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V
At 0700 the following day the Dreadnought approached the Star Gate, whose hexagonal frame gleamed coldly among the stars like the blue-black barrel of a gun, surrounded by the vessels of its makers.
Linear skeletons, huge anti-matter projectors lay dormant within, their task completed. A soft-glistening sheet of silver, like a fine spray of undulating mist, shrouded the multiplied blackness beyond. This protective film began to grow vague as the rounded monolith of the Carrier, here and there ribbed or jagged, continued to advance patiently, with measured speed.
This silent Gate to Cerberus, newest tool of Armageddon, like those before it showed not the slightest emotion at its use, only cold, mechanical efficiency. The curving prow of Dreadnought, insane metallic smile, pushed forward at the mark, and was wrapped in a clear sheen of brilliance.
To a suddenly humbled engineering vessel that viewed this passage from the side (though itself a work of successive human genius), it appeared indeed a magician's trick: the monstrous vessel was reduced by small fractions. Length was seduced, and did not reappear. And then the thrusting phallus was gone. The framework was all that remained.
Aboard the carrier the rush of scintillating motion had begun. Even those crews aboard ships within the great ship, their minds bent forward in preparation for combat, could feel the sudden thrill of weightless, bodiless movement, and taste the ghoulish hum that began at low, convulsive pitch, then rose through noteless octaves, whirling, then whining high and unbearable, then gone beyond the range of hearing.
Aboard the vessel only Hayes seemed unmoved by the lightless passage, like falling down a colossal well to the heart of a venomous, robotoid planet. All ship's power was lost, and in that phantom black those who did not already grip at chair and support-beam bent to their knees as if in prayer for deliverance.
But not Hayes. In his mind, he descended into Hell like the crucified
Christ, whose lanced breast had flowed blood and water of forgiveness.
Except that Hayes did not forgive. For soon he would rise again,
invincible.
True to the hollow-world metaphor, the ship, upon reaching the center of its plunge, passed through and slowed gradually, and sensation became more bearable. The witch-sound returned with its screeching whine; but soon the worst was passed. And like the short-lived fright of the daring child, who has pumped and pulled the playground swing to its highest arc and is suddenly weightless, cast loose from the normal laws of earth, feels a moment's fear, but then with the rush of downward motion again feels himself a conqueror, who has faced the darkness unafraid, so the men of the Third Fleet, once more surviving the nightmare world, felt themselves strong and hard, little boys afraid of nothing, marching boldly toward their moment of destiny and schoolyard fight.