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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Very Black, by Dean Evans
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Very Black
+
+Author: Dean Evans
+
+Release Date: March 10, 2010 [EBook #31586]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VERY BLACK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         Transcriber's Note:
+
+    This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe Aug-Sept 1953.
+    Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+    copyright on this publication was renewed.
+
+
+[_Anders was pretty sure he was going to die. No one had yet
+  flown the new-style jet job and lived to tell the tale. A story both
+  chilling and heart-warming that shows us how bravely the human
+  equation can operate when the chips are stacked against it._]
+
+
+                            the very black
+
+
+                         _by ... Dean Evans_
+
+
+     Jet test-pilots and love do not mix too happily as a
+     rule--especially with a ninth-dimensional alter ego messing
+     the whole act.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+There was nothing peculiar about that certain night I suppose--except
+to me personally. A little earlier in the evening I'd walked out on
+the Doll, Margie Hayman--and a man doesn't do that and cheer over it.
+Not if he's in love with the Doll he doesn't--not _this_ doll. If
+you've ever seen her you'll give the nod on that.
+
+The trouble had been Air Force's new triangular ship--the new saucer.
+Not radio controlled, this one--this one was to carry a real live
+pilot. At least that's what the doll's father, who was Chief Engineer
+at Airtech, Inc., had in mind when he designed it.
+
+The doll had said to me sort of casually, "Got something, Baby." She
+called me baby. Me, one eighty-five in goose pimples.
+
+"Toss it over, Doll," I said.
+
+"No strings on you, Baby." She'd grinned that little one-sided grin of
+hers. "No strings on you. Not even one. You're a flyboy, you are, and
+you can take off or land any time any place you feel like it."
+
+"Stake your mom's Charleston cup on that," I said.
+
+She nodded. Her one-sided grin seemed to fade slightly but she hooked
+it up again fast. A doll--like I said. This was the original model,
+they've never gone into production on girls like her full-time.
+
+She said, "Therefore, I've got no right to go stalking with a salt
+shaker in one hand and a pair of shears for your tailfeathers in the
+other."
+
+"You're cute, Doll," I said, still going along with her one hundred
+percent.
+
+"Nice--we get along nice."
+
+"Somebody oughta set 'em up on that."
+
+"So far."
+
+"Huh?" I blinked. I hate sour notes. That's why I'm not a musician.
+You never get a sour note in a jet job--or if you do you don't get
+annoyed. That's the sour note to end all sour notes.
+
+"Brace yourself, Baby," she said.
+
+I took a hitch on the highball glass I was holding and let one eye get
+a serious look in it. "Shoot," I told her.
+
+"This new job--this new saucer the TV newscasts are blatting about.
+You boys in the Air Force heard about it yet?"
+
+"There's been a rumor," I said. I frowned. Top secret--in a pig's
+eyelash!
+
+"Uh-huh. Is it true this particular ship is supposed to carry a pilot
+this time?"
+
+"Where do they dig up all this old stuff?" I growled. "Hell, I knew
+all about that way way back this afternoon already."
+
+"Uh-huh, Is it also true they've asked a flyboy named Eddie Anders to
+take it up the first time? This flyboy named Eddie Anders being my
+Baby?"
+
+I got bored with the highball. I tossed it down the hole in my head
+and put the glass on a table. "You're psychic," I said.
+
+She shrugged. "Good looking, maybe. Nice shape, maybe. Peachy
+disposition, maybe. Psychic, unh-unhh. But who else would they ask to
+do it?"
+
+"A point," I conceded.
+
+"Fork in the road coming up," the Doll said.
+
+"Huh?"
+
+"Fork--look. It'll be voluntary, won't it? You don't have to do it?
+They won't think the worse of you if you refuse?"
+
+"_Huh?_" I gawked at her.
+
+"I'm scared, Baby."
+
+Her eyes weren't blue anymore. They'd been blue before but not now.
+Now they were violet balls that were laying me like somebody taking a
+last long look at the thing down inside the nice white satin before
+they close the cover on it for the final time.
+
+"Have a drink, Doll," I said. I got up, went to the liquor wagon.
