Mark thought about an unseen world, starstruck and barren. He felt his life point that way like a compass needle that stopped whirling and found its orientation. Mark looked up. Primordium still hung above their heads, and not so far above as before. Now it did not seem altogether like a threat to him. It was a promise, an immense and unbreakable one, the promise he was making to the world he loved: to implant its living soul, its ecosystem, in the soil of a new planet with his own hands.
One by one, the speeding televators caught up with the starship. Sur-face-to-orbit spacecraft, shuttles and spaceplanes, also came and made their rendezvous with the ship, bringing everyone else who had gotten away from Earth, with more of the stolen treasures of living things and seeds, genes and germ cells.
The Space Fountain poured out its final and fullest power, damaging the machinery irreparably. The Fountain pushed the starship to geosynchronous orbit and past that point, cast the starship on its course. The huge engines blazed to life. Primordium hurled itself into the desolation of interstellar space. And in front of the starship, the bright Milky Way stood out in the endless night, marking the direction of the journey that had just begun.
EDITORS NOTE: “A Pillar of Stars by Night” is a sequel to “Chrysalis” in our September 1992 issue.