Clem swung in a wide circle and bore down on us. At her speed I knew she would run us down in seconds, and there was nothing left to do. I closed my eyes and waited.
Death did not come. Instead there was a wave of something like emotion. It was disgust and impatience and sharp command. A mighty ... something ... was talking ... not to us ... and not in words or even symbols we could truly understand. But the power of it was so great that we could catch the overtones, the emotional nuances that surcharged it. Something was talking to Clem ... commanding her to forget her childish wrath and ... COME!
As though jerked around by a cosmic leash, the crazed ship veered about, her tail-flare blinding us. When we could see again, she was a spark far Sunward and driving at incredible speed.
In tight silence, the two crewmen and I watched her for hours until she vanished into the bright glare of the Sun. After that we followed her with the radar, eyes intent on the golden blip steadily moving inward toward the yellow mass of Sol. We drifted in space, just watching and waiting. And then at last the fleck of golden light blended with the Sun.
I knew even as I watched her that she did not die. No. There was maturity and satisfaction and ineffable pleasure flooding out from the spot where she vanished ... but no nuance of death!
We turned away, emptied of emotion or even thought. In a numb trance we found our way into Venusport. We did not explain. By unspoken consent we said nothing about the thing we had witnessed. It was too new, too fresh. And it was too unlike life as we know it. The port authorities listed us as shipwrecked by collision with an errant asteroid, and we got passage back to Terra ... and sanity.
It was a long time before I ventured into space again. And every time I look up at the Sun I have the feeling that I have seen something no human should.
I saw Clem go home.