Floor of Heaven

                             By T. D. HAMM

                         Illustrated by ADKINS

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                     Amazing Stories January 1961.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


The three crew members of the Ad Astra looked at one another, grinning
weakly, in the whispering silence after the motors had kicked off. This
was the culminating point of a half-century of preparation; behind them
was the satellite launching station--ahead of them, a faint red dot,
was Mars.

Bryan, nominal head of the expedition, touched the shutter studs that
opened their windows on the universe. They stood silently, the three of
them; Bryan and Hughes looking back at the majesty of the retreating
Earth--Williams, rigid with ecstasy at the forward port.

The stars were his passion and his joy. Women filled a momentary
need, men he accepted or rejected as they could help him to achieve
his goal. Now, as astrogator of the Ad Astra he had fulfilled his
dream; and now before him Canopus, Rigel, Cassiopeia and Aldebaran lay
jewel-like on the dark velvet of space.

How stars had absorbed the thoughts of mankind since the beginning, he
thought happily, and what dreams had the ancient Chaldeans known as
they mapped the routes of the galleons of space? And the poets.... "See
how the floor of Heaven is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold--"
he quoted softly.

"My, that's pretty," Bryan said solemnly behind him. "Who said that?"

"Williams did--" returned Hughes equally dead-pan.

Williams flushed under their good-natured grins. "Shakespeare said it,
you uneducated yokels," he said loftily. "How come you aren't cheating
each other at gin rummy yet? Last I heard one of you owed the other a
million dollars."

"It was only six hundred thousand," Hughes grinned, "and I'm about to
take him double or nothing!"

       *       *       *       *       *

The weeks passed slowly. Barely audible, the computers ticked, keeping
the ship on course. Bryan and Hughes wrangled amiably over their
interminable card-games, throwing an occasional, joking aside to
Williams watching the stars, absorbed as a miser fingering his jewels.

Mars, from a minute speck, grew to a planet lying bloody in the
cold rays of the distant sun. Strapped down in obedience to the
computer-given signal, the ship reversed, fired its rockets and touched
down on her supporting pillars of flame and became only a shining
needle dwarfed in the immensity of the pinkish-red desert.

They looked at each other doubtfully, conscious of anti-climax. This
was little different from the far reaches of the Gobi plateau where
they had trained for weary, boring months. Bryan and Hughes drew the
lots as the two to don their heated, protective suits and explore
within cautious distance of the ship. Williams, restless and bored,
watched their horseplay resentfully. Even the tenuous atmosphere of the
dead world dimmed the splendor of the heavens; why didn't they hurry
and get it over with? He shivered a little watching Bryan and Hughes
trudging clumsily in the sand, throwing out a comment occasionally for
the benefit of the tape recorder in the cabin.

"This is different from the deserts back home," Hughes said. "Back
there you get the feeling they're just waiting for somebody to move in,
but here...."

"It's more like a haunted house," Bryan finished for him. Williams,
adjusting his headphones, was conscious of a deepening of his faint
uneasiness--why didn't they hurry up and get back! All they really had
to do was build a cairn and plant the Federation flag. They had found a
few rocks and Bryan was stooping to bury the prepared canister with the
data of the flight--

Williams watching incredulously as Bryan and Hughes reeled and
staggered, was dimly conscious of a sudden faint tremor along the ship.
There was an abrupt metallic shrieking in his headset, a background of
thundering, grinding bedlam, and over it Bryan's voice frantic--

"Cave-in! Lift ship--_lift ship_!"

It had been the one constant in the shifting, nebulous mass of theory
drilled into them. _They_ were valuable--the _ship_ was irreplaceable.
With a last unbelieving look of horror at the gigantic crack widening
under the very feet of his companions, Williams threw himself into
the control seat and threw the lever over to "takeoff" position. The
rockets fired and the ship rose majestically, the thousand foot fiery
splendor of her trail blotting out the space-suited figures toppling
into the thundering chasm.

Hours later, Williams pulled himself up, looking around dazedly. The
motors had shut off and the great ship was coasting noiselessly along
the return track; only the computers ticked steadily and the air-valves
made a muted shushing in the silence. Funny he hadn't noticed the
silence on the way out--sometimes he had even been irritated with the
noise Bryan and Hughes had made with their eternal wrangling over their
cards. Automatically he pushed the forward viewing plate button feeling
the familiar sense of timeless peace as he looked out on the eternal
suns.

Mechanically he ate and slept in the days that followed, dimly aware
of a giggling, wild-eyed stranger in some remote corner of his mind,
waiting to overtake him if he showed awareness of his presence. He
pushed away too, the thought of Bryan and Hughes, forgetting in the
sameness of his days that he had ever been anything but alone. At first
he had cried a little in his lonesomeness, but as the weeks went on
he remembered only that once there had been others who had deserted
him. He nodded familiarly to the stars, smiling a little; there was
only himself and them, shining steadfastly above him. They would never
change--never desert him!

Time went by unnoticed. The green dot of Earth became a glowing green
and blue orb, circled by a tiny white dot. The computer changed its
rhythm--above the control board the "strap-in" warning flashed unseen
as the rockets fired swinging the ship into the turnover, ready for
orbit with the satellite ferry station. Williams gazing with dreamy
pleasure at the jewelled curtain above him was hurled against the port
by the sudden surge of acceleration. The ship heeled over, twisted,
then turned----

Williams hung head down, screaming, as the black curtain tore, the
stars falling dizzily away--_below_ him....

[Illustration: _He screamed once, falling face down through the stars,
through the gold-inlaid, dizzying, beautiful, sickening...._]

       *       *       *       *       *

A year later, the psychiatrists, quite pleased with themselves found
him ready for duty again; not in Space of course, but the hero of the
first Mars expedition was always sure of a job with Space Authority.
Now he could even look up at the stars at night without screaming with
vertigo.

Tonight walking confidently along the country road, fragrant and
dotted with shining pools after the recent rain, he looked up thinking
nostalgically, "the patines of bright gold...."

A coldness about his feet halted him. He looked down and once again the
black curtain tore before his eyes--once more they were there, the cold
unfriendly stars, swinging in the empty void--

Below him.

Falling downward past the whirling suns, he screamed, hardly aware of
the choking wetness in his lungs....

About him the inch-deep shining pool rippled for a moment and was
still, reflecting once more the floor of Heaven.