[Gutenberg 23571] • General Max Shorter

The long ship lifted steadily and majestically through the battering

storm and the driving rain of dust and crystals. Out beyond the dense

space that surrounds all stars, the long ship probed the ever-shifting

currents in the four-dimensional universe. The long ship found a

low-density flaw, where space could hardly be said to exist at all. The

long ship, described mathematically, was half as long as the

continuum--the length being inversely proportional and related only to

mass. Time was but a moth's wing between twin cliffs of eternity.

Inside Miracastle's orange sun, at its very core, an atom of hydrogen

was destroyed completely; and in the inconceivable distance, an atom of

hydrogen appeared. The pulsing, steady-state equation of the universe

maintained its knife-edge and inevitable thermo-dynamic balance.

Inside the long ship, a pilot-machine ordered the destruction of a

vastly greater collection of matter. The atoms of the ship and the

sailors--fixed in relationship, each to each--imploded into nothingness.

And the long ship and the men aboard it were born again at a low-density

area a million light years away--halfway to Earth. Born and were

destroyed again, in the blink of an eye.

Beyond the ship now lay Sol, pulsing in its own warmth and warming its

children embedded in the cold and distant texture of the universe. The

sailors were ghosts come home.

Miracastle was alone with her conquerors