Phoenix Without Ashes by Harlan Ellison, Edward Bryant

frontal opening. Devon followed instructions; the bluestrips seemed to fuse together with no trace of a seam.
    “Remove the helmet from its berth. Place the ends of the oxygen hoses into their sockets on the shoulders of the suit. Red into red, yellow into yellow. Now raise the helmet, set it onto the gasket seal, over your head, and give it a half-turn clockwise to lock.”
    Devon turned the helmet one way, with no result, and then the other. It snapped into place with a solid snick. He began to panic as he realized he was completely sealed in. Then he heard a faint hiss; he drew air deep into his lungs.
    The warning voice said, “Place left hand against the light plate and if you are properly sealed, pressure will be equalized in this access chamber. Thank you.”
    The light panel on Viewport 874 began to blink imperatively. Devon brought up his left hand and touched the “Open” plate. This time the crimson square flashed to green immediately. The hatch began to cycle; through the helmet, Devon heard a louder hiss of escaping air.
    He could feel his heart beating ever faster, as though it might pound a hole out through his chest. Devon willed himself to relax. He noticed that with each breath, the flexible material of the helmet indented slightly.
    The light panel signaled:
     
PRESSURE EQUALIZED
ADMITTANCE PERMITTED
     
    He was deafened by the sound of his own breathing. Devon could hear nothing from outside the suit as the hatch slowly cycled open. He moved to the side so as to watch the fissure between hatch and bulkhead gradually widen. When there was space enough, he stepped through.
    At first all he saw was the room. The new chamber was huge, even larger than the main hall in the Place of Worship. This room took the form of a dome at least one hundred meters across. Devon crossed the threshold and his feet rose from the floor; again he was without weight. What had the teacher Old Silas called it? Gravity. That mysterious command of the Creator which kept the directions “up” and “down” distinct.
    He grabbed at the wall and found a smooth railing that had evidently been placed there for exactly that purpose. Devon hung suspended, surveying the chamber. He had to momentarily reorient himself. “Up” had now rotated ninety degrees. The hatch of the access chamber was part of the floor of Viewport 874. And the viewport chamber itself had been ruined.
    Devon raised his eyes and drew in a deep breath. Staring, he murmured a prayer to the Creator.
    It was all there.
    As he had remembered it from the dreams.
    He looked upon what lay before him; then passed within a hair of unconsciously and automatically making the decision to turn, retreat through the lockport, and hide screaming, limbs tucked into an instinctual ball. More than looked—he gaped, knowing instantly how futile his own knowledge was to explain everything he saw.
    Devon felt like the savages in the Story of Enos from the Book; the benighted men of the wilderness who had never seen a horse, never seen a tree.
    The chamber was littered with broken furniture and cratered, pitted consoles’. Faint lights glowed in wall mountings. Overhead yawned the remnant of what had been a great transparent dome. About a third of the hemisphere had been torn away in some ancient cataclysm. The opening was framed among jagged projections as sharp-pointed as serpent fangs. The dim interior lights reflected glints from the sharded edges. The dome’s ragged opening was flared outward as though from an explosion within.
    What could cause such force? But the thought fled and was forgotten as Devon looked to the alien sky.
    Beyond the ruined bubble hung the unwinking stars of his dream. They had not changed from the brief impression he’d glimpsed during the abortive first attempt with the viewport hatch. Neither had they changed from his visions.
    Why do they not blink? he asked himself. Are they stars like those in the sky? He recoiled from a nightmare thought: Could