Now and Forever by Ray Bradbury Page B

downfell light, which having once doomed me now cycles round to doom itself. Soon, I will lift my hands— your hands—to make that strike.”
    The men stirred, but said nothing.
    “What?” the captain said. “Silence?”
    “Sir,” Redleigh said, “that is not our mission, our destination. What of our loved ones on Earth…”
    “They will know of it! And they will celebrate when we have bled this beast and interred it in the Coalsack Nebula burial ground.”
    “But questions will be asked, sir,” said Redleigh.
    “And we will answer those questions. And we will complete our mission. After we have dealt with Leviathan. We must learn the stuffs of pure destruction. Look on Leviathan! What is it? Some dread thing torn from out God’s throat when He knew darkness in His sleep? Gone evil with time, gone tired with creation, did God frighten up his bones and mind and lungs in one titanic seizure to cough forth this sickening? Who knows, can guess, or tell? All I know is that old curse and bled-forth wound now terrorizes space and ravens at our heels.
    “Let us speak gently now. Wherever God now is, why, spring and sweet winds play. But with Leviathan, all dies and bleeds away. Great God, I worship thee. But thy old ailment comes to winnow me and split my bones and kindle up dead eyes to half an obscene light. So madness gives me strength for this last night. Insanity makes grasp both long and broad. Once clutched and killed, Leviathan, I will turn back to my God.”
    We stood, as if spellbound.
    Redleigh at last dared to propose: “This hell you speak of…is it quite that Hell?”
    “Why,” said the captain, “there’s Death himself come round to even up old scores. God sums Himself on Earth four billion strong. But here’s the beast to make that right go wrong. Within a month, this light-year creature, mid-Pacific, will submerge and murder all that’s living on Earth.”
    “But our scientists, sir—” began Redleigh.
    “Are blind!” yelled the captain. “No, worse! For even blind, I see! On other journeys, Leviathan missed our Earth by a million miles or more.”
    “And this time round,” insisted Redleigh, “the calculations show that it will miss Earth by six times as much.”
    “Your wise men say Survival? I say Death,” the captain roared. “Our funeral comes this way. Changed, pulled, put on new tracks by far dark worlds beyond our sight, put off by gravities of malice, Leviathan now veers to doom us. Does no one see or care?”
    We in our ranks shifted uneasily. What our captain spoke seemed madness, and yet he was so sure, so strong.
    “We must take care now,” said Redleigh finally, “if what you say is true.”
    “Aye to that!” we yelled as one.
    “Proof, now, Redleigh,” said the captain. “Here are my charts.” He pulled a slim disk from his coat and held it out in the direction of Redleigh’s voice. “Computerize these as far as you or God can count and then beyond.”
    “I will take your charts, sir,” said Redleigh, gravely.
    “Quickly,” said the captain. “Scan, study, see. ”
    Redleigh turned the disk over in his hands.
    “For there you will find Doom,” the captain went on. “But, if serenity, sweet peace, and mild excursions are your findings, man…if you discover instead fair Heaven and find green Eden, say your say with graceful data! Play the computer. If your final tune is joy, I will accept it, and turn us back toward stallion and mare meadows and fine frolics; no remorse.”
    “Fair put, sir.”
    “Where’s your hand?” said the captain, reaching out upon the air.
    “Here, sir.”
    The captain seized it. “Now man, attend. Here’s one who gives his palm on palm to me. May I beg hearts and souls from all the rest?”
    “They’re here!” came all our voices.
    “And all about!” I added.
    “Aye and aye!” cried many voices.
    The captain still held tight to Redleigh’s hand, binding him to his compact as he cried out a final oath: