Ahead was the Belt of Peril.
Sinister web of unseen rays spread from the six trailing forts in space.
Mighty secret of an elder science.
Dread zone of unknown radiation that melted molecular bonds, to let stout metal and tortured human flesh dissolve away into a mist of free atoms.
Remembering Adam Ulnar’s new information that it was weaker over the poles, John Star set his course northward.
He drove the cruiser at the utmost power of the geodynes, sick already with his dread of the barrier, sick at thought of what Aladoree must suffer within it.
But there was no choice.
The Purple Dream plunged into the wall of unseen radiation, John Star alone on the bridge.
Fiery mist swirled suddenly away from his body, from bulkheads and instruments.
Mist of excited or ionized atoms, dancing points of rainbow light.
White, searing pain probed his body, screamed in his ears, flamed before his eyes.
Atom by atom, the ship and his body were dissolving away.
Limp with suffering, he fought to keep awareness, to keep the hurtling cruiser within the narrow passage of partial wave-interference above the pole.
His body, grown luminous and half-transparent, was immersed in shining agony. He could scarcely move the keys.
Red flame burned away his very brain.
Part of him was startled, inexpressibly, by a sudden laugh, strange and harsh and wild.
A mad laugh. Lunatic!
It shook him with a sickness of new horror, for he knew that the one who had laughed was himself.
He had just thought of a terrific joke!
Like those survivors of the first expedition, the sane part of him knew, he was going mad!
Long exposure to the red climate-control gas had overtaken him at last.
Gone mad!
And doomed to die of slow green decay!
He was laughing.
Laughing at a monstrous joke.
The joke was the death of the System, by madness and green leprosy.
And its point, the death of those who tried to save mankind, by the same slow decay. A fearful joke!
So terribly funny!
Millions, all the human billions, laughing foolishly, inanely, as their flesh turned to foul green rot and fell away. And those who had thought to save them—the very first to die.
What a cosmic joke!
Men laughing at the face of red pain.
Men and women laughing while their flesh turned green!
Laughing, until their bodies fell apart, and they laughed at death!
What a universal joke!
His hands slipped away from the keys; he was doubled up with laughter.
Would the Medusas see the point, as they rained the bombs of red gas on the planets?
Or was their monstrous race too old for laughter?
Had they forgotten how to laugh, before the Earth was born?
Or had those green and palpitating bodies the power of laughter, ever?
He must ask Adam Ulnar.
He could communicate with the Medusas.
He could find out.
He could tell them the joke—the cosmic joke, a whole race laughing as it died.
He tried to stand up, but laughter wouldn’t let him rise.
He rubbed his hands together.
They felt dry, papery.
Already the scales were forming on his skin.
His flesh would flake away until his bones were bare.
He was a joke, himself!
What a joke!