+"Seltzer? There isn't any mixer left."
+
+"Asked you something, Baby."
+
+I took her glass over. I handed it to her. My own drink I poured down
+that same hole in my head. I said finally, "Nice smooth bourbon but I
+like scotch better."
+
+"They've already crashed four of this new type on tests, haven't
+they?"
+
+I nearly choked. _That_ was supposed to be the very pinnacle of the
+top secret stuff. But she was right of course. Four of the earlier
+models had cracked up. No pilots in them at the time--radio
+controlled. But jobs designed to carry pilots nevertheless.
+
+"Some pitchers have great big ugly-looking ears," I said.
+
+She didn't seem to mind. She said, "Or maybe I'm really psychic as you
+said. Or maybe my Dad's being Chief at Airtech has something to do
+with it."
+
+"Somebody oughta stitch a zipper across his big fat yap," I said. "And
+weld the damn thing shut."
+
+"He told only me," she said softly. "And then only because of you. You
+see, Baby, he isn't like us. He's got old fashioned notions you and
+I've got strings tied around each other already just because you gave
+me a ring."
+
+I stared at her.
+
+"Crazy, isn't it? He isn't sensible like us."
+
+"Can the gag lines, Doll," I said sourly. "The old bird's okay."
+
+And that fetched a few moments of silence in the room--thick pervading
+silence. A silence to be broken at any fractional second and
+heavy--supercharged--because of it.
+
+I said finally, "Somebody has to take it up. It might as well be me.
+And they've already asked me."
+
+"You could refuse, Baby."
+
+"Sure I could. It's voluntary. They don't horsewhip a guy into it."
+
+"Uh-huh--voluntary. And you _can_ refuse." She stopped, waited, then,
+"Making me get right down there on the hard bare floor on both knees,
+Baby? All right. None of us should be proud. None of us has a right to
+be proud, have we?
+
+"All right, Baby. I'm down there--way, way down there. I'm asking you
+not to take that ship up. I'm begging you--begging, Baby. Look, on me
+you've never seen anything like this before. Begging!"
+
+I looked at my empty glass. The taste in my mouth was suddenly bitter.
+"No strings, we said," I said harshly. "A flyboy, we said. Guy who can
+take off and land anywhere, anytime he likes. Stuff like that we just
+got through saying."
+
+She didn't answer that. I waited. She didn't answer. I got up finally,
+got my lousy new officer's cap off the TV set and went over to the
+door. I opened the door. I went on through.
+
+But before I closed it I heard her whisper. That's the trouble with
+whispers, they go incredible distances to get places. The whisper
+said, "That's right, Baby. Right as rain. No strings--_ever!_"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When you don't have any scotch in the house you'd be surprised how
+well rum will do--even Jamaica rum. I was on my own davenport in my
+own apartment and there were two shot glasses in front of me. I was
+taking turns on them so they wouldn't wear out. And what was keeping
+these glasses busy was me and a fifth of the Jamaica rum in my right
+hand. And that's when it all began.
+
+Across the room a rather stout woman was needling a classic through
+the television screen and at the same time needing a shave rather
+badly. I wasn't paying any attention to her. I was thinking about the
+Doll. Wondering, worrying a little. And that's when it began.
+
+That's when the voice said, "Mr. Anders, would you do me the goodness
+to forget that bottle for a moment?"
+
+The voice seemed to be coming from the TV screen although the stout
+lady hadn't finished her song. The voice was like the disappointed
+sigh of a poor old bloke down to his last beer dime and having to look
+up into the bartender's grinning puss as the bartender downs a nice
+bubbly glass of champagne somebody bought for him. Poor guy, I
+thought. I downed glass number one. And then glass number two. And
+then I looked over at the TV screen.
+
+That sent a little shiver up my spine. I dropped my eyes to the
+glasses, filled them once more. Strong stuff, Jamaica rum. At the
+first the taste is medicine. A little later the taste is pleasant
+syrup. And a little later still the taste is delightful. But
+strong--the whole way strong. I downed glass number one.
+
+I figured I wouldn't touch glass number two yet. I brought up my eyes,
+let them go over to the TV screen again.
