Phoenix Without Ashes by Harlan Ellison, Edward Bryant Page A
Authors: Harlan Ellison, Edward Bryant
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they be the savage animals’ eyes Rachel saw in the dark?
Devon forced himself to move hand-over-hand along the rail and across the floor of the chamber to the periphery of the dome. He discovered a network of thin, flexible lines crosshatching the near side of the bubble itself. He had been here, had seen all this; and not merely in the initial peek past the viewport hatch. Old Silas would have called it a sense of deja vu, the feeling of having traveled here before, but knowing I couldn’t have.
Of course he could not have seen this place before, but he failed to convince himself.
Was it not somehow blasphemous to be trespassing on a private preserve of the Creator? Though he immediately discarded the thought, Devon hesitated. Then he kicked away from the edge of the dome and sailed toward the ragged hole. As he neared the shattered edges of the opening, Devon grabbed one of the snapped safety lines drifting free.
His fingers clenched convulsively on the line. It had suddenly occurred to him that this dome signified a clear demarcation between the inside and a larger outside. Should he drift beyond the hole in the bubble, he might not find a purchase enabling him to return inside. Inside!
Inside is within Cypress Corners. There is no outside! He fought back that particular demon while broken safety lines moved around him like logy snakes.
Delicately tethered, he hung in the center of the jagged break until his breathing again became a regular rhythm. But more importantly, he realized, he could again think. All across his new black sky the lights were suspended, flat and changeless: eyes of white, yellow, blue, orange, red. Truly stars? He stared and picked out what appeared to be several luminous clouds, light as milkweed pollen.
Transfixed by the wonder of it, he floated there for minutes, then hours, days...
... and returned to awareness of his own body only when that flesh collided uncomfortably with one of the broken spears of transparent dome.
Devon reluctantly lowered his eyes from the stars. There was even more, he saw...
Again, the deja vu:
... had never seen anything so huge. Even the hills themselves and all the fields and Cypress Corners itself, all were dwarfed to insignificance by this thing. Shapes and lines and structures dwindled away in a perspective Devon’s eyes had never before attempted to encompass. He stared with incomprehension as his motion continued and this thing began itself to shrink, diminishing with distance until it was even less than the other lights spangling the blackness.
Then Devon felt there was nothing to touch, nothing on which to stand. Nothing, ever again....
He found it was easier to trace a little at a time than to fill his entire field of vision with what lay below. The bubble in which he floated was a mere node on the outside of a tube; the tube was a stalk between two huge domes; the domes were bulbs on a greater cluster of spheres; the cluster was only one of many more. The line of spheres below Devon seemed to stretch away to infinity; yet an infinity paradoxically not so large as the infinity above which held the stars.
How can this world be? Is it the world? Could it be hell? he thought, instantly denying the idea as he thought it.
Devon followed with his eyes the network of tubes leading away through vast, kilometers-wide spaces toward the other spheres of sky-stuff. The heretical thought finally forced itself to the surface: Could Cypress Corners be out there somewhere? In one of those domes? Is this what lies beyond the sky?
The questions would not stop flowing; just as the universe would not stop pouring into his eyes. Finally he screwed his eyes tightly shut, screaming, “Stop it! Stop it!”
When at last he opened them again, Devon saw his face in a distorted reflection on the inside of the helmet. Tears gleamed in starlight.
FOURTEEN
Finally it was Devon’s body that drew him away from the universe. There came a time when he could drink
Devon forced himself to move hand-over-hand along the rail and across the floor of the chamber to the periphery of the dome. He discovered a network of thin, flexible lines crosshatching the near side of the bubble itself. He had been here, had seen all this; and not merely in the initial peek past the viewport hatch. Old Silas would have called it a sense of deja vu, the feeling of having traveled here before, but knowing I couldn’t have.
Of course he could not have seen this place before, but he failed to convince himself.
Was it not somehow blasphemous to be trespassing on a private preserve of the Creator? Though he immediately discarded the thought, Devon hesitated. Then he kicked away from the edge of the dome and sailed toward the ragged hole. As he neared the shattered edges of the opening, Devon grabbed one of the snapped safety lines drifting free.
His fingers clenched convulsively on the line. It had suddenly occurred to him that this dome signified a clear demarcation between the inside and a larger outside. Should he drift beyond the hole in the bubble, he might not find a purchase enabling him to return inside. Inside!
Inside is within Cypress Corners. There is no outside! He fought back that particular demon while broken safety lines moved around him like logy snakes.
Delicately tethered, he hung in the center of the jagged break until his breathing again became a regular rhythm. But more importantly, he realized, he could again think. All across his new black sky the lights were suspended, flat and changeless: eyes of white, yellow, blue, orange, red. Truly stars? He stared and picked out what appeared to be several luminous clouds, light as milkweed pollen.
Transfixed by the wonder of it, he floated there for minutes, then hours, days...
... and returned to awareness of his own body only when that flesh collided uncomfortably with one of the broken spears of transparent dome.
Devon reluctantly lowered his eyes from the stars. There was even more, he saw...
Again, the deja vu:
... had never seen anything so huge. Even the hills themselves and all the fields and Cypress Corners itself, all were dwarfed to insignificance by this thing. Shapes and lines and structures dwindled away in a perspective Devon’s eyes had never before attempted to encompass. He stared with incomprehension as his motion continued and this thing began itself to shrink, diminishing with distance until it was even less than the other lights spangling the blackness.
Then Devon felt there was nothing to touch, nothing on which to stand. Nothing, ever again....
He found it was easier to trace a little at a time than to fill his entire field of vision with what lay below. The bubble in which he floated was a mere node on the outside of a tube; the tube was a stalk between two huge domes; the domes were bulbs on a greater cluster of spheres; the cluster was only one of many more. The line of spheres below Devon seemed to stretch away to infinity; yet an infinity paradoxically not so large as the infinity above which held the stars.
How can this world be? Is it the world? Could it be hell? he thought, instantly denying the idea as he thought it.
Devon followed with his eyes the network of tubes leading away through vast, kilometers-wide spaces toward the other spheres of sky-stuff. The heretical thought finally forced itself to the surface: Could Cypress Corners be out there somewhere? In one of those domes? Is this what lies beyond the sky?
The questions would not stop flowing; just as the universe would not stop pouring into his eyes. Finally he screwed his eyes tightly shut, screaming, “Stop it! Stop it!”
When at last he opened them again, Devon saw his face in a distorted reflection on the inside of the helmet. Tears gleamed in starlight.
FOURTEEN
Finally it was Devon’s body that drew him away from the universe. There came a time when he could drink
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