"You unlock this door with the key of imagination." "Beyond it is another dimension- a dimension of sound," "a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind." "You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas." "You've just crossed over into the twilight zone." "It may be said with a degree of assurance that not everything that meets the eye is as it appears." "The scene you're watching." "This is not a hospital, not a morgue, not a mausoleum, not an undertakers' parlor of the future." "What it is is the belly of a spaceship." "It is en route to another planetary system an incredible distance from the earth." "This is the crux of our story, a flight into space." "It is also the story of the things that might happen to human beings who take a step beyond, unable to anticipate everything that might await them out there." "I remember things." "It's more than just void, darkness, unconsciousness." "The mind does work." "There are images, patterns, things to recollect." "It's not just the long, deep sleep that comes when the fear has left." "The cold is felt, the slipping away of feeling is noted and then succumbed to." "The mind functions." "Time is distorted, jumbled, telescoped, accordioned, but there is a sense of time even so, and i remember things." "I remember the way it began." "I remember the way it was in the beginning." "Come in, commander stansfield." "Dr. Bixler." "Please be comfortable." "The figure of speech, commander." "Be comfortable in the sense that there's no need to stand on ceremony." "But there are no seats, either." "I've heard much of you, doctor." "I of you, and that's the reason you're here." "You've been an astronaut for 11 years." "Is that a question, sir?" "It's an observation." "Should you not have realized it, you've been the object of considerable observation for the past several months." "I've been aware of some, doctor." "When the space agency put me on my project, they told me to keep in mind the scientific problems but also to be aware of the human factor." "You, commander stansfield, are the human factor." "Go on, doctor." "You recognize this, don't you?" "This is our solar system." "This is the sun and here is the earth, jupiter, venus, pluto, mars." "And what do we know about our neighbors, commander?" "Mars is a vast, scrubby desert with an unbreatheable atmosphere." "Pluto is poisonous and extremely cold." "The moon is barren, jupiter, volcanic." "In short, commander, our neighbors offer us only they're accessible." "They're within reach." "Beyond that, they offer us nothing- scientific, social, economic- anything." "They're the mount everest of space." "Once, they offered us challenges." "Where is the next mount everest, doctor?" "That's perhaps the most pertinent question you've ever asked." "This is a planetary system to date seen only through the lens of a telescope." "We know nothing of it except for there are six bodies one of which we can only assume is the sun." "It's flaming and gaseous and it must provide heat and light for these five bodies here." "It's a small system like our own." "The planets run roughly in the same orbital pattern as we do around our own sun." "Does it have a name?" "You may call it stansfield's mount everest." "That's where i'm going." "When?" "In about six months." "The ship's being built now." "It's off the drawing board." "The keel is being laid but it'll take only one man, and that man should be right there watching every rivet, every bolt, every item of equipment going in there." "You are that man, commander." "You will be sole occupant and you will be its pilot." "Doctor, i... i like this assignment very much." "That's precisely why you were chosen." "Of course, there will be the usual dangers, the usual unknowns." "In the past, you've had meteor showers to contend with." "You've had the usual calculated risk of mechanical difficulties, landing difficulties, ejection troubles and the rest of it." "Well, you'll still have those- compounded." "We have another factor here." "Another problem." "The distance." "Distance." "This system is perhaps 141 light years away from us." "That's a rough estimate but a good one." "The ship is... the ship will have interstellar drive and an antigravity device." "It'll be the fastest man-made object ever conceived, ever brought to life." "It'll go 70 times faster than the speed of light." "But in terms of the space you must conquer, it'll be like an ant crawling across the sahara." "In short, commander, your trip to these planetary bodies and back to earth will take approximately 40 years." "Commander douglas stansfield, astronaut, a man about to embark on one of history's longest journeys" "40 years out into endless space