"Alone, alone, all, all alone;
Alone on a wide, wide sea;
Nor any saint took pity on
My soul in agony."
He rose and walked over to the window, looking out where the bright points of light that were the stars of space rode high in the deep violet of the moonlit sky.
"The sea of all space—the sea of vastness that lies between the far-flung nebulae—the mighty void—alone on a sea, the vastness of which no man can imagine—alone—alone where no other man has been; alone, so far from all matter, from all mankind, that not even light, racing at billions of miles each day, could reach home in less than a million years." Arcot stopped and stood looking out of the window.
Morey broke the silence. "The Ancient Mariner." He paused. "'Alone' will certainly be right. I think that name takes all the prizes."
Fuller nodded slowly. "I certainly agree. The Ancient Mariner. It's kind of long, but it is the name."
It was adopted unanimously.
IV
The Ancient Mariner was built in the big Transcontinental shops in Newark; the power they needed was not available in the smaller shops.
Working twenty-four hours a day, in three shifts, skilled men took two months to finish the hull according to Fuller's specifications. The huge walls of lux metal required great care in construction, for they could not be welded; they had to be formed in position. And they could only be polished under powerful magnets, where the dense magnetic field softened the lux metal enough to allow a diamond polisher to do the job.