no special claim on her.

  But I thought I did, in my daydreams. And I was hurt. It was my fault, though, not hers.

  Karen would never hurt anyone willingly. She just never realized how fragile I was.

  Even out here, in the early years, I kept dreaming. I dreamed of how she’d change her mind. How she’d be waiting for me. Etc.

  But that was more wish fulfillment. It was before I came to terms with myself out here. I know now that she won’t be waiting. She doesn’t need me, and never did. I was just a friend.

  So I don’t much like dreaming about her. That’s bad. Whatever I do, I must not look up Karen when I get back. I have to start all over again. I have to find someone who does need me. And I won’t find her if I try to slip back into my old life.

  JULY 18—A month since my relief left Earth. The Charon should be in the belt by now. Two months to go.

  JULY 23—Nightmares. God help me.

  I’m dreaming of Earth again. And Karen. I can’t stop. Every night it’s the same.

  It’s funny, calling Karen a nightmare. Up to now she’s always been a dream. A beautiful dream, with her long, soft hair, and her laugh, and that funny way she had of grinning. But those dreams were always wish fulfillments. In the dreams Karen needed me and wanted me and loved me.

  The nightmares have the bite of truth to them. They’re all the same. It’s always a replay of me and Karen, together on that last night.

  It was a good night, as nights went for me. We ate at one of my favorite restaurants, and went to a show. We talked together easily, about many things. We laughed together, too.

  Only later, back at her place, I reverted to form. When I tried to tell her how much she meant to me, I remember how awkward and stupid I felt, how I struggled to get things out, how I stumbled over my own words. So much came out wrong.

  I remember how she looked at me then. Strangely. How she tried to disillusion me. Gently. She was always gentle. And I looked into her eyes and listened to her voice. But I didn’t find love, or need. Just—just pity, I guess.

  Pity for an inarticulate jerk who’d been letting life pass him by without touching it. Not because he didn’t want to. But because he was afraid to and didn’t know how. She’d found that jerk, and loved him, in her way—she loved everybody. She’d tried to help, to give him some of her self-confidence, some of the courage and bounce that she faced life with. And, to an extent, she had.

  Not enough, though. The jerk liked to make fantasies about the day he wouldn’t be lonely anymore. And when Karen tried to help him, he thought she was his fantasy come to life. Or deluded himself into thinking that. The jerk suspected the truth all along, of course, but he lied to himself about it.

  And when the day came that he couldn’t lie any longer, he was still vulnerable enough to be hurt. He wasn’t the type to grow scar tissue easily. He didn’t have the courage to try again with someone else. So he ran.

  I hope the nightmares stop. I can’t take them, night after night. I can’t take reliving that hour in Karen’s apartment.

  I’ve had four years out here. I’ve looked at myself hard. I’ve changed what I didn’t like, or tried to. I’ve tried to cultivate that scar tissue, to gather the confidence I need to face the new rejections I’m going to meet before I find acceptance. But I know myself damn well now, and I know it’s only been a partial success. There will always be things that will hurt, things that I’ll never be able to face the way I’d like to.

  Memories of that last hour with Karen are among those things. God, I hope the nightmares end.

  JULY 26—More nightmares. Please, Karen. I loved you. Leave me alone. Please.

  JULY 29—There was a ringship yesterday, thank God. I needed one. It helped take my mind off Earth, off Karen. And there was no nightmare last night, for the first time in a week. Instead I dreamed of the nullspace vortex. The raging silent storm.

  AUGUST 1—The nightmares have returned. Not always Karen now. Older memories, too. Infinitely less meaningful, but still painful. All the stupid things I’ve said, all the girls I never met, all the things I never did.

  Bad. Bad. I have to keep reminding myself. I’m not like that anymore. There’s a new me, a me I built out here, six million miles beyond Pluto. Made of steel and stars and nullspace, hard and confident and self-assured. And not afraid of life.

  The past is behind me. But it still hurts.

  AUGUST 2—Ship today. The nightmares continue. Damn.

  AUGUST 3—No nightmare last night. Second time for that, that I’ve rested easy after opening the hole for a ringship during the day. (Day? Night? Nonsense out here—but I still write as if they had meaning. Four years haven’t even touched the Earth in me.) Maybe the vortex is scaring Karen away. But I never wanted to scare Karen away before. Besides, I shouldn’t need crutches.

  AUGUST 13—Another ship came through a few nights ago. No dream afterward. A pattern!

  I’m fighting the memories. I’m thinking of other things about Earth. The good times. There were a lot of them, really, and there will be lots more when I get back. I’m going to make sure of that. These nightmares are stupid. I won’t permit them to continue. There was so much else I shared with Karen, so much I’d like to recall. Why can’t I?

  AUGUST 18—The Charon is about a month away. I wonder who my relief will be. I wonder what drove him out here?

  Earth dreams continue. No. Call them Karen dreams. Am I even afraid to write her name now?

  AUGUST 20—Ship today. After it was through I stayed out and looked at stars. For several hours, it seems. Didn’t seem as long at the time.

  It’s beautiful out here. Lonely, yes. But such a loneliness! You’re alone with the universe, the stars spread out at your feet and scattered around your head.