and hopefully back again." "This is the beginning, the first step toward man's longest leap into the unknown." "Science has solved the mechanical details, and now it's up to one human being to breathe life into blueprints and computers, to prove once and for all that man can live half a lifetime in the total void of outer space," "40 years alone in the unknown." "This is earth." "Ahead lies a planetary system." "The vast region in between is the twilight zone." "That was the beginning, that brief, unemotional, very matter-of-fact colloquy between the scientist and the practitioner- a small cast of two characters." "And that was the way it should have been." "But i remember..." "i very clearly remember the entrance of character number three." "Will communications team b-8, communications team b-8 report to central control." "Communications team b-8, central control." "Oh, a friend in need." "Oh, that's my job." "Picking up papers?" "I'm the new morale officer." "I follow people around who look stricken." "Oh, and do i look stricken?" "Well, you looked momentarily nonplussed." "I don't believe we've met." "Are you permanently stationed here?" "I'm with the space agency." "And you're...?" "Stansfield." "Commander, u.s.n." "Oh... you're the one." "Should i thank you or report you for insubordination?" "I've always wanted to meet you." "I've always wanted to meet you, too." "No, that's true." "I have e.s.p. And i, uh... a long time ago i woke up one morning and some inner voice told me that i would meet a girl with a stricken look who would drop papers in corridors." "And did your e.s.p. Tell you the name?" "Mm-hmm, sandra horn." "Oh... subtle astronaut." "It's been an honor meeting you." "I, um... i don't suppose the space agency could do without your services for a couple of hours this evening, just long enough for dinner." "Well... despite the fact that i am invaluable and that the whole space program rests on me alone, i think a two- or three-hour period could be carved out." "I'm in the book, commander." "Please phone." "No, i won't call- i'll pick you up." "I'll be there at 8:00." "Arrivederci, lady from the space agency." "At 8:00, astronaut." "Arrivederci." "You are 31 years old, commander." "When you return from this trip, the earth will have aged almost half a century." "That's something to contemplate." "I'll be over 70 years old." "I will have lived the better part of my life out in space and alone." "You will have lived the better part of it, but you will not have aged." "We intend to try something new, also a risk, also decidedly calculated." "Freezing?" "An extension of that but much more complicated." "It'll be a suspended animation in its purest form." "We've developed a substance from the lymphoid tissue of hibernating animals plus several vitamin absorbents and a collection of drugs." "The earth will have aged, commander, but you will not." "You'll be only a few weeks older when you return." "Sort of like dying and coming to life again." "After a fashion." "But coming to life again in the sense that there'll be very few people here that you will know or who will know you." "Life will have changed, commander." "You'll have to begin living it all over again as a stranger, as a... well, as an anachronism, if you will." "All right, doctor." "When do i begin?" "You have begun." "As of this moment you are very much committed, commander." "I'm on the payroll, doctor, and i just checked in." "Something?" "A month from now you'll be off to space." "And by the time you come back down again... you want to talk about that now?" "Only for the following absurd reason." "I've known you for exactly three and a half hours- that's what it's been three and a half hours- a long dinner... and a short dance." "And already... already... already what, sandy?" "Already... i feel a sense of..." "loss." "My life had been space." "It had been missions, projects and expeditions." "There had been no time for intrusions that took the form of a woman's face, a voice, a short month of a man and a woman drawing together, becoming a part of one another, reaching tentatively" "into that strange and mysterious pond of love and then watching the ripples that came from it." "But now i think of these things, now they come to mind, now in the darkness, in the cold, the solitude, the... stillness, the loneliness." "Now there comes a feeling of warmth." "Sandy... where are you now, sandy, across the void?" "My dear sandy, through the millions of miles of cold, empty space, through the vastness of a naked desert of sky and stars, i love you." "I love you, sandy." "Minus 2-30." "Small, unofficial gesture from one of the lesser bureaucrats of our good, respectable