+
+He didn't have any eyes. That was the first thing that struck me.
+There were other things of course, such as the fact he didn't have any
+arms or legs. He didn't have any head either, in case he had eyes in
+the first place. He was a black swirling bioplastic mass of something
+or other and he was doing a graceful tango directly in front of the TV
+screen, thereby blocking off from view the stout woman who needed a
+shave.
+
+He said, "Do you have any idea what I am, Mr. Anders?"
+
+"Sure," I said. "Somebody's blennorrheal nightmare."
+
+"Incorrect, Mr. Anders. This substance is not mucous. Mucous is very
+seldom black."
+
+"Mucous is very seldom black," I mimicked.
+
+"Correct, Mr. Anders."
+
+So all right. So they were making Jamaica rum a little stronger these
+days. So _all right_! Next time I wouldn't get rum, I'd get scotch.
+Hell with rum. I dismissed the thought from my mind. I picked up glass
+number two, downed it. I wondered if the Doll was feeling sorry for
+herself.
+
+"Incorrect, Mr. Anders," he said. "The rum is no stronger than usual."
+
+I jerked. I stared at the black sticky-looking thing he was. I shut my
+eyes tightly, snapped them open again. Then I worked the glasses again
+with the bottle.
+
+"Don't be shocked, Mr. Anders. I'm not a mind reader. It's just that
+you discarded the thought of a moment ago. I picked it up, see?"
+
+"Sure," I said. "You picked it out of the junk pile of my mind, where
+all my little gems go."
+
+"Correct, Mr. Anders."
+
+It was about time to empty the glasses again. I varied the routine
+this time by picking up number-two glass first.
+
+"Light a cigarette, Mr. Anders."
+
+I'm a guy to go along with a gag. I fished a cigarette out, lit it
+"Lit," I said. And just at that instant the stout dame without the
+shave hit a sour one way up around A above high C. My ears cringed. I
+forgot the cigarette and glared across the room, trying to see through
+the black swirling mass that stood in front of the TV screen.
+
+"Puff, Mr. Anders."
+
+I puffed. The puff sounded like somebody getting his lips on a very
+full glass of beer and quickly sucking so that foaming clouds don't go
+down the sides of the glass and all over the bar. I didn't have any
+cigarette.
+
+"_Ah!_"
+
+I blinked. The black swirling mass was going gently to and fro. At
+about head height on a man my cigarette was sticking out from it and a
+little curl of smoke was coming from the end. Even as I looked the
+curl ceased and then a big blue cloud of smoke barreled across the
+room toward my face.
+
+"Your cigarette, Mr. Anders."
+
+"Nice trick," I said. "Took it out from between my lips and I never
+felt it. Nice trick."
+
+"Incorrect, Mr. Anders. When the singer flatted that particular note
+your attention was diverted momentarily. Your senses are exceptional,
+you see. Your ears register pain at false sounds. Therefore, you
+discarded the thoughts of your cigarette during the moment you
+suffered with the singer. Following this reasoning, your cigarette
+went into abandonment. And I salvaged it. No trick at all, really."
+
+I thought, to hell with the shot glasses. I put the rum bottle to my
+lips and tilted it up and held it there until it wasn't good for
+anything anymore. Then I took it down by the neck and heaved it
+straight at the black mass.
+
+The television screen didn't shatter, which proved something or other.
+The bottle didn't even reach the screen. It hit the black swirling
+mass about navel high. It went in, sank in like slamming your fist
+into a fat man's stomach. And then it rebounded and clattered on the
+floor.
+
+"Scream!" I said thickly. "You dirty black delusion--scream!"
+
+"I _am_ screaming, Mr. Anders. That hurt terribly."
+
+He sort of unfolded then, like unfolding a limp wool sweater in the
+air. And from this unfolding, something came forth that could have
+been somebody's old fashioned idea of what a rifle looked like. He
+held it up in firing position, pointed at my head.
+
+"Don't be alarmed, Mr. Anders. This is to convince you. A gun, yes, a
+very old gun--a Brown Bess, they used to call it. I just took it from
+the City Museum, where it was on display."
