Then Diane cried, "Lanse! Oh, Lanse, darling—!" and rushed forward. Straight toward, up to, into and through the spectre of her lost lover. And she stopped, dazed. Her arms waved wildly. "B-but he's gone! He's not here? Where did he—"
I choked weakly, "D-don't look now, Diane, but you sort of—er—broke him up. Little chunks of him are floating around you."
Which was the God's-honest truth, so help me! When she burst into that phantom, it popped apart like pieces of a jig-saw puzzle.
Shattered into a thousand little shimmering, quivering bits, as an image will shatter in a quiet pool when you chuck a rock into it. Diane stepped back. The hunks of Biggs came drifting back together again. I saw, now, that he wore a happy smile. His lips moved, and we read the name he spoke. "Diane!"
Hanson whirled on the scowling Chief Engineer.
"How long has he been here, Chief? What's he want?"
Garrity's reply was as sultry as a Venusian sunset.
"And joost how, Captain Hanson, would I be capable of knowin' the de-sires of a disembodied speerit? I'm a mon of broad expeerience, sirrr, but I dinna pretend to comprehend ee-cleesiastical mysteries. Shoo!" He waved his arms at the ghostly Biggs. "Go 'way, ye bodiless demon! 'From ghoulies an' ghosties an' all sairts o' beasties an' things thot go "Boomp!" in the nicht, O Laird, deliverrr us!'"
Hanson turned to me in desperation.
"He's trying to tell us something, Sparks. You and him was friends. Can't you understand him?"