  Each one is a sun. Yet they still look cold to me. I find myself shivering, lost in the vastness of it all, wondering how it got there and what it means.

  My relief, whoever it is, I hope he can appreciate this, as it should be appreciated. There are so many who can’t, or won’t. Men who walk at night, and never look up at the sky. I hope my relief isn’t like that.

  AUGUST 24—When I get back to Earth, I will look up Karen. I must. How can I pretend that things are going to be different this time if I can’t even work up the courage to do that? And they are going to be different. So I must face Karen, and prove that I’ve changed. Really changed.

  AUGUST 25—The nonsense of yesterday. How could I face Karen? What would I say to her? I’d only start deluding myself again, and wind up getting burned all over again. No. I must not see Karen. Hell, I can’t even take the dreams.

  AUGUST 30—I’ve been going down to the control room and flipping myself out regularly of late. No ringships. But I find that going outside makes the memories of Earth dim. More and more I know I’ll miss Cerberus. A year from now, I’ll be back on Earth, looking up at the night sky, and remembering how the ring shone silver in the starlight. I know I will.

  And the vortex. I’ll remember the vortex, and the ways the colors swirled and mixed. Different every time.

  Too bad I was never a holo buff. You could mak
e a fortune back on Earth with a tape of the way the vortex looks when it spins. The ballet of the void. I’m surprised no one’s ever thought of it.

  Maybe I’ll suggest it to my relief. Something to do to fill the hours, if he’s interested. I hope he is. Earth would be richer if someone brought back a record.

  I’d do it myself, but the equipment isn’t right, and I don’t have the time to modify it.

  SEPTEMBER 4—I’ve gone outside every day for the last week, I find. No nightmares. Just dreams of the darkness, laced with the colors of nullspace.

  SEPTEMBER 9—Continue to go outside, and drink it all in. Soon, soon now, all this will be lost to me. Forever. I feel as though I must take advantage of every second. I must memorize the way things are out here at Cerberus, so I can keep the awe and the wonder and the beauty fresh inside me when I return to Earth.

  SEPTEMBER 10—There hasn’t been a ship in a long time. Is it over, then? Have I seen my last?

  SEPTEMBER 12—No ship today. But I went outside and woke the engines and let the vortex roar.

  Why do I always write about the vortex roaring and howling? There is no sound in space. I hear nothing. But I watch it. And it does roar. It does.

  The sounds of silence. But not the way the poets meant.

  SEPTEMBER 13—I’ve watched the vortex again today, though there was no ship.

  I’ve never done that before. Now I’ve done it twice. It’s forbidden. The costs in terms of power are enormous, and Cerberus lives on power. So why?

  It’s almost as though I don’t want to give up the vortex. But I have to. Soon.

  SEPTEMBER 14—Idiot, idiot, idiot. What have I been doing? The Charon is less than a week away, and I’ve been gawking at the stars as if I’d never seen them before. I haven’t even started to pack, and I’ve got to clean up my records for my relief, and get the station in order.

  Idiot! Why am I wasting time writing in this damn book!

  SEPTEMBER 15—Packing almost done. I’ve uncovered some weird things, too. Things I tried to hide in the early years. Like my novel. I wrote it in the first six months, and thought it was great. I could hardly wait to get back to Earth, and sell it, and become an author. Ah, yes. Read it over a year later. It stinks.

  Also, I found a picture of Karen.

  SEPTEMBER 16—Today I took a bottle of scotch and a glass down to the control room, set them down on the console, and strapped myself in. Drank a toast to the blackness and the stars and the vortex. I’ll miss them.

  SEPTEMBER 17—A day, by my calculations. A day. Then I’m on my way home, to a fresh start and a new life. If I have the courage to live it.

  SEPTEMBER 18—Nearly midnight. No sign of the Charon. What’s wrong?

  Nothing, probably. These schedules are never precise. Sometimes as much as a week off. So why do I worry? Hell, I was late getting here myself. I wonder what the poor guy I replaced was thinking then?

  SEPTEMBER 20—The Charon didn’t come yesterday, either. After I got tired of waiting, I took that bottle of scotch and went back to the control room. And out. To drink another toast to the stars. And the vortex. I woke the vortex and let it flame, and toasted it.

  A lot of toasts. I finished the bottle. And today I’ve got such a hangover I think I’ll never make it back to Earth.

  It was a stupid thing to do. The crew of the Charon might have seen the vortex colors. If they report me, I’ll get docked a small fortune from the pile of money that’s waiting back on Earth.

  SEPTEMBER 21—Where is the Charon! Did something happen to it? Is it coming?

  SEPTEMBER 22—I went outside again.

  God, so beautiful, so lonely, so vast. Haunting, that’s the word I want. The beauty out there is haunting. Sometimes I think I’m a fool to go back. I’m giving up all of eternity for a pizza and a lay and a kind word.

  NO! What the hell am I writing! No. I’m going back, of course I am. I need Earth, I miss Earth, I want Earth. And this time it will be different.

  I’ll find another Karen, and this time I won’t blow it.

