After everyone had departed, the statements been taken, the remains of the remains removed, long after that, as the night hung late, clear, clean, with its bright multitudes doubled in their pulsing within the cool flow of the Gulf Stream about the station, I sat in a deck chair on the small patio behind my quarters, drinking a can of beer and watching the stars go by.

My feelings were an uncomfortable mixture, and I had not quite decided what to do with what was left.

It was awkward. I could make things neat and tidy again by deciding to forget the small inexplicables. I had accomplished what I had set out to do. I needed but stamp CLOSED on my mental file, go away, collect my fee and live happily, relatively speaking, ever after.

No one would ever know or, for that matter, care about the little things that still bothered me. I was under no obligation to pursue matters beyond this point.

Except ...

Maybe it is an obligation. At least, at times it became a compulsion, and one might as well salve one's notions of duty and free will by using the pleasanter term.

It? The possession of a primate forebrain, I mean, with a deep curiosity wrinkle furrowing it for better or worse.

I had to remain about the station a while longer anyway, for appearances' sake. I took another sip of beer.

Yes, I wanted more answers. To dump into the bottomless wrinkle up front there.

I might as well look around a bit more. Yes, I decided, I would.

I withdrew a cigarette and moved to light it. Then the flame caught my attention.

I stared at the flowing tongue of light, illuminating my palm and curved fingers of my left hand, raised to shield it from the night breeze. It seemed as pure as the starfires themselves, a molten, buttery thing, touched with orange, haloed blue, the intermittently exposed cherry-colored wick glowing, half-hidden, like a soul. And then the music began ...

Music was the best term I had for it, because of some similarity of essence, although it was actually like nothing I had ever experienced before. For one thing, it was not truly sonic. It came into me as a memory comes, without benefit of external stimulus, but lacking the Lucite layer of self-consciousness that turns thought to recollection by touching it with time, as in a dream. Then, something suspended, something released, my feelings began to move to the effect. Not emotions, nothing that specific, but rather a growing sense of euphoria, delight, wonder, all poured together into a common body with the tide rising. What the progressions, what the combinations., what the thing was, truly, I did not know. It was an intense beauty, a beautiful intensity, however, and I was part of it. It was as if I were experiencing something no man had ever known before, something cosmic, magnificent, ubiquitous yet commonly ignored.

And it was with a peculiarly ambiguous effort, following a barely perceptible decision, that I twitched the fingers of my left hand sufficiently to bring them into the flame itself.

The pain broke the dream momentarily, and I snapped the lighter closed as I sprang to my feet, a gaggle of guesses passing through my head. I turned and ran across that humming artificial islet, heading for the small, dark cluster of buildings that held the museum, library, offices.

But even as I moved, something came to me again. Only this time it was not the glorious, musiclike sensation that had touched me moments earlier. Now it was sinister, bringing a fear that was none the less real for my knowing it to be irrational, to the accompaniment of sensory distortions that must have caused me to reel as I ran. The surface on which I moved buckled and swayed; the stars, the buildings, the ocean, everything, advanced and retreated in random, nauseating patterns of attack. I fell several times, recovered, rushed onward. Some of the distance I know that I crawled. Closing my eyes did no good, for everything was warped, throbbing, shifting, and awful inside as well as out.

It was only a few hundred yards, though, no matter what the signs and portents might say, and finally I rested my hands against the wall, worked my way to the door, opened it, and passed within.

Another door and I was into the library. For years, it seemed, I fumbled to switch on the light.

I staggered to the desk, fought with a drawer, wrestled a screwdriver out of it.

Then on my hands and knees, gritting my teeth, I crossed to the remote-access terminal of the Information Network. Slapping at the console's control board, I succeeded in tripping the switches that brought it to life.

Then, still on my knees, holding the screwdriver with both hands, I got the left side panel off the thing. It fell to the floor with a sound that drove spikes into my head. But the components were exposed. Three little changes and I could transmit, something that would eventually wind up in Central. I resolved that I would make those changes and send the two most damaging pieces of information I could guess at to the place where they might eventually be retrieved in association with something sufficiently similar to one day cause a query, a query that would hopefully lead to the destruction of that for which I was currently being tormented.

I mean it! I said aloud. Stop right now! Or I'll do it!

... And it was like taking off a pair of unfamiliar glasses: rampant reality.

I climbed to my feet, shut down the board.

The next thing, I decided, was to have that cigarette I had wanted in the first place.

With my third puff, I heard the outer door open and close.

Dr. Barthelme, short, tan, gray on top and wiry, entered the room, blue eyes wide, one hand partly raised.

Jim! What's wrong? he said.

Nothing, I replied. Nothing.

I saw you running. I saw you fall.

Yes. I decided to sprint over here. I slipped. Pulled a muscle. It's all right.

Why the rush?

Nerves. I'm still edgy, upset. I had to run or something, to get it out of my system. Decided to run over and get a book. Something to read myself to sleep with.

I can get you a tranquilizer.

No, that's all right. Thanks. I'd rather not.

What were you doing to the machine? We're not supposed to fool with ...

The side panel fell off when I went past it. I was just going to put it back on. I waved the screwdriver. The little set-screws must have jiggled loose.

Oh.

I stooped and fitted it back into place. As I was tightening the screws, the telephone rang. Barthelme crossed to the desk, poked an extension button, and answered it.

After a moment, he said, Yes, just a minute, and turned. It's for you.

Really?

I rose, moved to the desk, took the receiver, dropping the screwdriver back into the drawer and closing it. Hello? I said.

All right, said the voice. I think we had better talk. Will you come and see me now?

Where are you?

At home.

All right, I'll come. I hung up.

Don't need that book after all, I said. I'm going over to Andros for a while.

It's pretty late. Are you certain you feel up to it?

Oh, I feel fine now, I said. Sorry to have worried you.

He seemed to relax. At least, he sagged and smiled family.

Maybe I should go take the trank, he said. Everything that's happened ... You know. You scared me.

Well, what's happened has happened. It's all over, done.

You're right, of course ... Well, have a good time, whatever.

He turned toward the door and I followed him out, extinguishing the light as I passed it.

Good night, then.

Good night

He headed back toward his quarters, and I made my way down to the docking area, decided on the Isabella, got in. Moments later, I was crossing over, still wondering. Curiosity may ultimately prove nature's way of dealing with the population problem.