"Go ahead and stop it," jeered Donovan. "Aren't you the representative of the almighty Empire of Sol? Command them in the name of His Majesty to stop."
"The crew, I mean," she said impatiently. "They've got no business being frightened by a local phenomenon."
"Any human would be," answered Donovan. "You are, though you won't admit it. I am. We can't help ourselves. It's instinct."
"Instinct?" Her clear eyes were a little surprised.
"Sure." Donovan halted before a viewscreen. Space blazed and roiled against the reaching darkness. "Just look out there. It's the primeval night, it's the blind unknown where unimaginable inhuman Powers are abroad. We're still the old half-ape, crouched over his fire and trembling while the night roars around us. Our lighted, heated, metal-armored ship is still the lonely cave-fire, the hearth with steel and stone laid at the door to keep out the gods. When the Wild Hunt breaks through and shouts at us, we must be frightened, it's the primitive fear of the dark. It's part of us."
She swept on, her cloak a scarlet wing flapping behind her. They took the elevator to the bridge.
Donovan had not watched the Black Nebula grow over the days, swell to a monstrous thing that blotted out half the sky, lightlessness fringed with the cold glory of the stars. Now that the ship was entering its tenuous outer fringes, the heavens on either side were blurring and dimming, and the blackness yawned before. Even the densest nebula is a hard vacuum; but tons upon incredible tons of cosmic dust and gas, reaching planetary and interstellar distances on every hand, will blot out the sky. It was like rushing into an endless, bottomless hole, the ship was falling and falling into the pit of Hell.
"I noticed you never looked bow-wards on the trip," said Jansky. There was steel in her voice. "Why did you lock yourself in your cabin and drink like a sponge?"
"I was bored," he replied sullenly.
"You were afraid!" she snapped contemptuously. "You didn't dare watch the Nebula growing. Something happened the last time you were here which sucked the guts out of you."