  SEPTEMBER 23—I’m sick. God, but I’m sick. The things I’ve been thinking. I thought I had changed, but now I don’t know. I find myself actually thinking about staying, about signing on for another term. I don’t want to. No. But I think I’m still afraid of life, of Earth, of everything.

  Hurry, Charon. Hurry, before I change my mind.

  SEPTEMBER 24—Karen or the vortex? Earth or eternity?

  Dammit, how can I think that! Karen! Earth! I have to have courage, I have to risk pain, I have to taste life.

  I am not a rock. Or an island. Or a star.

  SEPTEMBER 25—No sign of the Charon. A full week late. That happens sometimes. But not very often. It will arrive soon. I know it.

  SEPTEMBER 30—Nothing. Each day I watch, and wait. I listen to my scanners, and go outside to look, and pace back and forth through the ring. But nothing. It’s never been this late. What’s wrong?

  OCTOBER 3—Ship today. Not the Charon. I thought it was at first, when the scanners picked it up. I yelled loud enough to wake the vortex. But then I looked, and my heart sank. It was too big, and it was coming straight on without decelerating.

  I went outside and let it through. And stayed out for a long time afterward.

  OCTOBER 4—I want to go home. Where are they? I don’t understand. I don’t understand.

  They can’t just leave me here. They can’t. They won’t.

  OCTOBER 5—Ship today. Ringship again. I used to look forward to them. Now I hate them, because they’re not the Charon. But I let it through.

  OCTOBER 7—I unpacked. It’s silly for me to live out of suitcases when I don’t know if the Charon is coming, or when.

  I still look for it, though. I wait. It’s coming, I know. Just delayed somewhere. An emergency in the belt maybe. There are lots of explanations.

  Meanwhile, I’m doing odd jobs around the ring. I never did get it in proper shape for my relief. Too busy star watching at the time to do what I should have been doing.

  OCTOBER 8 (OR THEREABOUTS)—Darkness and despair.

  I know why the Charon hasn’t arrived. It isn’t due. The calendar was all screwed up. It’s January, not October. And I’ve been living on the wrong time for months. Even celebrated the Fourth of July on the wrong day.

  I discovered it yesterday when I was doing those chores around the ring. I wanted to make sure everything was running right. For my relief.

  Only there won’t be any relief.

  The Charon arrived three months ago. I—I destroyed it.

  Sick. It was sick. I was sick, mad. As soon as it was done, it hit me. What I’d done. Oh, God. I screamed for hours.

  And then I set back the wall calendar. And forgot. Maybe deliberately. Maybe I couldn’t bear to remember. I don’t know. All I know is that I forgot.

  But now I remember. Now I remember it all.

  The scanners had warned me of the Charon’s approach. I was outside, waiting. Watching. Trying to get enough of the stars and the darkness to last me forever.

  Through that darkness, Charon came. It seemed so slow compared to the ringships. And so small. It was my salvation, my relief, but it looked fragile, and silly, and somehow ugly. Squalid. It reminded me of Earth.

  It moved towards docking, dropping into the ring from above, groping towards the locks in the habitable section of Cerberus. So very slow. I watched it come. Suddenly I wondered what I’d say to the crewmen, and my relief. I wondered what they’d think of me. Somewhere in my gut, a fist clenched.

  And suddenly I couldn’t stand it. Suddenly I was afraid of it. Suddenly I hated it.

  So I woke the vortex.

  A red flare, branching into yellow tongues, growing quickly, shooting off blue-green bolts. One passed near the Charon. And the ship shuddered.

  I tell myself, now, that I didn’t realize what I was doing. Yet I knew the Charon was unarmored. I knew it couldn’t take vortex energies. I knew.

 
The Charon was so slow, the vortex so fast. In two heartbeats the maelstrom was brushing against the ship. In three it had swallowed it.

  It was gone so fast. I don’t know if the ship melted, or burst asunder, or crumpled. But I know it couldn’t have survived. There’s no blood on my star ring, though. The debris is somewhere on the other side of nullspace. If there is any debris.

  The ring and the darkness looked the same as ever.

  That made it so easy to forget. And I must have wanted to forget very much.

  And now? What do I do now? Will Earth find out? Will there ever be relief? I want to go home.

  Karen, I—

  JUNE 18—My relief left Earth today.

  At least I think he did. Somehow the wall calendar was broken, so I’m not precisely sure of the date. But I’ve got it back into working order.

  Anyway, it can’t have been off for more than a few hours, or I would have noticed. So my relief is on the way. It will take him three months to get here, of course.

  But at least he’s coming.

  WITH MORNING COMES MISTFALL

  I was early to breakfast that morning, the first day after landing. But Sanders was already out on the dining balcony when I got there. He was standing alone by the edge, looking out over the mountains and the mists.

  I walked up behind him and muttered hello. He didn’t bother to reply. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he said, without turning.

  And it was.

  Only a few feet below balcony level the mists rolled, sending ghostly breakers to crash against the stones of Sanders’ castle. A thick white blanket extended from horizon to horizon, cloaking everything. We could see the summit of the Red Ghost, off to the north; a barbed dagger of scarlet rock jabbing into the sky. But that was all. The other mountains were still below mist level.