government." "Unofficial... and very much apart from protocol." "But i couldn't let you leave, doug, not without saying good-bye." "Not without tell you i... i loved you very much." "And i shall sorely miss you." "And that my life- whatever there is left of it- shall be a strangely meaningless, dull and... empty thing without you to share it." "It's a very odd thing, sandy, when i get back, when i... touch this earth again, i know the first thought i'll have, i know... the first thing that i'll want to see," "i know... the first... thing that i'll want to touch." "I'll be the... little old lady in the lace shawl." "The one waving the "welcome home" sign." "So look for me." "Will you, doug?" "...two, one, zero." "One, two, three, four and five." "I move now, i streak across the sky, i leave an earth behind that changes beyond my closed eyes." "From a warm place of leaves and trees to a cold orb hanging in a dark sky and growing smaller and smaller and smaller." "And time passes." "It inexorably passes." "And i can do nothing about it." "General walters?" "Space contact, sir." "A craft spiraling in." "All right, let's hear the report." "It's expedition called stansfield's mount everest." "Commanded by douglas stansfield." "The date of departure?" "This one's one of the old jobs, sir." "Departure, december 31, 1987." ""Old" is putting it mildly." "All right, check it out in your report." "Let me know." "This one's one of the pioneers." "Been in space 40 years." "First voice communication we've had." "It's been tracked on radar but his communications must have malfunctioned a few hours after he left the atmosphere." "Now, here's a funny one." "How's that, sir?" "Well, there's an insertion from a man named bixler." "He was one of the project people years and years ago as i recall." "He must have been in charge of the stansfield mission." "It says we're to contact a girl name sandra horn." "Who?" "A miss sandra horn, a friend of commander stansfield." "Where would we find her, sir?" "An old lady's home?" "No, you'll find her in a hibernation room." "You'll find her a young woman of 26 years of age." "I hope you find her alive." "General walters." "Miss horn." "You're looking very well indeed." "You look fine." "Sounds idiotic, doesn't it but what do you say to somebody who's been asleep for 40 years?" "I was told commander stansfield... yes, his ship landed six hours ago." "I asked to see you." "What about him?" "In good health." "Naturally... very tired." "I want to see him." "I must see him." "You shall see him in just a moment." "I... i had to speak to you first." "I'll try to make this as brief as possible." "Commander stansfield suffered a communications failure." "It probably occurred within the first 12 hours after his departure." "There was only sporadic contact made during the entire flight both there and back." "He reached the other solar system." "Yes, he reached it." "He landed, he took off, he returned." "He found no life." "But we found that 20 years ago." "That's one of the ironies of progress, miss horn." "Could have saved the trip." "Could have saved him..." "his anguish his anguish being the following:" "Unknown to us here on earth, to my predecessors and to theirs, because of the lack of communication, commander stansfield arbitrarily removed himself from hibernation six months after leaving earth." "He did this because... i know why." "Oh, god help me." "I know why." "Over 40 years, miss horn." "40 years in the cockpit of a ship." "40 years." "His loneliness must have been... something brand-new in the human experience." "I wish to heaven he could have returned to you just as he left, but... as it is, he... doug... you remember me... don't you?" "Remember you?" "I've spent... i've spent 40 years remembering you, sandy." "Painting a picture inside my head." "Listening to your voice." "Thinking about your touch." "I've spent... 40 years surviving for you, sandy." "Oh, doug... it can still be that way." "The way you are... the way i am." "It doesn't make any difference." "Oh, it makes a difference, sandy." "It's 40 years' difference." "That's too much difference." "You're..." "still beautiful." "Very beautiful." "No, you go away now, sandy." "Please go, hmm?" "Stansfield... you are really quite an incredible man." "It may be the one distinction in my entire life that i knew you... that i knew a man who put such a premium on love." "Truly... truly quite a distinction, stansfield." "Mmm." "Commander douglas stansfield, one of the forgotten pioneers of the space age, he's been pushed aside by the flow of progress and the passage of years and the ferocious travesty of fate." "Tonight's tale of the ionosphere and irony delivered from the twilight zone."