+
+He had a nice point-blank sight on my forehead. Now he moved the gun,
+aimed it off me, pointed, it across the room toward the open windows.
+
+"Note the workmanship, Mr. Anders. Note the stock. Someone put a
+little effort on the carving. Note the sentiment carved here."
+
+The rum was working hard now. I could feel it climbing hand over hand
+up from my knees.
+
+"Let me read what it says, Mr. Anders--'_Deathe to ye Colonies_'. Note
+the odd wording, the spelling. And now watch, Mr. Anders."
+
+The gun came up a trifle, stiffened. There was a loud snapping sound,
+a click of metal on metal--Flintlock. As all the ancient guns were.
+
+And then came the roar. Wood across the room--the window
+casing--splintered and flew wildly. Smoke and smell filled my senses.
+
+He said, chuckling, "Let's call it the Abandonment Theory for lack of
+a better name. This old Brown Bess hasn't been thought of
+acquisitively for some years. It's been in the museum--abandoned.
+T h e r e f o r e subject to the discarded junk pile as you yourself so
+cleverly put it before. Do I make myself clear, Mr. Anders?"
+
+Perfectly--oh, perfectly, Mr. Bioplast. The rum was going around my
+eyes now. Going up and around and headed like an arrow for the hunk of
+my brain that can't seem to hide fast enough.
+
+I guess I made it to the bedroom but I wouldn't put any hard cash on
+it. And I guess I passed out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The morning was a bad one as all bad ones usually are. But no matter
+how bad they get there's always the consoling thought that in a few
+hours things will ease up. I hugged this thought through a needle
+shower, through three cups of coffee in the kitchen. What I was
+neglecting in this reasoning was the splintered wood in the living
+room.
+
+I saw it on my way out. It hit me starkly, like the blasted section of
+a eucalyptus trunk writhing up from the ground. I stopped dead in the
+doorway and stared at it. Then I got out my knife and got at it.
+
+I probed but it was going to take more than a pocket knife. The
+ball--and it was just that--was buried a half inch in the soft pine of
+the casing.
+
+I closed the knife and went to the phone and got Information to ring
+the museum.
+
+"You people aren't missing a Brown Bess musket," I said. It was a
+question, of course, but not now--not the way I had said it. "Nobody
+stole anything out of the museum last night, did they?"
+
+Sweat was oozing over my upper lip. I could feel it. I could feel
+sweat wetting the phone in my hand. The woman on the other end told me
+to wait. I said, "Yeah"--not realizing. I waited, not realizing, until
+a man's voice came on.
+
+"You were saying something about a Brown Bess musket, mister?" A cold
+sharp voice--a gutter voice but with the masking tag of _official_
+behind it. Like the voice of someone behind a desk writing something
+on a blotter--a real police voice.
+
+I put the phone down. I pulled all the shades in the living room, went
+out the door, locked it behind me and drove as fast as you can make a
+Buick go, out to the field. But _fast_!
+
+The XXE-1 was ready. She'd been ready for weeks. There wasn't a
+mechanical or electronic flaw in her. We hoped, I hoped, the man who
+designed her hoped. The Doll's father--he hoped most of all. Even
+lying quiescent in her hangar, she looked as sleek as a Napoleon hat
+done in poured monel. When your eyes went over her you knew
+instinctively they'd thrown the mach numbers out the window when she
+was done.
+
+I went through a door that had the simple word _Plotting_ on it.
+
+The Doll's father was there already behind his desk, studying
+something as I came in. He looked up, smiled, said, "Hi, guy."
+
+I flipped a finger at him. I wondered if the Doll had told him about
+last night.
+
+"Wife and I were going to suggest a snack when we got home last night
+but you had already gone, and Marge was in bed."
+
+I didn't look at him. "Left early, Pop. Growing boy."
+
+"Yeah. You look lousy, guy."
+
+I put my teeth together. I still didn't look at him. "These nights," I
+said vaguely.
+
+"Sure."
+
+I could feel something in his voice. I took a breath and put my eyes
+on his. He said, "I'm a hell of an old duck."
+
+"Not so old, Pop."
