The mad old man lay dying. To him came Selim ibn Ali Zeyd.

The suite was high in a hospital. Windows open to an autumnal afternoon, let in the barest rustle of traffic. A breeze fluttered gauzy white drapes. The windows looked out over the crowded roofs of Istanbul, a Byzantine wall, and the Golden Horn, on which danced boats and little waves. Beyond, hills lifted in tawniness darkened by trees and lightened by homes.

Zeyd trod softly to the bedside and bowed.

Osman Tahir squinted up from his pillow. Bald head, mummy face, shriveled hands, brought forth the massiveness of the bones underneath. His voice was almost a whisper, hoarse and slow, but the words marched without stumbling. "You are very welcome."

He spoke in Arabic, for Zeyd had no Turkish. Either one could have used English or French. The courtesy was regal.

"I am honored that you wanted me here, sir," Zeyd answered. "So many wish to pay you their last respects, and the physicians will let so few in."

"Officious bastards. But, true, I've only driblets of strength left." Tahir grinned. "Time was, you may recall, when I could rough-and-tumble in the Assembly all day, run ten kilometers before the evening prayer, carouse till midnight, make love till dawn, and be back ahead of the opposition, ready to browbeat them further."

You old scoundrel, Zeyd could not help thinking. Nevertheless it's more or less true. This man, soldier and politician, had shaken history and gone on to reach for the stars. We're all of us mortal, though Biomedicine may have given us a hundred years or better of healthy life, but in the end the organism has used itself up. "It is as God wills," he said.

Tahir nodded. "We'll not waste time on politeness. I had my reasons for insisting you come. Not that I'm not glad to see you — however much I envy you, envy you —"

Zeyd had been to Epsilon Indi.

Tahir must draw several harsh breaths before he could go on: "The damned nurse will throw you out bloody soon. I need to rest — ha! As if an extra three or four days till I'm done make any difference."

He was always like this, Zeyd thought. A trademark. And he made shrewd use of it. "What can I do for you, sir?"

"You can tell me . . . the prospects . . . of the Envoy mission."

Startled, Zeyd protested, "I'm not in the organization, sir. I admire what you have done for us, but I know nothing except what the news releases say."

An English word snapped forth. "Bullshit! With your record, the connections you are bound to have in the space community —" The voice had risen. Overtaxed, it broke in violent wheezing.

Alarmed, Zeyd stooped close. Tahir waved him back. "Be honest with me," he commanded.

Zeyd straightened, as if coming to attention. "Well, sir, yes, I — I do hear things. I can't confirm or disconfirm them. The status of the project is certainly unsure."

A fist doubled on the coverlet. "Because of the war, this damned, stupid, useless war in space," Tahir rasped. The hand unfolded, trembled outward, groped for Zeyd's, and clung like a child's. "But they're not going to cancel the undertaking, are they?" Tahir pleaded. "They won't?"

The most straightforward answer possible would be the best, Zeyd decided. "As nearly as I can discover, no. It's on standby now, as you know, and all the bureaucrats of all the countries involved are being noncommittal. But it does seem as if people within the Foundation, working together regardless of nationality — I do get the impression they're holding their own. We can hope work will resume not too long after hostilities end." Whenever that may be.

Tahir's thought must have been similar, for he said as he let his arm drop, "That lies with God. But thank you, young man, thank you. Now I, too, dare hope —" A fleeting wistfulness: "I did hope I'd live to see the ship set forth."

His achievement, his obsession for the past half century, for which he used all the power he had been gathering: wherefore they called him mad. But he got the mission started, he got it started!

"You will watch from Paradise, sir," Zeyd said.

"Maybe. God is compassionate. Otherwise, what do we know?" Tahir's eyes, sunken and dim, sought the visitor's. "You, however, you can go."

Tahir stood mute.

"You want to go, don't you?" Tahir asked anxiously. "Already you've sacrificed so much."

Strange, the lure that caught me. A spectrogram taken by an orbiting network of instruments — oxygen at a planet of Epsilon Indi, a sign of life — and I divorced Narriman, that she be free to find another man, a stepfather for our children — and here I am back, my reputation made but in a world grown more alien than I had imagined. . . .

It would be wrong, a sin, to make a promise to this man that might never be kept. And yet  —  "Any who go must needs be ... somewhat peculiar," Zeyd said.

"Everybody realized that from the beginning. I'd like to believe I've met one of them."

"What happens lies with God, sir."

Tahir tried to sit up. He fell back. His voice, though, took on force. "This is to His glory. And, ten thousand years from now, when everything around us today is gone with Nineveh, you will remember, Zeyd, you will tell  —  But it's not for that, it's for mankind. Mankind, and the glory of God."

"Yes —"

A nurse entered. "I'm sorry, Dr. Zeyd, but you will have to leave," she said in English.

Tahir did not roar her down as once he would have done. He lay quietly, drained.

Zeyd bowed again, deeply. "In God's name, farewell, sir, and peace be upon you." His eyes stung.

He could barely hear the answer. "Fare you well. Well and far."

He is not mad, Zeyd thought as he departed. He never was. It is only that his sanity went beyond most men's understanding.