The trembling became more convulsive, the light on the screen more erratic. The sound grew loud, but, we knew, it was not the immense sound Leviathan might make when it arrived.
“Captain,” said Redleigh. “Permission to turn back. We’ll be destroyed.”
“Head on, Mr. Redleigh,” said the captain. “It’s merely testing us.”
The storm on the screen rose and fell and rose again. And then, a sudden silence.
“What?” said Redleigh.
The captain said, “What, what, indeed!”
“It’s gone,” I said, checking my screen again in disbelief. “The storm that ran before the comet is gone. But what of Leviathan itself?”
I ran some more scans, searching the vast expanse around our ship for hostile entities. “The comet! It’s vanished, too! It’s gone from the sensors.”
“No!” said the captain.
“Yes,” I said. “According to the readings, all the space around us is empty.”
“Thank God,” said Redleigh, almost to himself.
“No, I say, no!” the captain yelled. “My eyes see nothing. Yet—it must be there. I can almost touch it. I feel it. It is—”
A familiar voice broke in. “Gone,” Quell said, quietly, staring at the emptiness of space on the computer screen. “Gone.”
“Quell!” I cried. “You’ve come back! Thank God.”
Quell said nothing.
“Quell, what happened,” I asked. “Out there?”
Quell moved forward slowly. “The funeral music—it’s gone. Our traveling burial grounds, gone. The comet, the nightmare, all … gone.”
“Yes,” I said. “But why?”
Quell remained silent.
“Out with it, man!!” cried the captain.
Quell finally turned away from the screen and spoke to us. “That storm has wounded Time. We have turned a corner in Eternity. The very stuff of the void, the abyss has been … turned wrong side out … atom on atom … molecule on molecule … particle on particle reversed … I feel it … so.”
And Quell reached out a hand as if his mind had fled.
“It can’t be!” I heard myself say.
“So say I!” said the captain, disbelieving.
“Space says otherwise,” said Quell, calmly. “The storm has picked us up and thrown us back two thousand years. The past has become our present.”
“If this is now the past,” said Redleigh, “what year is it?”
Quell thought for a few moments. “Before Columbus? Yes, certainly. Before the birth of Christ? Most likely. Before your Caesar built his Roman roads through Britain’s moors, or Plato spoke or Aristotle listened? Maybe. That great star, the beast, it pities us.”
“Pity?” said the captain. “How can you say pity?”
Quell searched through space with eye and mind. “It would not fight with us. Instead, it would hide us deep, so it would not be forced to war against us. It has given us a chance, a path away from it. That, sir, is pity.”
“I will have none!” the captain said.
“Elijah,” I whispered.
“What?” the captain turned toward my voice.
“Elijah. The day before our liftoff from Earth. Elijah said—”
“Said what?” the captain demanded impatiently.
“‘Far out in space, there’ll come a time when you see land where there is no land, find time where there is no time; when ancient kings will reflesh their bones and reseat their crowns …’”
“Is that time now?” asked Redleigh.
And Quell replied, “Yes, now. For look. And … feel.”
I finished the memory of Elijah’s words: “‘Then, oh then, ship, ship’s captain, ship’s men, all, all will be destroyed! All save one.’”
All save one, I thought, as the captain exploded with rage. “Fools, damn fools!” he cried. “We do not take this past, accept these ancient years. We do not hide in pyramids or run from locust plagues to cower, grovel underneath the robes of Christ! We will stand forth.”
He turned and strode toward the lift to the upper reaches. “The airlock, open it! Although blind, I will go forth and find the monster myself!”