+
+"Sure I am. But not too old to remember back to the days when I wasn't
+too old." There was a grave look in his eyes.
+
+I didn't have to answer that. The door banged open and Melrose, the
+LC, came in. He jerked a look at both of us, butted a cigarette he'd
+just lit--lighted another, butted that. He ran a hand through thick
+graying hair and frowned.
+
+"Anybody got a cigarette?" he said sourly. "Couldn't sleep last night.
+This damned responsibility. Worried all night about something we
+hadn't thought of."
+
+Pop looked up. Melrose went on. "Light--travels in a straight line,
+no?" He blinked small nervous eyes at us. Then, "Can't go around
+corners unless it's helped, you see. I mean just this. The XXE-One is
+expected to hit a significant fraction of the speed of light once it
+gets beyond the atmosphere. Now here's the point--how in hell do we
+control it then?"
+
+He waited. I didn't say anything. Pop didn't say anything. Melrose ran
+a hand through his hair once more, muttered _goddamit_ to himself,
+turned around and went barging out the door.
+
+Pop said wryly, "Another quick memo to the Pentagon. He never heard of
+the Earth's gravity."
+
+"He's heard," I said. "It's just that it slipped his mind these last
+few years."
+
+Pop grinned. He handed me a sheaf of typewritten notes. "These'll just
+about make it. You'll notice the initial flight is charted pretty damn
+closely."
+
+"Thanks, Pop. I better take these, somewhere else to look 'em over.
+Melrose might be back."
+
+"Pretty damn closely," he repeated. "Almost as closely as if she was
+going up under radio control...." He stopped. He looked at me from
+under his eyebrows.
+
+I studied him. "Already told the brass I'd take her up, Pop." I kept
+my voice down.
+
+"Sure, guy. Sure. Uh--you mention it to Marge?"
+
+"Last night."
+
+"I see." His eyes got suddenly far away. I left him like that. Hell
+with him--hell with the whole family!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in the evening paper, tucked in the second section. They
+treated it lightly. It seemed the night watchman had opened the rear
+door of the museum for a breath of air or maybe a smoke. Or maybe to
+kitchie-koo some babe under the chin in the alley.
+
+That's the only way it could have happened. And he'd discovered the
+empty exhibit case at 2:10 in the morning. The case still had a little
+white card on it that told about the Brown Bess musket and the powder
+horn and the ball shot inside.
+
+But the little white card lied in its teeth. There weren't any such
+things in the case at all. And he'd notified the curator at once.
+
+There was also mention of a mysterious phone call which couldn't be
+traced.
+
+Things like this don't happen in 1953. So I didn't get loaded that
+night. I went home, went to the davenport, sat down and told myself
+they don't happen. Things like this have never happened, will never
+happen. What occurred last night was something in the bottom of a
+bottle of Jamaica rum.
+
+"Thinking, Mr. Anders?"
+
+I took a slow breath. He was swaying gently in the air a foot from my
+elbow and he was still a black mucous scum, as he had been the night
+before. I got up.
+
+I said, "I'm not loaded tonight. I haven't had a thing all day." I
+took two steps toward him.
+
+He wasn't there.
+
+I took another breath--a very very slow breath. I turned around and
+went back to the davenport.
+
+He was back again.
+
+"They'll find that musket," he said. "I have no use for it now. You
+see I wanted it only to convince you, Mr. Anders."
+
+I put my hands on my knees and didn't look at him. I was suddenly
+trying to remember where I'd put that Luger I'd brought home from
+Germany a couple years back.
+
+"You're not quite convinced yet, Mr. Anders?"
+
+_Where in the hell did I put it?_
+
+"Very well, Mr. Anders. Now hear this, please. Now watch me." He
+stirred at about hip height. A shelf-like section of the black mass
+protruded a little distance from the main part of him. On this shelf
+suddenly lay a rusted penknife.
+
+"A very little boy, Mr. Anders. And a very long while ago. A talented
+boy, one of those who has what might be called an exceptional
+imagination. This boy cherished a penknife when he was quite small.
+Pick up the knife, Mr. Anders."
