Page:Fantastic Volume 08 Number 01.djvu/92

 the sweetness and the purity of the blossoms.

She raised her eyes and saw the summer stars pulsing in the black immensity of the sky. She picked out the patterns of the constellations—the long straggling line of Scorpius, the riotous burgeoning of Sagittarius, the tetrahedron of Libra, the filmy blur of Coma Berenices Subtly, what she breathed and what she saw, what she needed and what she had been denied, blended into a single impression, and she thought: A lady of the stars—that's what I'll be. A lady of the stars And she saw herself, brightly-gowned and glamorous, stepping from star to star, the legions of her lovers following worshipfully behind her. She paused on a global cluster and glanced disdainfully down to the blue-green mote of Earth, and she thought contemptuously of her prosaic mother carrying on her petty assignations in her petty parlor, of her father absconding again and again from reality; then she laughed, and leaped lightly to the Greater Magellanic Cloud, where the Emperor of the Universe humbly awaited her

"But don't you see?" his father said. “Space is for misfits. A normal man simply doesn't give up his rights as an Earth citizen, his right to marry and have children, just for the privilege of traveling to far-off places."

Cross shifted uncomfortably on the front steps. It was a clear night in August, and the stars were so bright and close that they seemed to brush the topmost branches of the maples lining the suburban street.

"Think about it, Nate," his father went on, puffing self-righteously on his suburban pipe. "You're still young. You’re only 19. Why don't you wait for a while—a year, anyway. Maybe you’ll change your mind by then."

Cross shook his head. "No," he said. "You don't understand. It's something I have to do Something  I  have  to  do"

Cross massaged his limbs, got slowly to his feet. The control room had regained solidity, but he was not fooled. The Pandora had merely reached the relatively stable center of the storm—the eye—and any attempt to throw her back into normal space now would tear her apart, along with everything and everyone on board, and the resultant particles, both inanimate and animate, would be scattered ir- 92