The Crystal Circe

He lit a cigarette and crushed it out with an impatient gesture. "You know, Vail, I've been hoping I'd run into you. This thing that's been boiling inside of me--I haven't been able to tell a soul. No one would have believed me. You may. The three of us kicked around together a lot, in the old days."

"In trouble?" I asked. "Can I help?"

"You can listen," he said. "I came back to Earth thinking I might be able to forget. It hasn't worked. I'm waiting for the airliner to take me to Kansas Spaceport. I'm going to Callisto--Mars--somewhere. Earth isn't the right place any more. But I'm glad we ran into each other, Vail. I want to talk. I want you to answer a question that's been driving me almost insane."

I signalled the waiter and got more drinks. Arnsen was silent till we were alone once more. Then he opened his cupped hands and showed me a small shagreen box. It clicked open. Nestling in blue velvet was a crystal, not large, but lovelier than any gem I had ever seen before.

Light drifted from it like the flow of slow water. The dim shining pulsed and waned. In the heart of the jewel was--

I tore my eyes away, staring at Arnsen. "What is it? Where did you get the thing? Not on Earth!"

He was watching the jewel, sick hopelessness on his face. "No--not on Earth. It came from a little asteroid out there--somewhere." He waved vaguely toward the sky. "It isn't charted. I took no reckonings. So I can never go back. Not that I want to, now. Poor Doug!"

"He's dead, isn't he?" I asked.

Arnsen looked at me strangely as he closed the box and slipped it back into his pocket. "Dead? I wonder. Wait till you know the story, Vail. About Doug's lucky charm, and the dreams, and the Crystal Circe...."

The slow horror of remembrance crept across his face. Out there, in space, something had happened. I thought: It must have been frightful to leave such traces on Arnsen.

He read my thought. "Frightful? Perhaps. It was quite lovely, too. You remember the old days, when I thought of nothing but raising hell...."

After a long pause, I said, "Who was--the Crystal Circe?"

"I never knew her name. She told me, but my brain couldn't understand it. She wasn't human, of course. I called her Circe, after the enchantress who changed her lovers to swine." Again he looked at the darkening sky. "Well--it began more than two years ago, in Maine. Doug and I were on a fishing trip when we ran into the meteorite. Little fishing we got done then! You know how Doug was--like a kid reading a fairy tale for the first time. And that meteorite--"

The Star-Gem

It lay in the crater it had dug for itself, a rounded arc visible about the brown earth. Already sumac and vines were mending the broken soil. Warm fall sunlight slanted down through the trees as Douglas O'Brien and Steve Arnsen plodded toward the distant gurgling of the stream, thoughts intent on catching the limit. No fingering tendril of menace thrust out to warn them.

"Mind your step," Arnsen said, seeing the pit. He detoured around it and turned, realizing that O'Brien had not followed. "Come on, Doug. It's getting late."

O'Brien's tanned young face was intent as he peered down into the hollow. "Wait a bit," he said absently. "This looks--say! I'll bet there's a meteor down there!"

"So there's a meteor. We're not fishing for meteors, professor. They're mostly iron, anyway. Gold, now, would be a different matter."

O'Brien dropped lightly into the hole, scraping at the dirt with his fingers. "Wonder how long it's been here? You run along, Steve. I'll catch up with you."

Arnsen sighed. O'Brien, with his vast enthusiasm for everything under the sun, was off again. There would be no stopping him now till he had satisfied his curiosity about the meteorite. Well, Arnsen had a new fly he was anxious to use, and it would soon be too late for good fishing. With a grunt he turned and pushed on toward the stream.

The fly proved excellent. In a surprisingly short time Arnsen had bagged the limit. There was no sign of O'Brien, and hunger made itself evident. Arnsen retraced his steps.

The younger man was sitting cross-legged beside the crater, holding something in his cupped hands and staring down at it. A swift glance showed Arnsen that the meteorite had been uncovered, and, apparently, cracked in two, each piece the size of a football. He stepped closer, to see what O'Brien held.

It was a gray crystal, egg-sized, filled with cloudy, frozen mists. It had been cut into a diamond-shaped, multifaced gem.

"Where'd you get that?" Arnsen asked.

O'Brien jumped, turning up a startled face. "Oh--hello, Steve. It was in the meteorite. Damnedest thing I ever saw. I saw the meteorite had a line of fission all around it, so I smacked the thing with a rock. It fell apart, and this was in the middle. Impossible, isn't it?"

"Let's see." Arnsen reached for the jewel. O'Brien showed an odd reluctance in giving it up, but finally dropped it into the other's outstretched hand.

The gem was cold, and yet not unpleasantly so. A tingling raced up Arnsen's arm to his shoulder. He felt an abrupt, tiny shock.

O'Brien snatched the jewel. Arnsen stared at him.

"I'm not going to eat it. What--"