+
+The knife was suddenly in my lap. I picked it up. It was rusty. It had
+a flat bone handle. "Museums again," I whispered to myself.
+
+"So highly did this boy prize his knife that he went to great pains to
+carve his name very very carefully on one side of the bone handle.
+Turn the knife over, Mr. Anders."
+
+The name was Edward Anders.
+
+"You lost it when you were eleven. You wouldn't remember though. I
+found it in an attic where it lay unnoticed. As the years went by you
+gradually forgot about the knife, you see, and when your mind had
+completely abandoned the thoughts of it, it was mine--had I wanted it.
+As a matter of fact I didn't. I retrieved it just today."
+
+I put the knife down. Sweat was coming on my forehead now, I could
+feel it. I was remembering. I was remembering the knife and what was
+scaring me even more was I was remembering the very day I had lost it.
+In the attic.
+
+I said very carefully, "All right. You've made your point. You can
+take it from there."
+
+"Quite so, Mr. Anders. You now admit I exist, that I have
+extraordinary powers. I am your own creation, Mr. Anders. As I said
+before you have exceptional senses, including imagination. And yes,
+imagination is the greatest of all the senses.
+
+"Some humans with this gift often imagine ludicrous things, exciting
+things, horrifying things--depending don't you see, on mood, emotion.
+And the things these mortals imagine become real, are actually,
+created--only they don't know it, of course."
+
+He stopped. He was probably giving me time to soak that up. Then he
+went on. "You've forgotten to keep trying to remember where you put
+that Luger, Mr. Anders. I just picked up the abandoned thought as it
+left your consciousness just now."
+
+I gulped down something that tried to rise in my throat. I didn't like
+this guy.
+
+"You created me when you were fourteen, Mr. Anders. You imagined me as
+a swashbuckling pirate. The only difference between me and the others
+who have been created in times past is that I have attained the ninth
+dimension. I am the first to do that. Also the first to capture the
+secrets of your own third dimension. Naturally then, it would be a
+pity for me to die."
+
+"Get out," I said.
+
+"Forgive me, Mr. Anders. My time is short. I die tomorrow."
+
+"That's swell. Now get out."
+
+"We're not immortal, you see. When our creators die their imaginations
+die with them. We too die. It follows. But for some time I've had an
+idea."
+
+"Out," I said again. "Get the hell out of here!"
+
+"You're going to die tomorrow, Mr. Anders, in that new flying saucer.
+And I must die with you. Except that I've had this idea."
+
+There are times when you look yourself in the eye and don't like what
+you see. Or maybe what you see scares the living hell out of you.
+When those times come along some little something inside tells you
+you'd better watch out. Then the doubts creep in. After that the
+melancholy. And from that instant on you aren't very sane anymore.
+
+"_Out!_" I yelled. "Out, _out_, OUT! Get the hell out!"
+
+"One moment, Mr. Anders. Now as to this idea of mine. There's this
+woman--this Margie Hayman. This woman you call the Doll."
+
+That one jerked me around.
+
+"Exactly. Now listen very carefully. You aren't entirely you anymore,
+Mr. Anders. I mean, you aren't the complete _whole_ individual you as
+you once were. You love this woman. Something inside you has gone out
+and is now a part of her."
+
+"Therefore, if you will just discard the thought of her sometime
+between now and when you take that ship up I can attach myself to her
+sentient being, don't you see, and thereby exist--at least
+partly--even though you yourself are dead."
+
+I pushed myself unsteadily to my feet. I stared at the entire black
+repulsive undulating mass before me. I took a step toward it.
+
+"It isn't much to ask, Mr. Anders. You've quarrelled with her. You
+want no more of her. You've practically told her that. All I ask is
+that you finish the job--forget her. Discard her--throw her into the
+mental junk pile of Abandonment."
+
+I didn't take any more steps. Something inside me was screaming, was
+ripping at my guts, was roaring with all the cacaphony of all the
+giant discords of all eternity. Something inside my brain was sucking
+all my strength in one tremendous, surging power-dive of wish
+fulfillment. I was willing the black mucous mass of him out of my
+consciousness.
