He lay on the floor and laughed.
Dimly, then, he became aware of something he must do.
Red flame lapped at his brain; he was sick with suffering.
And there were others.
Others?
Yes, Jay and Hal and Giles.
And Aladoree!
He could not fail them!
But what was the thing he must do?
It was to drive the cruiser on, he remembered vaguely, through the Belt of Peril.
Then this intolerable pain would cease.
It would leave the others.
Aladoree!
So beautiful, so weary.
He must not let her suffer this!
He fought the laughter.
He tried to forget the joke.
He battled the agony that consumed his nerves.
Doggedly, he dragged his limp body back to the controls.
On through the radiation barrier he drove the Purple Dream, He watched the semi-transparent instruments through a haze of colored light.
He moved the keys with shining hands.
He was shaken again and again with laughter.
He knew, finally, that they were beyond the barrier.
The red pain faded; the unearthly luminescence departed from the instruments; the dancing rainbow glitter slowly dissipated from the air.
But still he sobbed with laughter.
Jay Kalam came finally into the bridge, haggard and pain-drawn, but calmly efficient.
Already, since they had passed the barrier, he had shaved and found a new uniform.
He was neat again, lean and brown, gravely handsome.
“Well done, John,” he said quietly.
“I’ll take the bridge a while.
I’ve just been talking with the Commander about our chances of outrunning the fleet behind us.
He says———”
John Star had struggled desperately to listen, to keep silent and understand what Jay Kalam said.
But the joke—it was so terribly funny.
He burst into mad laughter again, a wild tempest of laughter that sprawled him on the floor.
He must try to tell Jay Kalam about the joke.
Jay Kalam could appreciate it.
Because, very soon, he would be laughing too, as his own body turned to green decay.
But, for the racking laughter, he could not speak at all.
“John!” he heard Jay Kalam cry, aghast.
“What’s the matter?
Are you—hurt?”
Jay Kalam helped him to his feet; held him until he could stop laughing and shake the tears out of his eyes. “A joke!” he gasped.
“An immense joke!
Men laughing as they die!”
“John!
John!”
The grave voice was faint with inexpressible horror.
“John, what is it?”
He struggled to forget the joke.