"But she will never come back. She will stay with me till I die, and then she'll be buried with me in space. In the meantime—Circe doesn't like it here on Earth. So I'm going out again. Sometime, perhaps, I'll take her back Outside, to the unknown place from which she came. I don't know—"
An audio announced the plane for Kansas. Arnsen stood up, gave me a smile from his ravaged face, and without a word went out.
I never saw him again.
I think that beyond Pluto, beyond the farthest limits of the system, a little cruiser may be fleeing into the void, controls set, racing, perhaps, for the darkness of the Coal Sack. In the ship is a man and a jewel. He will die, but I do not think that even in death his hand will relax its grip on that jewel.
And the ship will go on, into the blackness which has no name.
[Transcriber's Note: The orginal publication had no Chapter Four heading and two Chapter Five headings. The first Chapter Five heading has been renamed Chapter Four.]