+
+He was no longer there. The only thing to prove he'd ever been there
+at all was a very-old, very-rusty penknife over on the table in front
+of the davenport--the knife with my name carved on the bone handle.
+
+After that I went unsteadily to the dresser in the living room. I got
+the Doll's picture down off the dresser. I undressed. I took the
+picture to bed with me. The lights burned in my bedroom the entire
+night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lieutenant Colonel Melrose looked weatherbeaten. His graying hair was
+pulled here and there like a rag mop that's dried dirty--stiff. He had
+a freshly lit cigarette between his lips. He grinned nervously when he
+saw me, butted the cigarette, said in a thin voice, "This is it,
+Anders. Ship goes up in twenty minutes."
+
+"I know," I said.
+
+He poked another cigarette at his lips. He said, "What?" in a startled
+tone.
+
+"Nothing," I said. "All right, I'll get ready."
+
+He lit the cigarette, took a puff that made the smoke do a frenetic
+dance around his nostrils. He jabbed it at an ashtray, bobbed his head
+in a convulsive movement, said, "Righto!"
+
+They strapped me in. Pop came to the open hatch. He stuck his head
+in, grinned, said, "Hi, guy," softly. There was something in his eyes.
+The Doll had told him how I hate sour notes.
+
+"How's the Doll, Pop?" I forced myself to say it.
+
+"Swell, Ed. Just got a call from her. On her way out here to see you
+take off. Looks like she won't make it now though."
+
+I didn't say anything. His eyes went down to the wallet I had propped
+up on my knees. The wallet was open, celluloid window showing. Inside
+the window was the Doll's picture.
+
+"Tell her that, Pop," I said.
+
+"Yeah, guy. Luck."
+
+They shut the hatch.
+
+There was no doubt about the takeoff. If one thing was perfected in
+the XXE-1 it was that. The ship rose like the mercury in a thermometer
+on a hot day in July. I took it slow to fifty thousand feet.
+
+"Fifty thousand," I said into the throat mike.
+
+"Hear you, Anders." Melrose's voice.
+
+"Smooth," I said. "Radar on me?"
+
+"On you, Anders."
+
+I let the ship have a little head. This job used the clutch of a tax
+collector's claws for fuel. It just hooked itself on the nothing
+around us and yanked--and there we were.
+
+One hundred thousand.
+
+"Double that," I said into the mike.
+
+"Yeah, Anders. How is it?"
+
+"Haven't yet begun. Radar still on me?"
+
+I heard a nervous laugh. _He_ was nervous. "The General--General
+Hotchkiss just said something, Anders. He--ha, ha--he said you're on
+plot like stitches in a fat lady's hip. Ha, ha! He's got _us_ all in
+stitches. Ha, ha!"
+
+_Ha, ha!_
+
+This was it. I released my grip on the accelerator control, yet it
+slide up. They say you can't feel speed in the air unless there's
+something relative within vision to tip you off. They're going to have
+to revise that. You can not only feel speed you can reach out and
+break hunks off it--in the XXE-1, that is. I shook my head, took my
+eyes off the instruments and looked down at the Doll on my lap.
+
+"Melrose?"
+
+"Hear you, Anders."
+
+"This is it. Reaching me on radar still?"
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"All right."
+
+This was it. This was where the other four ships like the XXE-1--the
+radio controlled models--had disintegrated. This was where it
+happened, and they didn't come back anymore.
+
+I sucked in oxygen and let the accelerator control go over all the
+way.
+
+Pulling a ship out of a steep dive, yes. Blackout then, yes. If the wings
+stay with you everything's fine and you live to mention the incident at
+the bar a little while later. Blackout accelerating--climbing--is not in
+the books. But blackout, nevertheless. Not just plain blackout but a
+thick mucous, slimy undulating blackout--the very black.
+
+The very very black.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+General Hotchkiss, "What's he saying, Melrose?"
+
+Melrose, "Doesn't answer."
+
+General Eaton, "Try again."
+
+Melrose, "Yes sir."
+
+General Hotchkiss, "What's he saying, Melrose?"
+
+General Eaton, "Still nothing?"
+
+Melrose, "Nothing."
+
+General Hotchkiss, "Dammit, you've still got him on radar, haven't
+you?"
+
+Melrose, "Yes sir."
+
+General Hotchkiss, "Well, dammit, what's he doing?"
+
+Melrose, "Still going up, sir."
+
+General Eaton, "How far up?"
+
+Melrose, "Signal takes sixty seconds to get back, sir."
+
+General Hotchkiss, "God in heaven! One hundred and twenty thousand
+miles out! Halfway to the moon. How much more fuel has he?"
+
+Melrose, "Five seconds, sir. Then the auto-switch cuts in. Power will
+go off until he nears atmosphere again. After that, if he isn't
+conscious--well, I'm awfully afraid we've lost another ship."
+
+General Eaton, "Cold blooded--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The purple drapes before my eyes were wavering. Hung like rippled
+steel pieces of a caisson suspended by a perilously thin whisper of
+thread, they swayed, hesitated, shuddered their entire length, then
+began to bend in the middle from the combined weights of thirteen
+galaxies. The bend became a cracking bulge that in another second
+would explode destruction directly into my face. I screamed.
+
+"Is--is that you, Anders?"
+
+I screamed good this time.
+
+"An--Anders! You all right? What happened? I couldn't get through to
+you?"
+
+I took my hand from the accelerator control and stared numbly at it.
+The mark of it was deep in the skin. I sucked in oxygen.
+
+"_Anders!_ Your power is off. When you hear the signal you've got just
+three more seconds. You know what to do then. You've been out of the
+envelope, Anders! You broke through the atmosphere!"
+
+And then I heard him speak to somebody else--he must have been
+speaking to somebody else, he couldn't have meant me--"Crissake, give
+me a cigarette. The guy's still alive."
+
+I suppose I was grinning when they unstrapped me and slid me out of
+the hatch. They were grinning back at any rate. The ground held me up
+surprisingly--like it always had all my life before. They'd stopped
+grinning now, their eyes were eating the inside of the ship. They
+weren't interested in me anymore--all they wanted was the instruments'
+readings.
+
+My feet could still move me. Knew where to go. Knew where to find the
+door that had the simple word _Plotting_ on it.
+
+The Doll was there with her father. The two of them didn't say
+anything, just looked at me--just stared at me. I said, "He tried
+damned hard. He put everything he had in it. He got me. He had me down
+and there wasn't any up again for the rest of the world. For me there
+wasn't."
+
+They stared. Pop stared. The Doll stared.
+
+"Just one thing he forgot," I muttered. "He gave me the tip-off
+himself and then he forgot it. He told me I wasn't all me anymore,
+that a part of me had gone out to you since I was supposed to be in
+love with you. And that's where the tip-off lies. I wasn't all me
+anymore but I hadn't lost anything. You know why, Doll?"
+
+They stared.
+
+"Simple--any damn fool would tumble. If I wasn't all me, then you
+weren't all you. Part of you was me--get it? And _you_ weren't
+scheduled to bust out today. Not you--me! And that's what he couldn't
+work over. That's what brought me down again. He couldn't touch that."
+I stopped for a moment.
+
+I said suddenly, "What the hell you guys staring at?" I growled.
+
+"That's my Baby," said the Doll.
+
+"No strings," I said.
+
+"Like we said." Her words were soft petals. "Like we said, Baby. Just
+like we said."
+
+"Sure. Only damn it, I don't like it that way. I _want_ strings, see?
+I want meshes of 'em, balls of 'em, like what comes in yarn--get it?"
+
+The Doll grinned. "Sure, Baby--you're sure you want it that way?"
+
+"Sure I'm sure. I just said it, didn't I? _Didn't_ I?"
+
+"You just said it, Baby." She left her father's side, came over to me,
+put her arm in mine, pulled close. We turned, started to go out the
+door.
+
+"Where you guys going?" asked Pop. We turned again. He looked like
+something was skipped somewhere on a sound track he'd been listening
+to. I grinned.
+
+"Gotta look for a Brown Bess," I said. "Museum just lost one."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Very Black, by Dean Evans
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